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Graphics Businesses Software Apple

Photoshop Graces Mac OS X 62

Posted by pudge from the windows-is-better-for-graphics-anyway dept.
cpk0 writes "Well, we finally have Photoshop on Mac OS X. Now that must have been one heck of a year over at Adobe, cause this piece of software is pretty elegent. Even on my iMac 600 it's pretty swift and smooth. There's no official Adobe press release yet, but there's a VersionTracker page for it, and that makes it official enough for me."
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Photoshop Graces Mac OS X More

Photoshop Graces Mac OS X

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  • Elements (Score:2, Informative)

    by TwitchCHNO ( 469542 )
    Here's linkage for those w/ out $500+ to spend on image editing software.

    Adobe CEO on PDF, Mac OS X, 'Premiere Elements,' more [macworld.com]

    Yeah I know gimp is free, blah blah OSS or die, blah blah.

    Seriously folks I like Photoshop, & Elements is functional enough for my needs (No pre-press support) - definaltey worth the $100 (IMHO)
    • I wouldn't mind trying this out. Right now, I run Gimp through XDarwin, and it works for my needs, which are pretty basic (simple banners, adding text to pictures, etc).

      I wouldn't mind something like a Photoshop Lite to see how it works, then if I got powerful, I could pay for the full version later.

  • New Features (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dthable ( 163749 ) on Monday April 15, 2002 @09:23AM (#3342979) Journal
    I enjoyed some of the user comments about the lack of new features in the software. How's this for a new feature, it runs under a stable OS without using the error prone Classic envrionment. I would be willing to put up the cash even if they just ported Photoshop 6 to OS X.
    • No new features? It now has spell check and a healing tool (try it, and you'll never want to go back to Photoshop 6 again). Sensible features, not bloat. Nice work Adobe!
    • How's this for a new feature, it runs under a stable OS without using the error prone Classic envrionment.

      That's the ONLY reason I bought it. We just got a new G4, and if only Quark were 'modern', I could dump Classic mode entirely.

  • This should finally push a lot of hold-outs over the upgrade edge. I don't care what anybody says, I think adobe did this to make sure everyone knew they weren't apple's bitch...

  • I've been using it for a while. (Score:3, Informative)

    by EnVisiCrypt ( 178985 ) <groovetheorist@h ... m minus caffeine> on Monday April 15, 2002 @09:44AM (#3343091)
    I've been using a, erm, beta copy for a while, and it's been excellent. I've been waiting for the official version to come out so I could ante up my $45,000,000 dollars. Seriously though, it seems rock solid, and the feature set has grown, albeit modestly.

    I particularly like the "healing" tool. It works much better than the cludgy old cloning tool, as the healing tool takes shadows, tone and the whole 9 into consideration when cloning bits. It's quite a tool, and my favorite addition since the magnetic lasso.

    Did I mention it's stable? I hated (HATED!) running ps6 in classic mode on OS X. Now, I really don't have any OS 9 apps left now that PS7 has left the gate.

    In my opinion, if you own a previous version the low upgrade cost is well worth it at $149. If you don't, pay the $609 and get on the train. Or better yet, get the web collection [adobe.com] and get Livemotion [adobe.com], Illustrator [adobe.com] and Photoshop [adobe.com] for $999.

  • Ugh. Still bundled w/ ImageReady. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by realgone ( 147744 ) on Monday April 15, 2002 @10:14AM (#3343319)
    Ah, good ol' ImageReady, the Cousin Oliver of the Adobe Bunch; no one really wants him hanging around, but no one has the heart to tell the lil' feller to leave.

    Actually, from reading Adobe's product page [adobe.com], you'd think all of ImageReady's features had finally been folded into its parent app, seeing as there's no mention of IR anywhere. It was only after reading this MacCentral article [macworld.com] that I realized the unwelcome guest was back yet again. Ugh.

    For anyone who does a lot of web work in Photoshop, having to jump back and forth between the two apps is both an inconvenience and a resource hog, particularly since they duplicate many of each other's features. (So much so that the only time I fire up ImageReady these days is to bang out an animated GIF. Everything else can be done better by hand -- image slicing, rollovers -- or in Photoshop itself.)

    All that said, of course I'm going to upgrade; the OS X support alone is worth it. (Photoshop and Flash were my last real reasons for running OS 9 day-to-day.)

    • I agree, it would be GREAT if they put some of ImageReady's features into PhotoShop... but since they haven't, I'll still use IR. I think the way it handles saving as jpg, and slices (including optimization) is still much better than PS.

      Cire
  • I don't need to start up Classic anymore by
    default. Photoshop was the last major app I needed
    OS 9 for. This is what decent number of the hold-
    outs have been waiting for, I'd bet. (Not all,
    mind you. I know of a few people who object to OSX
    on entrenched usability issues.) Now, if they'd
    just give us spring-loaded folders...
    • Spring-loaded folders are almost certain to appear in 10.2.
      • What's a spring-loaded folder?

        • Re:Finally... (Score:2, Informative)

          by Surlyboi ( 96917 )
          Spring loaded folders open up when you drag a file
          over them and then close behind you when you drag
          that file into a sub-folder. No unnecessary windows
          left open in your wake, less desktop clutter.

          Neat little feature. It was introduced in 9 and
          hasn't yet made its debut in X. Sure you could just
          as easily use the column view and bypass the need
          for them entirely, but I'm old and set in my ways...
        • its' a great feature that first showed up in 8.5 or 9.0 (can't remember which) where you can take a item (folder, file, whatever) and hold it over a folder. After a few seconds it would open up the new foldeer to let you procede.

          And if my memory of 9 is still working you can then move the file out the window to go back down a level.

          It was very useful for moving files all over the system. For some reason a lot of people loved it to no end. I never really used it much, and they have been crying for this for over a year and a half now.

          But X does need this to make moving files all over the system easier in any of the 3 view formats. Cutting and Pasting files is so winblowz..
          • It showed up in 8.5, and I don't think it ever got additional features after that.

            While cutting and pasting files may not be your thing, copying and pasting files is rather nice.

  • Quark is all that remains... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Well, now Quark is the final remaining piece before publishing folks can finally stop using classic. I won't ever convince the long time Quark users to switch to anything else. I don't even want any new features from Quark (except multiple undos). I just want it running on OS X, native.



    This is such a gorgeous implementation of truely essential software (PS 7). I didn't mind the wait at all. Seriously, do people mind waiting for a year for really great software, or getting a POS in a few months. Personally, I'd rather let the developers make a fast, production-stable release than get some bloated Freehand 10, Netscape 6 junk.

    • Considering that Quark's put out two versions in something like 8 years, I wouldn't hold out hope for them to bother with an OS X port. Hell, their last release, almost a year after OS X was released, still isn't OSX native.

      We're looking at Adobe InDesign right now. Seems like Adobe clued in that Pagemaker couldn't cut it, so they started over, and boy is InDesign nice. It can even import Quark documents perfectly (better than Quark can, IMO), exports as PDF (and does it well, unlike Canvas :/), and so on. It's really a nice package, and I would suggest downloading the demo and playing with it. The person who does all of our instruction manual design was sold in 2 minutes.

      --Dan
  • I have to admit, I find it amusing at times that people protest like crazy about Microsoft the monopoly, but don't say anything about Adobe, which has at least as commanding a presence in graphic arts as Microsoft has in the OS market.

    Perhaps it's because people actually LIKE Adobe stuff?

    Naaawwww ... that would be too simple :-).

    (Okay, this doesn't disturb me at all, actually, but it does make me laugh. Maybe if Microsoft was actually NICE to its customers and partners, it would do better in the PR wars.)

    D
    (Who has willingly spent over $1,000 with Adobe in the past year).
    • The thing is that Adobe has not really used its monopoly to move into other markets where it does not have a monopoly.

      The difference between "having a monopoly" and "abusing your monoply" is all the difference in the world.

      I am still using GraphicConverter, which is even bundled with new Macs now, for my admittedly-limited graphics needs.
    • Adobe really doesn't have a monopoly of any sort. Sure, Photoshop is THE dominant leader in the field of image editing programs. However, it is the leader because it offers a set of features that no other application comes close to matching. However, Adobe does not wield their dominance in the field of image editing to crush competition or create a barrier to entry in the market. Many people use the GIMP and Graphic Converter. The Macromedia diehards use FireWroks, but for the life of me I'll never understand why.

      In terms of Adobe's target market as a whole, they have a lot of competition. Quark and Macromedia really give them a run for their money. Illustrator leads the pack for vector graphics, but Freehand is nipping at it's heels. Quark XPress singlehandedly destroyed PageMaker and Adobe was forced to design a better program, InDesign. Even though it is easily the better program of the two, it is having a difficult time penetrating the market that XPress has dominated for so long. Real, honest competition from a determined and strong competitor is the only reason that we have InDesign now. Freehand keeps getting better with each rev and consequently Adobe has to make Illustrator that much better just to retain their lead.

      Macromedia has Dreamweaver which is hands down the leader in visual web page layout. Adobe has GoLive which has improved over the years and offers some features that Dreamweaver doesn't, but still has yet to garner a large market share despite being the leader some 5 years ago.

      Macromedia has Flash. Adobe has LiveMotion. Although, in many ways, LiveMotion is easier to use, Flash is still the 800 pound gorilla of the web/vector animation market.

      Adobe has Premiere for prosumer level video editing. Suddenly Apple comes out with Final Cut Pro (3 in particular) and just blows Adobe out of the market. Now there's Cinema Tools! Oh yeah, and then there are Avid and Media100!

      Adobe has AfterEffects which is doing quite well, but has to compete with products from Discreet and Nothing Real (now folded into Apple.) Essentially, AfterEffects is relegated to the prosumer level again and must improve with each rev.

      Anyone remember Persuasion? Fabulous presentation software that was totally crushed by PowerPoint.

      So, yeah, Adobe is a huge company with a near monopoly of the graphics market, but they are besieged on all sides by fierce competitors and if they get complacent for a single version of their applications, a large chunk of their market can be taken from them. I continue to use Adobe products and willoingly fork out large sums of hard earned cash because their products are so comp[elling. However, I have given up on PageMaker altogether in favor of Quark and am waiting for InDesign to be a bit more polished before I start using it as a regular publishing tool.

      I'm sure the people involved in developing Premiere are more than a little pissed at Apple right now. I know I will never willingly go back to Premiere ever again... not after using FCP 3!
      • Network effects give them some insulation from competition. That's most easily shown with Quark; many people now consider InDesign superior, but it's tough to argue with Quark's dominance in the printing market, because of the cooperation you need with printers, most of who only have Quark.

        The same is true of Photoshop. Once you've learned their keyboard equivalents, secret workarounds and the like, you have an enormous investment in the product and are unlikely to switch unless a competitor enormously raises the bar. I know that I tried a few different photo editing programs in an effort to avoid Classic, and none of them felt as right as Photoshop. They had all the functions of Photoshop, but, well, they weren't Photoshop.

        Another big advantage of Adobe is that they still include old-fashioned paper manuals with their products. That's enormously appealing to me; you get something tangible for your $150-600. Almost nobody does that anymore, and it's a darn shame.

        It gives them the image of the Classy Software Company, and I think it's very much merited.

        Come to think of it, Final Cut Pro 3 comes with a few bricks worth of manuals. And you're right, once you've seen FCP, Premiere just plain doesn't feel right.

        D
      • I'm not a macromedia diehard, but I've generally used fireworks over ImageReady because the end product was so much better. Better HTML, better Javascript, better image compression.
        • I'm not a macromedia diehard, but I've generally used fireworks over ImageReady because the end product was so much better. Better HTML, better Javascript, better image compression.

          That's a very interesting point. Being a UI and usability designer, I have a hard time with Macromedia products in general. They make good products in general. Dreamweaver and Flash are irreplaceable, but Fireworks and Freehand I could do without. Illustrator and Photoshop more than meet my needs and I just plain find them easier to work with.

          I do do a lot of HTML coding, mostly in BBEdit and Dreamweaver, but all of my image editing is done in Photoshop and now I do a lot of it in Illustrator now that they have the "save for web" feature built in. Fireworks has always been counteruintuitive to me. But then again since I do no JavaScript whatsoever (other than simple Dreamweaver level stuff like rollovers), I don't need that technical end of an image editing app. Just raw usability and flexibility.

          Again, Firework's scripting level stuff can be a huge asset. For raw, multi purpose image editing though, I'm gonna stick with Photoshop.
    • Actually I presently have installed Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10, and GoLive 6, all running under OS X (as of Monday). I wouldn't trust anything you read on Version Tracker. Their spiders sometimes pick up items not released (or ready to be released). And I have to like the three Adobe products mention. :-) They run great on Mac OS X and I have all three apps running under Classic and OS 9 (2 volumes, previous versions), along with Adobe PageMill which I used to replace my old BBEdit, html hard coded, web stuff I used to create web sites before PageMill shipped in about 1995. All three of the Adobe apps mentioned run great under OS X. And I run my servers now under Darwin BSD and Apache, with all html work done with Adobe GoLive 6 as the leading player. The road goes ever on...... :-)
  • There's no official Adobe press release yet, but there's a VersionTracker page for it,

    That's nice, but I was hoping for a Tracker-Tracker [tracker-tracker.com] page for it. Since after the DMCA wielding bastards had Dmitri arrested, it'll be a cold day in hell before Adobe sees another thin dime of my cash.

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