Apple Responds to Adobe 148
Thargok333 writes "Apple calls out Adobe on the 'PC is Faster' article linked from the Adobe website. They state that it is an After Effects bug, which they are working close to Adobe to fix. With Adobe's idea of G4 optimization, I am not impressed that a 'single 1.25 GHz G3' gets beat by a P4 3 GHz."
Wow! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Interesting)
QED
Re:Wow! (Score:1)
Re:Wow!G3 and G4 basically the same (at first) (Score:2)
AFAIK, the G4 was a G3 with SMP circuitry and AltiVec units, at least in it's first incarnation. It's been a while since it debuted though, and the evidence that the G4 has become more streamlined since branching from the G3 is good (if they are the same 'core' the G3 would be able to clock much higher since it's smaller).
I wish they WOULD make new G3s! (Score:2)
I wish someone would produce new G3s with giant integral and backside caches, they would absolutely fly on low-end and midrange servers where altivec is nothing more than extra heat to dissipate.
Anyone know of a way to get one of those swanky new 750CXe G3s from the latest iBook into an older blue-and-white? They're different pinouts and voltages from my POV.
Re:I wish they WOULD make new G3s! (Score:2)
I would love to see this. (Score:1)
I hope Steve Jobs takes this beyond Thunderdome!
Wha...? (Score:2)
G4 optimization? Need Cocoa optimization first! (Score:1)
How about a native program first?
Quartz? What's that?
Yet another blind Cocoa zealot... (Score:3, Informative)
Carbon is every bit as native as Cocoa. It is true that Apple was too lenient in its backward-compatibility measures; by not forcing developers to take advantage of new technologies while porting their apps, we've seen the rise of Bad Carbon Ports, epitomized by (ironically) AppleWorks but seen to lesser degrees in other apps as well. However, a Car
Re:G4 optimization? Need Cocoa optimization first! (Score:1)
Besides, Carbon is ugly-looking, doesn't work right, and obfuscated. As well as obsolete.
I pity the fool who codes in Carbon in this day and age. The only reason to do so is to port a legacy application to OS X.
Ugly API (Score:2)
Well... actually it does, though it may not be obvious through the User Interface.
It is the difference between looking at handwritten, strict xhtml code and looking at the output from telling MS Word to create an HTML document.
Carbon just feels... unclean in comparison to Cocoa.
Thus, yes, you *can* say that about APIs.
Give examples (Score:2)
And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that unless you actually go in and investigate the apps before you stick your neck out, you will be wrong somewhere between 33% of the time and 66% of the time.
Leaning towards 50%.
-fred
Re:Give examples (Score:2)
Looking at my dock, here's what's running:
Finder - carbon, though not obvious
CPU monitor: Cocoa
iCal: Cocoa
Address Book: Cocoa
Mail: Cocoa
Safari: Cocoa
Proteus: Cocoa
iTunes: Carbon
System Preferences: I'd guess carbon
Terminal: Cocoa
BBEdit: Carbon
Watson: Cocoa
TextEdit: Cocoa
Chimera: Cocoa
FreeHand: Carbon
Photoshop: Carbon
OmniWeb: Cocoa
As we don't know each other and can't know that the other is being honest, it's awfully difficult to come to some sort of conclusion. An
Hmm. Now how do I check? (Score:2)
Mail, Terminal, and TextEdit are direct derivatives of NeXT apps, and TextEdit is used for just about every demo of how easy it is to program in Cocoa that exists. OmniWeb is by the OmniGroup, a bunch of people dedicated to proving how wonderful Cocoa is.
Photoshop, FreeHand, BBEdit, and iTunes are all obvious and straightforward carbonizations of 9 apps. No points there, either.
As fo
Re:Hmm. Now how do I check? (Score:2)
I was disappointed that the programs I was currently running were so obvious. How about this: Open Backup or iChat. Think about using those programs. Then open up IE or the Script Editor and think about how those programs feel. You can't tell me that -- previous knowledge or not -- the programs aren't clearly different.
It's the paradigm, baby (Score:2)
It's perfectly possible to make a carbon app look as much like a cocoa one as you could ever want to. However, there are two 'problems'. First, both of those carbon apps are descendants of MacOS 9 apps, and pretty close descendants at that. Nobody put in a whole lot of time to make them look different from the old ones. They also haven't had a whole lot of attention paid to them to make them fit perfectly into the MacOS X commo
Honest question (Score:3, Interesting)
These are bus bandwidth-intensive operations. Given that the fastest Mac has DDR266 memory and it's not banked for parallel access or otherwise arranged for additional benefit, what aspect of the G4 architecture do you believe should be giving it an edge in these bandwidth-constrained tasks?
Re:Honest question (Score:2)
That's why going to DDR was more marketing than anything else.
An Honest Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll try to give an honest answer. I have this very same argu^H^H^H^Hconversation with one of the developers I work with pretty frequently. To give you a bit of background, I am a software developer on multiple platforms including Mac OS X, but I spend most of my time on Windows.
Performance in a given task is not defined by frontside bus bandwidth. It is defined in the amount of useful work done in a given time.
All things being equal, the computer platform with the highest raw performance should perform more useful work in a given time. But things are never equal. How many different parts of the operating system and application are mixed in with the process? How many different developers of varying skill levels have added code to the process? Under normal circumstances, a given algorithm can vary between log n and n-squared processing time, depending on the quality of the developer's insight to the problem at hand.
Perhaps an analogy: put me on a Suzuki GSX-R1000 and let me race against Nicky Hayden on a GSX-R600. By rights, I've got almost twice the horsepower. But there is no freakin' way I'll get around a racetrack faster! Objective fact: the raw performance of the GSX-R1000 is higher. Objective fact: the GSX-R600 made it around the racetrack faster. Conclusion: the raw performance of the platform was not the dominant factor in the test.
So, do I expect the Mac to be faster? No, I expect it to be slower. But I will not argue when I am presented with meaningful benchmarks which contradict that presumption, either. What those benchmarks are saying is that the variables other than raw performance are dominating the equation.
Re:An Honest Answer (Score:2)
As to your point, I think you're correct in that FSB speed, though a critical factor when all else is equal, too much is different between these platforms to use it seriously.
Re:Honest question (Score:2)
To make things worse this bus is SHARED between the 2 processors, making the processors really starve for memory bandwidth.
And me: I just hope that IBM soon release the 970 chip, because MacOSX might be nice, but the hardware is to slow for me.
Re:Honest question (Score:2)
The only solution I found was to get the int value of both objects, add theese together and then use the result to create a new Integer object. While this DOES work, it seems to be a bit to much work.
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
Off the top of my head I can think of the shorter pipeline and AltiVec. But, should the G4 have an "edge"? Who really cares?
Years ago, the Mac platform had the edge in performance and clock speed thanks to Power Computing's "Power Tower Pro 200". At that time nobody was whining that Windows has to switch to PPC in order to remain viable.
The "honest answer", the most relevant thing I can add to this, is that the PPC architecture and the Pentium architecture tend to leapfrog each other every few years, and right now it looks like PPC is losing by a small margin.
I'm not holding my breath, but IBM's 970 and other iterations of the "Power 4" line may well tip the scales slightly in the other direction. For a little while, at least.
Before Steve Jobs re-joined Apple he was interviewed in Rolling Stone (I think, or maybe it was Spin), and when asked how he felt about Apple's move to PowerPC architecture his response was that he was happy for Apple, because now they've got a Pentium of their own. Of course he was with NeXT at the time, but the point is that Apple, Motorola and Intel really don't care that much who is making faster machines, as long as they're marketable as being as fast as they can be.
Battling over processor speed is just what Intel/AMD/Motorola/IBM would like us to be doing, because of the few of us who are really qualified to say which architecture is faster, an even smaller percentage of those people realize just how moot the point is.
A slight Wintel performance edge is not going to have thousands of Mac users rushing over to the other side. And it isn't performance that makes Windows users switch to Mac.
Re:Honest question (Score:2)
New performance measure (Score:4, Funny)
1 - Nothing (aka "Jack", "Sod all", "Bugger all")
2 - Something, but barely
3 - Enough to stay awake
4 - Enough to stay employed
5 - Enough to make an actual contribution
6 - Enough to achieve, oh, what's it called, oh yes "job satisfaction" (avoided obvious orgasm joke)
7 - Loads
8 - Loads and loads
9 - Shedloads
10 - Absolute Shedloads
The reader is left to assign the ranking to each system.
Cheers, Paul
Re:New performance measure (Score:3, Funny)
Re:New performance measure (Score:2)
"Why don't you just make 10 faster and make 10 be the top number, and make that a little faster?"
(insert pause)
"These go to 11."
The trouble is, x86s really are faster (Score:3, Insightful)
No amount of tweeking to use special purpose instructions or multiple processors is going to beat that in the long term, so if the PPC people don't do something about it soon, Apple will have to switch. Of course that would be a very expensive move, but fortunately Apple can hope that just the threat of it will be enough to make Motorola and IBM pull their fingers out.
The next PPC (Score:2)
No amount of tweeking to use special purpose instructions or multiple processors is going to beat that in the long term, so if the PPC people don't do something about it soon, Apple will have to switch.
How about a 900MHz front-side BUS like the IBM 970 has? Would that help at all?
Re:The next PPC (Score:2)
And a HyperTransport link with 6.4 gigabytes per second of bandwidth (for AGP, PCI, Gigabit, SATA, etc.)
Like the Athlon 64/Opteron.
The 970 won't be the only 64-bit consumer chip on the market this October.
Re:The next PPC (Score:3, Insightful)
Speculation of a 970 on-die controller exists from the most erudite of tech news sources. [arstechnica.com] We'll hopefully have better insight on the matter when he finishes/publishes Part 2 of his 970 breakdown article.
Can do... [ibm.com] Apple is a member of the HyperTransport Consortium, and adding 2+2 suggests an equivalent-if-not-HT-proper I/O bus on the speculated 970 A
Re:The trouble is, x86s really are faster (Score:3, Informative)
2) If you are getting 20% slower per MHz, either your math is screwy or your configuration is.
3) There are very fast XML parsers for the mac on the market. Find one.
4) That you claim they are 20% slower per MHz against both Intel and AMD processors, which do not run at the same speed per MHz throws your credability off.
Re:The trouble is, x86s really are faster (Score:2)
You're saying that Apple needs to choose a different CPU architecture because you can't write a decent multithreaded XML parser?
No, I don't think I said that at all. But I'd definitely be interested to see a multithreaded XML parser, because I certainly have no idea how to write one. Do you have one by any chance?
Re: (Score:1)
Every time someone uses the word 'orientated'... (Score:2)
Please, think of the kittens.
-fred
HZ (Score:4, Interesting)
The number of cycles for your pipeline, versus the number of concurrent threads of execution through the same pipelines?
I've always considered the intel family to be a very racy and fast sports cars. Versus other processors which tend to be a little slower trucks. They don't go as fast, but they carry more payload. In today's market of "multi-tasking", well written programs can take advantage of a processor that doesn't get bogged down with "stalled" pipes. Also the frequency can only be "cranked up" so high...
There is also a focus on where is Adobe commiting their development work. There is a lot to be said for programs written and developed natively, versus those which must be ported over to other platforms. Carmack originally developed on the Mac first for Q3, due to the inherent limitations for that platform. That made porting it to Linux and Windows much easier.
Too often the HZ on the processor is used as a crutch to explain away the lack of development know-how (or lack of funding) for multiple Operating Systems. There are so many products on the market today that are only support on 2k/NT. Sadly any port to another OS is dismally lacking... and the platform is blamed for this.
Is Adobe still focusing the majority of their development on Apple? Was the conversion from OS9 to OSX too difficult for them to handle? Are they writing native code? I think it was reckless for Adobe to make the blanket statement that PC is faster, and sounds more like some internal pissing match between the companies.
"single 1.25 GHz G3" (Score:2)
Actually it was a dual 1.25 GHz G4.
Re:"single 1.25 GHz G3" (Score:2)
Dunno.
Re:"single 1.25 GHz G3" (Score:2)
As an anonymous coward pointed out in the other forum: Check out the comparisons between a 933 MHz and a dual 1 GHz mac w/ AE--they are very close, indicating that AE isn't utilizing the second processor at all [creativemac.com].
Also, I do not believe AE is altivec enabled.
So, in short, it was a single 1.25 GHz G4 without any help from AltiVec.
Next, I don't trust any benchmarking review which reads like an advertisement for Dell--which the original article does.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. (Score:2, Interesting)
Well hell... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've heard that a good amount of the base code in their products is in Pascal. While I don't know if this is true, it would also imply a helluva lot of 68k code still lurking about in their software. Going through both 68k emulation as well as another compatibility API is just bad. I hope this is not the case.
Also, could one think that they are not optimizing their new PPC Carbon/Cocoa code as much for the platform? Surely the difference between a coder and a good coder could be measured in application performance, at least somewhat. While I hate math, getting better performance takes finding the time-consuming calculations and reducing it all to the easiest possible operations.
Why not put some thought into making performance better rather than making gee-whiz features that most folks never asked for.
And that Apple has been able to tweak MUCH better performance and features out of products like the Final Cut series shows that it CAN be done. Is Adobe really wanting to spend the time and effort it needs to in order to get performance to an acceptable level?
God forbid, someone might have to write some stuff in ASM to get results. Blasphemy!
As Vince Lombardi once said:
"You can't make a chicken sandwich out of chicken shit."
Re:Well hell... (Score:4, Informative)
Mac developers have had almost 10 years to get rid of the 68K code. Fat apps existed for a while, but I would be beyond shocked to find out there was a single 'mov' of 68K code in any Adobe product. It's not like they employ a bunch of lazy programmers -- they have a very talented lot.
Why not put some thought into making performance better rather than making gee-whiz features that most folks never asked for.
Again, I would doubt this is the case here. At a lesser development organisation, maybe, but not Adobe. Especially given that they are right up the street (so to speak) from Apple, they've got all the opportunity in the world to get help optimizing their products. And most of the gee-whiz features you find in a shrink-wrap program come about because more than a handful of customers asked for them. Sure, developers always find neat little things to do, but Usenet and other forums are far from short on ideas from everyday users. You may not use a cutesy feature, but plenty of other people will.
And that Apple has been able to tweak MUCH better performance and features out of products like the Final Cut series shows that it CAN be done.
The catch here is that Apple has one platform to target. They could write the whole of the app in PPC assembly and no one would care. Adobe has to maintain a code base that stretches across 2 platforms, and they have to weigh the cost of maintaining divergent sources with the benefit gained by increasing platform-specific code. It's not an easy trade, but in the end, they will probably have more shared code that is not 100% optimized for this reason.
Also, we don't know what Adode's Mac revenue stream looks like these days. You would think that they get a ton of Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. sales from the Mac side, but I see more and more Windows boxes on the desks of artists and designers. Again, this is a cost-benefit situation that Adobe must analyze, and maybe they don't see the need to pour hundreds or thousands on man-hours into optimizing tiny bits of their Mac code for a few more sales.
On the other hand, maybe Adobe realizes they need to tighten up the PPC/Mac code, but they are running short on resources for that. So they post a benchmark on their site saying Windows kicks Apple's ass. Apple panicks and says, "Not so!" The next day, 2 of Apple's crack engineers drive over to Adobe and help them optimize code for a week, writing a bunch of PPC stuff that Adobe didn't have time for. Voila! They get some free (or cheaper) help and Apple looks like the hero. Marketing bullshit at it's finest.
Re:Well hell... (Score:2)
Re:Well hell... (Score:2)
And since version 7 (where Illustrator took a huge leap from version 4 to 7 on the Windows side), it's been fairly comparable across platforms. The Mac usually has an edge because it's just better at dealing with fonts and font management. Illsutrator 10,
Excess (Score:5, Insightful)
Last summer I left a job where I was working full time on an AMD 1.5GHZ with 512MB RAM and a 7200 IDE drive. It ran Red Hat 7.2 and Gnome 1.4. It was WAY more than sufficient for my needs.
I left and moved my work onto a TiBook 667MHZ with 512MB RAM. Performance difference of the machine? Negligible. Performance difference of myself? Huge.
The truth is I really like both Gnome and OSX, but in terms of the "it just works" factor, OSX has a huge lead on everyone. Apple has the ability to accomplish something rare in human interface design: To be simple enough for the newbies to be comfortable, without compromising the power. No other system does this as well (yet).
My other home system is an AMD 1800+ (1.5GHZ) also with 512MB RAM. There's no real difference in system performance for 90% of what I do. Still, I only use that machine for testing and bug tracking, and spend countless hours perfectly satisfied with my TiBook. It's about personal preference though, in the end.
Re:Excess (Score:1)
I suspect that since you can move between Gnome and OSX that *you* have a huge lead on everyone. You probably are not an average computer user...you're above average at least.
That said, shouldn't those two machines be on roughly the same level as far as processing power goes? Then, to get myself in big trouble, is Gnome really supposed to be at the 'it just works' level? (Really, that's not a bash, just a question. Notice how I've left out my platform of choice?)
Re:Excess (Score:2)
Re:Excess (Score:1)
That is one biiiiig troll lure if I ever saw one.
Re:Excess (Score:2)
The truth (Score:1)
(oh man thats bad..)
equality? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:equality? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:equality? (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd think that Slashdot would want to present both sides evenly.
Re:equality? (Score:2)
Welcome to
Because it's not news? (Score:2)
Apple defending itself? That's not news. I mean, who among you didn't expect this exact article to be out within a day or two?
-fred
Re:Because it's not news? (Score:2)
Re:Because it's not news? (Score:2)
Sure they are (Score:2)
-fred
I don't care about speed alone (Score:5, Informative)
I bought 4 boxes: PowerMac, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and a 6-to-4 pin firewire cable for camera. I have never purchased another accessory, peripheral, or software package, and the system is so well designed and executed that I can start an editing session in the morning and mail a 1 hour tape or DVD to a client by 5.
With the Powerbook, I can shoot video and edit it on the plane home. If it's a long plane ride, I'll have the DVD burned before we land, while the guy in the seat next to me fights with his Vaio or Dell (I've been on many flights where some poor bastard gets no work done because Windows eats itself; it's happened to me too).
My experiences over the past 5 years convince me that the Megahertz mongers have got the issues backwards. If you can first show me any combination of PC and laptop hardware on the Intel platform that can do everything I describe above for the exact same price, I will look at the speed of filter application or transition rendering.
My point is that if Apple makes faster machines their superior systems will be better than they are now. If speed is the only improvement a PC with Windows and Adobe products offers, that system is still inferior to the Mac.
Re:I don't care about speed alone (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't actually discourage them from using Premiere. It has it's uses. But
Not surprising in any way (Score:4, Interesting)
Ever since then, Adobe has been treating the Mac as a second-class citizen. 'You could die someday', they seem to be saying, 'And we'd just as soon it were tomorrow.' It would be a lot cheaper for them not to have to develop two versions of any of their products, but until the number of Mac users in the businesses they sell to goes down, they can't jettison the Mac versions. So they've been gritting their teeth and bearing it.
And then Apple comes along and makes software that actually competes with them! WHILE they were wishing they could get rid of Apple. If Adobe were a person, that would be a perfect recipe for getting them amazingly mad. 'We wanted to screw you over, and were just waiting for any opportunity... and here you are, screwing US instead!'
Is it any surprise that Adobe will keep selling Mac software (because they have to), but use any convenient opportunity to get as many of their customers to use Windows as they can?
-fred
Re:Not surprising in any way (Score:3, Interesting)
Mac Photoshop makes up the bulk of Photoshop registrations at Adobe. Sure millions of pirates out there probably have Windows copies of Photoshop, but the Macheads usually pay for their software and Adobe only really cares about the people who pay for and register their products.
Absolutely true, and completely irrelevant (Score:4, Interesting)
Fact: Adobe is in business to make money, and has, as most companies do, absolutely no loyalty to anyone except for its stockholders.
Fact: If Adobe were to stop developing for one platform or the other, while it was still a viable platform, it would earn itself enormous ill will, and someone would step in with a replacement. And a good chunk of people would buy the replacement. (Let's just not discuss the GNU replacement here, okay? It's not the point.)
From these three facts we can extrapolate a few things.
Extrapolation: Adobe will not stop making either Macintosh or Windows products while a sizable chunk of their income comes from the platform in question.
Extrapolation: If Adobe could keep all of their customers, while shifting development to one platform, they would do so in a heartbeat.
Extrapolation: The only way the above could happen would be if one of the platforms were to basically die, or everyone using that platform with Adobe software were to switch over to the other platform.
Extrapolation: Since they can't just discontinue their software on one platform without the above problem with it causing massive customer ill-will, the best way to bring about these circumstances is to make it more difficult to live on the platform they wish to kill, while simultaneously telling everyone how much better the other platform is.
Extrapolation: They aren't interested in trying to kill Windows.
-fred
Re:Absolutely true, and completely irrelevant (Score:2)
Over the years, Adobe has made it easier and easier for me as a Mac user to enjoy their products and be productive on my platform of choice. It's only gotten better since their products went OS X native.
Conclusion, THEY AREN'T TRYING TO KILL OFF THE MAC OR WINDOWS. They are trying to increase sales on both platforms.
This
Re:Absolutely true, and completely irrelevant (Score:2)
D'oh! What I meant was, if they refused to release a Mac version of one of their flagship products and went Windows only. (Sorry, the Linux versions aren't coming ANY time soon... unless the Mac users all switch over to Linux!)
Apple needs to RTFA (Score:2)
Re:Apple needs to RTFA (Score:2)
Not to mention that Photoshop forces the graphics card to render everything twice, and initial page reads like an advertisement for Dell...
Re:The best sentence in the article.. (Score:2)
When they refer to "their own products", they're taking about their video production software that competes with Adobe, not their own "benchmarking tool".
The fact that apple is making such competing software in the first place is probably why Adobe would be w
Re:The best sentence in the article.. (Score:1)
Essentially, what's the point of comparing metrics of video processing programs if Adobe's isn't crafted specifically for the nuances of OSX, and Apple's is? It's apples and oranges.
-n
Re:The best sentence in the article.. (Score:2)
It's not like Apple is hiding some secret tricks to keep
Re:The best sentence in the article.. (Score:2)
Realistically though multithreading can only get you so far. And many problems simply don't multithread. They are too serial. For those your dual 867 or dual 1 GHz is effectively a single processor machine. So you are competing aga
Re:The best sentence in the article.. (Score:2)
1) its x86, not x65.
2) Many problems *can* take advantage of multiple processors, if for no other reason than that of getting bigger timeslices. Many graphics problems--particularly those dealing with video editing--thread quite nicely thank-you-very-much.
2a) It is not "effectively a single processor machine" for all intents and purposes. Pick an any operating system book to see why, examine the BSD scheduling system for details.
3) Many problems *can* take advantage of altivec (as opposed to that p
Re:The best sentence in the article.. (Score:2)
So what? Do you also complain that a particular chip has a better compiler? If a slow processor ships with a better compiler, and does the work better, then it's a better platform. Nobody should care what clock speed it runs at, or what instruction set it uses, or how much cache it has. This is an application benchmark, where people wh
Re:The best sentence in the article.. (Score:1)
Re:The best sentence in the article.. (Score:2)
Re:who the fuck cares? (Score:2, Troll)
I have a very good friend who works in a billboard production house. They are often dealing with 40GB (yes, gigabyte) photoshop files. If a single filter they used performed badly, that could well be hours (or even days) lost on the machines performing those transforms.
Re:who the fuck cares? (Score:1)
Re:who the fuck cares? (Score:2)
My bad.
As penance, I went out and did a search for photoshop limits and whilst I couldn't find anything specifically for Photoshop 7, earlier versions at least have a 30,000 pixel limit in any dimension.
However, he does often complain about how slow gigabit ethernet is
Re:who the fuck cares? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Gimp (Score:3, Interesting)
Photoshop is the bread and butter of the graphics industry. Unless you essentially duplicate the interface and workflow of Photoshop in GIMP, GIMP will have a puny fraction of a percentage point of the pro graphics market.
If you're aiming to replace Photoshop for pro users, than duplicate it in open source
Re:Gimp (Score:2)
I don't even want to try and calculate how much income Photoshop has earned me compared to my investment in the program itself.
Re:Gimp (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I'd argue that that is the ultimate reason the interface is 'worse'. The reason being, it deviates so radically from Illustrator and InDesign that the streamlined psychological effect of switching between the "Trio of Might" all day long completely vanishes.
Re:Gimp (Score:2)
That's exactly the point though. They don't care about how clunky Photoshop is anymor
Re:Gimp (Score:3, Insightful)
Years ago I gave X-Res and Corel Photopaint their day in the sun, but you know what? They were just garbage compared to Photoshop. I tried Painter for a while. A very powerful, expressi
Re:Gimp (Score:2)
See, OSS developers can do it. Look at Gnome. Look at KDE. They understand that a familiar interface breeds aceptance. Why must the GIMP suffer with such a hellish, uninspired, counterintuitive interface when it has a perfectly respectable reference UI?
Re:Gimp (Score:2)
Ok, here's where your point goes astray. Learning the interface of Photoshop is a breeze.
Re:Gimp (Score:3, Informative)
Aha! Film Gimp and GIMP serve two totally different purposes. Video files are WAY MORE HUGE than simple still image files. I can see where the scriptability and flexibility of Film GIMP can come in very handy as a tool in film and video post-production. Used in tandem with other post production tools, a very powerful combination can be
Re:Gimp (Score:4, Insightful)
Please, as a response to this post, let me know of one or two graphics professionals (web sites, please) which I can verify use GIMP (not film gimp, which is completely different (and has undergone a name change), but GIMP).
The truth of the matter is, professionals -- true professionals, people who make their living sitting in front of a computer using photo and graphics tools for 4-8 hours a day -- all use Photoshop. It has nothing to do with interface or learning curve. It has to do with color management.
People who make arguments about GIMP and Photoshop and don't mention color management simply don't know what they are talking about. Color management is nearly everything to graphics professionals, and, quite simply, the Mac and Adobe Software does it better than anything else -- light-years ahead of GIMP. That's why many graphics pros use Macs, even *if* PCs are faster. Speed is far less important than output. Color management is everything.
We use GIMP quite a bit in our office (we also use photoshop). It's free, it's fast, and we can get it to run on the four platforms we use. But we can't recommend it as a solution to our customers. It's just not good enough.
Objectivity and following the dominant paradigm (Score:2)
This behaviour has been happening online almost since Usenet's inception - with users being afraid of moving from one environment to the next - to the extend that they even defend faults in the current system by decrying them as 'standards' - only to find they are made redundant by more flex
Re:Objectivity and following the dominant paradigm (Score:2)
Hey, if the OSS world can get their act together and create a user friendly version of the GIMP that offers all the flexibility and features of Photoshop and surpasses them, then I'm on board. I've been a contract designer for years and I've always had to adapt to new situations, new workflows, new programs on an almost weekly basis. Don't give me the "dominant paradigm" garbage either. That's just your college sociology course still haning on and it's a catchy b
Re:Objectivity and following the dominant paradigm (Score:2)
Well, that was pretty insulting. I certainly don't feel that Adobe has "foisted" any methods on me, rather that I've been privy to and used their products due to the pioneering of two crucial fields: feature sets and UI congruency.
While GIMP offers a few sprinklings of features from both
MOD WAY THE HELL UP! (Score:2)
Re:MOD WAY THE HELL UP! (Score:2)
Re:MOD WAY THE HELL UP! (Score:2)
Re:Objectivity and following the dominant paradigm (Score:2)
Also, Adobe has never really "foisted" a user interface on anyone. It's not like they are some tyrant that says, "You will do it my way or there wil be dire consequences!". They actually listen to the users unlike, say, Quark who is still stuck in the dark ages of System 7 UI design. Quark
Re:Objectivity and following the dominant paradigm (Score:2)
you may fail to compare the product on a open basis (despite that I am sure many of you will deny you are doing this, you will at the same time openly declare that 'GIMP should follow the conventions in PhotoShop because it is the current dominant application')
Repondants then (of course) go on to put forward the case that they are not being one sided and that they are not simply coming from the perspective of an 'Adobe user' and they are really treating both applications on
Re:Gimp (Score:2)
Man, I can't stop replying to this! When I started learning photoshop, my only real com
Re:Gimp (Score:2)
Re:Gimp (Score:5, Interesting)
learning the interface of any Adobe app is pretty damned easy. Learning the tool sets is quite another matter. Photoshop and Illustrator are not for mom and pop who want to design a family newsletter. They are geared toward working professionals in the graphic arts, web design and film/video indutries. People who are trained to learn and use software effectively. People who, in general, don't have the time or energy to spend fussing about with a free program whose capabilities don't even come close to matching that of Photoshop yet. I know, I've been using Photoshop for 9 years and I've spent about a year studying The GIMP and basically, it's a productivity nightmare. It will remain a novelty for some time until someone or some group decides to really dig in and fix the app's interface and start putting in some of the features that present day users of Photoshop now EXPECT of an image editor. Live, editable type layers. CMYK and Spot Color support, ColorSynch support. Slicing and rolloover capabilties from and easy to use palette. PostScript Level three layer and transparency effects. The list goes on and on and on.
I hope GIMP development keeps advancing because that will keep Adobe on their toes. Maybe Apple will pull another Safari and make an image editing app based off of the GIMP codebase and REALLY give Adobe a run for their money.
Sorry to say it, but GIMP ain't ready for prime time production use yet and anyone who says it's in wide use commercially is out of their mind. It simply isn't true. They don't teach the GIMP at art & design schools where the new generations gain their application and design experience and designers are mostly a non-technical bunch. The GIMP is still an app for technically minded folks.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
Now if you read that book cover to cover and STILL insist that the GIMP is as full featured and intuitive as Photoshop I will have to call the funny farm on you.