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Adobe Photoshop is worth every freaking dollar

Chaotic42

Chaotic42

Lifer
For reasons which I don't feel like getting into, I've been without Photoshop CS2 since Monday morning. We're getting CS4 on Thursday. Until then, I thought I'd try GIMP 2.6. Surely it's a workable alternative.

Wrong.

It does *not* gracefully handle large files. I tried opening a 1200dpi TIFF (~1.2Gpx). After like ten minutes I had to kill the thing. I tried again. I saw online that you have to up its very conservative (for me) memory cap. Great. I chose 2.5GB and tried to open a 600dpi TIFF (~200Mpx). Memory error. I lowered the cap to 2GB. Memory error. Apparently you have to be absolutely sure about how much memory GIMP will have, or else it will go traipsing off onto other applications' memory.

Finally, I decide that for the week I live with a modest 300dpi TIFF (~60Mpx). Finally, it opens. Well, I need to stitch several of these together. I expand the canvas and go about adding in my other TIFFs.

Wrong.

Once it finally pasted the second TIFF in, it began redrawing 64px squares at the rate of about 5 per second. After getting coffee and talking to the IT people about when CS4 would get installed, I came back and it was done. I tried adding a third image in and it crashed.

Aside from all of that, it has a wonky interface, but that's subjective. Hey, some people drink their own urine, and I guess they decided to be come OSS UI programmers 🙂P)

I may bash it, but good lord is Photoshop worth what they charge for it.
 
Apparently you have to be absolutely sure about how much memory GIMP will have, or else it will go traipsing off onto other applications' memory.
Click to expand...

I can't really comment on the rest since GIMP works for the little bit of fiddling that I do, but that part I can definitely say is wrong. With the way VM works in modern systems it's not possible for GIMP to touch another process' address space. I don't have any images big enough to see what does actually happen though.
 
I want to add that it is impossible to assign more than 2GB to a 32-bit Windows binary that is not optimized for a large memory space, and GIMP is surely not.

1.5GB is probably the most it will work with.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Apparently you have to be absolutely sure about how much memory GIMP will have, or else it will go traipsing off onto other applications' memory.
Click to expand...

I can't really comment on the rest since GIMP works for the little bit of fiddling that I do, but that part I can definitely say is wrong. With the way VM works in modern systems it's not possible for GIMP to touch another process' address space. I don't have any images big enough to see what does actually happen though.
Click to expand...

I kept getting errors like "Failed to allocate 4,742 bytes" and it would die. I don't know what it's doing; I'm not a (real) programmer. I know what it isn't doing, though 😛
 
You are going to scratch your head when you get CS4.
Wondering how the hell they could take such a good application and make it perform like utter crap.

The general consensus among me and my artist friends is that even on a quad core with gigs of memory it runs like its using a 286 @ 16mhz.

Thankfully I kept CS3 installed.
 
Originally posted by: Modelworks
You are going to scratch your head when you get CS4.
Wondering how the hell they could take such a good application and make it perform like utter crap.

The general consensus among me and my artist friends is that even on a quad core with gigs of memory it runs like its using a 286 @ 16mhz.

Thankfully I kept CS3 installed.
Click to expand...

The increase in speed for me and my huge files is stunning. It is considerably faster when zooming in and out. I don't know if it's the OpenGL or what, but it's nice. Acrobat 9, on the other hand, seems a good bit slower.

After about one hour of use, I'd have to say that it doesn't really disrupt my workflow. I hate the interface though. Absolutely hate it.
 
Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
I'm convinced that anyone who touts GIMP as a decent alternative to PS has never used Photoshop before. GIMP doesn't even come close.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the people who tout GIMP are considering mostly just basic image manipulation and the fact that full blown Photoshop is going to cost ~$600+ retail (not including any discounts)...
 
Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
I'm convinced that anyone who touts GIMP as a decent alternative to PS has never used Photoshop before. GIMP doesn't even come close.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the people who tout GIMP are considering mostly just basic image manipulation and the fact that full blown Photoshop is going to cost ~$600+ retail (not including any discounts)...
Click to expand...

The only thing I've ever used GIMP for was converting image formats and creating screenshots. It works great for those two things.

You are going to scratch your head when you get CS4.
Wondering how the hell they could take such a good application and make it perform like utter crap.

The general consensus among me and my artist friends is that even on a quad core with gigs of memory it runs like its using a 286 @ 16mhz.
Click to expand...
This seems like a recent trend. Word 2007, Excel 2007, AutoCAD 2008. They are all horrible. I'm blown away by how something like Word 95 can run on a 486 but the 2007 version is enough to kill a dual core.
 
Couldn't agree more, GIMP seems to be stuck between being a real image editing program like Photoshop, and being a simple tool like Irfanview. As a result, doing simple things takes too long, doing more difficult things is generally impossible, and I reboot to Windows whenever I need to do any image editing.

I was considering buying CS4 to replace CS2 due to its better (read: any) integration with Lightroom. Guess I'll have to be sure and try it before buying.
 
Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
Perhaps the people who tout GIMP are considering mostly just basic image manipulation and the fact that full blown Photoshop is going to cost ~$600+ retail (not including any discounts)...
Click to expand...
Right, because there is GIMP, and then there is Photoshop. Nothing between!

Personally, I think the $40 I paid for Paint Shop Pro 9.0 after rebates a few years ago was a bargain. But then I don't pretend to do much advanced stuff. I don't know whether Corel has ruined or improved PSP since then.

Ulead's PhotoImpact used to be a rather good basic photo editor years ago circa 1998 ~ 2000. Another one of Corel's victim...err...'acquisitions'.
 
I have to agree. I use OSS as much as possible, so I've tried to transition to GIMP a few times over the years, but it has never been stable or equivalently fast and efficient enough to replace Photoshop for me. I do use Inkscape and Blender rather than commercial programs alongside Photoshop though.
 
Originally posted by: tcsenter

Right, because there is GIMP, and then there is Photoshop. Nothing between!
Click to expand...

Well... there is (was?) Fireworks. But I just recently lost my Fireworks CD (it's here somewhere, I just moved and a lot of stuff is in boxes) and re-installed Vista on my main rig. In a pinch, I downloaded GIMP after not having used it since 2000.

I'll tell you what, I actually like it. Now, I'm not some professional image manipulator. Shutterbug at best. I take my pics at 1632x1224, free transform (I sware one of my legs must be shorter than the other), crop, resize, adjust contrast, brightness, saturation, hue, etc... I'm not trying to put Sarah Palin's head on Pam Anderson's body or anything. Never had a problem and have to admit it's better than Fireworks. Better than Photoshop? Well... Maybe Photoshop does way more than I'd ever need. Last time I used it I sat there scratching my head for a while trying to figure out where a lot of the tools I needed were. So I'm not going to say that GIMP replaces Photoshop because I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to Photoshop. But I will say that GIMP works great for the blogger or shutterbug type person that wants to brighten up some "bad" photos... and free is nice. 😉
 
I cannot stand the gimp interface either. Though I find the price for photoshop and lot of other adobe products is totally highway robery.

And what's so special about Acrobat? Like, what does it do, that cute pdf writer does not do? That program costs a fortune too...
 
Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
I cannot stand the gimp interface either. Though I find the price for photoshop and lot of other adobe products is totally highway robery.

And what's so special about Acrobat? Like, what does it do, that cute pdf writer does not do? That program costs a fortune too...
Click to expand...

I don't know what CutePDF does, but Acrobat has commenting, works well with large images, and can print out CMYK separates, I believe.
 
The price probably justifies the high level of piracy with the program.
It's a real nice program, I wouldn't think of using anything else.
 
Originally posted by: Rabbits
The price probably justifies the high level of piracy with the program.
It's a real nice program, I wouldn't think of using anything else.
Click to expand...

The quality justifies the price of Photoshop. Not Acrobat, though. 😛
 
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