Photoshop total dominance?
 

Is that about it for competitors to Adobe? It seems with every passing year the competion is falling away, few of the magazines now cater for anything other than Photoshop.

I'm sure one day someone will challenge their dominance, but until I find a programme that works as well, has the plug-ins as freely available and has the tips etc in magazines, I'll keep on using it. This will happen one day, I've just swapped away from the mighty internet explorer to firefox on the grounds that it was easy to use and better, but maybe that's the problem, once a programme has such dominance a rival has to be a lot better in order to get us to change our loyalty.
Bob

PhotoShop has been around for years and it improves every year. Adobe has made a ton of money on this program and I'm sure they will keep improving it to drive still more sales in the future. Any competition would have a huge uphill battle just to equal PhotoShop's features - they would then have to overcome the loyalty issues and during all of this, Adobe would be starting to lower its prices to make PhotoShop even more desirable!

I don't expect to see anything of interest on the horizon.

I can't see anybody taking on Adobe.... Photoshop is all powerful and, I do believe that Adobe have acquired the number one web package Macromedia Dreamweaver! I don't envisage ditching my CS2 for anything else. Many more features than I will ever use and, a steep learning curve but; I love it.

Trev

12 months ago there was a bit of an uproar on a photo magazine's forums that the mag had decided to drop tutorials for PSP.

My advise whenever asked about what software to get is 'buy photoshop now, get used to it as you'll end up using it in the long run anyway'

Photoshop is by far the most difficult major application to learn. Adobe's dominance of the industry has seen to it that the company has no real incentive to drag its user interface out of the previous century. Sure, it has massive power and features like a dog has fleas, but when you consider the learning curve with Photoshop and compare it to that of other major software packages, it just doesn't cut it.

But because it dominates the industry, people just have to learn it anyway. I can almost forgive Adobe its outrageous pricing (compare Photoshop with most other major software packages, it's about double the going price for a full-featured heavyweight - though AutoCAD is even dearer, of course) but the time wasted learning your way around a poorly designed and needlessly difficult interface is time that could be much, much more usefully spent doing other things.

But in the end, what else are you going to do?

Never really tried Elements but I did think Photoshop 5LE was good at the time (considering it was free with almost everything), had quick mask in, which early versions of Elements didn't.

I got a copy of Elements with an Olympus camera a few years ago and replaced my very old copy of ps with it. It is a cut down version of ps but still has all the major features. There is a new version, Elements 4, which retails for £69 compared to ps cs at £500 plus must be a bargain.
My advice would be to enrol on a course at your local college, I did a couple of 1 night per week, 10-week courses, which were free and found them really good.


Ray

I attended a couple of courses on photoshop,found it a steep learning curve,but what I learned comes in very useful and it made me realise the enormous potential of either elements or the full version of photoshop.

I guess I will be the out of step one here as I use Paint Shop Pro 7 and 8. Runs a shed load faster on my slightly OLD laptop. Tried Photoshop when I got Genuine Fractals but it slowed my machine to a crawl. Fortunatly PSP8 can handle GF so bought that.

Most impressed with Genuine Fractals. I only have an A4 printer, but printed the Nikon F2AS picture in the gallery over 6 sheets and was totally amazed at the quality, and thats from a 6 megapixel D100. Definately a touch of digital Technical Pan.

I think we are seeing with Photoshop the same thing that happened to VHS over Betamax (wow - how old am I ? ? ?) - one system is perceived as the "standard" and so it becomes the standard.

I run CS2 because my employer has to use Photoshop to ensure file compatability with other companies and it is what I have always used. I agree it is not a simple programme for new users to become familiar with but even after many years intensive use I honestly think I probably only use about 30% of the functions available.

30% is mighty impresive, I was thinking that I use no more than about 5-10% of it's full capabilities... and I guess most photographers would use about the same.

Hi Steve
When I bought my canon 350d it came with the photoshop elements 2 as standard software. I love it and find it very easy and effective to use. Having said that I have never used the pro versions so cant really comment on how different it is. For the beginner/intermediate though elements is great!

Dominance via The Jolly Roger.
 

The difference is that VHS didn't cost 4x as much as it's competitor. I'd love to use Photoshop, mainly for all the tutorials that I see online and in the magazines. But there's no way I can justify spending that amount of money when I can get something very similar for a fraction of the cost.

Of course, I could do what most PS users do and get myself an illegal copy. The problem is I've got morals that won't allow me to do that. So, for another year at least I'll be sticking to PaintShopPro and probably having to ignore 25% of the content of this forum.

And Betamax was the better of the two..and Phillips V2000 better still

I suspect my line of work is quite closely aligned with Karl's. I work for a company that develops and supplies systems to the printing industry ( mainly newspaper not to be confused with photo printing). Adobe got a strong foot hold in the print industry when it developed PostScript which became the standard (universal) printing langauge. Up untill this point each vendor supplied their own bespoke langauge which was not compatible with other vendors systems.

At the same time they developed their own Raster Image Processors (RIP) which takes the PostScript Language code and converts it to a bitmap format for imaging film, paper or press plates with lasers.

Photoshop started it development path at the same time and became sucessful for much the same reasons as PostScript did. The Raster Image Processor code (CPSI) is now imbedded in most of their technology now.
e.g Photoshop, illustrator, Acrobat for pdf and so on.

So Photoshop is accepted as the standard because of it's compatability. Fortunately for us Adobe have added a host of nice features for digital photography because newpapers are now using digital cameras.

Adobe have their faults but generally their software is very good.

With regards to VHS and betamax. VHS became the standard in the UK mainly because it was the only format that your local video hire shops would supply.

Oddly enough Betamax was the standard in Turkey for some reason.
( I just had a flash back to my previous life as a TV & Video Service dept manager) Ok the dizzy spell gone I am OK now.

Rob

Very true Andy

What killed V2000 was the poor reliability and low video head life.

VHS hi-jacked many of the developments of betamax and V2000 which made VHS a very acceptable product in the end.

Yes Frank Photoshop was developed for commercial users who have to make their living with it. It was never intended for a hobbist with a box brownie at home. Hence the cut down version elements. I am lucky I get a copy via my work as I need it to test our software and investigate customer problems.

Another issue is related to file and compression formats - the cheaper versions of software don't support all formats because they won't pay for the royalties and licences required to use them.

What has helped Adode is that Thomas Knoll "Mr Photoshop development guru" is a keen photographer so CS1 and CS2 have come on in leaps and bounds with regards to photo editing.

Robert

Elements
 

Hi,

I use Elements 3 - which, for about a fifth of the price does 90% of what PS CS2 can do as far as I can make out from reading articles and on the web. It certainly does the usual manipulations, and handles layers etc. When I have tried to do something fancy and looked it up in a Photoshop book or web site, so far I have always been able to do it with Elements 3, with a few exceptions such as Lab color and Actions.

Richard

In reply to the question about elements 4. It is actually quite good. I bought my wife the Fuji the S9500 to supplement her SLR when travelling light and then found that although the current dng converter works with the RAF files they still couldn't be read in CS so I bought elements 4 which does support the current dng/RAF files to try the camera out and was surprised how much Elements gives you for~£60. For a lot of people it would be all they need to start to master photoshop. I've since upgraded to CS2 simply to get access to the HDR command and the lens correction filters which alone are almost worth the £125 upgrade cost from Misco.

Photoshop is dominant simply because it is the best .But saying that most hobby and social photgraphers rarely need more power than Elements 3 & 4 can provide at a fraction of the cost of CS2 and Elements is built on the same engine as CS2 so you get the same smoothness and power which is why Elements is now the most popular editor in that price range.

I have CS2 as well as Elements 3 & 4 (I got 4 free from adobe as a beta tester) and Paintshop Pro X, but find I fire up Elements for most tasks.

By the way anyone owning PSP X should download the latest update as it at last sorts out the colour managment issues with that program. :)

I have been using GIMP for quite a while. It's free and I'm told that it does everything that PS does. I've never used PS so I can't speak from personal experience with it. I don't find GIMP very user friendly and the manuals are poor. I finally have bought PS on Ebay. Hopefully I'll receive it this coming week.

I don't use Photoshop and there is no way [other than if i suddenly come into money!] that I will spend several hundred pounds on an editing application. I use PSP8 which was a gift - I've had Elements free witha couple of cameras but went back to PSP and removed Elements to free up disc space on my PC. It would be a shame if other applications disappeared - I'd rather spend my money on a camera or lens than on an editing programme I'd probably use no more than 5% of. Of course there are plenty of free programmes out there - Photofiltre's very good for simple editing and presentation stuff.

But because it dominates the industry, people just have to learn it anyway. I can almost forgive Adobe its outrageous pricing (compare Photoshop with most other major software packages, it's about double the going price for a full-featured heavyweight.


I wouldn't agree that photshop is either overpriced or a particulalrly difficult system to master. it is in fact an advanced Digital Signal Processing suite. In the DSP world the only real packages that it can be compared with are the industry standard LabView and autoCAD which are at least three times the price. For many years I used Corel Photopaint 8-10 which is in many ways similar to photoshop but CS2 not only provides image manipulation but also an advanced file and tracking system. I have over 60,000 pictures on 800GB of disc and CS allows me to pull out any picture in a few seconds. I can't think pf any other package that offers this felxibility.However I would have to say that Photshop is much more user friendly in a dual monitor set up. Also Photoshop is cheap compared to a wet darkroom. If you add up the cost of a decent enlarger, lenses, colour analyser and 16"x12" colour processor you won't see much change out of £1500, so~£500 for the digital equivalent seems good value to me.

But it depends on your budget and how much time and energy you want to spend on your photography. When you think how big the overall digital camera industry is then only a very small percentage of the buyers are going to be real enthusiasts or pro photographers. So there must be a vast number of people who just want a good but simple to use editing programme. Yes, there are those who visit forums to say they have a 2mp Acmecam and are having a few difficulties - oh and they're using CS2. Which makes me think they did'nt actually buy it or surely they'd be better off swapping their Acmecam for a proper camera!
I have no quibble with the fact that PS is the industry standard and that serious photographers are, of course, going to use it - but any kind of monopoly is usually bad news for the consumer. I want a bit of choice - that's what helps to keep prices down.

"but CS2 not only provides image manipulation but also an advanced file and tracking system. "

I'd say that the Organiser in Elements 4 does a much better job than Adobe bridge does , its a lot smoother and quicker and deals with off line files a lot better which is the main reason it sits alongside CS2 on my computer, at least till ACDSee brings out there Pro version photo manager in January :)

I'd also agree with greypoints veiw about dominance, can you imagine DSLR prices being as cheap as they are now if Nikon or Canon had total dominance but most flock to those two brands simply because of that!

I now have PS 7 (as of yesterday) but it doesn't seem to have the file tracking system that you have mentioned. I use Picasa for organisation but would prefer to have everything combined in one program. Is Organiser something that is only part of CS or Elements or am I overlooking something?

Whatever else i use, PSP, Picasa [for uploading] and Photofiltre, i always return to Irfanview for viewing and sorting pictures.

As a mac user I use mostly GraphicConverter for manipulations, but for serious editing jobs go back to near-antique Color-it which does subtle jobs better and in a quarter of the operator's time than either GC or Elements. Both originally bundled and a few £s for upgrades. Unfortunately Apple mess up the OS faster than macromedia can upgrade. I occasionally use Elements 2 (useful for re-digitising multipage .pdf files), but thought 3 was even messier and wasted more screen space than 2. For most tasks, no one prog is best for everything. Apple's own iPhoto is idiot proof, as is the Nikon stuff, but at a heavy price in loss of control.

The Organiser is only in Elements 3 and 4, PS7 does not have this feature..sorry..if you do not work with Raw files then ACDsee8 is a very good photo manager and can manage off line images (CD/DVD) which Picasa and infran view cannot do.

WOW! People are prepared to pay several hundred pounds extra for a software product that they only use between 5 and 30% of...and I am talking about amatuer use - standards can be a pain and expensive but tax deductable for pros :rolleyes:

So, what features are in PS CS that are not available in Elements or PSP and are CRITICAL (i.e. worth hundreds of pounds) to manipulating your amatuer images? :confused:

Cheers Mark.

Don't forget that most of the features used by many of us are available in GIMP or Photfiltre and they are both free downloads.
The problem with GIMP. in my view, is that it is so user unfriendly. The help files don't. Photofiltre is better in that this regard. The main reason I switched to PS 7 was because I hoped it would be cleared in its instruction manual etc.
And by the way, I bought mine on Ebay and payed a much lower price.