[SomeCallMeTim]

But not all of us make a living off of Photoshop.

I'm a programmer. I periodically need to make a tiny tweak in a file that's been created by a real artist, or I want to edit a photo I took, or whatever.

It's insane to spend $1500, or even $500 (the CorelDraw buy-it-outright price) for hobby and occasional-use software like that.

And yeah, I use other things like Affinity Photo, which is Good Enough for many of my purposes, but it's just annoying to not be able to use the same software as my artists--unless they flatten the image before giving it to me, it's a crap-shoot whether I can import it in anything but the exact version of PhotoShop they were using.

It feels like extortion: I have to pay the artist to make the tiniest changes because I can't edit the original file, or I have to pay Adobe an outrageous sum to do it myself. Lose-lose.

[bobim]

Fully understood, this carefully engineered vendor lock-in is the cherry on the cake. It's in all CAD software for no reason and forces you to follow the herd. Open standards should be imposed by state actors...

[goosedragons]

If you're paying artists to make art in PS, are you not doing it for something you make money off of? Or are you just really deep in the hobby that you're nearing professional level?

Photoshop was never $1500 either. CS6 was $700. The design standard CS6 suite was $1300.

Maybe hunt for artists that use the reasonably priced Clip Studio Paint instead? It's pretty popular among manga and the like artists anyways.

[SomeCallMeTim]

Realistically, I'm looking for artists that are good first. And 98% of them use Photoshop. Not going to restrict myself to non-Photoshop artists.

[marcosdumay]

> I have to pay the artist to make the tiniest changes because I can't edit the original file

Hire the artist and ask them for the files exported into a format you can open. If they refuse, hire somebody else.

I do agree with the sibling that open standards should be set by state actors. But they should only make them available, not mandate them into private actors.

[SomeCallMeTim]

> ask them for the files exported into a format you can open

They already do that. That's not the problem.

If the original Photoshop file has 200 layers, and 60 of those layers have effects that use advanced Photoshop-only features, then no other art program can open the source material. Period.

At best you can get approximations of the original Photoshop render if you open the image in another program. But generally what you get is garbage if it's not a recent version of Photoshop.

The point of getting the Photoshop original with the layers is that I might be able to make a tweak to one of the layers and have it re-render a result that is better for what I need. Something that is difficult or impossible if I just have a JPEG.

And asking the artist to do the work in a program that doesn't have all of those features is roughly equivalent to asking a software engineer to use Mac/Windows/Linux (pick one they don't know) and to write all of the code in Visual Basic/Perl/PHP/JavaScript/C/C++/COBOL (pick one they don't know). Yes, technically anything is possible in any environment, but it might take 10x as long and be 100x as painful--with a result that may not be as good due to the tools not being as good.

Artists are professionals with an acquired skill set. You can't ask them to work using unfamiliar tools and expect them to be happy or productive.

[marcosdumay]

> And asking the artist to do the work in a program that doesn't have all of those features is roughly equivalent to asking a software engineer to use Mac/Windows/Linux (pick one they don't know) and to write all of the code in Visual Basic/Perl/PHP/JavaScript/C/C++/COBOL (pick one they don't know).

You mean the thing that every single company does for their work for hire?

When a developer doesn't know, they go after another developer. (And they should restrict the number of constraints to what is really important, but almost no company does that.)

[SomeCallMeTim]

No company I've worked for in the past decade has told me what kind of computer I should work on. Even the W2 gigs have allowed me my choice of Mac/Linux/Windows. I work for tech-savvy companies, though. I'm sure there are tech-naive companies that force everyone to work on Mac or whatever.

And companies that want programmers who write, say, Delphi or Visual Basic, are going to be getting crap developers, and would be better off porting their software to something more modern. I did some work on a Delphi project to help out a friend, and no, I wouldn't go to work for a company to work on Delphi full-time. They couldn't possibly pay me enough.

But that's my point: Just like they would get crap developers, I would get crap artists. Or extremely expensive artists. Not interested. It would literally be cheaper to pay Adobe the extortion they ask than to try to work with non-Adobe artists.

[johnnyanmac]

I mean, sure. But on the other hand:

- Paint is not only free but built-in

- Paint.net is free and covers most of what I'd need to do

- GIMP is free. Cumbersome, but if I need to do any batch operations that's when I bring out a full suite.

If I only need to do a quick edit for some hobby thing, I'm not frought for options.

>but it's just annoying to not be able to use the same software as my artists

So you are a professional? If you have artists at your beck and call and it's not a forboding deadline, I don't know why you wouldn't ask the artist to make the edit.

There's definitely a debate to be had about proprietary file formats (I work in games, so I completely understand that with its 3d equivalent that is the FBX format... thankfully there are very slow moves to cast that away), but I'm not sure I have a good solution. I don't necessarily think a company should be forced to open source/spec its own tooling.

[SomeCallMeTim]

> I don't know why you wouldn't ask the artist to make the edit.

Have you ... worked with artists? To get them to produce technically precise artwork?

The point would be that sometimes it takes 4-5 turnarounds with an artist to get something exactly right. Something that I, as a non-artist but skilled app user, can do in less time it takes to explain what I need to the artist a single time. So it's about saving my time and not having to pay for hours of artist time for something I can do in 10 minutes.

What I'd like to see is tiered licenses. They're being greedy and I refuse to patronize them. That's what it comes down to. I'm not saying they should be forced to do anything. Just that I don't like what they're doing, and therefore end up having to work around their software rather than using it.

I have a license for the last one they offered for a fixed cost; bought it for a steep discount when the new licenses were the Next Big Thing. But they won't get any more of my money until they offer the software at a reasonable price tier.

[johnnyanmac]

>Have you ... worked with artists? To get them to produce technically precise artwork?

Yes. But I work in games, so maybe I was expecting professional artists working on complex assets and not a grab bag from fiverr for some UI art. Anything "simple" probably takes them 2-5 minutes and maybe a few turnarouns while I could maybe take an hour of edits for much worse quality.

>What I'd like to see is tiered licenses. They're being greedy and I refuse to patronize them.

I agree completely. But I know there's no such thing as a smooth migration, especially when working as a team.

It's sad, but they have a lock on the market for a reason and that moral stance won't be without some growing pains or compromises. I'm sure we both know trying to get an artist to migrate tools is much harder than a programmer.

[SomeCallMeTim]

Well, I think you could say I've worked in games too. [1]

In fact, it's in games that the artists, especially when working with 3d, had the hardest time getting the precise kinds of changes that I would need.

But even in 2d, if they, say, created a sprite, but then left a few pixels non-100%-transparent in the corners of the image, I could ask them to go find those pixels and erase them...or I could do it myself.

And if they don't get them completely erased, then there will still be artifacts on the screen and the texture atlas packing will be screwed up.

Yeah. I've been doing this for a long time.

And no, I don't have much hope of getting artists to migrate. I'm just tilting at windmills.

[1] https://www.mobygames.com/person/13230/tim-mensch/