this post was submitted on 28 May 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

I find it's much easier to just stop using adobe products altogether

[–] StrawberryPigtails@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Sure... I can. But why would I want to? The open source options are better in almost every use case. Adobe hasn't had a compelling product for my use cases in decades.

Giving Adobe the middle finger isn't worth putting up with their malware.

[–] sanzky@beehaw.org 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

it's been a while since Adobe moved from standalone projects to what they call "content supply chain" they have no interest in competing at individual product level. if you only need photoshop, there are tons of better alternatives. they only become irreplaceable if you are in the enterprise level and need things like collaboration, project management, cloud storage, auditing, governance, etc (ie. creative cloud + workfront + their AEM DAM offering).

I do consulting in Adobe products and every year their products are shittier but they still are indispensible due to inertia and integrated ecosystem

[–] skribe@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago

I mostly agree. The only Adobe product I miss is After Effects. I haven't found anything that scratches that itch.

I use Blender (and others), but it's not ideal for 2.5D effects.

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 days ago

Usually because the thing I'm editing was originally made with them...

[–] Iunnrais@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don’t know. With the exception of a single feature, I’ve found photoshop better to use than GIMP. The one feature exception is GIMP’s wonderful “color to alpha” feature, and I always keep a gimp install around just for it.

Photoshop just seems easier to use, and more robust? With nicer effects, better filters, etc etc? At least for the features I tend to use. I’m not a professional by any means, but I tweak and composite and blend images a fair bit for my various hobbies (mostly ttrpgs).

[–] eatham@aussie.zone -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Gimp is shit, from what I've heard krita is the Photoshop alternative, although I've used neither (big time mspainter here)

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago

GIMP is honestly a lot better than it used to be, especially with the g'mic plugin, which is insanely powerful.

For Photoshop users, there's also photogimp, which makes gimp have a Photoshop layout and keyboard shortcuts.

Though personally I use krita most of the time, which has g'mic built in nowadays.

[–] skribe@piefed.social 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I've used all three products and I prefer Gimp. My wife prefers Krita. It's great to have choices.

[–] eatham@aussie.zone -1 points 2 days ago

I'm not against choice, don't know where you got that from. Personally I also use gimp

[–] Iunnrais@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Never heard of krita, I’ll have to check it out.

[–] msage@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

It's mostly for drawing.

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 21 points 3 days ago

I learned the foss equivalents so that I don't need to.

[–] user1234@fedinsfw.app 27 points 3 days ago

But then you have to use Adobe products

[–] dudesss@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

But then you still have Adobe your PC which does nasty things to your PC, high seas or not.

Find FOSS alternatives like Gimp + Photoshop plugin (PhotoGimp), Krita, Inkscape.

Therr is no reason to be using Adobe in the 0-20 years, and definitely not in 2026.

This is how we do it https://github.com/KenneyNL/Adobe-Alternatives#animate

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Let's be realistic. None of the FOSS alternatives come even close to Photoshop. Gimp has never been a good piece of software. Not to mention, if you're doing commercial work, you need the original software to reliably work with clients and others.

[–] dudesss@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm curious what features Adobe has that FOSS is missing

[–] nek0d3r@midwest.social 3 points 2 days ago

One of the biggest feautures missing for professionals is CMYK color space. There are some workarounds found, but it's not at the same level of Adobe and certainly not built for it.

I switched to FOSS everything and I still miss a lot of stuff even if I'll never touch Adobe again. Everything is so much harder to use and that was a sacrifice I chose to make for the sake of software freedom

[–] therealdries@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In the case of GIMP it's an interface that makes any kind of sense. Have to admit that Inkscape is looking pretty damn good these days - even though it's not really a replacement for Illustrator and is more a good replacement for progs like Freehand and Coreldraw.

[–] dudesss@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's how I felt it that its more the interface than functionality. Although I've never checked and compared with PhotoGimp

[–] therealdries@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago

The latest flavor of trying to fix Gimp's UI by modifying it to look like Photoshop. These go back decades and usually end up being abandoned after a few years.

https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP

The whole premise is flawed. Gimp should be a viable program on its own, by having a UI that actually makes sense and not by copying the market leader, because this will always mean playing catch-up, it will always mean being seen as a lesser copy.

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Some people do actually use this software to make a living. That's not corpo-speak, it's a reality.

Anywho, I've never paid for Photoshop. Just updated my pirated copy every half-decade or so.

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

As some people make a living using gimp. Your chosen software doesn't have special sauce because its closed source.

[–] skarn@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 22 hours ago

Dude, honestly, cut the crap.

I am exactly in the team that makes an open source entrant competing against a closed source incumbent. We're talking about data acquisition and inspection with certain kinds of scientific instruments.

I personally like our software much better, also it's much easier to extend since it's written with pyqt and numpy.

But our customers are busy people, with complicated and efficient workflows built with the competition.

Every time they get stuck because the UI is unfamiliar or because a feature is missing (all niche use cases, but everyone has a mission-critical corner case so...) they are wasting time they don't have, to work around stuff that would have been easy if the stuck with the competition.

Just replying to them "Skill Issue" is not going to cut it. If acted 20% as insufferable as you, I'm not sure we would have any customers.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

No, it has special source, because it 1) was literally the first practical photo editing software for home computers 2) has been in continuous development since 1987 and 3) is clearly designed for artists, not programmers. It's not just how long the development has been, but also how much resources have been poured into it compared to open source and other competitors - and to what end. Gimp may only be just nine years younger, but it's clearly (just look at its insane user interface) typical of an issue that is very widespread among open source projects: It's developed by programmers for programmers, with little regard for non-technical users and actual workflows.

Not all open source software suffers from this, but a ton does. It's frustrating any time I'm trying to get people to e.g. switch to Linux and other open source software; they often run into a wall of poor usability. This is the main thing that prevents mass adoption of the Linux desktop. The fact of the matter is, most developers of open source software are highly technical people who are developing this software for themselves and other highly technical people. This might be fine for you and I, but it won't win over the better washed masses.

[–] skarn@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Sometimes it's usability walls, but sometimes a user just so adjusted to the poor usability of the market leaders, and struggles to work with a more sane UI.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Photoshop is perhaps the most complex piece of software you can teach yourself without relying on any external resources. It's the opposite of poor usability and this was even the case decades ago.

Gimp and the Linux desktop experience are not more sane UIs compared to Photoshop and Windows. Both have issues, but usability is not among them.

[–] skarn@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 15 hours ago

I was talking in principle, more than in the specifics.

And I am very willing to believe you with respect to Photoshop, as I have never used it (I have occasionally tried, and failed, to use GIMP). My graphical needs have always been better served by vector graphics e.g. Inkscape.

I have used Windows extensively (and still have to from time to time), and it's usability is at least as bad that of a (sane) Linux distro (OK, not Gentoo). It's just it's usually bad in different ways. Windows is exactly the case where it's about getting used to the badness, rather than about it being superior.

Accessibility, on the other hand? That's still better on Windows.

[–] ea6927d8@lemmy.ml 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] Hakuso@scribe.disroot.org 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I went from buying so much Nintendo stuff to 100% piracy after my third Switch broke, I lost all my saves because they force it on internal memory and encrypt that then sue the guy who wrote code to let you back it up locally, and then I found out most of my games played better on Yuzu (and now Eden) than they did on the actual hardware.

[–] Grostleton@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

The switch is just a glorified android tablet with a couple brackets bolted on for the controllers. It's not all that surprising that it runs better on an emulator.

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 0 points 3 days ago (2 children)

If only there were portable devices it could run on. Even if they were way more expensive than the Switch since not being subsidized by the games. The existing options for portable gaming all suck. I like having the Switch in bed and on planes.

[–] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The existing options for portable gaming all suck

I have a GPD Win Max 2. 64GB of RAM, Ryzen 7, RDNA3(.5) GPU...it's a beast. Fits in my jacket pocket and can run Cyberpunk with raytracing.

It's expensive as hell, but it's a really good handheld machine. They even mention emulation on their own site and put up some benchmarks and I can confirm it - I regularly play games with rpcs3 and pcsx2 at a stable 4K60fps.

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Only if you're lucky enough to get one... Also, when I tried a friend's it felt underpowered, especially running stuff outside of Steam. Not sure if they ever fixed the issues running non-Steam games, though, since that was a few years ago.

I had hoped a new version would come out to improve it and maybe even make enough of them to be available this time 😂. But sounds like it's still several years out, if ever. I've lost my trust in Valve actually delivering things they promise. Burned too many times.

[–] Hakuso@scribe.disroot.org 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

ASUS ROG Ally X, put Linux on it, and you get by all the horrible Windows bloat that makes it crap. It's great hardware, just the "X-Box" branding and Microslop OS that's a problem.

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've heard that it's really unstable, even if it runs more efficiently with Linux. Custom hardware like that often needs customized drivers to work right. Maybe one day someone will get it working well, though.

[–] Hakuso@scribe.disroot.org 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bazzite has an image specifically for it, and I'm running stock Debian Trixie on my ROG Flow tablet with no issues, don;t own the Ally X yet but I'm definitely looking it it over the Ally or any other as I want to run my own install not a Valve image and the Ally X uses a normal 2280 M.2 rather than the 2230 (which maxes at 2TB) my current ROG Flow or the Steam Deck does.

[–] irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah I read an article from a few months ago related to putting Bazzite on it (the 2025 version anyway), and the main complaint was the stability as well as minor complaints about the lack of support for some features and having to manually configure some buttons requiring some technical knowledge. It did mention that once it was mostly working it was significantly faster. But not usable as a gaming device quite yet. Not sure how much improvement has happened, but I expect that it will take quite a while to work out the kinks since it's partly proprietary hardware not really designed for alternate OSes.

[–] Hakuso@scribe.disroot.org 1 points 1 day ago

Ah, I tend to soo all the configuring myself, half my stuff on the tablet I compiled from source.

Bazzite looked like good project, not for me as I loathe immutable distros, but I did run it via emulation and found the setup to be very straightforward and consoley. Turned me off, completely, but their attempt to simplify things and even using an immutable so it's a lot harder to irrevocably break anything was a step in the right direction for making things "simple" for the people I can;t get to verify their chat fingerprint in Gajim.

This looks like an advertisement for adobe.

Adobe wants you to pirate their products so you learn how to use them instead of the alternatives.