Completely agreed. I tested the trial version of Photoshop once, and soon I noticed that about 90% of its functions are so special that I won't need them in my entire life (although I'm working with images quite frequently). Therefore it's nothing but bloated and useless for me and 99% of the people who have an illegal copy.

Listen to that kid, all you Adobe-geeks

Intangible Assets, derived from software that costs a lot less to produce than it does to buy, a very interesting topic which i'll probably waffle about for too long.

$799 maybe excessive to the casual user, but thats as far it goes. If you are John Smith from Average Street, who uses the program to resize the odd pic or sharpen up their holiday snaps once a year then Adobe probably dont give a shit that you use a pirated copy of their software because frankly, you dont need it.

Adobe wont expect John Smith to buy their software, in fact they will use him as a marketing tool. Both Adobe and Macromedia will make claim to the tag 'most pirated software' because it highlights the immense popularity of the package. But they arent really bothered by the millions of pirated copies because the vast majority of people pirating it are those who dont need it and wouldnt buy it anyway, even if it was impossible to pirate and cost $50.

The price tag is aimed at the same people the software is aimed at - professional people/companies who use the software to earn a living. In that respect, $799 is a not very unusual price for the market leading package, and nothing compared to some packages such as...

3D Studio Max ~$3500 + ~$700 with each new release
AutoCAD ~$5000 + ~$1000 with each new release

It seems obsene to the public because they are used to spending at most $50 on the software they usually use. This software will most likely have a full-price commercial lifespan of less than 6 months, and 90% of the sales will occur in this period, then it might as well be dead. Most importantly, the commercial value of this kind of software to the user is usually very, very small indeed.

The more expensive package has a permanant (much higher)full-price commercial lifespan and a very differant (much smaller)target market. The commercial value of this software to the user is often so high its mission critical because without it, the user/company cannot operate. Intangible value is set accordingly.

Thats my case for Photoshops pricetag.

Edited by fretz at 22:44 on September, 02nd 2003

Thanks for the link; I found several quite interesting programs there. I may try them tonight when I get home

ND- Have you tried the Format11 program? You can get it here http://jansfreeware.com/jfgraphics.htm I haven't tried it myself, but it might be worth looking into.

If you can live without a specific tool then you're not meant to be the customer. That's all, relax :p

PS is used for many different tasks, it doesn't have a "do" button, that's why interface seems odd, it's not harder than deluxe paint though.

Adobe interfaces are the best in the market. And by saying "the market" I'm not including 16yr old wanker tools like PSP :p

Macromedia renamed all it's tools to "MX" series because they were losing the lawsuit against adobe. They've ripped the photoshop interface for Flash. Macromedia interfaces suck, freehand, flash, director! MX series aren't that bad but older versios were terrible. 3d tools aren't any better either. Learning Lightwave is like learning a language (though it's very useful once you learn it) As opposed to popular belief, 3d studio max has a terrible interface also. I'm not counting Maya, it's like the programmer's own desktop, you have to figure out what button does what! Now check these tools and compare their interfaces to PS. Some of these tools like freehand really have bad interfaces, some don't but they are all complex because they're written to do complex tasks. It is difficult to learn them so you may decide it does not worth to learn but for some of us, it's a mission.

Edited by Burseg at 16:45 on August, 27th 2003

Who said I use it? The correct term is have used or more accurately have tried it. I had a pirated copy of PS6 and a partial copy of PS4 that I had gotten while trying to get PS6, tried it a couple of times but hated the interface. I also used it once to edit an image that I could only get in PS's native format and it wouldn't open in any other prog due to the layers/actions/whatever it contained. In total, I attempted to use it about 5~6 times, but just couldn't stand the damned thing. It got lost a little over a year ago when my comp crashed, and I've never wasted my time getting another copy.

My point is that I view unreasonably priced items as an assault against the customers, and feel that pirating as a form of retalliation is more than justified. If PS lowered the price to something more reasonable, I would stop actively encouraging piracy of it. If they stopped making PS due to piracy, I would say "good, stop ripping us off and we'll stop ripping you off".

Edited by Cypherswipe at 15:17 on August, 27th 2003

Burseg said it. By using a pirated copy, and thus being able to discuss the program, telling others you're using it etc., you're contributing to the high price yourself. If you just wouldn't use it instead (and with you all the other people who simply don't need such a program at all), Photoshop would be very much less known, nobody would talk about it and that would really hurt Adobe's sales in the end.

That is why the most effective way against overpriced commercial software is not to use it.

Edited by Mr Creosote at 14:19 on August, 27th 2003

Photoshop is being used for commercial projects in which more than 799$ is involved. Adobe is doing the smart thing by keeping the price high. Most pirates won't buy it even if it's 200, they aren't the customers anyway, but people who make this program so famous so they are still useful to adobe. People who do make money out of it probably will spend 800 when they earn a few thousand dollars with the help of that program, by free will or because of legal issues. If I had
my own design agency, I would nearly have to buy it just for legal issues. Adobe knows that.

If it was reasonably priced, I would consider getting it (features, interface, etc would determine the answer). When I see a piece of software that's $800 buck however, I say F~ you to the stingy bastards that made it. Especially when similar progs are infinitely cheaper, some (like the gimp) are even 100% free. There is simply no excuse for photoshop to be so expensive.

It was Paint Shop Pro 6.02. Nowadays, I'm using The Gimp, yes. As I said, Photoshop costs a small fortune. It is the good right of the makers to charge what they want, though. There is no excuse for 'owning' a pirated copy. You also wouldn't have bought it if it was available for $100 or $10.

What version of PSP did you have? PSP5 lacked a lot of features, PSP7 is what I use and it rocks. PSP8 came out recently, but it's too bloated, and too much like photoshop.
What specific prog are you using for general photo editing now? The Gimp?


Photoshop is a prog that just begs to be pirated, there's no excuse for that $799 price tag.

So you don't need it, you don't use it. Fair enough for me.

So do I, and the best way to do so is to use free software. I'm fine with anyone disagreeing with me. I'm just always amazed by these discussions about programs which
a) cost a small fortune
b) are completely useless for 99.999999% of all people
In my whole life, I've never used Photoshop or Fireworks, because I have absolutely no use for them! A few years back, I had a pirated copy of Paint Shop Pro which I sometimes used. At the student offices at university where I work, they have Corel Draw installed. Out of this package, "Photo Paint" is the comparable program. It sucks badly, it took me thirty minutes to resize a picture the way I wanted.

That concludes my history with 'professional' image manipulation programs. Nowadays, I know I don't need any of them. I still live. Instead, I'm just using free software. I will stay alive.

I'm supporting free distribution of software and I can explicitly confirm I had been active in warez scene in recent past. This is strictly different from making money by trading other's creations. Additionally I refuse to support foreign economies by paying for software written there. Not because I'm patriotic but because OUR economy is in deep shit AND any software is sold for 1$ on streets, now that's terrible, it should be free . This is different than supporting the coders, I don't think adobe programmers are effected by my decision, only adobe might be.

Agree or not I can sum this pharagraph in one sentence: I don't share the same morals with you and don't agree on your reasoning.

(Of course I were joking on that authority stuff in case you don't like irony)

Yes, please

I'm not claiming to be very good at graphics design. I know what I can do with the programs I use, though. I also know what I can't do with them. I know which image format is best for what purpose. And I know I won't use commercial programs just because I can get them 'for free' illegally. The last point makes this discussion completely academic for virtually everybody, because the 'value for money' relation of basically all commercial programs used to make graphics is completely ridiculous. Therefore, none of you bought any of these. Big surprise.

An in this thread, we have a perfect example of the gif/png/jpg debate. We have 3 sets of screens all of the same game, and all are of similar dimensions. Oddly, the jpg is the smallest in filesize (jpgs usually have a distinctly larger filesize than gif/png in screenshots such as those, I can only assume that the difference is due to extremely low quality settings on the jpg, or perhaps a simple fluke), yet it looks terrible. The colors are off, the details are blurry, and there are artifacts mucking things up (look at the blue things). The gif has infinitely better quality in both color and crispness, although it has a fairly large filesize. The png has excellent quality in both color and detail and has a very good filesize.

I'll scan and attach my Visual Communication Design diploma if requested :p

png is macromedia fireworks's NATIVE format. It can contain layer data for fireworks, it's just what .psd is for photoshop. Don't get me wrong but you coder types are quite lost when speaking of graphic programs. If you question my authority (hehe I sound like cartman) as a graphic designer, check my website and criticise it.

Have you used all programs? No? How can you claim that one is the best then?