Courtesy to Twitter user XdanielArt (date of publication: 8 June 2024)
Honestly, GIMP is not a good alternative to Photoshop. I know, “it’s free” is enough for many people, but it … just isn’t.
With GIMP 3.0 it’s a bit better at least, they’ve finally added non-destructive editing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfaq-Cm1ZkA
Full changelog here:
https://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-3.0.html
I’d dare say that unless you’ve already learnt Photoshop (and have to unlearn it) then Darktable+GIMP works fine for home photo editing.
If you’re used to Photoshop and your skills with it is what puts bread on the table… then I completely understand not switching tools.
My understanding is that a lot of tech debt has been removed with the release of 3.0 and I’m hopeful it will make future updates simpler and faster. :)
GIMP didn’t “just figure out non-destructive editing by 2025”. You’re talking as if it was something that the GIMP development team just decided to randomly add recently, after previously ignoring user demands.
The foundation for that functionality (GEGL) has been in development for ages and was also used for some functionality in 2.6 for a long time. The reason why it took this long is that it’s a pretty fundamental change to how the app works. Also, that meshed with other upcoming changes at the time. Also, small development team.
As somebody who has been trying to decided which of the RAW photo editors to use, I can tell you that Darktable has a steep learning curve over Lightroom. The UI is incredibly dense and the names of sliders don’t make sense unless you’re an image science expert.
I’ll take your word for it, I’ve never used Lightroom.
Whenever I played around with Darktable it seems finding a tutorial to get the effect I wanted was just a minute of searching away, and there’s a ton of beginner tutorials available too.
https://www.darktable.org/2024/12/howto-in-5.0/
But then I was the kid that rtfm the game manual on my way home from the store and love dense UIs as an adult. :)
It’s in the roadmap. :)
https://developer.gimp.org/core/roadmap/#gui
I wonder if it would be feasible to create a different UI on top of the existing GIMP backend.
I assume you are right. So then I ask myself, for my own occasional use, would a standalone version of Photoshop from 2015 cover my needs?
Yeah, I think it would!
I was always a much heavier user of Lightroom than Photoshop anyway. I still need to choose between the FOSS options there.
The same with Lightroom sadly. The open source alternatives are either too buggy or have UX designed by very “opinionated” people, making them painful and frustrating to use. I currently want to get rid of Lightroom but can’t.
My go-to PS app:
All online, same controls, hell, same icons. I’m a little stunned that Adobe hasn’t sued them into oblivion.
You can pay to drop the ads, but I’m not really seeing much end user benefit otherwise. Not seeing ads ATM, maybe I blocked 'em.
You could give Photopea a try, if you’re looking for a free (as supported) alternatives, it has all core functions and a interface that looks very familiar. No installation required so you can easily test it, and use it in any browser (not sure how well it works without mouse and keyboard or low end devices though).
If you want more than core functionality I don’t think there is a (legally) free option out there.
This meme from the late 90s is still going? It’s honestly an impressive record.
For PDF “your browser” should be the default recommendation. Firefox allows to add text and images now. Gimp can also be used to edit PDF.
Browser is nice. On Linux though, Okular is superb (except for its occasional problems with forms).
I’m really disappointed not to see Okular there. It’s FOSS, and it’s very cozy and useful.
Yeah the PDF category is weird / lacking. LibreOffice Draw and Inkscape can both edit PDFs and are missing as well. Xodo looks like some mobile app only or SaaS product.
Edit: Xodo does have a free desktop PDF reader but seems like they’re certainly focused on selling their subscription based PDF editor
Another great alternative to Acrobat (Reader) is Okular; it’s free, open source and runs on Linux, Windows and macOS.
It’s been my go-to PDF reader since switching to Linux, since it already came pre-installed with Manjaro KDE.
Davinci Resolve has to be one of the most jam packed free software packages available… seriously, it absolutely trounces Premiere at evvvverything
the model of free for everything except if features you’d want for producing a professional movie, and financed by hardware sales - that you don’t need unless you’re a professional - is absolutely incredible for home users
It doesn’t trounce PPro, they’re about equal IME. I’ve used both and it’s the price that makes it beat PPro. And you get the full version for free when you buy a Blackmagic camera.
personally, my reasoning for saying it trounces it is the integration of all the tools: no switching to after effects etc
but beyond that, ppro colour correction is just soooooo far behind
granted i haven’t really used it much, so i might not have “got” its workflow - it took a while for resolves to click - but it just seems so disjointed and clunky to do anything beyond cutting together a basic video
I’ve edited a couple of independent shorts with PPro - I didn’t find it lacking at all. I like Resolve, but I can work with either one.
PPro has multi-camera features, that’s much more than a basic video.
The feature set of the Adobe suite is more comprehensive, but Resolve is a bit easier to use.
What the actual fuck is adobe acrobat? A pdf editor with subscription model payment? Firefox, the browser, can edit pdf files. It’s 2025.
Firefox can do basic annotating, adding text and adding pictures but it can’t make a new PDF from scratch.
You may be confusing Adobe Acrobat Reader with Adobe Acrobat? Full Acrobat is the proprietary tool to make a PDF file from scratch including some of the more complex functions.
PDF is an open standard and has been for a while, so there are now plenty of alternatives for most of the functions. LibreOffice Draw and Inkscape can do a lot of PDF creation functions but not all. There are also “print to PDF” options to create basic PDF documents too.
However some of the more niche functions are not widely supported or well supported; and there isn’t really any opensource dedicated PDF maker that I’m aware of. Layout tools are abundant but I think it’s things like building forms and document signing that is less easily replicated. There is Master PDF - a fully functional PDF maker which is proprietary and available for Linux; it $80 for a perpetual license. I’m not aware of any other alternatives myself.
In AEC work we’ve moved almost exclusively to a competing PDF tool called Blubeam, which is proprietary but very worth the price, with tools for scaling, dimensioning, and producing material takeoffs from PDF drawings. Much of what you’d use Acrobat for in a more typical office environment are absent or limited, though.
Adobe acrobat is THE PDF editor. PDF is a proprietary format created and developed by Adobe. Any software that can edit PDFs is doing so in a format they do not have any control over. And there just aren’t any proper PDF editors that are feature complete. now if you’re an individual who needs to make a PDF in the privacy of your own home, by all means, use a cheap or free or FOSS application to do so. But if you need that PDF to be readable and useable and seamlessly compatible on other computers for other users for ever? Better pay the Adobe tax because there is a good chance, it won’t look the way you expect it to when someone opens it up in Adobe which their company definitely has.
I’m not sure this true - PDF is an open standard. The issue isn’t generally with layout and reproducibility - a good PDF maker and a good reader will give you an accurate representation of how it looks on all devices once the PDF is created.
Certainly there isn’t a dedicated FOSS tool for make PDFs; Libre Office and Inkscape do a decent job but not perfect which may be what you’re referring to. And they’re not dedicated PDF makers plus the real problem is building fillable forms and signature tools.
But there is a proprietary alternative called Master PDF that is a dedicated and supports all the PDF standard features I believe; one perpetual license is $80 compared to Adobe subscription based charging. I’m not aware of other options myself but they may exist. But it’s a viable alternative to the “adobe tax”.
Also of course if you have Office 365 from Microsoft, you can use Word to export docs to PDF reliably (in my experience). Obviously as far as you can get from FOSS, but it is an option on Linux via web browser if you have it from work for example; at least you don’t have to pay Adobe but it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for this threat I know!
There are a few other PDF editors that are cheaper, but they don’t have the same features. PDF seems like something that has outlived its purpose. There has to be other document formats that provide a similar or better experience and prevents alteration.
PowerPDF or Kofax or whatever it’s called now was very close to parity if not exceed functionality for most office jobs.
Building off of this, the PDF standard supports all sorts of craziness. It can have embedded math and logic similar to excel files, to the point there’s templates available for banks which will automatically calculate entire loans (including weird ones like balloon mortgages and variable interest rate stuff) without leaving Adobe Reader, and the recent Doom PDF and Linux PDF projects exploit the fact that pdfs support embedded javascript.
There’s also an actual market for enterprise PDF templates like the banking ones I described with automatic calculations and whatnot. So some people literally make their living selling PDFs to businesses that businesses actually use
not true. dont oay adobe so more pdfs will look like the user intended. dont fall adobe scams like weird functions that should be in a pdf anyways. pdfs created with masterpdfeditor look exactly as intended. so, again: no, adobe is a scam. always has been.
Funny, it’s been less than 24hrs and I got a ticket in complaining about why PDFs look one way in Ease US PDF editor and totally different in Adobe Reader. You’re just wrong. I didn’t say it was worth the money to pay for Adobe, and I didn’t say it wasn’t a scam. But I do tell the truth when it comes to true parity, there are competitors to PDF editing but there is no free PDF editors that properly do the job 100% of the time.
