# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Other Discussion and Support > Art & Design >  Who even pays for photoshop anyway?

## azraelx401

I just started trying out Gimp and i gotta say that it sucks.  I hate the fact that the tools and the main window are on 3 different windows.  why?  i hate that.  when i'm working on a piece i like to have my tools over the image not under.  that doesn't make any sense to me.  i do like that it has pretty much the same layer effects that photoshop has but it's lacking in the filtering department.  I don't know if i'll ever really switch to Gimp.  It's not as an effective program as Photoshop.  And by the way, who the hell even buys programs anymore.  I sure don't.  Only thing i bought was Windows XP Media Center but that came with my laptop.  There are ways to make any "non free" program free.  you just have to look for it.  Photoshop and the Macromedia suite are the only reasons for me to have dual boot.

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## mssever

I had a hard time with Gimp, too, at first. But I like it OK now--especially because I can't afford Photoshop.

Also, remember that pirating software is stealing. And stealing is never OK. Period. If you can't afford commercial software, use free/open source software. And even if there isn't a good open source alternative, that still doesn't justify stealing.

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## pufuwozu

> I had a hard time with Gimp, too, at first. But I like it OK now--especially because I can't afford Photoshop.
> 
> Also, remember that pirating software is stealing. And stealing is never OK. Period. If you can't afford commercial software, use free/open source software. And even if there isn't a good open source alternative, that still doesn't justify stealing.


That's a horrible analogy. Sure, I think piracy is wrong but I don't think it is stealing.

Stealing means that you're actually taking the software away from someone else. When you _copy_ software, this is not the case. Don't get confused between copying and stealing.

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## mssever

> That's a horrible analogy. Sure, I think piracy is wrong but I don't think it is stealing.
> 
> Stealing means that you're actually taking the software away from someone else. When you _copy_ software, this is not the case. Don't get confused between copying and stealing.


I disagree. When you pirate software, you're stealing potential revenue, and you're using something without paying for it when payment is expected. Remember, whatever your feelings about intelectual property (I believe that there is too much, which is one reason why I use free software), it still is property that can be stolen. And the law defines it as such--at least here in the US.

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## OmniDistortion

You're attitude towards paying for software is horrible. Photoshop costs money for a reason. And that reason is because many programmers spent their time in an office setting creating the software as their job. The GIMP is a very very good piece of software that's only marginally worse than Photoshop yet it costs nothing.

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## Lord Illidan

> I just started trying out Gimp and i gotta say that it sucks.  I hate the fact that the tools and the main window are on 3 different windows.  why?  i hate that.  when i'm working on a piece i like to have my tools over the image not under.  that doesn't make any sense to me.  i do like that it has pretty much the same layer effects that photoshop has but it's lacking in the filtering department.  I don't know if i'll ever really switch to Gimp.  It's not as an effective program as Photoshop.  And by the way, who the hell even buys programs anymore.  I sure don't.  Only thing i bought was Windows XP Media Center but that came with my laptop.  There are ways to make any "non free" program free.  you just have to look for it.  Photoshop and the Macromedia suite are the only reasons for me to have dual boot.


Photoshop is a commercial application. It costs money. Legally, you have to buy it. Otherwise, you are a thief, period. If you don't want to buy programs anymore, than use opensource and free as in beer software. Don't pirate!

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## azraelx401

> You're attitude towards paying for software is horrible. Photoshop costs money for a reason. And that reason is because many programmers spent their time in an office setting creating the software as their job. The GIMP is a very very good piece of software that's only marginally worse than Photoshop yet it costs nothing.


well wouldn't somebody of spent hours creating Gimp?  but yet they charge nothing.

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## Lord Illidan

> well wouldn't somebody of spent hours creating Gimp?  but yet they charge nothing.


The difference is that unlike the Photoshop developers, the GIMP developers don't get much income to continue working on the project. Thus they have to give it less priority. You want GIMP to improve, give them a donation. Or else jump in with them. Bitching never solves anything!

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## HanZo

I bough an old copy of PS7 on ebay some years ago... it's an original one, though I'm not really sure if it's completely legal since it's part of a bundle... but it seems like according to german law it's legal (so the shop statet). Anyway... I'll be soon having my own studio and I'm planning to buy the whole CS3.

I'm pretty much against software pirating... in fact I try to use oss wherever I can. Sometimes I download cracked stuff... but just for trying out... usually in 30 days I find the time to open the program 3 times...

The Gimp will hardly be a program I use often.
It's not bad... in fact I used it for some projects, but it lacks one big thing: professional level. As I have mentioned often here on the forum... there are some things you cannot live without when doing some professional work for print: colour profiles, multichannel/duotone/CMYK, proper type tool, good tablet support, actions, batch processing... and son on. some things are present on gimp, but aren't as good... others just miss.
But hey!
I imagine that if Gimp was better Adobe would have to work a bit harder... instead of releasing new versions that just are the old one with some cosmetic change... I mean photoshop is not perfect... far from beign it, but since version 7 they haven't really changed a lot...

edit: but I think Gimp does not need to be like Photoshop... it's better than paint shop, and there are far more people needing an app for simple photo mainpulation than ppl like me who need it for professional work. Gimp just needs to improve a bit on the interface side I think to be a good solution for these people.

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## azraelx401

> I had a hard time with Gimp, too, at first. But I like it OK now--especially because I can't afford Photoshop.
> 
> Also, remember that pirating software is stealing. And stealing is never OK. Period. If you can't afford commercial software, use free/open source software. And even if there isn't a good open source alternative, that still doesn't justify stealing.


Adobe sells thousands of copies of Photoshop a year but yet they charge $649 bucks per copy.  i'm sure they put alot of hard work into it that's why it just blows everyone out. but they expect a regular consumer to pay 649 bucks for it, that's kinda crazy.  that's why some people switch from using Windows to using Linux.  They can afford to lower the price on this thing buy a bunch of hundreds of dollars but they choose not to.

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## willowhisp

> there's the law, then there's THE LAW. You know sometimes, trying to simplify things just complicates them. 
> 
> 
> Whoa, off on a tangent: whether you believe is irrelevant, just stick with the topic- if Roman law stated that all Jews must sit in the back of the bus, where would Jesus have sat?


So... the rules that can officially be inforced by the police and the courts aren't neccessarily 'THE LAW'? 

_law
noun
the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision._

Which laws are part of 'the law' and which laws are part of 'THE LAW' is subjective.

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## BLTicklemonster

> So... the rules that can officially be inforced by the police and the courts aren't neccessarily 'THE LAW'? 
> 
> _law
> noun
> the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision._
> 
> Which laws are part of 'the law' and which laws are part of 'THE LAW' is subjective.


Thanks for copying and pasting that from the dictionary  :Wink: 

There's the laws which the state mandates which suppress some portion of society, then there's the laws which come from humanity, where... you know what, I don't really think people today even recognize the difference between the two.

For the sake of keeping the thread on track, suffice it to say forget I said anything. You are all perfectly right in the way you think. What was I thinking?

(funny thing is, there are soooo many people who hold to the other side of the coin. They wouldn't think twice about stealing from other people, but wouldn't dare steal from family. odd ain't it?)

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## willowhisp

> Thanks for copying and pasting that from the dictionary 
> 
> There's the laws which the state mandates which suppress some portion of society, then there's the laws which come from humanity, where... you know what, I don't really think people today even recognize the difference between the two.
> 
> For the sake of keeping the thread on track, suffice it to say forget I said anything. You are all perfectly right in the way you think. What was I thinking?


My point was just that one says 'the law' it refers to the rules that are inforced, not to general morals, which implies that, and I interpreted it as meaning that, you think breaking any laws is immoral. If you mean the basic social rules that are innate in most people, then you should use a term other than 'the law'. It's just a issue of clarity.

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## willowhisp

> (funny thing is, there are soooo many people who hold to the other side of the coin. They wouldn't think twice about stealing from other people, but wouldn't dare steal from family. odd ain't it?)


Well, in a sense, when you uphold laws of a society, or help another person in that society, you're treating that society as part of a sort of extended family (not in a biological sense). Taking land or property in a war is stealing from those outside that extended family. The restictions on that theft (by international law) would then place that foreign country in another  teir of the extended family.

If that sounds weird, I should point out that that idea was inspired by something from War and Peace, so blame Tolstoy.:p

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## HanZo

I think this thread now got to some interesting point... this difference between the law and THE LAW you mentioned is in fact a point that has been discussed by sociology and athropology for years... and will be discussed for the next 20 centuries for sure... there are a lot of different opinions on the whole but basically all agree on the fact that society has a lot of rules, these rules come from the fact that some behaviours get through a process of objectivation because other people discover they work for them too... and later discover they work for the whole group (they think they are parto of). as time passes these bahaviours become rules (or norms or how we want to call them), those rules a society thinks are really important get writte down and become laws. laws always are enforeced by some donuts-eating guys who beat you up if you dont follow them.
the point now is that rules and laws always depend on the circumstances they derive from, these are relative to a majority of people, depend on the context they have been developed... things change but laws tend to be very bureaucratic and are slow to adapt to a new context.
I don't think there is THE LAW, there are some basic rules we all must respect for the sake of civilized living (a lot of people in a limited space needs those rules) these rules are simple things like don't kill, don't steal, don't rape, don't beat up people and stuff like that.
now while it is easy do understand what killing means, because the concept of killing depends on the concept of life, and that is a 1bit concept either yes or no, either dead or alive, it's not so easy to define stealing, beacause that depends on property and that is mora a 64bit concept...
life is a biological thing, property is a society made concept. in fact while all societies have people who are either dead or alive, not all societies have private property, or the same kind of private property.
I mentioned above that rules depend on the context they were developed in, this applies of course to the more complex ones, the ones that depend on other complex concepts. you'll all agree that if the idea of property changes the concept of stealing changes too. now I think we are in the middle of a change like that... and opensource, creative commons, copyleft, wikipedia and so on are certainly part of this change, the problem is just that the organizations we know as state or commercial company are much slower in adapting than the rest of society is... that's the real problem... nothing to do with moral (BLTicklemonster that was not directed at you).
sorry I'm no sociologist... so my explanation may lack a certain scientific rigour...

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## BLTicklemonster

Yep.


Hey, how many people here would consider using a pirated copy of photoshop, but would not dare to steal it off a shelf if there were no way they would get caught, because "that's stealing"?

(raises hand)

How many people here scream at the goalie for letting a ball get by, yet you couldn't play soccer if your life depended on it? Ever coached a football team full of people who were more talented than you are? 

(do as I say, not as I do is what I'm getting at here. Which is to say, no, I can't levitate, but I know all you got to do is float in midair. So yes, I will say stuff like make a picture in adobe saying OMGOMGOMG PIRACY LAME! across the bottom. Which pretty much makes me human, right?)

-BLDichotomyMonster

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## HanZo

yet I'm not sure I fully got your point.

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## mssever

> I think this thread now got to some interesting point... this difference between the law and THE LAW you mentioned is in fact a point that has been discussed by sociology and athropology for years... and will be discussed for the next 20 centuries for sure... there are a lot of different opinions on the whole but basically all agree on the fact that society has a lot of rules, these rules come from the fact that some behaviours get through a process of objectivation because other people discover they work for them too... and later discover they work for the whole group (they think they are parto of). as time passes these bahaviours become rules (or norms or how we want to call them), those rules a society thinks are really important get writte down and become laws. laws always are enforeced by some donuts-eating guys who beat you up if you dont follow them.
> the point now is that rules and laws always depend on the circumstances they derive from, these are relative to a majority of people, depend on the context they have been developed... things change but laws tend to be very bureaucratic and are slow to adapt to a new context.
> I don't think there is THE LAW, there are some basic rules we all must respect for the sake of civilized living (a lot of people in a limited space needs those rules) these rules are simple things like don't kill, don't steal, don't rape, don't beat up people and stuff like that.
> now while it is easy do understand what killing means, because the concept of killing depends on the concept of life, and that is a 1bit concept either yes or no, either dead or alive, it's not so easy to define stealing, beacause that depends on property and that is mora a 64bit concept...
> life is a biological thing, property is a society made concept. in fact while all societies have people who are either dead or alive, not all societies have private property, or the same kind of private property.
> I mentioned above that rules depend on the context they were developed in, this applies of course to the more complex ones, the ones that depend on other complex concepts. you'll all agree that if the idea of property changes the concept of stealing changes too. now I think we are in the middle of a change like that... and opensource, creative commons, copyleft, wikipedia and so on are certainly part of this change, the problem is just that the organizations we know as state or commercial company are much slower in adapting than the rest of society is... that's the real problem... nothing to do with moral (BLTicklemonster that was not directed at you).
> sorry I'm no sociologist... so my explanation may lack a certain scientific rigour...


Yet, there is such a thing as basic human rights. Granted, those rights haven't always been recognized, but they do exist. Of course, what those rights are is a subject of some debate. Even the right to life isn't recognized by all. For example, there are some who think that the right to life doesn't apply to unborn babies--though they probably would never express it that way.

So it comes down to deciding the standard of rights and morals. For example, the US Constitution spells out a list of some specific human rights recognized by the American people. And it takes a whole lot more than a majority opinion to change it. But ultimately, the rights recognized by society are dependant on morals. And for a society to rise above mediocrity, those morals must be built upon some absolute timeless principles.

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## airtonix

ok explain to me why you actually need photoshop? are you designing stuff for magazines? 

pantone anyone?

proly not if you mention you also need dreamweaver.....which is a piffy excuse to not code properly.


I reckon you should bite the bullet and become a real web developer and use leafpad and nautlius....

I run a group that creates websites for non-profit organistaions....for free. My main issue here is that many of the people who come onto our team aren't savy with html....

Ask them what CSS is and what the WAGI is and they give you blank looks.

And we actually wnet out and bought twenty or so licenses for the latest dreamweaver mx....we thought it would negate the need to teach our team members html or css....

How wrong i was.

I put my foot down, and threw the dreamweaver to the office training team .... (let them deal with piffy userland guff), and my team now use a mix of Bluefish, Screem and Nautilus.

As a result of being thrown in the deep end (only works on receptive people who have a strong will to improve themselves) the guys now understand my rants about standards and accesibility.....

lol they join in too. now we all have fun making websites.

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## BLTicklemonster

I don't neeeeeeed photoshop, but I do like the way it does 3d fonts. And once you set a layer with all the 3d stuff, you can use a brush in it and the brush looks 3d. Like you can do some really cool gooey writing freehand with it.

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## skirkpatrick

BLTicklemonster, I thought you were supposed to throw yourself at the ground and miss?  :Very Happy:  


So, if I were to write a wonderful program and sell it over the Internet to support myself as I'm spending all my time working on the program, then it's okay if you make a copy of it to use and don't pay me?

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## Josh_b

Everyone is focusing on how 'immoral' it is to pirate software. The question should be is it moral for the companies to be charging up to thousands of dollars for *ONE* copy. Seriously, they would make more money if they halved the sale price, as more people would buy the software, rather than pirate it.

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## mssever

> Everyone is focusing on how 'immoral' it is to pirate software. The question should be is it moral for the companies to be charging up to thousands of dollars for *ONE* copy. Seriously, they would make more money if they halved the sale price, as more people would buy the software, rather than pirate it.


They have a right to charge whatever they want. Nothing immoral about that. If you make a product, don't you have a right to charge whatever you think you can get? Or are you opposed to a free market?

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## DirtDawg

> They have a right to charge whatever they want. Nothing immoral about that. If you make a product, don't you have a right to charge whatever you think you can get? Or are you opposed to a free market?


The ability to pirate software _is_ part of the "free market".

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## BLTicklemonster

> BLTicklemonster, I thought you were supposed to throw yourself at the ground and miss?


all the time bro, all the time 



> So, if I were to write a wonderful program and sell it over the Internet to support myself as I'm spending all my time working on the program, then it's okay if you make a copy of it to use and don't pay me?


Well duh, I can't be expected to support my family and yours too, can I?

 :Wink:  


good point. _which is exaclty why I'm here using ubuntu now!_ (even the birds have a name for me "cheap cheap cheap"  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## willowhisp

> They have a right to charge whatever they want. Nothing immoral about that. If you make a product, don't you have a right to charge whatever you think you can get? Or are you opposed to a free market?


Perhaps, but we don't live in a free market. Bussiness leaders don't even want a free market; there goal is to make money, not play fair. To quote Adam Smith, _"To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
"_.

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## skirkpatrick

I used to use cracked copies and keygens and decided that I had had enough of it.  The biggest reason is that the place I work for wants, of course, to charge for all of their services, software, hardware but almost everything we use is cracked.

One thing you have to remember is that companies aren't run by just the guys in charge.  They are also run by their shareholders, who are looking for a good return on investment.  If the board members and CEOs aren't doing a good job of making money, the shareholders will either dump their shares (devaluing the company) or vote for replacements.

Software isn't the only thing that companies charge a lot of money for.  The car companies were very happy when the US when nuts for SUVs.  They only cost slightly more to manufacture than a regular car but they have a much higher profit margin.  It's a matter of supply and demand.  If people are willing to pay for it, then the company will charge what it can.

As far as "stealing" software, using a pirated or cracked copy _is_ stealing: you are using a product that you did not legally acquire.

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## Tomosaur

I'm not against paying for software, I just can't afford the absurd prices for stuff like Photoshop. If the price was lower, I'd probably buy stuff more, but as it is, I just get by on the free alternatives. The prices just do not seem to reflect the cost of production in any way, especially since Photoshop is not Adobe's ONLY source of income.

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## Ben Sprinkle

> Photoshop is a commercial Otherwise, you are a thief, period


I am a thief then.  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## egon spengler

> Hey, how many people here would consider using a pirated copy of photoshop, but would not dare to steal it off a shelf if there were no way they would get caught, because "that's stealing"?
> 
> (raises hand)


It's not much a revelation that some/many/most people view two completely different actions in two completely different lights.

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## Ben Sprinkle

Originally Posted by BLTicklemonster  
Hey, how many people here would consider using a pirated copy of photoshop, but would not dare to steal it off a shelf if there were no way they would get caught, because "that's stealing"?

(raises hand)

*Raises hand*
Aye to that.

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## willowhisp

> One thing you have to remember is that companies aren't run by just the guys in charge.  They are also run by their shareholders, who are looking for a good return on investment.  If the board members and CEOs aren't doing a good job of making money, the shareholders will either dump their shares (devaluing the company) or vote for replacements.


Actually, that's exclusive to joint stock companies.

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## willowhisp

I just had a thought: What about abondonware and generaly old products that are nolonger sold? For example if Company sells Software v.5, but stops selling it when they start selling Software v.6? Perhaps it's still stealing to pirate Software v.5, and it's probably still illegal, but it does seem that it's not entirely the same as pirating Software v.6.

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## skirkpatrick

It's still the same.  A company's intellectual property rights belong to them in perpetuity, even if they go defunct or are acquired by somebody else (who would then also get the rights).


I agree, the price of some of the software is outlandish (you guys ought to check out the price of professional CAD systems: $60,000 - $100,000.  Or SAP software) and I use alternatives when I can.  If you want the features and the ability of the software, then you need to pay for it whether you can justify the expense or not.  A lot of people complain that they can't afford Photoshop but these people are using it personally, not for a business.  If it was a business, then you write it off as an expense of doing business.

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## willowhisp

> It's still the same.  A company's intellectual property rights belong to them in perpetuity, even if they go defunct or are acquired by somebody else (who would then also get the rights).


I didn't say the intellectual property rights didn't still belong to them, and I said it was probably still illegal. I just meant that it wasn't _entirely_ the same. It's not exactly 'stealing food out of their mouths', but it's still illegal. Legally, it's the same, though it's unlikely (for the most part) that they would bother exercising that, but morally, it's not exactly the same. I'm not saying it's ok, just that it's not exactly the same.

Copyright does expire, but not until some number of years (depending on whether it is officialy authored by a human being, or by a corporation, or on which country the copyright is issued in ) after the death of the original copyright owner.

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## mabhatter

> The Gimp will hardly be a program I use often.
> It's not bad... in fact I used it for some projects, but it lacks one big thing: professional level. As I have mentioned often here on the forum... there are some things you cannot live without when doing some professional work for print: colour profiles, multichannel/duotone/CMYK, proper type tool, good tablet support, actions, batch processing... and son on. some things are present on gimp, but aren't as good... others just miss.
> But hey!
> I imagine that if Gimp was better Adobe would have to work a bit harder... instead of releasing new versions that just are the old one with some cosmetic change... I mean photoshop is not perfect... far from beign it, but since version 7 they haven't really changed a lot...
> 
> What I'd like to see is a mini-Gimp front end to Gimp, that cleaned up the interface to be like photo paint or paintshop pro.. with pretty wizards and "kai" interface.  while keeping the base program underneath.  That would make Gimp more accessable, and not step on toes either.  
> 
> edit: but I think Gimp does not need to be like Photoshop... it's better than paint shop, and there are far more people needing an app for simple photo mainpulation than ppl like me who need it for professional work. Gimp just needs to improve a bit on the interface side I think to be a good solution for these people.


Much of what you mentioned Gimp cannot distribute in the US because of Adobe and other company patents.. so the developers don't spend time working on stuff they can't distribute.  From what I've seen the code is "out there" but the offical sites are hosted by the FSF in the USA, so nobody can "say" where to get it legally.  The other thing missing you mention is filters, but many of them Adobe didn't buy or create either, they just mooch off the community.  But they (adobe) do take the time to get rights/pay money/have lawyers so they can get away with "borrowing" when places like the FSF have to play fair.  Also, remember, that Gimp is an Offical FSF project unlike many others out there.  That means they have to be legal and keep the Free Software philosophy, so no "cheating" for them.

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## skirkpatrick

willowhisp, I understand.  I was just making the statement for others to read.

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## HanZo

> I agree, the price of some of the software is outlandish (you guys ought to check out the price of professional CAD systems: $60,000 - $100,000. Or SAP software) and I use alternatives when I can. If you want the features and the ability of the software, then you need to pay for it whether you can justify the expense or not.


I've been in film business for some time, you know how much a moviecam professinal movie camera costed back then if you wanted to buy one, 180.000 € professional animation software like Toonz was about 15.000 € per licence... if you want to do professional stuff then you need to pay... but it's not like you cannot make a good film with a cheap super8 camera from ebay, ideas are either good or bad but that never depends on the tools you use to make something out of the idea.
so using Photoshop does not mean you work will be better than the work of somebody that uses the Gimp.
just that if you want to work professionaly and you need to fullfill some requirements, then you need certain tools... but then you are working to earn money so it is ok that you have to pay for those tools. that's how the system works.
I don't think that this is a good system, but if we don't want to destroy it (which is certainly an option in some cases) you need to live with it.
the price of a software depends highly on how much they sell, and thus on how specialized the software is.
The above mentioned Moviecam costs a lot because they'll probably sell 20 a year... the same for certain software.
btw... Photoshop does not cost a lot more than Microsoft Office does... at least here in Europe.

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## Ben Sprinkle

Scottish pirate for life.  :Wink:

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