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cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 01:53 AM
The file...
A 40MB pdf

The Mac...
Mac Pro
2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
10GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM
Running Photoshop CS5 in Snow Leopard

The Linux Machine...
Asus Eee PC 1005HA Net-Book
1.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Atom
2GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM
Running Gimp in Ubuntu 10.04 Net-Book Edition

The Test...
Rasterize the 40MB pdf at 900dpi in RGB Color Mode.

The Result...
Surprisingly, the combination of Linux and Gimp, was just barely enough to overcome the shortcomings of the ridiculously inferior hardware in the Net-Book, allowing it to win the race by about 5 seconds.

I honestly DID NOT see that coming.

WOW!!!

I think gimp had allot to do with it, but its still quite a shock.

I kinda feel like I should do it again, and make a Youtube.

At least Macs are more affordable than PC's running Linux.
Wait...
No, I guess Apple doesn't really have anything going for them.
*snip*
I wonder if I could get a hold of their customer contact database, so I can become a bridge salesman.
:D

I guess I am a bit of a hater, but to be fair, I never had a problem with Macs till I started using them.

stmiller
November 9th, 2011, 02:31 AM
Next, replace OS X on that Mac Pro with Linux. :P

cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 02:42 AM
Next, replace OS X on that Mac Pro with Linux. :P

I would certainly hate my job a lot less. LOL
90% of my stress here is Mac related.

Mac hardware is great.
But the software is glitchy at best. (Usually 2+2=4, but sometimes it equals 7)

There seems to be a bit of a ghost in the machine thing going on with OS X.
And the software definitely weighs down the hardware quite a bit.

IMO

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 02:55 AM
Photoshop is still essentially a single-threaded application, and sometimes not a very efficient one.

Still, I'd like to see more info on this. Is the netbook running an SSD? Can you send me the PDF so I can test on my machine?

cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 03:03 AM
Photoshop is still essentially a single-threaded application, and sometimes not a very efficient one.

Still, I'd like to see more info on this. Is the netbook running an SSD? Can you send me the PDF so I can test on my machine?

No SSD, just a regular old fashioned 5400rpm 160GB SATA drive.
Oh, but the Mac pro has a 10,000rpm Velociraptor in it. LOL

Can't really distribute the pdf, cause its work a work related file.

But the result is the same with any pdf.

I have gimp on my mac, and any time I need to rasterize a crazy large file, I use gimp, because it is faster than photoshop.

That is pretty sad that Photoshop is still only single threaded.

Maybe if Adobe spent more time ensuring that their software was better than something people made on the side as a hobby, and less time worrying about piracy, people wouldn't rip them off so much.

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 03:41 AM
I have gimp on my mac, and any time I need to rasterize a crazy large file, I use gimp, because it is faster than photoshop.

Interesting.


Maybe if Adobe spent more time ensuring that their software was better than something people made on the side as a hobby.

As I'm sure you know, the GIMP can't match Photoshop when it comes to high-end retouching and manipulation. Nothing can, which is why Photoshop is still the reigning bitmap manipulation program despite its, and Adobe's, many shortcomings.

cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 03:55 AM
Interesting.



As I'm sure you know, the GIMP can't match Photoshop when it comes to high-end retouching and manipulation. Nothing can, which is why Photoshop is still the reigning bitmap manipulation program despite its, and Adobe's, many shortcomings.

Yes, but the fact that gimp is even comparable should be an embarrassment to Adobe.

I'm pretty sure if gimp was sold at $700 a pop, it would be WAY WAY better than Photoshop in EVERY category.

But thats just my opinion.

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 04:10 AM
Yes, but the fact that gimp is even comparable should be an embarrassment to Adobe.

Not really: it's relatively easy to make a basic bitmap editor. Look at Acorn (http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/) fr'instance.


I'm pretty sure if gimp was sold at $700 a pop, it would be WAY WAY better than Photoshop in EVERY category.

It's not Photoshop's price which makes it good. It's the fact Adobe employs some of the best image manipulation experts and programmers in the world. If the GIMP wants to be that good, the people behind it will have to find workers of equal caliber.

cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 04:38 AM
Not really: it's relatively easy to make a basic bitmap editor. Look at Acorn (http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/) fr'instance.



It's not Photoshop's price which makes it good. It's the fact Adobe employs some of the best image manipulation experts and programmers in the world. If the GIMP wants to be that good, the people behind it will have to find workers of equal caliber.

Yes, but Photoshops price is what allows Adobe to pay those experts.

It goes without saying that the development of gimp would move at a much different rate, if it was not free.

But anyways, were getting beside the point.

I was just very surprised, and impressed that my net-book could hold its own against my Mac at work, armed only with the power of linux and gimp.

And I thought the whole experience was just so unbelievable, that It needed to be shared. :)

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 04:46 AM
Yes, but Photoshops price is what allows Adobe to pay those experts.

It goes without saying that the development of gimp would move at a much different rate, if it was not free.

But anyways, were getting beside the point.

I was just very surprised, and impressed that my net-book could hold its own against my Mac at work, armed only with the power of linux and gimp.

And I thought the whole experience was just so unbelievable, that It needed to be shared. :)

If you always find GIMP to be faster than Photoshop when rasterizing PDFs, I'd guess there's some serious stupidity going on with Photoshop.

cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 05:05 AM
If you always find GIMP to be faster than Photoshop when rasterizing PDFs, I'd guess there's some serious stupidity going on with Photoshop.

Try it some time.

The higher the resolution, the bigger the victory.

Trust me, I work prepress in a print shop.

This is what I do.

I process and prepare hundreds of files everyday.

gimp is not just faster, IT CRUSHES PHOTOSHOP.

Its like watching a Lamborghini race a Kia.

As far as I can tell, its only when rasterizing vector art though.
Everything else seems about the same as far as speed is concerned.

I have also compared the output files in great detail.
It seemed to good to be true, seeing how much faster gimp is.

So I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what gimp was doing wrong, that allowed it to perform so much faster.

But as far as I can tell, the results are the same wether I use gimp, or photoshop.
(Except the results from gimp come back in ~ half the time)

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 05:19 AM
Trust me, I work prepress in a print shop.

One of the things I do, too. However, rasterizing PDFs is a small part of what I do. I usually only do it as an in between step, like when I use a PDF of lo res art as a template to make the hi res.

cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 05:33 AM
ah

Well, if you ever need to rasterize something large, give gimp a whirl.

It will blow your mind.

lol

We are sot-of 2 companies in one.
We have a commercial department, and a retail.

Nothing is ever rasterized for the commercial work because of the quality loss.

But the retail end is gang-run printing.
Geared at being as fast and affordable as possible.

And since its retail...

(John Johnson wants to get some post cards printed for his landscaping company, and wants to save money by designing it himself...)
He also might do his design in photoshop, word, publisher, powerpoint, illustrator, indesign, quark, gimp, ms paint, etc etc.

Believe me, I've seen it all.


Well, we can't assume he did anything correctly, as far as converting fonts to outlines, and NOT having 12 spot colors in his design that is supposed to print cmyk.
And we do not have time to inspect files to that level of detail, because of the amount of orders (300-400 a day)

So all retail orders are rasterized at 300dpi. (Basically, we print 300dpi jpg's on a 40" offset press)
All we do is make sure there is bleed, the resolution is at least 300dpi, and that if the files are not cmyk, we make sure the colors do not change dramatically when we convert to cmyk.

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 05:50 AM
So all retail orders are rasterized at 300dpi. (Basically, we print 300dpi jpg's on a 40" offset press)

Among other toys we have a 44" Epson 9900 which auto verifies and does GRACol to .5 ∆E. It's a joy to behold.

cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 06:01 AM
Among other toys we have a 44" Epson 9900 which auto verifies and does GRACol to .5 ∆E. It's a joy to behold.

How about that, we have the same one.

But we mainly just use it for printing color proofs.

75% of out work is done on a Mitsubishi 40" offset press.
The rest goes on out Ryobi 30", or our Canon Digital Press.

You guys mostly do large format?
Banners, signs, etc?

madjr
November 9th, 2011, 06:05 AM
Great experiment.

Am just hoping soon to get my hands on v2.8 !

i think it's popularity will increase at least 30% more.

and with adaptableGimp (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/adaptable-gimp-gimp-easy-windows-linux/) literally anyone can learn it super fast too.

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 06:13 AM
How about that, we have the same one.

But we mainly just use it for printing color proofs.

75% of out work is done on a Mitsubishi 40" offset press.
The rest goes on out Ryobi 30", or our Canon Digital Press.

You guys mostly do large format?
Banners, signs, etc?

Ad agency, so we do some of everything, but we don't print any of it. The Epsons are used for color proofs, posters, some banners. All of our files go out to vendors for printing, but we do all the retouching and most of the pre-press in house.

cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 06:14 AM
Ad agency, so we do some of everything, but we don't print any of it. The Epsons are used for color proofs, posters, some banners. All of our files go out to vendors for printing, but we do all the retouching and most of the pre-press in house.

Where do you get your printing done?
I'm not a salesman, but I gotta ask.

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 06:19 AM
Where do you get your printing done?
I'm not a salesman, but I gotta ask.

We don't control that: the clients bid the job. We send it to the client, who sends the files on. We will sometimes send the job directly to the vendor--especially if it's overseas or a booth--but we just send where we're told.

cbanakis
November 9th, 2011, 06:24 AM
We don't control that: the clients bid the job. We send it to the client, who sends the files on. We will sometimes send the job directly to the vendor--especially if it's overseas or a booth--but we just send where we're told.

ah, we'll were just outside of chicago

www.m13.com

if any interest ever arrises.

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 06:27 AM
ah, we'll were just outside of chicago

www.m13.com

if any interest ever arrises.

Thanks.

wolfen69
November 9th, 2011, 07:15 AM
I havn't looked thru every post, but has someone else done gimp vs. ps? It might be interesting, but in the end doesn't mean much. PS users will stay with PS. But gimp is incredible, considering it's free.

Legendary_Bibo
November 9th, 2011, 07:22 AM
I own a copy of CS4 PS and I always go to Gimp for image editing. I know the UI of Gimp, and I find PS's UI a bit convoluted.

If we were comparing Illustrator to Inkscape, Illustrator trumps it.

wolfen69
November 9th, 2011, 07:36 AM
I own a copy of CS4 PS and I always go to Gimp for image editing. I know the UI of Gimp, and I find PS's UI a bit convoluted.

If we were comparing Illustrator to Inkscape, Illustrator trumps it.

Yeah, it just depends on your needs. If that includes Illustrator, good for you. But to me, GIMP is overkill. :P But I totally understand if something else suits you.

alphacrucis2
November 9th, 2011, 01:03 PM
Great experiment.

Am just hoping soon to get my hands on v2.8 !

i think it's popularity will increase at least 30% more.

and with adaptableGimp (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/adaptable-gimp-gimp-easy-windows-linux/) literally anyone can learn it super fast too.

I compiled gimp 2.7.3 a couple of weeks ago to try it out. You can enable the single window mode. I didn't really mind the old interface but it is a bit weird with unity.

forrestcupp
November 9th, 2011, 04:17 PM
Not really: it's relatively easy to make a basic bitmap editor. Look at Acorn (http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/) fr'instance.

I hope you're not comparing Gimp to a "basic bitmap editor". :)

Gimp isn't just some simple, basic-featured editor app that was thrown together using someone else's premade toolkit. Let's not forget that the folks at the Gimp are the same ones who created GTK (Gimp Tool Kit) that holds it all together.

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 04:36 PM
I hope you're not comparing Gimp to a "basic bitmap editor". :)


Compared to Photoshop's high end features, a lot of the GIMP is pretty basic. I'm not insulting the GIMP--it's great for what it does, and it's a good tool depending on what you use it for. But it can't go toe to toe with Photoshop. Nothing can, which is why we all use it despite pretty much constant bitching about Adobe.

c.cobb
November 9th, 2011, 05:46 PM
But it [GIMP] can't go toe to toe with Photoshop. Nothing can, which is why we all use it despite pretty much constant bitching about Adobe.

Well said. Not having Photoshop would have been a real show stopper when I switched full-time to Ubuntu earlier this year. Been using it since v3.0 (the orig 3.0 in '94, not CS3), when I started doing graphics for the Web. Here's a funny side-by-side screen shot (http://ccobb.net/misc/ubuntu/winxp/Photoshop_and_Gimp.html) of these two. Well, funny to me anyway. . . and no, it's not 'shopped. :-) Very nice that Ubuntu supports a wacom tablet, even if there are occasional hiccups.

HiImTye
November 9th, 2011, 05:53 PM
GIMP may be faster but it doesn't have the Hover Hand (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gtnz2oy53s) tool :"(

BBQdave
November 9th, 2011, 05:59 PM
I hope you're not comparing Gimp to a "basic bitmap editor". :)

Gimp isn't just some simple, basic-featured editor app that was thrown together using someone else's premade toolkit. Let's not forget that the folks at the Gimp are the same ones who created GTK (Gimp Tool Kit) that holds it all together.

Stepped away from Mac at 10.4 (which I liked); Used Ubuntu 10.04LTS and now Debian6 (which I really like) and I appreciate and like the combination of GIMP and SCRIBUS for desktop publishing.

Nothing against Adobe, but GIMP and SCRIBUS allow me to be creative and productive; and for the same benefit in Adobe, I can not justify the cost.

dpny
November 9th, 2011, 06:12 PM
Well said. Not having Photoshop would have been a real show stopper when I switched full-time to Ubuntu earlier this year. Been using it since v3.0 (the orig 3.0 in '94, not CS3), when I started doing graphics for the Web. Here's a funny side-by-side screen shot (http://ccobb.net/misc/ubuntu/winxp/Photoshop_and_Gimp.html) of these two. Well, funny to me anyway. . . and no, it's not 'shopped. :-) Very nice that Ubuntu supports a wacom tablet, even if there are occasional hiccups.

Photoshop's funny, because it gets used for a lot of things for which it's massive overkill just because it's so pervasive. I use it at home to mess with the pictures from my little 5 MP point and shoot camera just because I've been using Photoshop for so long it's second nature. But I could easily use the GIMP, or Acorn, or even the basic editing tools built into any image management program. Same is true with businesses: it gets used a lot because it's there and it's know. But it really is like using a Ferrari to run errands.

c.cobb
November 10th, 2011, 02:44 AM
But I could easily use the GIMP, or Acorn, or even the basic editing tools built into any image management program. But it [Photoshop] really is like using a Ferrari to run errands.

Acorn looks great; too bad I don't use my little Macbook much anymore. One thing I haven't found on basic image apps for Linux is the ability for cut 'n paste to combine images. That's really handy for screen shots when doing examples and tutorials. Do you know of any small-ish, native Linux apps that provide this?

And, well yeah, but life's short... and a Ferrari is fun to run anytime :)

dpny
November 10th, 2011, 02:48 AM
Do you know of any small-ish, native Linux apps that provide this?

Sorry: any image editing I do is on Photoshop on my Mac. Like I said, I've been using the program so long I don't even think about it.

alphacrucis2
November 10th, 2011, 03:01 AM
One thing I haven't found on basic image apps for Linux is the ability for cut 'n paste to combine images. That's really handy for screen shots when doing examples and tutorials. Do you know of any small-ish, native Linux apps that provide this?




Maybe pinta would do what you want. I haven't tried it myself so I can't say for sure.

c.cobb
November 10th, 2011, 03:23 AM
Maybe pinta would do what you want. I haven't tried it myself so I can't say for sure.

Hey, thanks for the pointer. Don't have a build env on my laptop tonight, but will definitely give this a go tomorrow. Not much docco, but looking at some of the source files, it seems that it has a lot of goodies in the toolbox.
Cheers,

Bandit
November 10th, 2011, 05:36 AM
Interesting.



As I'm sure you know, the GIMP can't match Photoshop when it comes to high-end retouching and manipulation. Nothing can, which is why Photoshop is still the reigning bitmap manipulation program despite its, and Adobe's, many shortcomings.

I am Pro GIMP %210. But your right.

Take a 3000px by 1200px image or larger and GIMP starts to shake at the knees when it comes to rendering images.

But over all I prefer GIMP when drawing from scratch while photo retouching is superb in Photoflop.

Lucradia
November 10th, 2011, 07:36 AM
Once gimp fine tunes enough and adds adjustment layers by default, GIMP will be the exact same thing as photoshop, but free, and better.

dpny
November 10th, 2011, 08:41 AM
Once gimp fine tunes enough and adds adjustment layers by default, GIMP will be the exact same thing as photoshop, but free, and better.

Uh, no. That's like saying once you add some more speed to your i3 it will be just as good as as a Xeon.

Is the GIMP a good tool for a lot of bitmap work? Yes. Is it just a little fine tuning away from being feature-complete with Photoshop? No.

misterbiskits
November 10th, 2011, 08:56 AM
Interested to see a proper benchmarking where the computer running PhotoShop is not crippled by 2+2=7 errors...

dpny
November 10th, 2011, 09:08 AM
Interested to see a proper benchmarking where the computer running PhotoShop is not crippled by 2+2=7 errors...

Good review of GIMP from Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2009/01/gimp-2-6-review.ars) from a few years ago.

cbanakis
November 10th, 2011, 09:17 AM
Interested to see a proper benchmarking where the computer running PhotoShop is not crippled by 2+2=7 errors...

LOL

All I know is that gimp running in ubuntu on a 1.6 Intel atom can open a pdf faster than photoshop can on a 2.8 quad xeon mac pro.

And thats just sad.

See original post, if you didn't already.

Pretty crazy

misterbiskits
November 11th, 2011, 03:19 AM
So which is it, it can open a pdf file faster, or rasterize the pdf faster? your first post says the netbook beat the mac by 5 seconds...a later post says it takes half the time...which is it?
I suppose it's possible that photoshop isn't properly threading the process, but the specs on the mac are so much higher than the netbook that even the worst imaginable coding on photoshop's part couldn't explain the difference...I'd say there's something seriously wrong with your mac, maybe overheating or something. Not sure how swap space works on the mac but if there's not enough it really bogs down photoshop on the pc. 2+2=7???
I'm tempted to try it out but I am dual booting Windows 7 64 bit vs 32 bit ubuntu so not a fair comparison.
Also, photoshop fan here. Have little familiarity with the Gimp. I did google around but found nothing definitive...here's a review in favour of ps.

http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/82120-the-best-hardware-for-photo-editing/4

"Compared to GIMP, Photoshop is basically running at NASCAR speeds compared to the bumper cars at Disneyworld: There is no comparison"

meh. Good enough for me.

cbanakis
November 12th, 2011, 01:23 AM
So which is it, it can open a pdf file faster, or rasterize the pdf faster? your first post says the netbook beat the mac by 5 seconds...a later post says it takes half the time...which is it?
I suppose it's possible that photoshop isn't properly threading the process, but the specs on the mac are so much higher than the netbook that even the worst imaginable coding on photoshop's part couldn't explain the difference...I'd say there's something seriously wrong with your mac, maybe overheating or something. Not sure how swap space works on the mac but if there's not enough it really bogs down photoshop on the pc. 2+2=7???
I'm tempted to try it out but I am dual booting Windows 7 64 bit vs 32 bit ubuntu so not a fair comparison.
Also, photoshop fan here. Have little familiarity with the Gimp. I did google around but found nothing definitive...here's a review in favour of ps.

http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/82120-the-best-hardware-for-photo-editing/4

"Compared to GIMP, Photoshop is basically running at NASCAR speeds compared to the bumper cars at Disneyworld: There is no comparison"

meh. Good enough for me.

Gimp running on my Mac, opens/rasterizes pdfs in less than half the time of photoshop running on my mac.

Gimp running on my netbook, just barely beats out photoshop on my mac.

There is nothing wrong with my mac. (Other than having OS X on it)
I realize how crazy it is, which is why I posted it.

Opening and Rasterizing are the same thing, in terms of a vector pdf in photoshop and gimp.


AND Yes, I believe it is a combination of poor coding in photoshop, and OS X that allow the net-book to beat the mac pro.

Dont get me wrong, Photoshop is better than Gimp.
But for some reason Gimp is faster. (Especially when it comes to pdf files)

Keep in mind that I am referring to vector based pdfs (Basically the standard)

There is also a thing called a photoshop pdf.
Those do not need to be rasterized, because they are basically just psd files with a pdf extension.

Momof9Blessings
December 21st, 2011, 09:24 PM
So I guess I can't run CS3 in wine??? I am using Ubuntu 11.10 and I can't get it to install.... boohoo

I guess I will be removing Ubuntu and going back to Vista..... I use CS3 every day.... :(

Momof9Blessings
January 17th, 2012, 04:37 PM
I DID get CS5 working in WINE - works great other than a few quirks.... :)

CoffeeRain
January 17th, 2012, 04:50 PM
I would think the results are a lot about Photoshop itself, and how the Mac hardware counteracts that. Photoshop is a big application made by Adobe. Of course it's going to be slow! Mac has great hardware, so using gimp with bad hardware and Photoshop with good hardware is going to make it come almost equal.

Simian Man
January 17th, 2012, 05:04 PM
This experiment doesn't really say much about Gimp/Photoshop or Linux/OS X. It just says Photoshop is slow at that particular task. I would guess that the difference is simply that Photoshop was only using one core while Gimp spread the work across all available cores.

neu5eeCh
January 17th, 2012, 07:12 PM
If the GIMP wants to be that good, the people behind it will have to find workers of equal caliber.

Last I heard, the "people" behind the GIMP were... wait for it...


wait for it...


..........................2.

Maybe that's changed in the meantime?

mlr266
January 18th, 2012, 06:40 AM
Even if Gimp were not free, it would still give PS a run for the money. Since it is free, it is so much better.