AndyGarcia

Hello,

Whilist I have found your posts very interesting I did not realise we were discussing Business software applications. I thought we were talking about PP S/W for largely amateur use?

Your argument reminds of the "anyone who uses Apple Computers in a Business Application must be mad" back in the 90s. Apple will never survive.....

Finally whilst I'm sure all your arguments about Adobe Products in your publication are 100% valid they do not transfer to the world of PP, in my very humble opinion. The addiction to L/R & Photoshop reminds me so much of the Wintel addiction of the past.

Me I'm into AlienSkin Exposure X3, ON1 Photo RAW and Luminar.....

All the best from sunny Costa Rica.

btbg

No I havent I have said in both cases that I am willing to pay more for a better product. That's not a contradiction.

btbg

We were discussing post processing software and the fact that one of the reasons that photoshop is so good is because of how seamlessly it meshes with business software. My argument was and is that as dollar conscious as businesses are the fact that they universally use photoshop shows it's superiority.

Glad you find this discussion interesting. So do I.

I think it's great that there are lower cost alternatives for post processing. I just think that some of the rationale why some on this site are so anti Adobe make no sense. When I last tried Luminar six months ago it wasn't ready for prime time. Maybe it is now. On 1 Photo Raw I am considering buying to go with photoshop because it does have some advantages for home use, not so much for work.

Enjoy Costa Rica. Would love to go there.

AndyGarcia

Thanks for your response. In the end it is whatever works for you and your particular needs and circumstances. I just happen to love AlienSkin Exposure X3. There are so many choices these days it's fabulous for us all.

If you ever head to Costa Rica PM me!

Pura Vida from Playa Tamarindo in the Green Season.

Tomcat5133 Loc: Gladwyne PA

Thanks for your response it is very interesting. I don't equate Adobe's 30 or 40 suite program to a Rolex or Leica. I did own a Leica. These are very upscale products.
And frankly luxury products with big brand development over the years. Their are options to watches and Hasselblad's. Their are no options that come close
to Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, Lightroom, Premiere etc. These are stand alone software products that mostly everyone uses in marketing, illustration and business.
Every ad and brochure at the bank probably was created with Indesign. High percent of photos are photoshopped. Their are buildings in NY with Photoshop artists
creating your magazine editorial and high end retouching for marketing brands. Lightroom is the go to for photographers for a long time. My point is we are being
asked to buy a fleet of ships instead of a boat to have these software tools that are indispensable. A major problem today is over reach of software companies
intruding into our work and life. Facebook is intrusive. And I good friend who is an art director and I take about when you might drop out of Adobe in the future
you will not be able to open your legacy files created in the CC series. We are not sure. Good luck.

Quantus5

Again -- you may want to re look at my examples. The fact, that a business is dominant in a market -- i.e. a market share leader does not mean it has product superiority.

Your logic is taking a very shaky jump.

Again there are many reasons for market share leadership: Leadership, operational offices, superior marketing, distribution channels, superior finances, etc...

I gave three examples of market share leaders where the product is arguably not superior to companies that had smaller market share. McDonald (burgers), HP (personal computers and laptops), and Anheuser-Busch InBev (beer). I can easily come up with many more.

So if your assertion is correct -- i.e. that if a company is dominant in a market (like PP software in Newspaper companies) then does that means McDonald's has the best fast food?, HP makes the best laptops?, and Anheuser-Busch InBev makes the best beer?. I'm sure the person with the Dell or the Apple Macbook would disagree with you, or the person that prefers Lagunitas over the Anheuser-Busch InBev family of beers would disagree with you. Although maybe the guy that likes HP laptops might agree with you. :-)

Again -- "best" and "superior" are subjective terms.

Yes -- based on what you have said I would agree that Adobe PS/LR is "best" for you.

However for me and probably about 50% of the UHHers -- it is definitely not. For some it is PS/LR, for some PSE, for some Luminar, others Capture 1, others Affinity, and others Paint Shop Pro, others Google Photos, others Picassa, others FastStone, etc...

And I'll make a very interesting comment -- it's actually a good thing for people that like/use PS/LR, that there is a lot of competition and a lot of great choices and options. If there wasn't Adobe would be a lot more expensive than $120 a year subscription. Competition keeps Adobe from raising it's prices.

btbg

You are correct that market share is not proof of the quality of a product. I also agree with you that it is a good thing that photoshop has some competitors.

However, the fact that a company has market share dominance also doesn't mean that the product is inferior. Photoshop doesn't have market share because of their marketing genius. Photoshop has market share because it is the best product for commercial jobs.

I repeat, newspapers aren't very profitable. Our newspaper corporation spends at least $69,000 per year on adobe products. They aren't doing this to throw money away. This isn't a matter of going to McDonalds because it's available and everyone else is doing it. They are using adobe because it is the best product for their needs. Not necessarily photoshop on its own, rather the comprehensive suite of products that they provide.

If it was up to me we would use lightroom at work if for no other reason than cataloging and archiving photos. Unfortunately we don't do that even though we pay for the product. Instead of continuing to give examples of companies who have market share, but so so products, consider any other possible reasons you can think of for why a company would pay for a product they don't even use. You don't seem to be able to get past your market share fixation in spite of the reality that our company doesn't buy photoshop and the other adobe software in their suites because it has market share. We use it because it does the job more efficiently than any of the alternatives and that is worth the extra cost.

Two nights ago I purchased On 1. When I opened it and went to use it I initially thought that I had wasted my money. I closed the program and was very disappointed about how images are imported into the product. So I closed the program. I will probably never open it again. However, when I reopened photoshop I discovered that On 1 had automatically inserted itself into photoshop as a plug-in. It works great as a plug-in and I will probably use it fairly regularly as a plug-in, just not as a stand alone program.

One of the things that all of the detractors of photoshop and lightroom don't seem to recognize is that if I were to choose On 1 or Luminar, or Paint Shop Pro, or you pick the software, as my primary software then I would have to run most of the other post processing software that I might choose to use as stand alone programs. But If I choose Photoshop and Lightroom as my primary post processing software virtually any other software that I might choose to use will work as a plug in to Photoshop. Just that fact gives Photoshop and Lightroom a major advantage over other software. Example for a photoshop user On 1 has a significant learning curve, but the On 1 plug-in to Photoshop has virtually no learning curve.

I don't buy hamburgers based on which has the largest sales. I don't buy computers based on who has the largest market share. I don't buy beer at all, so I can't really comment on that. I don't buy post processing software on that basis either. It has nothing to do with market share, and in all cases I am willing to pay extra to get the features that I want.

As far as best or superior being subjective, there is a degree of subjectivity in all of the above choices. Not everyone will choose the same hamburger, or beer, or computer, or obviously software. However, there is also a quantifiable piece to the puzzle. For cost and for ease of use Photoshop isn't the best software choice since there are obviously other software choices which are cheaper and more automatic to use. By the same token if you evaluate software based on criteria such as customization, integration with other software, features, frequency of updates, etc... you will get a different list of what is best.

Each of us will have to decide for ourselves what is the best value for what we are willing to pay versus what features we want. I'm glad that you are happy with your software choices. The reality is that they just won't work for my job. That makes photoshop quantifiably better. That doesn't mean that it is better for you, or for many other people on UHH. But if we had to use On 1 or luminar, or Picassa or Faststone, to process photos and Page Serif Pro to do page layout, it would be very difficult to put out our product. For many professional uses Adobe is quantifiably the superior product. It will do everything any other post processing product will do, plus everything else that any other software will do as well.

You can obviously find products that do one thing better than photoshop, maybe even a series of things, but there is no single product that does the entire range of things that Adobe products do as efficiently. No product that you have named has the flexibility or power of photoshop. They may be fine products in their own rite. There may be compelling reasons for an individual to choose them. They may even work better for certain applications than Adobe products, and I'm glad that you are happy with your choices, but to claim that any of those products are the equal to photoshop just shows that you don't fully understand how to use the full power of photoshop and the other Adobe products. And once again, that's fine. I could care less what products others use. I just get tired of people denigrating Adobe for reasons that just aren't true.

Basically it can be summed up like this. Adobe is a line of professional products that are also available to anyone else at a reasonable price. Although there are professionals who use one or more of the other products, they are largely products designed for amateurs or individuals, or in some cases even as add ons for Adobe products rather than designed as stand alone products for business use. As much as I like what On 1 does as a plug-in for photoshop I would be unable to do my job if I was forced to rely solely on On 1. On the other hand if I had to get rid of all of my plug-ins, I could still do my job just fine with only Adobe products.

The argument that people should be using is that other products are a better value, and good enough for most individuals, rather than claiming that some other product is as good as photoshop. It just isn't true.

Preachdude Loc: Geneva, OH

Have you considered the DxO Optics Pro 11? I begin post-processing by having it convert the raw file. It has some powerful tools. From there I take images to PS Essentials and/or Photomatix Pro, although I don't always want to use Photomatix. It depends on the image.

Bill_de Loc: US

These are always entertaining threads.

When I buy a car I don't look for the one that does everything, but I do look for the one that does everything I want/need.

I look at software the same way. I don't need a package that does everything, just one that does what I need.

I'm pretty sure based on what I read in the forums and images I see that a good percentage of folks never learn 10% of whatever software they are using. Buying the "best" software, like buying the "best" camera, doesn't make your images better.

--

James Slick Loc: Pittsburgh,PA

cabbageseed

The same applies to equipment

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Although I've been using PS for more than 10 years now, I'm probably approaching the 10% level. I strongly doubt that I will use the other 90% of its capabilities.

However, it affords me the opportunity to learn something new. And I think it's good to be in danger of learning something.

(Same comment probably applies to my camera bodies [although I think that level is above 10% by now]).

James Slick Loc: Pittsburgh,PA

I'm probably up to a 43% level on my PP (In my case GIMP), However am almost at 11.3% on my cameras, LOL.

BTW: As always my opinion is to use what works for you and your objective, This applies to software, cameras, firearms, vehicles... I love that I have options!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

"Any statistic quoted to more than 1 significant figure has been made up on the spot"

James Slick Loc: Pittsburgh,PA

99.8675309% of statistics are B.S. anyways, LOL