Photoshop total dominance?

[Don Hoey]

I guess I will be the out of step one here as I use Paint Shop Pro 7 and 8. Runs a shed load faster on my slightly OLD laptop. Tried Photoshop when I got Genuine Fractals but it slowed my machine to a crawl. Fortunatly PSP8 can handle GF so bought that.

Most impressed with Genuine Fractals. I only have an A4 printer, but printed the Nikon F2AS picture in the gallery over 6 sheets and was totally amazed at the quality, and thats from a 6 megapixel D100. Definately a touch of digital Technical Pan.

[Karl_R]

I think we are seeing with Photoshop the same thing that happened to VHS over Betamax (wow - how old am I ? ? ?) - one system is perceived as the "standard" and so it becomes the standard.

I run CS2 because my employer has to use Photoshop to ensure file compatability with other companies and it is what I have always used. I agree it is not a simple programme for new users to become familiar with but even after many years intensive use I honestly think I probably only use about 30% of the functions available.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Karl_R

.... but even after many years intensive use I honestly think I probably only use about 30% of the functions available.

30% is mighty impresive, I was thinking that I use no more than about 5-10% of it's full capabilities... and I guess most photographers would use about the same.

[Annette]

Hi Steve
When I bought my canon 350d it came with the photoshop elements 2 as standard software. I love it and find it very easy and effective to use. Having said that I have never used the pro versions so cant really comment on how different it is. For the beginner/intermediate though elements is great!

[hollis_f]

Originally Posted by Karl_R

I think we are seeing with Photoshop the same thing that happened to VHS over Betamax (wow - how old am I ? ? ?) - one system is perceived as the "standard" and so it becomes the standard.

The difference is that VHS didn't cost 4x as much as it's competitor. I'd love to use Photoshop, mainly for all the tutorials that I see online and in the magazines. But there's no way I can justify spending that amount of money when I can get something very similar for a fraction of the cost.

Of course, I could do what most PS users do and get myself an illegal copy. The problem is I've got morals that won't allow me to do that. So, for another year at least I'll be sticking to PaintShopPro and probably having to ignore 25% of the content of this forum.

[Andy]

And Betamax was the better of the two..and Phillips V2000 better still

[robski]

I suspect my line of work is quite closely aligned with Karl's. I work for a company that develops and supplies systems to the printing industry ( mainly newspaper not to be confused with photo printing). Adobe got a strong foot hold in the print industry when it developed PostScript which became the standard (universal) printing langauge. Up untill this point each vendor supplied their own bespoke langauge which was not compatible with other vendors systems.

At the same time they developed their own Raster Image Processors (RIP) which takes the PostScript Language code and converts it to a bitmap format for imaging film, paper or press plates with lasers.

Photoshop started it development path at the same time and became sucessful for much the same reasons as PostScript did. The Raster Image Processor code (CPSI) is now imbedded in most of their technology now.
e.g Photoshop, illustrator, Acrobat for pdf and so on.

So Photoshop is accepted as the standard because of it's compatability. Fortunately for us Adobe have added a host of nice features for digital photography because newpapers are now using digital cameras.

Adobe have their faults but generally their software is very good.

With regards to VHS and betamax. VHS became the standard in the UK mainly because it was the only format that your local video hire shops would supply.

Oddly enough Betamax was the standard in Turkey for some reason.
( I just had a flash back to my previous life as a TV & Video Service dept manager) Ok the dizzy spell gone I am OK now.

Rob

[robski]

Originally Posted by Andy

And Betamax was the better of the two..and Phillips V2000 better still

Very true Andy

What killed V2000 was the poor reliability and low video head life.

VHS hi-jacked many of the developments of betamax and V2000 which made VHS a very acceptable product in the end.

Yes Frank Photoshop was developed for commercial users who have to make their living with it. It was never intended for a hobbist with a box brownie at home. Hence the cut down version elements. I am lucky I get a copy via my work as I need it to test our software and investigate customer problems.

Another issue is related to file and compression formats - the cheaper versions of software don't support all formats because they won't pay for the royalties and licences required to use them.

What has helped Adode is that Thomas Knoll "Mr Photoshop development guru" is a keen photographer so CS1 and CS2 have come on in leaps and bounds with regards to photo editing.

Robert

[rb_stern]

Hi,

I use Elements 3 - which, for about a fifth of the price does 90% of what PS CS2 can do as far as I can make out from reading articles and on the web. It certainly does the usual manipulations, and handles layers etc. When I have tried to do something fancy and looked it up in a Photoshop book or web site, so far I have always been able to do it with Elements 3, with a few exceptions such as Lab color and Actions.

Richard

[windyridge50]

In reply to the question about elements 4. It is actually quite good. I bought my wife the Fuji the S9500 to supplement her SLR when travelling light and then found that although the current dng converter works with the RAF files they still couldn't be read in CS so I bought elements 4 which does support the current dng/RAF files to try the camera out and was surprised how much Elements gives you for~£60. For a lot of people it would be all they need to start to master photoshop. I've since upgraded to CS2 simply to get access to the HDR command and the lens correction filters which alone are almost worth the £125 upgrade cost from Misco.