Microsoft Pauses Work on 'Photoshop Killer' 212
daria42 writes "According to this article, Microsoft has paused development work on some parts of the pro graphics application it first released in beta back in June 2005. The problem? It appears the software giant doesn't see the application as a stand-alone product, but more of a companion piece to its Expression product line. Plus Vista needs to be released first."
The Cliché of "Killer" (Score:5, Insightful)
So where does that leave the readers? I'm pretty sick and tired of hearing the word 'killer' used to describe a new product that aims to (hopefully) usurp the leading product in the market. That's it! Let's start using the word 'usurper' over and over to describe a product. It's hip, it generates hype, run with it!
I'm fine with having my intelligence insulted when I read the comments. Hell, I'd even be fine with having low brow advertising on
Expression vs. Creative Suite or iLife? (Score:2, Insightful)
Rudderless Ship? (Score:5, Insightful)
I notice too, that they haven't bought anyone out recently. They probably should, because they certainly haven't had much luck with any new product development. UMPC (or, "Newton XP") is going to be DOA.
Instead of "Developers! Developers! Developers!", Balmer needs to be jumping around screaming "Ideas! Ideas! Ideas! Ideas! Ideas! Ideas!"
Editorial slant (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Then it's not a "Photoshop Killer" (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not what about what 'can be done', but what would make them the most product. This approach is:
1) Publish 4 as a bundle, which is just as cheap to mass produce as 1 standalone would be.
2) Sell the bundle of 4 at the cost of 3.
4) Profit! The customer thinks they are getting a good deal, though they probably won't regularly use more than 1 of the 4 products.
Re:The Cliché of "Killer" (Score:4, Insightful)
- layer styles, including shadows. In Photoshop, you can add a shadow and change it any way you like in something like 5 mouse clicks. The shadow will change if the object changes. Now, Gimp doesn't have any stuff for making shadows at all. So, to make a shadow, you have to duplicate the layer, fill the duplicate with black (or any other color), and blur it. And of course if you draw something on the original layer, you'll have to delete the shadow and draw a new one.
- save for web
- photoshop has more filters, and many can be actually useful
- shadows/highlight (first appeared in Photoshop CS)
If you are doing simple photo editing (brightness/contrast, color levels, resize), Gimp or Krita or Gwenview or even ACDSee will suit you well. If you have never used Photoshop, you'll also have no difficulties in using Gimp.
However when you switch from Photoshop to Gimp you'll be lacking lots of these small-but-useful features that make a 30 second task in Photoshop something like 10 minutes Googling when using Gimp.
Re:Rudderless Ship? (Score:1, Insightful)
They bought Onfolio five days ago.
To add to the guessworking (Score:5, Insightful)
That way, some kinda graphics program is already on your machine when you have Office (and what office doesn't?), it's another thing that you can hand to marketing in an attempt to make OpenOffice look worse, and in a generation or two, they might start to create some "professional" or "enterprize" standalone version when they hit Adobe's market hard enough, when people got used to their "standard".
MS isn't in a hurry. Taking over a market someone else claimed takes time, and time is what they have plenty of.
Re:Expression vs. Creative Suite or iLife? (Score:4, Insightful)
Expression was neat at the time, but the stylus illustrator plugin improved on it and illustrator 9 or 10 blew it out of the water.
Also, I really see this "Photoshop Killer" being Paint Shop Pro on steroids. I honestly can't see microsoft competing in the pro market at all. The only competing they do is when we get the do-it-yourselfers sending us M$ Publisher files or Powerpoint files that are to be used for output; which results in us needing to rebuild their files from the elements, if possible. or just do a complete re-create.
all I can say is 'ugh.'
Re:I tried it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. In fact, if they bundled Paint.NET [wsu.edu] in with Windows, then this would be perfectly adequate for the vast majority of people. It is that good.
I'm not sure how well Paint.NET stacks up in terms of features against the GIMP. My own personal experience was that it was easier to use, the UI was logical and I was productive with it in a matter of minutes - whereas GIMP just had me getting frustrated and going nowhere quickly.
Cart before the horse (Score:1, Insightful)
MS not synonymous with creativity (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Editorial slant (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is not even talking on its website about anything that could position it against Photoshop.
Just see by yourself
http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/g
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/overview.
When you tried to 'kill' another product, you generally start to match its features, in this case, both feature list have almost nothing in common.
For me that doesn't make more sense that saying Adobe Illustrator is a Photoshop killer.
BTW, this has already been discussed:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/11/18512
expression (Score:5, Insightful)
My biggest worry is that microsoft might suck the soul out of this truly innovative product. It is light-years ahead of any painting program (Which is why MS had to buy it, because to allow it to be independent might mean that its own paint programs might have been out compete, however unlikely, snce it did not have a major distributer around the time it was bought out by MS.) especially if it is used in the right context.
calling it photoshop-killer or positioning it against photoshop is not really the right strategy. Photoshop's core metaphor is that of a photo, so photoshop is especially deft at after effects applied to a photo or the compositing of existing photos. (I'm sure there are people who break the metaphor and create masterpiece digital paintings from photoshop, but nonetheless, original graphics is not photoshop's main domain.) Expression gives you canvas, paint, and a magical brush.
Time will tell what will happen to this product, here's hoping that it doesn't die at microsoft's hands.
Re:MS not synonymous with creativity (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't make Oldsmobiles and then expect to put out the #1 selling sports car in the field as well. GM is just not identified with slick sports cars. Yeah, they have one (the Pontiac Grand Prix), but it's certainly not a top seller.
Why Why Why Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'd like a Photoshop replacement (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MS not synonymous with creativity (Score:3, Insightful)
GM is just not identified with slick sports cars. Yeah, they have one (the Pontiac Grand Prix), but it's certainly not a top seller.
Yeah, that Japanese made Corvette sure is putting GM to shame! Um...wait a minute...
why "default" isnt necessary enough (Score:2, Insightful)
"Old and useless? Ebay that shit." (ebay.com)
"Wanna know more about me? Facebook me." (facebook.com)
"Blog it." (blog.com)
"Sneeze? Use a kleenex."
"Red eye? Photoshop it." (Photoshop)
It's not very easy to unseat the champion when its name is synonymous to the activity it is dominating in.
Re:Yeah, Great... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah, great. Try using the Gimp for, say, color separations and pre-press stuff. Try using Paint Shop Pro for that.
PhotoShop was always more than cropping pictures and optimizing them for the web! It was designed to prepare images for print production. If you don't need those features, then maybe something else will work. If you DO need those features, then PhotoShop is the standard tool, and as usual, the cost of that tool is in the noise compared with the revenue one derives from using it.
Re:The Cliché of "Killer" (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and this is all scriptable in Photshop, both visually (via recording your actions) and programmatically (via JavaScript).
Yeah, it might be a little less convenient to do this in aptly named GIMP.
The GIMP is so laughably pathetic compared to Photoshop that only someone who hasn't actually done anything significant with either would compare the two.
Ok, for the Final Time, it was NEVER one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do the idiots writing this stuff or posting reference to this crap even use Photoshop in their life, let alone the MS product?
As a developer, it was VERY CLEAR from MS to us DEVELOPERS that Acrylic was a new XAML based drawing application FOR MAKING WINDOWS WPF/WinFX APPLICATION AND WEBSITES.
PERIOD.
The features it offers are not even comparable to Photoshop, the closest product on the market that would be 'comparable', would be Deneba Canvas, but Acrylic Designer has NO WHERE NEAR the features set or even tries to.
It is made to make Graphics in XAML format to be put into the "Interactive Designer" or dropped directly in a WPF/Vista/WinFX application, as they are in XAML format.
Why XAML? Because the elements are common objects and not just lines, and can be accessed and programmed to react or move as the application requests, not to be a new 'picture' format or even a SVG killer. I can take a freaking XAML ID/NAME tag and have the line move, reshape, float around, respond to a user clicking it, and all in a 3D Space.
And XAML itself can also define 'behaviors' for the elements in the file format. Not something a normal standard like SVG even tries to do. When SVG is for designing Windows applicaions and can define not only visual elements but also can do object collision and movement, then we will talk.
I get so tired of the "SVG Killer, Flash Killer, Photoshop Killer, Acrobat Killer, blah, blah, blah..."
(And Flash is the closest to reality with expression and XAML, as some people have went on to write little application that are Flash based, although it is not powerful enough to write full scale Windows applications, and here is where the difference lies, not to mention the level of programming difference, the full 3D workspace and design environemnt Microsoft has created.)
Flash will live on doing what it does, but it won't be used to make Windows Applications... Geesh.
MS Expression are tools and technologies for DEVELOPING applications in the new 'Presenation Layer' concept of Windows Vista and WinFX runtime components for XP.
If you don't believe me, actually go use these applications in a 'development' environment (they are free downloads even) and see how they are 'designed' to be the new generation of 'development' tools, adding in elements for 'graphic designers' that are programmible. Your first clue would be to notice that code that lays behind the drawing, and all the items of the drawing have the cute little Object properties that looks more like somthing from Visual Stuido/Visual Basic. And trust me, this is not somthing you find in Photoshop.
If you use Acrylic and think it could ever be a Photoshop killer, then you are smoking something the rest of us are not. It is not even the same type of drawing tool - anyone know Vector/Bitmap differences? Anyone?
Please save our sanity and stop the crap about every thing Mirosoft is doing as being a 'Killer' of some other companies products. Especially development design tools killing Photoshop, jeeez.
Even the new Tablet PC from MS were iPod Killers, how far can you go with this? What next, "The new clock in Windows Vista is a Killer of your home grandfather clock."
If you are posting a link to an article, it should at least be something you 'get' or understand, or you should not be allowed to write the pretext for the link. PERIOD.