Photoshop

[WillNut]

As a subscription (and it general) it's very expensive. Are there any alternatives that are just as good?

 

[The Byre]

Corel.

Or have a read here - http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/articles/nothing-worth-having-is-free-except-software.618/

 

[james_firmsites]

For most small editing jobs GIMP is best, photoshop has some very powerful features but for small touch ups, format conversion and minor corrections/cropping etc then GIMP is fantastic not to mention 100% free and works on any platform.

 

[deanpunchard]

Photoshop is £10 / month. That's not expensive!

 

[james_firmsites]

Photoshop is £10 / month. That's not expensive!

Well worth it IMHO

 

[Tin]

Well worth it IMHO

And I agree too, excellent piece of graphic software at the price.

 

[pentel]

Good software, very expensive. £10/ month over 10 years is £1200, this is expensive. Unlikely to stay at this price either, Adobe are on a milk the customer spree again.

 

[Scalloway]

It depends what you are using the software for. I pay £9.50 per month for Office 365 because I use it for paid work several hours a day. I use GIMP for photos for a few minutes a week so I don't see paying for photo software worthwhile.

 

[Copperwood]

I guess it really depends on what you will be using it for. You can pick up the latest genuine version of CorelDraw X8 for under £90 if the home version will be suitable but if it's for business use then it will obviously cost more.

We pay around £17 per month per licence but it's well worth it just for the inclusive upgrades and support.

To be honest if you're running a business and you rely on this type of software it's a very small price to pay.

 

[The Byre]

To be honest if you're running a business and you rely on this type of software it's a very small price to pay.

The movie 'Skyfall' had production costs of about $100m, all of which were met through product placement ($45m from Heineken alone!) and about the same again in marketing costs, all of which were met by services in-kind, such as swaps for TV rights. It made over $1.1bn at the box-office, half of which will have gone to the three-way distributors, MGM, Sony & Columbia.

Over 2000 people have IMDB credits as having worked on 'Skyfall', but editing was done by one man, Stuart Baird, with a couple of assistants, using Adobe Premiere, which I believe costs £50 a month for all CC apps. Other major production software used included ProTools and Cinema-4D.

Or to put it another way, by the time you have paid a graphic designer, kept him/her warm in Winter, cool in Summer, given him/her somewhere to park, coffee at eleven, covered for holidays and provided a pension, you are at least £40k p.a. down - much more for someone experienced. That designer needs a Power Mac and a big PC, back-up servers and Adobe CC at £50 p.m. and if you look at the cost of everything, that £600 p.a. is the very smallest of all your costs.

If you just want to crop some pictures and enhance the colour and contrast, there is a free version and loads of cheap alternatives. If you work at the pointy end of design, £50 p.m. for absolutely everything a designer, editor, layouter, finishing artist needs, is giving it away!

 

[Alan]

As a subscription (and it general) it's very expensive. Are there any alternatives that are just as good?

Just as good - probably not

Alternatives - many (all free) and usage will depend on jobs
- Gimp - slow to load - plenty of features, but slight learning curve - works on Window / MAC / Linux desktops
- Pixlr - completely online, so works on any device, no software to download, very like Photoshop so easy to adopt. Great to add as an extension to Google Drive, edit directly in Drive, and also if you use Chromebooks ( as you can't download software )
- Paint.net - Windows only - nice, fast, plenty of features
- Photoscape - Windows only, only really for photo manipulation, but nice as it has bulk scale / resize / crop / enhance features

to name a few

 

[Xtm_Mike]

What are you doing in Photoshop?

Photoshop is great, but it's no longer the industry leader in all areas of design. I find it bloated, out dated, there are better alternatives available, I can't believe nobody has mentioned the Serif packages. It's not the subscription that bothers me, it's the locking you in. You don't get a perpetual licence or a light free version to access files if you decide to cancel. If you leave them, you're f****ed!

If you're designing websites, apps etc you should look at Figma. (free for individuals)

If you're designing vectors, icons, illustrations you should look at Affinity Designer (Amazing rival to Illustrator only £48 one off fee).

If you're editing photos and designing graphics more general things you want Affinity Photo. (Amazing rival to Photoshop only £48 one off fee).

I'm fully invested in Serif Affinity apps, they're releasing them for both Mac and Windows and will soon have a full suite to rival Adobe.

 

[sarky]

You can get Photoshop CS2 for free- Adobe released the serial numbers. It would be probably do everything and more that you need. You'll probably have to register at Adobe first.