Alternative to Photoshop?

[Clix Pix]

Before signing up with Adobe and its products, you might want to review their new version of their Terms of Service. Some things have changed in there which are definitely potentially serious issues for creatives.

Adobe's ToS changes could be an AI overreach on user data

A new and mandatory terms of service approval for Adobe Creative Cloud requires users agree to the company getting free access to users' projects, for whatever they want to do with it. That's unacceptable.

appleinsider.com

 

[Ambrosia7177]

Before signing up with Adobe and its products, you might want to review their new version of their Terms of Service. Some things have changed in there which are definitely potentially serious issues for creatives.

Adobe's ToS changes could be an AI overreach on user data

A new and mandatory terms of service approval for Adobe Creative Cloud requires users agree to the company getting free access to users' projects, for whatever they want to do with it. That's unacceptable.

appleinsider.com

What, so Adobe can steal creatives work and train their AI?

Thanks for the link!

THAT right there is a deal-breaker for me - and proves that I was not crazy when I started questioning the privacy and security risk of Adobe's Creative Suite many years ago!!!

S***, there goes me ever getting Adobe Acrobat Professional again...


Anyone else have thoughts on this?

And, are any of the other proprietary recommendations above any better?

Maybe GIMP and Inkscape aren't so bad after all...

 

[Clix Pix]

I use DXO PhotoLab 7 and have used it since v.3. I've always been very pleased with it because it is intuitive (for me and the way in which I think and work) and is not a subscription service. They usually release a new version each autumn and at that time offer current owners/users a reduced cost on the upgrade. My processing/editing needs are fairly simple and straightforward, I'm not into messing with layers and all that sort of thing. I shoot RAW and have done for years, since back in the Aperture days (I still miss Aperture). I only shoot stills, no video, so can't be of much help in making suggestions for that.

Good luck with your decision-making and whatever processing/editing tool you choose!

 

[r.harris1]

Does Photoshop not do raw processing?

Many many years ago I had a DSLR and I think there was Nikon Capture which was Nikon's solution to editing their raw files.

Do you need two pieces of software to work properly with raw camera files?

Or can Photoshop, or Affinity Photo, or whatever do it all?


On a side note: @r.harris1 do you use more than Photoshop in the Adobe suite?

Sorry - likely another long answer .

The short answer is: It depends (but mostly, one tool should suffice).

Photoshop and Lr use the same raw processing engine. If you open a raw file in Photoshop, you're using "Adobe Camera Raw" (ACR) to process it. They're reusing that same capability in Lr.

Tools like Lr, DxO, Capture One are raw processors like ACR but also with asset management capabilities of varying degrees of robustness. Their job as raw processors is to take your camera's luminance data and use their proprietary raw conversion engines to convert it into an image you can post or print or whatever you might do. You can apply and alter white balance, apply exposure, perform color grading, sharpening, denoise and so forth. You'll typically have local adjustments - brush in dodging and burning, for example, in very specific areas of the image. These days there's sophisticated "AI" masking to adjust very specific areas like eyes, teeth, people, backgrounds, etc.

Photoshop and Affinity Photo are full-blown pixel editors that you can use after making your raw adjustments (if you need to). I use PS less and less these days owing to the sophistication of most raw programs. I use mostly for removing stuff. It's great for areas you need to fill in, change out (some people swap out skies), blend or so forth. Maybe remove power lines or whatever. Lr and PS are becoming more and more integrated in capabilities (same company, probably developer overlap, etc) and some things you'd normally have needed to move over to PS for can now be done in Lr.

Non-Adobe tools usually integrate well with Photoshop or Affinity and you can pick and choose. It's a matter of what you want to do. Mostly, you don't need to use two tools.

I only recommend people try tools to find the one that "fits". They're all capable.

 

[Herbert123]

I am going to throw in the dark horse which is PhotoLine and for raw developing RawTherapee.

My current experience in image compositing and processing covers Photoshop, PhotoLine, Affinity Photo, and (yes) GIMP. I use Photoshop at work (if I must) because it pays for its rent. We never EVER put anything on Adobe's 'cloud' --> servers. The latest uproar about Adobe's intentions with your files only proves us right.

Anyway, the short of it: I prefer PhotoLine for most work and RawTherapee for intricate raw processing.

The long of it (sorry, it's a LENGTHY long one):

@Ambrosia7177 As far as I can tell your requirements in a nutshell would be:

- the need for an image editor/raw developer that can grow with you into the realms of professional in-depth image processing. No corners cut!
- full 16 bit and 32 bit per channel support
- excellent colour management
- hand holding is not that important, but a good community where help can be found is.
- no renting nonsense. Perpetual license, and easy licensing. Preferably no internet required for licensing.
- excellent web output that conforms to the latest web image output formats. And great previewing of the web output.
- (reading somewhat between the lines) excellent image file batch processing with recorded macros option)
- a non-destructive workflow that doesn't affect the original image data, and allows you to always return to each step in the process.

Obviously Photoshop is out . And not only because of the rent-your-software mess and the new "we will steal your uploaded to the cloud work for our purposes" licensing. Photoshop still can't do full 16 bit processing in its 15 bit (plus one bit) so-called "16 bit" mode. Basically, any conversion of a 32bit image or HDR image to 16bit in Photoshop is silently downgraded to 32769 values instead of the expected double range. This may not be an issue for raw developing, but does potentially get to be a problem when working on HDR stacking.

The secondary issue is that Photoshop (and Lightroom) don't fare very well in web export. Avif support is still not integrated, which is essentially the answer to your web hosted photography in regard to quality AND file size. Nothing beats it.

And I agree with @r.harris1 's post in that if one is bloody serious about raw image developing and processing, a dedicated raw developing application is probably your best bet, and then send the developed image to your image editor for more detailed edits and colour management.

So LightRoom is also out, since it is rental only.

How about Affinity Photo?

Raw processing is pretty good, if limited compared to a dedicated raw processor. It is also non-destructive in V2, so the raw file is embedded in the file itself, and it can always be re-adjusted later if required.

Colour management is a bit of a hit-and-miss in Affinity. Too much to go into, but read up about it in the Affinity forums here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/in...ke-in-adobe-and-other-prof-software-packages/

My own experience with Affinity Photo is that the devil is in the details: things look so nice starting out, but quickly turn frustrating and down-right ugly once one wants to hit the bare metal and get down with some REAL serious image processing. Limitations soon are revealed.

Now, it's improved somewhat in V2, but still I can't use it for most of my professional work. Then again, other peoples mileage may vary, of course. I do use Affinity Photo for certain things, and it definitely has good points. The lighting filter is grand, for example.

The community is nice, and very helpful. The Affinity forums are all you need, even if some participants lack empathy and might become sensitive when their beloved Affinity Photo is criticized.

Lastly, web export in Affinity Photo is... well... let's say 'problematic', which sums it up nicely. The web export workspace doesn't do previews. Yes, you have read that correctly: no preview of the output result.
Instead, a hastily put-together file-->Export option does feature such a preview, but without any way to compare between the original or another version.

Remember Photoshop's classic web export dialog? That was (still is) a good web export dialog. Simple, to the point, and with options to preview and compare output formats. Affinity's export dialog is like something we would call in agile development a MVP0 affair. Barely usable, no comparison options, and it's not even possible to control the preview with regular GUI controls to zoom in/out.

Web export control and previewing is not up to expectations. Not even for a quick photo/image web export. At least, not in my book. And as I mentioned before: avif web export remains unsupported. Terrible.

Batch processing is actually really good, with macro support. Unfortunately, the choice of export formats is REALLY limited: only JPEG, PNG, TIFF, OpenEXR, WebP, and JPEG-XL. That's it. No PDF, no Avif.

And the core workflow is mostly non-destructive, with some caveats here and there. But improving.

And PhotoLine?

Obviously I am biased, because it is my image editing workhorse. Once upon a time I was a Photoshop zealot and devotee. I mean, I LOVED working in Photoshop. And in Illustrator, Premiere, Afx, ... Loved it all. Taught these apps at a high level at colleges and universities.

Then the first rent-your-software Adobe CS6 happened. And I foresaw what would happen: rental only. So I looked for an alternative for my freelance and hobby stuff. Went through everything, and nothing would even come close to my requirements. Affinity did not exist at that time - not for years. Then I (accidentally) bumped into someone's post about an obscure image editor called "PhotoLine". I did not like the name. I visited their website, and immediately thought "WTH, this is junkware. That site is ridiculously primitive.".

But I hadn't discovered a good alternative yet, so this was pretty much my last resort. I downloaded it, installed it, and on my first try I cried out loud from joy: even at that time it could do things I had never seen before in an image editor! Layer opacity range from -200 up to +200! Layer mask layers that could be nested, combined, whatever! Layer cloning! Reuse clones for masks! Great curve editor and even the ability to work with curves in other image modes than the image mode! Full vector support as if Illustrator had merged with Photoshop. And more!

But the GUI was... very primitive. And PhotoLine was still missing (a lot of) stuff that I would expect. But the core of the app just felt SO right. So I started my transition, which took 2 years, or so, from Photoshop to PhotoLine.

The forums were very helpful though, and most surprising the two developers are incredibly responsive to requests for improvements and new features. Since I left CS6, MANY of my requests and suggestions, along with other professional users, have been implemented throughout the years. I have NEVER before (but for Blender's community of devs) experienced such willingness to implement new and improved features based on users' requests.

More than once I requested for a change or an addition, and the next beta it would be available. Bugs are immediatly squashed after reporting in the next beta. And the beta is openly available. It has progressed greatly since that very first version that I tried, and is barely recognizable. The GUI and core workflow is extremely configurable. (Granted, I find the default setup to be less than... optimal)
The worfklow mostly non-destructive.

Anyway, so much for my personal journey with PhotoLine. How does it hold up in regard to @Ambrosia7177 your requirements?

Web export is excellent. Avif is supported. The web export dialog leaves little to desire and it is possible to hook recorded macros into your web export as well. Two web output versions can be compared with the original. And some very deep support for PNG and other web formats. PhotoLine is also very friendly towards other applications: files can be directly sent to other image editing apps. It's a simple setup.

Colour management is fully implemented and mostly non-destructive.

Raw image photo development is non-destructive. Compared to Affinity Photo it requires a little more manual work. PhotoLine can open raw files as linear unmodified non color managed source images - not something many raw processors manage or allow for.

But I don't do my important raw processing in PhotoLine. Read below.

Batch processing is great, with macro support. And a LOT of image file formats are available. Including PDF, PSD, and Avif!

PS PhotoLine's PDF support is excellent. It can behave like a color-managed PDF editor. PhotoLine features basic DTP features and great prepress control. Although I use PDFexchange Editor myself for critical PDF work (unfortunately Windows only).

The community (forum) is the main hub of activity. The developers and users are very helpful.
However, PhotoLine still remains a relatively obscure entry on the market. Almost no tutorials on YouTube, for example. There are one or two tutorial websites aimed at PhotoLine, but that... is it. No books. No tutorials done by professionals. No courses. It is the great conondrum. I still intend to do a professional course for PhotoLine, but time is lacking. ;-)

The licensing is awesome, though: no internet required to activate. Just a traditional serial number. And PhotoLine can be installed portable on a USB drive or key. I take it with me whereever I go (both the Mac and Windows version). Plug it in, and I can continue my work with my custom settings.

PhotoLine: Photo Editing, Vector Editor, Design Software

www.pl32.com

What about raw image processing then?

RawTherapee is the one I use. Free, open source, very capable, professional, and a non-destructive workflow. Outstanding licensing, i.e; free! Open source! https://rawtherapee.com/

My pipeline: Explore the folder with RAW photo images, double-click the one to process. Adjust settings (or use a preset I built previously). Then click on the sent-to-external-app button. It opens in PhotoLine. Further processing, and finally export to the web as Avif. This can also be automated for a large part via macros (or AppleScript/VBScript, if so required).

And the entire workflow is non-destructive. PhotoLine features an option to save output formats together with a sidecar PhotoLine document, and it behaves as if (for example) an output format such as JPG suddenly maintains full editability with adjustment layers, filters, masks, and so on. Again a boon. Not possible in other image editors.

...again sorry for the long post. I just feel PhotoLine deserves more exposure online in my opinion. It is the only image editor that can keep up with me. Even Photoshop feels awkward to work with nowadays for me because it misses these things that I can pull off easily in PhotoLine.

 

[mollyc]

What, so Adobe can steal creatives work and train their AI?

Thanks for the link!

THAT right there is a deal-breaker for me - and proves that I was not crazy when I started questioning the privacy and security risk of Adobe's Creative Suite many years ago!!!

S***, there goes me ever getting Adobe Acrobat Professional again...


Anyone else have thoughts on this?

And, are any of the other proprietary recommendations above any better?

Maybe GIMP and Inkscape aren't so bad after all...

So, no. Adobe did not do a good job in explaining their updated TOS, but none of the "sky is falling" scenarios is correct.

I completely understand why many people dislike Adobe, and I respect their decisions to use other software. But Adobe is not training AI models with your work, nor are they trolling through files that live on your local computer, or trying to take your work for their own.

If you are not using any of the neural filters or generative AI stuff, you can keep all your data local so Adobe doesn't even see it. Of course, keep your images off their cloud servers too, but most people concerned with privacy already avoid cloud services.

A clarification on Adobe Terms of Use | Adobe Blog

What the recent updates to our Terms of Use mean for you.

blog.adobe.com

 

[Fishrrman]

Photoscape X has a free version and a paid version.
The free version works ok for me.

 

[ShaunQ]

Probly not a long term solution, but if you need to use photoshop and don't have it installed, here's an online version that has nothing to do with adobe...

www.photopea.com

It's photoshop without all the AI/app store/cloud nonsense

 

[Clix Pix]

On Petapixel and other sites over the past couple of days there have been articles regarding the recent Adobe update of their TOS and users' reaction to the situation. Apparently lots of photographers and other creatives have been really rather upset about this, which is unsurprising given in that many cases this could have a potentially negative impact on the way they make their living.

Adobe has now responded to the uproar, and various concerned websites are now sharing this response as well. In reading the comments, though, as I did on one or two sites, it is clear (at least to me) that some long-time professional users are still not quite happy with all of this.....

Basically, the bottom line is that (as always) everyone will need to make his or her own decision about how they want to move forward with their choice(s) of editing software, and take into consideration how this decision may or may not affect their images and even have an impact on their professional career.

 

[Clix Pix]

Oops, forgot to add the link!

Adobe Responds to 'Terms of Use' Controversy, Says It Isn't Spying on Users

Adobe enters crisis management mode.

petapixel.com

 

[cocoua]

please, correct me if I'm wrong, but this new terms are only applicable to projects you upload to Adobe Cloud, or projects in you local computer that need server assitance as AI remove tools or AI filters

A clarification on Adobe Terms of Use | Adobe Blog

What the recent updates to our Terms of Use mean for you.

blog.adobe.com

the server assistance is something impossible to avoid until local neural engines and disk sizes could do the job (not anytime soon) and Aodbe cant process illegal material, so is unavoidable to apply some control to the stuff you are working on.

I am wrong?

It says there is no intention to feed their Firefly with our content.

If you think they arent saying the truth, and they are stolling data from Adobe CLoud, thne we assume they are stolling also from the evn easier to stole open internet, so quit Adobe and quit internet...

Any software using AI tools assistance, ANY, would require sending files to external servers and have machine learning software LEARNING from your uploaded content. Its implicit in the definition of AI machine learning. Unless you download locally the huge models, but then, you would need to update them periodically as there would be always a smarter version out there than yours.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

@Herbert123,

Sorry for the delay - am juggling a million things at once right now!

I am going to throw in the dark horse which is PhotoLine and for raw developing RawTherapee.

Hmm, never heard of those.

My current experience in image compositing and processing covers Photoshop, PhotoLine, Affinity Photo, and (yes) GIMP. I use Photoshop at work (if I must) because it pays for its rent. We never EVER put anything on Adobe's 'cloud' --> servers. The latest uproar about Adobe's intentions with your files only proves us right.

Anyway, the short of it: I prefer PhotoLine for most work and RawTherapee for intricate raw processing.

The long of it (sorry, it's a LENGTHY long one):

@Ambrosia7177 As far as I can tell your requirements in a nutshell would be:

- the need for an image editor/raw developer that can grow with you into the realms of professional in-depth image processing. No corners cut!
- full 16 bit and 32 bit per channel support
- excellent colour management
- hand holding is not that important, but a good community where help can be found is.
- no renting nonsense. Perpetual license, and easy licensing. Preferably no internet required for licensing.
- excellent web output that conforms to the latest web image output formats. And great previewing of the web output.
- (reading somewhat between the lines) excellent image file batch processing with recorded macros option)
- a non-destructive workflow that doesn't affect the original image data, and allows you to always return to each step in the process.

I am a newbie to most of this, but yes, that sounds like a good start.

That, and corporations not stealing (or profiting) from my work!!

Obviously Photoshop is out . And not only because of the rent-your-software mess and the new "we will steal your uploaded to the cloud work for our purposes" licensing.

Yeah, thanks to the heads up by @Clix Pix, Abode in general seems to be off-the-table for me. :-(

Photoshop still can't do full 16 bit processing in its 15 bit (plus one bit) so-called "16 bit" mode. Basically, any conversion of a 32bit image or HDR image to 16bit in Photoshop is silently downgraded to 32769 values instead of the expected double range. This may not be an issue for raw developing, but does potentially get to be a problem when working on HDR stacking.

Wow! That sounds like 8-bit vs 10-bit in video.

Interesting...

The secondary issue is that Photoshop (and Lightroom) don't fare very well in web export.

Oh?

One reason I was interested in re-learning Photoshop was this very topic.

You see, in the late 1990's I had a copy of Photoshop on my PC - this is just when the www was taking off.

One thing I recall that was super useful about Photoshop was the ability to take a humongous file from say a digital camera - I think I have a Nikon CoolPix 995 at the time - and shrink it down to a manageable file-size for Geocities webpages. (Oops, I just outed myself!!!) ☺️

I recall that the Photoshop UI let you dial in the 1.) Photo dimensions, 2.) Resolution, 3.) File Size, 4.) File Format, and 5.) Interlacing or whatever.

In the end, you had complete control over shrinking photos for the - 56K modem - web!

You could also preview the photos you were shrinking so you could see if you were losing too much quality.

Since my interest in photo-editing is to take photos and screenshots and shrink them down for my website, this is a key consideration in any software solution!

Avif support is still not integrated, which is essentially the answer to your web hosted photography in regard to quality AND file size. Nothing beats it.

What is Avif?

And I agree with @r.harris1 's post in that if one is bloody serious about raw image developing and processing, a dedicated raw developing application is probably your best bet, and then send the developed image to your image editor for more detailed edits and colour management.

Is it better to use the native raw-image editors that often come with cameras? (Twenty years ago I played around with Nikon's NEF (raw) editor...

Or is there a photo-editor that can take raw images and compete with the camera manufactuer's raw-image editing software?

BTW, fwiw, in my current world, all photos come from my iPhone. (Please don't kick me out of this MacRumors forum!!!!!)

I would like to get back to having a real camera, but here is the likely evolution for me - unless someone wants to give me $10 grand!

I am working towards getting a Sony a7S iii for my videography, and eventually a couple nice lens. (I realize that isn't the best digital camera, but my main focus and passion has pivoted from photography to videography.)

So I'm not in the category of a wedding photographer or someone shooting with a 100 Megapixel camera, however, I do like to take nice photos that educate and inspire people!

So LightRoom is also out, since it is rental only.

Bummer.

How about Affinity Photo?

Raw processing is pretty good, if limited compared to a dedicated raw processor. It is also non-destructive in V2, so the raw file is embedded in the file itself, and it can always be re-adjusted later if required.

Colour management is a bit of a hit-and-miss in Affinity. Too much to go into, but read up about it in the Affinity forums here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/in...ke-in-adobe-and-other-prof-software-packages/

My own experience with Affinity Photo is that the devil is in the details: things look so nice starting out, but quickly turn frustrating and down-right ugly once one wants to hit the bare metal and get down with some REAL serious image processing. Limitations soon are revealed.

Here is another thing I should share - and pardon me if I sound like a snob.

To be honest, I have always poo-poo'ed "Photoshopping" photos, because in my applications it is a sign of either laziness, incompetence, or fantasy.

Personally, I am of the mindset that if you understand composition, exposure, and lighting then rarely do you need to do much photo-editing.

I suppose there are some genres (e.g. fantasy based) where you do need lots of editing, but for most of what I would shoot, I don't think that applies.

In fact, I do NOT want to do serious photo-editing because I like to capture reality...

So, maybe I don't need all of the fancy-smancy capabilities that someone working for Vogue would need?

Now, it's improved somewhat in V2, but still I can't use it for most of my professional work. Then again, other peoples mileage may vary, of course. I do use Affinity Photo for certain things, and it definitely has good points. The lighting filter is grand, for example.

The community is nice, and very helpful. The Affinity forums are all you need, even if some participants lack empathy and might become sensitive when their beloved Affinity Photo is criticized.

Whichever route I go, I definitely want/need a vibrant use-community online where i can get help (quickly) if I get stuck.

(Do those even exist on the Internet anymore?)

Lastly, web export in Affinity Photo is... well... let's say 'problematic', which sums it up nicely. The web export workspace doesn't do previews. Yes, you have read that correctly: no preview of the output result.
Instead, a hastily put-together file-->Export option does feature such a preview, but without any way to compare between the original or another version.

Ouch.

Remember Photoshop's classic web export dialog? That was (still is) a good web export dialog. Simple, to the point, and with options to preview and compare output formats. Affinity's export dialog is like something we would call in agile development a MVP0 affair. Barely usable, no comparison options, and it's not even possible to control the preview with regular GUI controls to zoom in/out.

As an IT person, I love that comment!!! (Matches my personal feelings about Agile development!!)

Web export control and previewing is not up to expectations. Not even for a quick photo/image web export. At least, not in my book. And as I mentioned before: avif web export remains unsupported. Terrible.

Batch processing is actually really good, with macro support. Unfortunately, the choice of export formats is REALLY limited: only JPEG, PNG, TIFF, OpenEXR, WebP, and JPEG-XL. That's it. No PDF, no Avif.

And the core workflow is mostly non-destructive, with some caveats here and there. But improving.

Okay, sounds like there are definitely some issues with Affinity Photo - at least in your experience.

And PhotoLine?

Obviously I am biased, because it is my image editing workhorse. Once upon a time I was a Photoshop zealot and devotee. I mean, I LOVED working in Photoshop. And in Illustrator, Premiere, Afx, ... Loved it all. Taught these apps at a high level at colleges and universities.

Then the first rent-your-software Adobe CS6 happened. And I foresaw what would happen: rental only.

Yeah, I was warning people about that when Adobe started that like 10 years ago.

So I looked for an alternative for my freelance and hobby stuff. Went through everything, and nothing would even come close to my requirements. Affinity did not exist at that time - not for years. Then I (accidentally) bumped into someone's post about an obscure image editor called "PhotoLine". I did not like the name. I visited their website, and immediately thought "WTH, this is junkware. That site is ridiculously primitive.".

But I hadn't discovered a good alternative yet, so this was pretty much my last resort. I downloaded it, installed it, and on my first try I cried out loud from joy: even at that time it could do things I had never seen before in an image editor!

So what year was this?

Layer opacity range from -200 up to +200! Layer mask layers that could be nested, combined, whatever! Layer cloning! Reuse clones for masks! Great curve editor and even the ability to work with curves in other image modes than the image mode! Full vector support as if Illustrator had merged with Photoshop. And more!

That sounds useful - even though I have never worked with vectors.

But the GUI was... very primitive. And PhotoLine was still missing (a lot of) stuff that I would expect. But the core of the app just felt SO right. So I started my transition, which took 2 years, or so, from Photoshop to PhotoLine.

The forums were very helpful though, and most surprising the two developers are incredibly responsive to requests for improvements and new features. Since I left CS6, MANY of my requests and suggestions, along with other professional users, have been implemented throughout the years. I have NEVER before (but for Blender's community of devs) experienced such willingness to implement new and improved features based on users' requests.

You'd never see Adobe do that for you... ;-)

More than once I requested for a change or an addition, and the next beta it would be available. Bugs are immediatly squashed after reporting in the next beta. And the beta is openly available. It has progressed greatly since that very first version that I tried, and is barely recognizable. The GUI and core workflow is extremely configurable. (Granted, I find the default setup to be less than... optimal)
The worfklow mostly non-destructive.

Sounds like a good app, but my biggest concern would be, "Is PhotoLine going to be around in 5 or 10 years?"

And, "What happens when the developers retire or die?"

Are all of your photo-editing projects going to be orphaned?

Anyway, so much for my personal journey with PhotoLine. How does it hold up in regard to @Ambrosia7177 your requirements?

Web export is excellent. Avif is supported. The web export dialog leaves little to desire and it is possible to hook recorded macros into your web export as well. Two web output versions can be compared with the original. And some very deep support for PNG and other web formats. PhotoLine is also very friendly towards other applications: files can be directly sent to other image editing apps. It's a simple setup.

Colour management is fully implemented and mostly non-destructive.

Raw image photo development is non-destructive. Compared to Affinity Photo it requires a little more manual work. PhotoLine can open raw files as linear unmodified non color managed source images - not something many raw processors manage or allow for.

But I don't do my important raw processing in PhotoLine. Read below.

Batch processing is great, with macro support. And a LOT of image file formats are available. Including PDF, PSD, and Avif!

Sounds good.

PS PhotoLine's PDF support is excellent. It can behave like a color-managed PDF editor. PhotoLine features basic DTP features and great prepress control. Although I use PDFexchange Editor myself for critical PDF work (unfortunately Windows only).

I really wish I had a more robust way to PDF news articles, and even edit them after the fact.

What I most want is WYSIWYG.

In an ideal world, if I PDF a news article from the New York Times, I want the PDF to look exactly like the original news article did on my computer.

So no weird page breaks, images floating around and over text, and definitely support for capturing user-comments below an article. (It should also allow me to PDF user-forums like MacRumors so I can document conversations like this one!)

Am not as worried about OCR per say, just WYSIWYG'ing what I read online, and at least having the PDF'ed text be selectable with my pointer so I can copy and paste it into an email, LO Writer document, or maybe paste it somewhere like here.

Not sure if PhotoLine does any of that...

The community (forum) is the main hub of activity. The developers and users are very helpful.
However, PhotoLine still remains a relatively obscure entry on the market. Almost no tutorials on YouTube, for example. There are one or two tutorial websites aimed at PhotoLine, but that... is it. No books. No tutorials done by professionals. No courses. It is the great conondrum. I still intend to do a professional course for PhotoLine, but time is lacking. ;-)

That is an important consideration for someone like me.

Since it sounds like you do photo-editing for a career, you are in a different situation.

Right now, I need a photo-editor that is easy to learn, has excellent online learning materials (e.g. articles, tutorials, YouTube), and a vibrant online community.

My primary goal is to choose a tool that lets me quickly edit all of my iPhone photos, screen-captures from my videos, and maybe from a Sony mirrorless in the near future, and get my photos edited and publish ASAP - since I am an independent journalist of sorts.

I also don't want to have to sell my soul - or my work - to some nefarious corporation like Adobe!!

The licensing is awesome, though: no internet required to activate. Just a traditional serial number. And PhotoLine can be installed portable on a USB drive or key. I take it with me whereever I go (both the Mac and Windows version). Plug it in, and I can continue my work with my custom settings.

PhotoLine: Photo Editing, Vector Editor, Design Software

www.pl32.com

What about raw image processing then?

RawTherapee is the one I use. Free, open source, very capable, professional, and a non-destructive workflow. Outstanding licensing, i.e; free! Open source! https://rawtherapee.com/

Why use RawTherapee versus a raw-image editing tool like from Nikon, Sony or Canon?

My pipeline: Explore the folder with RAW photo images, double-click the one to process. Adjust settings (or use a preset I built previously). Then click on the sent-to-external-app button. It opens in PhotoLine. Further processing, and finally export to the web as Avif. This can also be automated for a large part via macros (or AppleScript/VBScript, if so required).

For a beginner-to-intermediate photo-editor, why would you need to process RAW images in two applications?

That is, what can you NOT do in a raw-image editing tool like RawTherapee that you would need PhotoLine for?

And what would happen if you skipped RawTherapee, and just edited your raw photos in PhotoLine?

And the entire workflow is non-destructive. PhotoLine features an option to save output formats together with a sidecar PhotoLine document, and it behaves as if (for example) an output format such as JPG suddenly maintains full editability with adjustment layers, filters, masks, and so on. Again a boon. Not possible in other image editors.

Interesting!

...again sorry for the long post.

No apologies, I miss long, deep conversations like this online!

I just feel PhotoLine deserves more exposure online in my opinion. It is the only image editor that can keep up with me. Even Photoshop feels awkward to work with nowadays for me because it misses these things that I can pull off easily in PhotoLine.

Good to know!

Thanks!!

 

[Ambrosia7177]

@mollyc,

So, no. Adobe did not do a good job in explaining their updated TOS, but none of the "sky is falling" scenarios is correct.

I completely understand why many people dislike Adobe, and I respect their decisions to use other software. But Adobe is not training AI models with your work, nor are they trolling through files that live on your local computer, or trying to take your work for their own.

If you are not using any of the neural filters or generative AI stuff, you can keep all your data local so Adobe doesn't even see it. Of course, keep your images off their cloud servers too, but most people concerned with privacy already avoid cloud services.

A clarification on Adobe Terms of Use | Adobe Blog

What the recent updates to our Terms of Use mean for you.

blog.adobe.com

Thanks for posting this.

Pardon my cynicism, but what do others think about this "clarification" from Adobe?

Personally, I am still very suspicious of Corporate America in general...

But maybe I need to change my stance?

 

[Ambrosia7177]

Probly not a long term solution, but if you need to use photoshop and don't have it installed, here's an online version that has nothing to do with adobe...

www.photopea.com

It's photoshop without all the AI/app store/cloud nonsense

Thanks, but it is an online app, so doesn't that run into a lot of the fears others have about Adobe's direction?

 

[Herbert123]

Hmm, never heard of those.

I am not surprised about PhotoLine: its developers don't do marketing of any kind. And tutorials and YouTube presence is minimal.

RawTherapee, however, is pretty well known.

Darktable https://www.darktable.org/ is another powerful open source and free photography workflow/Raw developer.

For the odd manual edit (since you wouldn't be doing a lot of those) Krita is also a good open source and free option. https://krita.org/en/

Even though Krita is geared towards digital painting/art, it does support 16bit and 32bit imagery and offers a quite reasonable set of image editing tools. I like it much better than GIMP. Krita's community is huge and loads of tutorials out there.

Since my interest in photo-editing is to take photos and screenshots and shrink them down for my website, this [web export] is a key consideration in any software solution!

Unfortunately since those early times Photoshop hasn't kept up very well in regard to web export. The old (nice) legacy web export is deprecated and never was updated with newer and improved web image file formats.

Full WebP support, for example, only happened last year May. Can you imagine that? And last year the developers decided in their insanity that indexed PNG files with full transparency (256 alpha levels) were "against the PNG spec" and "confused users when those were not opened in indexed image mode".

So basically they removed full transparency from indexed PNG files, breaking the workflow of tens of thousands of PS users!!!

And the new export as dialog is underwhelming, lacking control options.

No, Photoshop's been lagging behind in this area for a very very long time now. As they have with all web-related design features.

What is Avif?

Avif is one of the newest web image file formats.

While it took WebP a longer time to become commonly accepted (Apple was one of the parties to blame for this - Safari was the last major browser to stop its resistance only in June 2020, WebP never convinced everyone that its compression and quality were worth it over JPEG. But WebP did support lossy compression like JPG AND full alpha transparency. And animation.

Avif is next level for lossy compressed photos, however! It was made to replace Webp, and offers great compression, great quality, smaller file sizes compared to JPG and WebP, and a choice of lossy, lossless, and full transparency.

The spec only finished in 2019, its adoption is over 93% now on the web. For photos this is the standard web image file format of choice now - or at least, it should be: not all web software supports avif yet.

OBVIOUSLY Photoshop still does not natively support Avif. Surprise, surprise.
And neither does Affinity Photo. It's ridiculous.

Sounds like a good app, but my biggest concern would be, "Is PhotoLine going to be around in 5 or 10 years?"

And, "What happens when the developers retire or die?"

Are all of your photo-editing projects going to be orphaned?

I've thought about this myself a few months ago.

First, my experience since C64 times tells me one thing about software: no matter how big or small the company behind it and no matter the popularity of the software, these are no garantuee for the software's longevity. Que Macromedia. Or Adobe XD. Or Adobe Muse. Dreamweaver. Golive. XSI. And larger companies have a distinct pedigree when it relates to breaking changes in licensing.

PhotoLine's license is very simple: just a serial number, and it will even run from a portable USB key (which is actively supported by the devs). Even if they went belly-up tomorrow, the software keeps running, and I can easily move the software to a new machines. Even runs in Wine on Linux.

So I can always access my original source files. It will be decades before I can no longer run the software (if that time even arrives...)

But it is a valid question, and my answer is: go open source as much as you can. I switched to Blender for most of my 3d work, Krita complements my digital art work (alongside Clipstudio Paint), for 2d animation work I now work mostly in OpenToonz and Krita, MS Office I replaced with LibreOffice years and years ago, Inkscape complements PhotoLine where it misses a specific vector editing function, I use Greenshot for screenshots, RawTherapee and Darktable for dedicated raw developing, Visual Studio Code for coding purposes, ...

... and so on.

Open source never dies, unless the community dies with it. And even if it does, the source code is in the open, and we ourselves can build executables.

Anyway, I've learned to worry no more about the perceived longevity of software. Use what works best for your job and which you like to work with. A large company is no garantuee for software longevity. Quite the opposite, actually: Adobe stopped development of some excellent software products which were very popular, and within a year or two were no longer accessible.

So, yeah. I am more worried about Adobe than I am about PhotoLine.

Not sure if PhotoLine does any of that... [pdf conversion of web pages and articles]

No, it doesn't. It edits PDF files quite well. Affinity Publisher also does a good job there.

Converting a web page to a PDF file is fraught with difficulties, because their intent is completely different. This is what I do:

- if I need an exact visual duplicate of the web page, I screenshot it in Firefox. Voila, perfect copy.
- if I need a pdf for reading on my Kobo eReader, I switch to reader view in Firefox, then print it with small pages and large type.
- if I need something to archive, I download the page and resource files in a folder.
- but usually I just bookmark the page for later reading.

Web layout is inherently incompatible with the printed page format (PDF). It is what it is.

My primary goal is to choose a tool that lets me quickly edit all of my iPhone photos, screen-captures from my videos, and maybe from a Sony mirrorless in the near future, and get my photos edited and publish ASAP - since I am an independent journalist of sorts.

So you DO want an image editor for quick edits. Probably also automate standard edits and automatically save it as a web version.

Any image editor with macro/actions recording will fit here. You have to decide which image format you want to use. As I said, Avif is preferred now, but many image editors do no export to it.

You could just keep exporting to JPG or (probably better) WebP.
Affinity Photo would be a good pick since it does all of that, and the community is far more present online with loads of tutorials, etc. And the devs will probably add Avif support in the upcoming year.

And it is always possible to convert to other file formats with secondary tools, of course.
(My only worry is that Affinity Photo is now part of Canva, and I worry they might go down the renting path in the upcoming few years...)

(Unsurprisingly I favour PhotoLine here, )

Why use RawTherapee versus a raw-image editing tool like from Nikon, Sony or Canon?

...because RT and dedicated developers tend to have superior output quality with many more features and options? And also allow for regular image formats to be improved?

RT has a good reputation, and quite a few photographers prefer it even over LightRoom (check DPreview site, for example). It performs admirably and is entirely free and open source.

Also check out Darktable, btw.

For a beginner-to-intermediate photo-editor, why would you need to process RAW images in two applications?

That is, what can you NOT do in a raw-image editing tool like RawTherapee that you would need PhotoLine for?

And what would happen if you skipped RawTherapee, and just edited your raw photos in PhotoLine?

You don't actually process the Raw image in two applications. The image data is converted to a regular bitmap image via raw conversion. This conversion can happen in multiple ways, with different interpolation samplers.

And each raw conversion software adds its own bias into how the initial base conversion is processed. After that it is up to the user/photographer to decide how they'd prefer to (colour) grade it. Warmer colours, colder colours, more fog, less fog, sharp, less or more detail, shadows richness, light area details,...

Which is also why photographers argue so much about which software to use for the initial raw developing.

RT does a really good job and allows for instant detail improvement. So if that is important to me I do the initial raw processing in RT (or Darktable), then open the result as a 16bit image file in PhotoLine (or rather send it there via RT).

I prefer to do my cropping in PhotoLine, for example. Perhaps the landscape photo is marred by a tiny person far ahead on the road? I remove it. Or I need a very precise selection to adjust the colour saturation of that part of the image? Again, easier for me to pull off in PhotoLine (or Photoshop, or Affinity Photo, etc.).

Also, AI tools can be handy for tasks that may take too much time if done manually. I use Krita for that job, however, and you probably do not want any AI processing (If I read your words correctly).

And I could skip RT and directly open the raw files in Photoline. Which I do as well at times when I need full control over the process. RT, while very powerful, sometimes is a bit overbearing, and for some images I want more control and I prefer manual tinkering. Not to say that the default conversion is terrible in PhotoLine - just average.

But average can be a boon. And PhotoLine also allows for non-processed non-colour managed linear raw processing, which is not something most other raw editors allow for. Great for supreme control, though not for the faint of heart. lol

Pardon my cynicism, but what do others think about this "clarification" from Adobe?

Personally, Adobe went into damage control mode here, in my opinion. And a blog post is not legally binding.

The proof will be in the pudding when they rewrite the legal wording next week.

I stopped taking anything at Adobe's words years ago. Too many times burned my fingers teaches you to be very very cautious.

Never forget: Adobe is no longer a software company. And their primary responsibility is to the investors, not the users.

Small companies' primary responsibility is towards their users.

 

[Pandyone]

I have been checking on different Photo editing softwares recently since I took up photography as a hobby (again). Tested Rawteraphee, Photomator, Darkroom and Affinity.

I bought Affinity Photo; mostly because I like the UI and it's nice with the double view when editing to see difference directly. It also supported the Raw-format better than some other softwares and the software itself feels "snappier".

I suggest on checking if your camera manufacturer has any softwares. For example Sony has an OK-ish software for some editing. It's slower and with worse UI than some others, but it can do the job.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

I am not surprised about PhotoLine: its developers don't do marketing of any kind. And tutorials and YouTube presence is minimal.

RawTherapee, however, is pretty well known.

Okay.

Unfortunately since those early times Photoshop hasn't kept up very well in regard to web export. The old (nice) legacy web export is deprecated and never was updated with newer and improved web image file formats.

That's a shame, because the copy of Photoshop that I had in the 1990's was actually really nice.

Full WebP support, for example, only happened last year May. Can you imagine that? And last year the developers decided in their insanity that indexed PNG files with full transparency (256 alpha levels) were "against the PNG spec" and "confused users when those were not opened in indexed image mode".

So basically they removed full transparency from indexed PNG files, breaking the workflow of tens of thousands of PS users!!!

And the new export as dialog is underwhelming, lacking control options.

No, Photoshop's been lagging behind in this area for a very very long time now. As they have with all web-related design features.


Avif is one of the newest web image file formats.

While it took WebP a longer time to become commonly accepted (Apple was one of the parties to blame for this - Safari was the last major browser to stop its resistance only in June 2020, WebP never convinced everyone that its compression and quality were worth it over JPEG. But WebP did support lossy compression like JPG AND full alpha transparency. And animation.

Avif is next level for lossy compressed photos, however! It was made to replace Webp, and offers great compression, great quality, smaller file sizes compared to JPG and WebP, and a choice of lossy, lossless, and full transparency.

The spec only finished in 2019, its adoption is over 93% now on the web. For photos this is the standard web image file format of choice now - or at least, it should be: not all web software supports avif yet.

Wow! I had no clue!

So if I was publishing photos online, OR coding a website, I would want to use Avif for all photos and ditch JPEG's, right?

What should a person use for illustrations and things that in the past would have been well-suited for PNG?

(I haven't done web development in 5-6 years and am way behind the times!)

OBVIOUSLY Photoshop still does not natively support Avif. Surprise, surprise.
And neither does Affinity Photo. It's ridiculous.

That's too bad for Affinity Photo.

I've thought about this myself a few months ago.

First, my experience since C64 times tells me one thing about software: no matter how big or small the company behind it and no matter the popularity of the software, these are no garantuee for the software's longevity.

Good point!

PhotoLine's license is very simple: just a serial number, and it will even run from a portable USB key (which is actively supported by the devs). Even if they went belly-up tomorrow, the software keeps running, and I can easily move the software to a new machines. Even runs in Wine on Linux.

If the creator did retire or die, do you think he has a succession plan in place, or is it a one-man show?

So I can always access my original source files. It will be decades before I can no longer run the software (if that time even arrives...)

I'll be happy if we all make it to 2025...

But it is a valid question, and my answer is: go open source as much as you can. I switched to Blender for most of my 3d work, Krita complements my digital art work (alongside Clipstudio Paint), for 2d animation work I now work mostly in OpenToonz and Krita, MS Office I replaced with LibreOffice years and years ago, Inkscape complements PhotoLine where it misses a specific vector editing function, I use Greenshot for screenshots, RawTherapee and Darktable for dedicated raw developing, Visual Studio Code for coding purposes, ...

... and so on.

Open source never dies, unless the community dies with it. And even if it does, the source code is in the open, and we ourselves can build executables.

Yeah, I try to use open-source when feasible.

I switched to OpenOffice and then LibreOffice about 15 years ago, and will never look back!

Anyway, I've learned to worry no more about the perceived longevity of software. Use what works best for your job and which you like to work with. A large company is no garantuee for software longevity. Quite the opposite, actually: Adobe stopped development of some excellent software products which were very popular, and within a year or two were no longer accessible.

So, yeah. I am more worried about Adobe than I am about PhotoLine.

Interesting.

No, it doesn't. It edits PDF files quite well. Affinity Publisher also does a good job there.

Converting a web page to a PDF file is fraught with difficulties, because their intent is completely different. This is what I do:

- if I need an exact visual duplicate of the web page, I screenshot it in Firefox. Voila, perfect copy.

SnagIt does a good job of that.

- if I need a pdf for reading on my Kobo eReader, I switch to reader view in Firefox, then print it with small pages and large type.

- if I need something to archive, I download the page and resource files in a folder.
- but usually I just bookmark the page for later reading.

In the old days you could do that, but now most webpages are built dynamically using Javascript and all of the webpage assets are locate on remote severs, so if you "save" a webpage, when you go back to view it, you will get a white page. Trust me, I have thousands of "saved" webpages where this happened.

Currently I use the "Fireshot" add-on in Firefox and it does a pretty good job of creating a PDF of webpages and making the text selectable, however I don't like how it breaks pages.

Web layout is inherently incompatible with the printed page format (PDF). It is what it is.

If people followed web-standards that wouldn't be the case. But things like DreamWeaver broke how people code the web.

So you DO want an image editor for quick edits. Probably also automate standard edits and automatically save it as a web version.

Any image editor with macro/actions recording will fit here. You have to decide which image format you want to use. As I said, Avif is preferred now, but many image editors do no export to it.

How widely supported in browsers and devices are Avif files?

You could just keep exporting to JPG or (probably better) WebP.
Affinity Photo would be a good pick since it does all of that, and the community is far more present online with loads of tutorials, etc. And the devs will probably add Avif support in the upcoming year.

This is a questions that I asked a couple of times but people skimmed over, so since you are being much more THOROUGH in your responses, let me ask again... ;-)

How similar/dissimilar are the software "metaphors" that photo-editing applications use?

And how easy would it be to switch from Photoshop to Affinity Photo to PhotoLine and so on?

If you understand how a word processor works, switching between different applicatons is a breeze.

Same for spreadsheets.

I even think in video-editing - which I am learning - it is fairly easy to switch between products - the only large paradigm shift is apps that use "layers" (e.g. Premiere Pro) and thos ethat use "nodes" (e.g. DaVinci Resolve).

If this is the case with photo-editing software, then maybe I could use PhotoLine but ask for help in other forums?

Or is it not that simple?

And it is always possible to convert to other file formats with secondary tools, of course.
(My only worry is that Affinity Photo is now part of Canva, and I worry they might go down the renting path in the upcoming few years...)

Probably!

(Unsurprisingly I favour PhotoLine here, )

I assume it would run well on a new 14" M3 Max laptop?

...because RawTherapee and dedicated developers tend to have superior output quality with many more features and options? And also allow for regular image formats to be improved?

RT has a good reputation, and quite a few photographers prefer it even over LightRoom (check DPreview site, for example). It performs admirably and is entirely free and open source.

What is RawTherapee again? (Sorry, I'm getting confused with all of the software we are discussing taht I have never heard of before!)

And how does it relate to PhotoLine?

And for a newbie like me, how would it fit into my workflow?

Also check out Darktable, btw.

Again, what is that and how would it apply to a beginner like me?

You don't actually process the Raw image in two applications. The image data is converted to a regular bitmap image via raw conversion. This conversion can happen in multiple ways, with different interpolation samplers.

But I thought years ago, you could take raw photos into Nikon Capture and edit them to a finished photo?

Also, if the raw editing software converts a raw file to a bmp, at that point is the data "baked in"?

Can you go from RAW to JPEG/Avif or do you need the intermediary step of going to a BMP?

And each raw conversion software adds its own bias into how the initial base conversion is processed. After that it is up to the user/photographer to decide how they'd prefer to (colour) grade it. Warmer colours, colder colours, more fog, less fog, sharp, less or more detail, shadows richness, light area details,...

Does the concept of "Log files" exist in photo-editing?

Which is also why photographers argue so much about which software to use for the initial raw developing.

At the end of the day, can the end viewer tell? (Sounds like a lot of theoretical debates that don't matter at the end of the day?!)

RT does a really good job and allows for instant detail improvement. So if that is important to me I do the initial raw processing in RT (or Darktable), then open the result as a 16bit image file in PhotoLine (or rather send it there via RT).

In other words, fixing bad photos, right? ;-) *LOL*

I prefer to do my cropping in PhotoLine, for example. Perhaps the landscape photo is marred by a tiny person far ahead on the road? I remove it. Or I need a very precise selection to adjust the colour saturation of that part of the image? Again, easier for me to pull off in PhotoLine (or Photoshop, or Affinity Photo, etc.).

Is there an open-source version of Lightroom?


Here is what I envision I need most right now...

Take photos from my iPhone (or camera) or screenshots from a video, and do the following BASIC things...

- Crop the image (if needed)
- Adjust light levels (if needed)
- Adjust color-curves (if needed)
- Possibly edit a small blemish (if needed)
- Save to a super compressed, yet universally accessible photo file
- Publish


Not to sound like a snob, but I shoot good video and photos, so I don't need lots of editing.

Also, AI tools can be handy for tasks that may take too much time if done manually. I use Krita for that job, however, and you probably do not want any AI processing (If I read your words correctly).

No, I think AI is evil.

And I could skip RT and directly open the raw files in Photoline. Which I do as well at times when I need full control over the process. RT, while very powerful, sometimes is a bit overbearing, and for some images I want more control and I prefer manual tinkering. Not to say that the default conversion is terrible in PhotoLine - just average.

But for someone at my level of experience, I could just edit RAW files directly in PhotoLine?

BTW, does it make sense to shoot RAW in the first place?

(I have been considering this for my videos, and most people tell me it's just not worth it.)

But average can be a boon. And PhotoLine also allows for non-processed non-colour managed linear raw processing, which is not something most other raw editors allow for. Great for supreme control, though not for the faint of heart. lol

As per my short list of things I would need to do, what would be the most practical workflow for me?

Should I shoot in RAW or JPEG or some other format?

(BTW, I have an iPhone 11 Pro Max, but I am buying a new iPhone 15 Pro Max this week, so that might influence your answer.)

Would PhotoLine be the best place for me to start, or is there too much of a learning curve?

Based on what @Clix Pix said, I won't be using Adobe.

But I do need a solution where I can be up-and-running in a few days. (Not that I can even get to photos for a few months, but it would be good to know that if I need to make a killer thumbnail for YouTube and my video work, that I could use some photo-editing app to bang one out quickly.)

Personally, Adobe went into damage control mode here, in my opinion. And a blog post is not legally binding.

Yeah, Adobe's response seemed like an after-thought, and like they never really cared one way or the other.

The proof will be in the pudding when they rewrite the legal wording next week.

I stopped taking anything at Adobe's words years ago. Too many times burned my fingers teaches you to be very very cautious.

I agree.

Never forget: Adobe is no longer a software company. And their primary responsibility is to the investors, not the users.

Small companies' primary responsibility is towards their users.

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


👍

 

[jtdx99]

I have been using Pixelmator Pro for the past 2 years and it's served me very well, since I was tired of the Adobe subscription bs. Of course, I'm just a casual hobbyist photographer though, so my editing needs are pretty basic.

 

[USAntigoon]

I have been using Pixelmator Pro for the past 2 years and it's served me very well, since I was tired of the Adobe subscription bs. Of course, I'm just a casual hobbyist photographer though, so my editing needs are pretty basic.

Try Photomator as well...you will like it...

 

[ssmed]

Hi.

I would like to get back into photo-editing after being away from it for years.

The problem is that I am hesitant to do down the path of using Photoshop since it is now subscription-based. (I owned a copy of Photoshop many, many years ago, and loved it, but this whole subscription-based software thing has me frazzled.)

My end-goal is to take photos so they can be published on the web.

Adjusting levels, tweaking the color, cropping, and reducing a 20 MB file down to a compressed size that will quickly display on my website!!

I know there are some open-source options out the there (e.g. Gimp), but they are clunky and have ZERO support communities.

Any suggestions?

Lightroom would be my choice unless you are into high art.

 

[XboxEvolved]

Pixelmator Pro all the way, not only is it a one time purchase of like $40 (it frequently also goes on sale to $30) they also constantly are updating it and taking full advantage of MacOS, and it feels like what a Photoshop alternative would be if Apple were to make one.

 

[EugW]

On the iPad I purchased Affinity Photo but didn't really learn it. Now that I got a new iPad Pro M4 I want to dabble some more with it, but am wondering if I should just buy Affinity Photo 2 instead.

Should I just stick with Affinity Photo for now? I don't use RAW files at all. I read that full RAW support is the biggest advantage of Affinity Photo 2.

EDIT:

I ended up getting the Affinity V2 Suite, mainly because it was a cheap upgrade price to the universal license, and it’d be nice to put it on my Mac and my daughter’s Mac, instead of just on my personal iPad.

CA$82.49 is only US$60.48 / £47.22 / €55.78 and it’s not a subscription. Hopefully we’ll a get a few years out of it, before V3 is out. The main thing V2 is missing apparently is AI cleanup and related features, so it’s possible V3 will come sooner than later, but we shall see.

 

[EugW]

Today Affinity announced a free no-strings attached 6-month trial of the Affinity Suite.

Also, if you taken the trial before, you can get a new 6-month trial with this promotion.

 

[jtdx99]

Try Photomator as well...you will like it...

Yep, I'm a big fan of Photomator on my iPad Air.

 

[Slartibart]

Here is what I envision I need most right now...

Take photos from my iPhone (or camera) or screenshots from a video, and do the following BASIC things...

- Crop the image (if needed)
- Adjust light levels (if needed)
- Adjust color-curves (if needed)
- Possibly edit a small blemish (if needed)
- Save to a super compressed, yet universally accessible photo file
- Publish


Not to sound like a snob, but I shoot good video and photos, so I don't need lots of editing.

This - and more incl. RAW development - you can do also directly on your iPhone using Snapseed.

No, I think AI is evil.

Well, machine learning is quite useful for a variety of things (e.g. blemish removal, isolating objects, etc.) 😁