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New Photoshop competitor
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I think you’re talking about Affinity Designer which is a vector design tool similar to Illustrator. We’re talking about the beta of Affinity Photo which is a direct competitor to Photoshop.
https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/
It was at a Vegas premiere that I resolved to become an avid FCPX user.
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 -
Alan, you may be confusing Affinity Designer with Affinity Photo- which is a brand new app in public beta just released yesterday. Having spent the afternoon with it- I can say it is most definitely the most serious Mac competitor to Photoshop I’ve seen thus far and exceeds it in certain areas.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training -
[Mitch Ives] “but Color was free and Shake was cheap, like $299”
Well, Color was free as part of the $999 FC Studio package. It still works, although old Motion doesn’t work any longer under Yosemite. FWIW – Motion has to work to correctly set the path to FCP 7 if it gets confused. So in effect, this can also result in FCP 7 no longer launching for some folks.
[Mitch Ives] “So, I see a really huge difference there, but perhaps I’m just splitting hairs? “
Sure, there is a difference, but the point I’m making is that software ownership is an illusion. You bought the right to use (not own) that app based on the EULA terms. In a practical sense, we all gave up a certain level of control of our software when distribution went away from discs and serial numbers/dongles. By moving to web distribution and authorization under company-controlled DRM, we simply given up some control in a trade-off for the benefits.
So yes, if Apple pulled the plug on FCP X, you would only be out $299, but for many companies this would mean a significant workflow upheaval. Let me hasten to add that I think it’s unlikely, but there are no guarantees with any of this.
From a purely monetary point-of-view, if you look at most (if not all) of the subscription models, the cost is actually lower to subscribe than to purchase and do annual upgrades. Usually the dollars are somewhat even by the 5th or 6th year.
However, most folks are perfectly fine with older versions of Office, After Effects and Photoshop if they aren’t power users. Naturally this means they don’t upgrade and the company gets no development dollars from them. This works for Apple, because of the huge imbalance the iPhone has created, from which we’ve all benefited.
Whether or not you stay current really boils down to compatibility with the outside world. If I only have AE from CS5, I can’t open an AE CC2014 file that’s sent to me or that I purchase as a template. I also miss out on some benefits that newer software provides. For example, layer effects in Pixelmator and Affinity (I think) are baked, so you don’t have smart objects like in Photoshop. Not a big deal for me, but others have tossed this out as an objection to Pixelmator.
To some extent, what is perceived as an industry-standard application is a regional situation. For instance, in the US, I’ve generally encountered editors who feel that Photoshop is the de facto standard for graphics. However, a lot of Europeans, especially those on PCs, gravitated to Paint Shop Pro in years past. So nothing is really a lock worldwide.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “From a purely monetary point-of-view, if you look at most (if not all) of the subscription models, the cost is actually lower to subscribe than to purchase and do annual upgrades. Usually the dollars are somewhat even by the 5th or 6th year.”
Oliver, I have to disagree with the one about cost, because it was never the case here at my company. Perhaps it is cheaper for others, though?
Upgrading the Adobe suite used to cost us around $299-$399, depending on their offer. I would tend to do it (or not do it) at NAB each year after seeing what the changes were. In the case of Adobe, it wasn’t an annual thing, because first, updates didn’t come every year. Second, a lot of updates were bug fixes and features that I didn’t need… so I didn’t update every year. In fact, on average it was around every other year. That meant it was on average $150-200 each year per machine. Under the new program it’s $600 each and every year, period. That’s not cheaper, that’s 3 times as expensive.
I’m sorry to hear that people are having issues with FCP 7. All my old installations work fine.
I get the part about having a license, and not owning software. The difference is in the past, my license in perpetual. Under the subscription model it’s annual. Not to go all lawyer on you, but thats a huge difference.
By upheaval, do mean like the one when they killed 7 and gave us FCP X? If so, I think we can all survive that.
Anytime a company wants more development dollars, all they have to do is give us a product we want. It really is that simple. Prior to CC it was on Adobe to deliver something first. Under CC it’s like a government contract… they want to be paid for their efforts, not their results.
As to compatibility with other people, like a lot of others, we’ve discovered it’s not a problem, as there are solutions to that. Many were developed in the past because we were always on newer versions than our clients. Reversing that process hasn’t been hard.
I don’t disagree with your position, I just see the edges as a bit more ragged… and I totally understand the regional thing. It’s some of those products that are popular in Europe that I eventually found and liked enough to acquire…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
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Beg your pardon you are quite right. I guess that’s why I didn’t consider it a PS competitor. Still really pleased I’ve found it though. I’ll check out the photo.
Alan
XdcamEx & HD, C300, DSLRs, all sorts of production & post gear and a very untidy desk. On the East Coast of the UK
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[Mitch Ives] “Upgrading the Adobe suite used to cost us around $299-$399, depending on their offer. “
Are you basing this on the Master Collection or the Video Bundle? CC is equivalent to Master Collection.
[Mitch Ives] “it wasn’t an annual thing, because first, updates didn’t come every year. Second, a lot of updates were bug fixes and features that I didn’t need… so I didn’t update every year. In fact, on average it was around every other year.”
Yes, this is true, but if you look at their upgrade cycle under CC, it’s picked up the pace considerably, so you would now be on an annual paid upgrade cycle for feature releases.
[Mitch Ives] “Under the new program it’s $600 each and every year, period”
Correct, but under subscription, you never paid the $2600 (approx) that the Master Collection would have cost up front. So you have to average that out over several years, plus annual or bi-annual upgrades to get a true picture of TCO.
[Mitch Ives] “I’m sorry to hear that people are having issues with FCP 7. All my old installations work fine.”
Old installs will continue to be fine as long as nothing goes wrong. I still use FCP 7 as well. However, the correct path to whether you launch FCP 7 or FCP X is based on the application understanding the path via Motion. If these paths get confused (such as through re-installation) you would have to launch the old Motion first in order to reset the path to launch FCP 7. If old Motion no longer works (which appears to be the case), you will not be able to run FCP 7 should the paths get messed up. But that’s really OT for this thread.
[Mitch Ives] “The difference is in the past, my license in perpetual. Under the subscription model it’s annual. Not to go all lawyer on you, but thats a huge difference.”
In a real sense, yes. In a practical sense, it really doesn’t make any difference until you decide to get out of the business and would still like to have working software. I certainly get that.
[Mitch Ives] “Anytime a company wants more development dollars, all they have to do is give us a product we want. It really is that simple. Prior to CC it was on Adobe to deliver something first”
That’s not really how life works. I am able to get ready for the next production, because I can bankroll income from the previous projects and clients. That’s basic cash flow. So income from updates, which are feature-bearing, provide cash flow for ongoing work. You are only paying for those features when you get them. Under the subscription model, you gain the same benefit, but only as long as R&D continues and you get new updates. But remember subscription isn’t only about features and software updates. Now maybe those have no value to you. I get that, too. The “cloud” doesn’t really benefit me much at this point. But, if you take Avid as an example, subscription or the maintenance contract also includes basic tech support.
[Mitch Ives] “By upheaval, do mean like the one when they killed 7 and gave us FCP X? If so, I think we can all survive that.”
That’s a good example. In that case, to replace the functionality of 7 in a larger facility, you have to augment it with several hundred dollars worth of extra workflow tools as well as change a lot about how your staff works. This is why many companies opted for Premiere or Media Composer over X as a replacement. It was simply an easier fit.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Scott Witthaus] “The point was more about attitude and market-share. Take that kind of attitude (“we’re the industry standard….) and it could come back and bite you in the ass….”
no argument from me there.
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Most definitely. I think the biggest hurdle, perhaps for myself, is to find Adobe replacement apps that can correctly open PS and Ai files that are given to us by clients. Right now Adobe is still the Microsoft of graphics. We’re expected to open/save Adobe files. People send them without asking. Kinda like MS Word files. I have no need for MS Word except to open client files.
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Tony: Oliver’s mention of “Smart Objects” in Photoshop is also important, IMO.
Many times I will have a very large TIFF file of a graphic, that I use as a Smart Object, applying all kinds of curves and filters and scaling the object down to a small file for use on a website … then returning to the high res object when needed. This is a very convenient feature.
I haven’t used Lightroom; perhaps the non-destructive “cloning” feature allows similar workflow?
Doug D
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[Bret Williams] “Most definitely. I think the biggest hurdle, perhaps for myself, is to find Adobe replacement apps that can correctly open PS and Ai files that are given to us by clients”
I doubt that will ever be the case. At least not perfectly. Most of the time you’ll be able to open them well enough if the client flattens layers. So you can get by and that may be sufficient for most editors.
[Bret Williams] ” Kinda like MS Word files. I have no need for MS Word except to open client files”
When I write, I use Pages. But when I need to exchange a draft for review, I have to export as Word, so that I can get a document back with “tracked changes”. When I’m done I save a Pages version and an RTF just for interchange purposes. So staying away from the dominant application often requires workarounds, no matter what type of application.
Of course, there was a time when WordPerfect was the main writing tool, so things do change.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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