Adobe Exec Defends Photoshop for iPad After App Falls Flat (bloomberg.com) 74
Adobe debuted its most important mobile application ever this week when it finally released Photoshop for Apple's iPad. But with key capabilities missing, many within the company's vast fan base have panned the application, prompting the app's overseer to publicly defend his product. From a report: Scott Belsky, chief product officer of Adobe's Creative Cloud division, tweeted about the "painful" early reviews for a product his team has worked on for years. Right now in Apple's App Store, Photoshop for iPad has a user review rating of 2.3 out of 5 stars. Belsky tweeted a screenshot of the metric, saying it made sense that a re-imagination of a popular 30-year-old product would displease many. Bloomberg News reported last month that the beta version of the touchscreen Photoshop app upset testers who missed many of the popular functions they'd grown accustomed to over the years.
"If you try to make everybody happy w/ a v1, you'll either never ship or make nobody happy," Belsky tweeted. "Such feats require customer feedback to truly exceed expectations. You must ship and get fellow passionate travelers on board. But for a team with the right vision and commitment, being doubted and critiqued is motivating and informing." Belsky also responded to users who tweeted about not enjoying Photoshop on Apple's tablet, recommending they try Adobe's drawing app, Fresco. While it's hard, it's important to build products "with customers" rather than "hidden in the lab," he added.
"If you try to make everybody happy w/ a v1, you'll either never ship or make nobody happy," Belsky tweeted. "Such feats require customer feedback to truly exceed expectations. You must ship and get fellow passionate travelers on board. But for a team with the right vision and commitment, being doubted and critiqued is motivating and informing." Belsky also responded to users who tweeted about not enjoying Photoshop on Apple's tablet, recommending they try Adobe's drawing app, Fresco. While it's hard, it's important to build products "with customers" rather than "hidden in the lab," he added.
Missing links? (Score:2)
Is there supposed to be a link to a story here?
Re:Missing links? (Score:5, Funny)
That's another popular function missing that users have grown accustomed to...
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Re:Missing links? (Score:5, Informative)
Affinity Photo for iPad [serif.com]
This has been out for like 2-3 years now I think.
I got it when the first 10.5 iPad Pros came out...and was blown away by how powerful it was.
I was surprised that not only did it not choke on doing focus stacking of about 10 full RAW images from a Canon 5D3....but it did a great job of it and in fairly good time, better than some laptops I've seen trying to do the same approximate workload.
I have not had a chance to look at the new PS offering yet, but I have been wondering these past years why PS wasn't even really there on tables when their competitors were way ahead of them.
AND....you don't have to "rent" the Affinity Products.
Affinity photo on desktop is amazing too....they also have offerings of Designer and Publisher that will give Adobe competent for their Illustrator and InDesign....
Re: Missing links? (Score:3)
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I have 12 years now plowed into my LR database. What am I suppose to do? Just walk away from all that?
Affinity has talked in the past about doing content management but I haven't looked into it for a while. When I did look into it about 2 years ago there seemed to be no alternative to the database side of LR. My fav photo podcast https://tipsfromthetopfloor.co... [tipsfromthetopfloor.com] has talked about this in the past and last time I seriously listened he was still looking for a LR replacement as well (he is a huge LR user) but nothing seemed to be good enough.
Re:Missing links? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, Affinity Photo is more of a replacement for Photoshop.
I'd suggest you look into:
On1 RAW [on1.com]
With On1, you can choose whether you want to catalog things, and if you have one of the more modern versions of LR, I believe it has import capabilities where it will a actually try to capture the LR settings you have on your images.
I stopped on LR5, and alas, the On1 versions won't import the old stuff.
But you can catalog things with On1...you can point to the directories you keep your images and it will track them, keywords, smart lists, etc....and it seems much faster than the LR database....
On1 has also recently added in RAW image layering which is pretty interesting and their ability for luminosity masking for effects has proven very valuable to me.
I find I do my pano stitching more in Affinity Photo than On1....but I do most of my regular photo tuning and development in On1 (replaced LR), and I use Affinity Photo for the heavy lifting and composite work, (replaced PS).
Both of these give you 30 day trials....give them a shot.
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There’s a link to Bloomberg right I the header, where there’s always a link.
While this release isn’t being well-received, that’s hardly surprising. What is surprising is that this release marks the first time that Adobe has been able to port their existing code base to a mobile device. They now have a common backend across a their native app platforms. As such, they can, over time, roll out new features for the iPad app at the rate that they can figure out how they want the interacti
Re:Missing links? (Score:4, Informative)
Is there supposed to be a link to a story here?
The only story here is that Adobe wanted to charge me a fee off $240 pre paid up front, single payment, for renting Photoshop for a year so I shelled out $50, one time payment, for an Affinity Photo license. Now I'm sure there are smart alecks out there ready to point out I could have paid $0 for a Gimp license and they'd be right. I did try Gimp but I just like Affinity Photo better. I also know that Affinity Photo does not do everything PS does (nor does Gimp) and that if you are a professional photographer, fashion industry professional, game industry graphics designer, etc. neither AP nor Gimp will do everything you need but I'm just an advanced amateur at photo editing. I'm none of these kinds of professional and both AP and Gimp do what I need them to do without the extortionate rent that Adobe charges you.
Re:Missing links? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, while Affinity Photo doesn't have every function that PS does....click for click, I would argue it has the same functionality (at least 99%) that PS does and will do readily for professional work.
Since the AP engine was developed from the ground up, in many ways it is faster and more powerful in some areas that PS.
I find that I can use AP to replace PS , and while there are several offerings out there for replacement of Lightroom, I found that On1 RAW is my choice, they have really been innovating and adding serious functionality. Heck you can do layering of RAW images in On1 now....very interesting stuff that opens up.
And best of all...I don't have to pay RENT for my software. I also find that free upgrades are plentiful for these apps.
The Affinity Ones keep upgrading at no cost to me since I've had them.
The ON1 RAW app, I get upgrades during the year, and so far annually they do a major upgrade version that they charge for...BUT, you can decide if/when to upgrade, and it is nice to have that choice.
I like choice.
But I would argue that AP will do everything you need in a normal pro workflow that PS does.
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Well, while Affinity Photo doesn't have every function that PS does....click for click, I would argue it has the same functionality (at least 99%) that PS does and will do readily for professional work.
Since the AP engine was developed from the ground up, in many ways it is faster and more powerful in some areas that PS.
I find that I can use AP to replace PS , and while there are several offerings out there for replacement of Lightroom, I found that On1 RAW is my choice, they have really been innovating and adding serious functionality. Heck you can do layering of RAW images in On1 now....very interesting stuff that opens up.
And best of all...I don't have to pay RENT for my software. I also find that free upgrades are plentiful for these apps.
The Affinity Ones keep upgrading at no cost to me since I've had them.
The ON1 RAW app, I get upgrades during the year, and so far annually they do a major upgrade version that they charge for...BUT, you can decide if/when to upgrade, and it is nice to have that choice.
I like choice.
But I would argue that AP will do everything you need in a normal pro workflow that PS does.
Yeah, I bought a CS5 license for around $500 IIRC and used it for nine years before the thing started crashing on me after an OS update. So at $240 per annum for nine years that's would at today's prices be $2160 worth of rent over nine years for software that I used to pay a $500 one time license for and use for nine years. Adobe is nothing more than a bunch of highway robbers IMHO. They used to charge Australians $4334 for CS6, the same package could be had for $2599 in the US which was a $1735 price diff
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"a CS5 license for around $500 "
If that's what you paid, then you bought an education/academic version - because I bought it for about AUD$450. I also lucked out because I bought CS5.5 after CS6 had been announced, and what I got in the box was a licenced copy of CS4 32-bit, "to help with the transition to 64-bit bit software", a licenced copy of CS5.5, and a serial number and download code for CS6, which also included about 6-7GB of stock photos, templates, SPFX filters, etc
Three fully-licenced copies.
The
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Is there supposed to be a link to a story here?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
/. and the editors these days but c'mon.
Right next to it, same place it's always been. I know its cool to rag on
GTE 50%? (Score:2)
Re:GTE 50%? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you've never worked with a loaded up iPad Pro with a powerful app like Procreate, Affinity Photo or the like.
It is a VERY capable platform for creation.
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My Fiat 500 is a very capable car to do a full road trip through Europe as well. I just don't recommend ever doing one in that car.
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You want better than 2.5/5, since the minimum score is 1, not 0.
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"If you try to make everybody happy w/ a v1, you'll either never ship or make nobody happy," Belsky tweeted. "Such feats require customer feedback to truly exceed expectations. You must ship and get fellow passionate travelers on board.
Side splittingly hilarious that his claim is referencing reviews on Apple's App store, used exclusively by people with iPhones and iPads. Both products debuted to massive customer accolades (outside of places like Slashdot).
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That's one goal. But to me, what the product manager is saying makes a lot of sense. You start with a minimum viable product (MVP) and you go from there.
People complain about the "rental" model, but one thing it does is facilitate a CI/CD-type development process for retail software. When new features are released, you get them today. Same with bugfixes. No more waterfall releases, no more waiting 18 months for the new version to come out.
Another thing that attaching the iPad version to a subscription gets
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"Let me laugh even harder. AHAHAHAHAHA!"
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Except (Score:2)
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This is what happens when you don't have any competition. You get complacent and ignore user request and R&D budgets get slashed. An let's face it, Adobe products have reputation of being the best in the field. If that reputation is deserved or not is entirely up to the user. I know there are plenty of products that can do the same things as Adobe's, some them better, but it all about reputation.
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An let's face it, Adobe products have reputation of being the best in the field.
I've rarely heard anyone actually praise Adobe products. What I do hear people say, time and time again, that Adobe is entrenched in their particular creative field so they're stuck with it.
The problem is that it is not “Photoshop&rdq (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The problem is that it is not “Photoshop& (Score:2)
Really?
Strange, they have competitors that have had full blown PS desktop capabilities on the iPad for years now.
Re:The problem is that it is not “Photoshop& (Score:2)
Re: The problem is that it is not “Photoshop (Score:2)
"Because of the form factor ..."
What on earth does tablet form factor have to do with limiting desktop software functionality? That's a bs excuse.
Look at the specs of an iPad Pro, 13" screen, 2.5Ghz, 6gb ram, 1tb all flash storage.
There's nothing on paper that prevents typical desktop software from running on a good tablet, or even bad tablets for the most part. It's not like desktop hardware requirements have gone anywhere in ten years. The hard part is porting everything to a different OS and UI norms.
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Besides the difference in input and output which drives how and what features are done? If you have a desktop, you’ve got multiple monitors with at least a mouse and sometimes a pen with Wacom type tablet. So if I need to apply different paint brushes to different parts of an image, I can change the properties of my paint brush easily with a desktop within the workflow. In an app, it has to be reinvented as things as right-clicking, macro key mapping, are not available. The problem isn’t that th
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What on earth does tablet form factor have to do with limiting desktop software functionality? That's a bs excuse.
Look at the specs of an iPad Pro, 13" screen, 2.5Ghz, 6gb ram, 1tb all flash storage.
But an ARM architecture processor, while "real" Photoshop has been developed exclusively for Intel architecture for years.
To me, if you wanted to run Photoshop on a tablet, get a Surface Pro and run the actual thing.
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This. Latest tablets benchmark within 1 generation of MacBook Pro.
Re:The problem is that it is not “Photoshop& (Score:2)
Because of the form factor, it doesn't have and will not ever have some features of desktop Photoshop.
Name one? I've seen some very poor, direct tablet conversions that kept every feature. Yes, you should redesign for mobile but I have a hard time imagining a feature you couldn't. If we were talking about 5" phones then yes, but a 12.9" iPad Pro? It's an ultra-portable laptop screen size, the Apple Pencil gives you high precision pointer control and virtual keyboards obviously don't give you the shortcuts but everything else is possible. The hardware itself should be fairly capable, I think a high end table
Re:The problem is that it is not “Photoshop& (Score:2)
Re:The problem is that it is not “Photoshop& (Score:2)
You keep replying with the single-use tunnel-vision use case of "but muhh Wacom tablet". I keep waiting for you to consider other valid use cases but it never happens.
Re:The problem is that it is not “Photoshop& (Score:1)
Affinity gets 95% of the way there.
Re:The problem is that it is not “Photoshop& (Score:2)
Tablets are okay for drawing directly with a pen, but for most other stuff they are less than ideal. Having to touch the screen with your fingers for operations like pinch to zoom means it will quickly get covered in skin oils, for example. You also only have a 10" work area at best which means you don't want to be wasting a lot of space on large, finger friendly controls.
Tablets are basically good for sketching but for anything else a computer will be much more comfortable.
Re:The problem is that it is not “Photoshop& (Score:2)
Well, first the biggest iPad already is 12.9", second it already supports an external display and third there is no reason to assume that it won't at one point support even more than one external display.
I would be cautious with "will not ever have".
Okay, so this is version 1.0 (Score:2)
They have some customer feedback now, and know that people didn't like what may have felt like false advertising to them - a product called Adobe Photoshop that was missing many key features of Photoshop ... if there's any way Adobe can add some of these features in without compromising the usability of the existing product for people who might actually already be satisfied with the existing product, that seems like a direction to go for version 2.0. If they had waited to implement every possible feature
Ok so... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's 29 years of building features (Score:2)
> same features as Photoshop
Adobe has been building more and more features for Photoshop for 29 years. They could spend the next 29 years working on the mobile app to reach feature parity before the first release.
Like Excel, 90% of Photoshop users don't use 90% of the features. Maybe 10%-20% are commonly used, and they could get that done in a reasonable time frame. Where they may have messed up is a) messaging, letting customers know what to expect and possibly b) identifying exactly which features
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Everything would've been fine if they had the features of Photoshop 4.0 or something. Not sure what they've done with the ipad version I've used some previous Android app and basically it just had some curves and color adjustments and maybe red-eye correction features. Great if you want to make an instagramy photo but pretty much useless otherwise.
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Adobe has been building more and more features for Photoshop for 29 years. They could spend the next 29 years working on the mobile app to reach feature parity before the first release.
I thought the great thing about app development for iDevices was supposed to be that they supported native apps, so the bar for porting an OSX application to iOS was much lower than that for porting a traditional non-Java desktop app to Android. Is that not the case?
"If you try to make everybody happy w/ a v1" (Score:5, Insightful)
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Their oil paint filter reduces the dynamic range from 0..255 to 0..239
The only thing photos
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Well, did they say which version of the desktop app? /s
Artificial Economy (Score:3)
It's all part of the plan to make sure that folks understand that every little feature should be a revenue source for the business.
Every feature you use will become a value add that you are going to just have to pay extra for. The objective is to generate as much "subscription" based revenue as possible to build an eternal revenue stream.
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yep, and people are just going to bend over and take it.
They have all lost sight of the fact that the "self-regulating" component of a capitalist free-market is the consumer not buying trash products when shit like this happens. Instead they will all just ask congress to make developers do what they want instead of voting with their wallets like a responsible consumer.
Re: Artificial Economy (Score:2)
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If you use these apps to earn a living the subscription is small fry. If you don't it's much too expensive but you don't need it then anyway.
Adobe lost me as a customer years ago (Score:2)
Adobe lost me as a customer when they started moving to a subscription based model. Prior to that I had a legally purchased Photoshop for OS X. But that all went south when it became difficult to install it after an OS X upgrade. After looking around for a while I settled on Affinity Photo [serif.com] Fixed price software with no subscriptions and updates via the App store, and while it is not Photoshop, I don't need all that Photoshop brings to the table - so I am happy.
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Fixed price software works great as long as there is a constantly growing user base. This was the case in the past for MS and Adobe and others just because there were ever more and more PCs and PC users. As soon as your user base stops growing and the market is saturated your sales necessarily drop off a cliff and you either go under or have to come up with regular paid updates (basically an excuse for selling your app to the same users again and again), or have to move to a subscription based model. There
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Software Companies made billions of dollars for 30+ years without subscriptions.
You can’t ‘subscribe’ to most products yet they tend to do just fine.
Feature Fucking Parity (Score:1)
""If you try to make everybody happy w/ a v1, you'll either never ship or make nobody happy," Belsky tweeted."
The way to make someone happy with a mobile version of your DESKTOP application is sheer fucking feature parity.
This one reason is why most apps out there do not interest me. You have no equal functionality between mobile or desktop (why can't I do a live broadcast on Instagram from my desktop with its infinitely more powerful camera) then you really have no business trying to write software. Users
App, Not Application. "PhtoShp", not Photoshop. (Score:2)
No body really fully expected every Photoshop feature to be available on a truncated app until they released it under the name "Adobe Photoshop". Not "Adobe Photoshop for iPad" or a name that would imply that it's not the whole Photoshop ("PhtoShp"). It's a branding issue and they flubbed it.
Familiarity breeds complacency (Score:1)
Sorry (Score:2)
BS, (Score:4, Insightful)
They clearly underestimated the work they had to do and then probably had a release-date set for 2019 and had to cut all of the features that didn't quite work at that moment. But setting high expectations and then not even having the balls to admit that they couldn't make it is pretty infuriating.
"with a v1" (Score:2)
The industry standard for 30 years.
What the hell do they expect releasing a *v1* editor after being the top dog for three decades?
Bring Back the "Photoshop Elements" name (Score:2)
adobe.. (Score:1)
Missing features (Score:1)
Key features of Photoshop CC, such as filters, pen tool, custom paintbrush libraries, vector drawing, color spaces, RAW editing, smart objects, layer styles, and options for mask creation will not be available on iPad for now.
photoshop on an iPad? (Score:1)
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I find photo editing to be easier on an iPad.