I wouldn’t say that Linux & Gimp are objectively better, but they sure are better in the long run, since you plop “gimp” into a nix configuration and never have to deal with installation and cracking.
For most use cases of Photoshop, GIMP is not an alternative at all. For more basic use cases it is, but st that point you shouldn’t be wasting efforts on Photoshop anyways, something like Paint.NET would be the recommended.
The closest we have for any Adobe alternatives are Affinity Photo for Photoshop, but that one is not free nor open source, but it’s a lifetime pay once license. For some use cases of Photoshop and Illustrator you could use Krita, which is FOSS, and for Premiere there’s DaVinci resolve, which has Linux builds and a free version.
For most use cases of Photoshop, GIMP is not an alternative at all.
Have you used GIMP seriously? And I don’t mean installing it, getting confused because the menu layout is different to Photoshop and giving up in disgust after 10 mins.
I will readily admit that Photoshop is currently more capable and faster in some cases but to say GIMP is not an alternative is ridiculous.
I’m not the person you replied to, I don’t use Photoshop, but I used to use GIMP exclusively and I use the Affinity suite now. What I’ve seen pop up in discussions about a major area where GIMP is lacking, going back several years at this point:
Photoshop supports nondestructive editing, and Affinity supports nondestructive RAW editing (and even outside RAW editing, it still supports things like filter layers). Heck, my understanding is Krita has support for nondestructive editing, too.
GIMP, on the other hand, has historically only had destructive editing. It looks like they finally added an initial implementation back in February. That’s great, and once GIMP 3.0 releases and that feature is fully supported, then GIMP will be a viable alternative for workflows that require it.
Yes I have, but GIMP simply isn’t aimed at the same type of work Photoshop and AF Photo are. GIMP feels much more of a hobbyist tool to quickly make a simple edit and that’s done. And like the other comment said, it has no non-destructive editing at all, which is an enormous dealbreaker for any kind of professional work you might do.
Just to note here, resolve is also much better than premier, even the free version. Considering the Adobe pricing, buying studio for $300 is a better decision imo.
kdenlive is solid for the simple cut/fade type of work.
I’d also add something I’ve mentioned elsewhere for pictures - in case of raws, paint.net is ok, but imo darktable+krita is a much better experience.
+1. Resolve is leaps and bounds ahead of Premiere and even After Effects when you consider Resolve has Fusion built in. I work on high level projects and often run into huge issues trying to work with Premiere projects. Most editors still use it simply because it was the first NLE they picked up. It lacks proper color management and its ability to export out to other software whether for post audio, color, or VFX is abysmal. I switched to Resolve about 5 years ago and while it isn’t without its faults, I’ll take it over Adobe bullshit any day. Sometimes I have to open editors premiere files to troubleshoot and I want to blow my brains out. Easily can wipe out an entire day just troubleshooting premiere projects. It’s funny because when I first got into the industry I was using Premiere and they were trying to push me to use Avid. I felt the same way about Avid as I currently feel about premiere.
Jsyk affinity started offering a 6 month no-cc-required free trial yesterday: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/trial/
