Adobe Suite Replacement

[Joshe]

For my work, I have to pay Adobe $70/mo for Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat. I've been hoping for good replacements for a few years and finally have found a very promising solution. 

https://getartcraft.com/

You can set these apps up as portable versions by pointing Claude or ChatGPT at the repo and telling it to set them up: https://github.com/storytold. (If you don't already have Claude/ChatGPT on your system to do stuff for you, time to join the revolution. ) Or you can just download straight from the website. 

My main concern was that it wouldn't handle PSD files correctly, but it seems to work perfectly so far. 

Just thought I'd share in case anyone else is wants to stop shelling out to Adobe. $840/yr savings. 

The creators used Opus 5.5 to recreate all this. The team is constantly adding features that match Adobe's. 

 

Edited Thursday at 10:54 PM by Joshe

[kavaris]

Ill be honest, back when i used Windows, or an OS that could run Adobe and Apple products, etc., nothing really beat Adobe, or atleast, the old photoshop stuff from back in the day... w that said, now if i were to use something id do everything in watchamakalit, gimp or w/ image magivk, etc., like free linux tools, cause theres nothing specific im tryina do... but, if you need all that illustrator and all those other tools, im not actually sure there can be a replacement since adobe really revolutionized those areas. like, id be surprised if you find anything remotely like their tools, unfortunately. With that said, i have tried some cheap alt., tools, but they werent very good, granted this was like over 6 years ago, so you never know i guess.

[kavaris]

7 hours ago, Joshe said:

https://getartcraft.com/

i guess it depends on wat this is for, as when you say adobe suite, im thinking all hundred of those little programs they made for very specific jobs around like, drsign and illustration and such. thats wat i was meaning... but if theres something more specific you meant, like digital sortve animation arena, thats something very different.

[kavaris]

7 hours ago, Joshe said:

My main concern was that it wouldn't handle PSD files correctly, but it seems to work perfectly so far. 

Ill be honest i dont know much about photoshop or psd files, etc, as im assuming thats what .psd means.

You know whats funny though, i get emails from people who are still tryina work on these dead projects, like stuff that could really up-end all of these things, that is like, working on old OS, and image manipulation tools, like open source work that i once had subscribed to on github a long while ago, every now and then someone is asking if the project maintainer will accept their fix/patch, like its like... The drive to work on these things is there, but not enough ppl are on the same page. I just kinda laugh, as i find it funny. sad but funny in a way, cause its like, alot opportunities are there, nd everyones like, eh i dont really care.

Edited yesterday at 05:57 AM by kavaris

[kavaris]

ha, when you said "suite" i thought u meant like this stuff, Like... fkin, "Dreamweaver" or somethin (i dont even recall what dreamweaver was...) Like all this sht, neverending adobe stuff,

[Joshe]

@kavaris Sorry, I didn't even check out that website I shared. I figured it would have made clear what they were building. 

The repo I pointed to has: 

And they also built: 

So, they didn't replace the entire Adobe suite, but basically their primary tools. Dreamweaver was a WYSIWYG code editor. It kind of sucks and isn't that popular anymore, so it didn't make the cut. 

If all you're doing is creating your own work, you can get by with all those tools you mentioned. But if clients are handing you PSD files (Photoshop files) or .ai (Illustrator files), up till now, Photoshop ripoffs couldn't open those files and keep everything intact, which forced tons of people to stick with the Adobe ecosystem. That's changing now, and I'm 100% here for it. Fuck Adobe. Price hikes nearly every year or two.

AI is putting an end to their monopoly. 

 

Edited yesterday at 07:09 AM by Joshe

[kavaris]

7 minutes ago, Joshe said:

 ... but if clients are handing you PSD files (Photoshop files) or .ai (Illustrator files), up till now, Photoshop ripoffs couldn't open those files and keep everything intact, which forced tons of people to stick with the Adobe ecosystem. That's changing now, and I'm 100% here for it. Fuck Adobe. Price hikes nearly every year or two.

AI is putting an end to their monopoly. 

Oh thats kinda interesting. i didnt know this... but nevertheless, its intriguing. Perhaps ill look into, as i get what you are looking towards now.

Edited yesterday at 07:12 AM by kavaris

[Joseph Maynor]

I like Acrobat, but Adobe seems to make everything else over-complicated that I've tried.

[kavaris]

1 minute ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I like Acrobat, but Adobe seems to make everything else over-complicated that I've tried.

Ill be honest, i forget what actobat, illustrator, and all those were... i know theres a design to it, tho the last time i used photoshop, it was called like Photoshop CS4 or something, like it was a "CS#" Line, that im not even sure if they call it that now, or whats going on.... Do yous kno?

[Joshe]

16 hours ago, kavaris said:

Ill be honest, i forget what actobat, illustrator, and all those were... i know theres a design to it, tho the last time i used photoshop, it was called like Photoshop CS4 or something, like it was a "CS#" Line, that im not even sure if they call it that now, or whats going on.... Do yous kno?

Yeah, they did away with all the CS versioning numbers and now don't even use version numbers in reference to them. Because who needs to worry about version # when you're forced to keep the app up to date with a monthly sub. These days, it's just Photoshop or Photoshop 2025, Photoshop 2026. 

Edited 23 hours ago by Joshe

[Joseph Maynor]

Photoshop is what happens when you have tech people try to design a tool for artists.  

[Leo Gura]

Tech bros cannabalizing each other?

[kavaris]

Im sure theres more we could come up w/, to say, on the topic of Adobe/ Photoshop. I'm alternating in another interrelated topic atm, just to keep the subject matter afloat... And i also have a question...

Has anyone tried Grok in awhile?

I ask because, my mom was talkin' bout Elon and it got me thinkin bout all that $$$ he spent on them Ai server-running-machines or whatever it is, and last time i used Grok, it was very much giving *too* much information... per reply...

And its not that im that curious about all the different Ai's out there and how they respond, but seeing as its at the edge of tech, i just thought i'd atleast ask. I mean, in as far as it can become something that people are having intimate relations w/, just as anyone playing video games, or using unix shell, vim, emacs, notepad, or any other program alot and that theyve since become intimately familiar w/, it fits that role of something worth nit-picking over, to see which brand/model out there is our favorite.

I can say, i know Claude (ive found) doesnt do so well w/ language stuff... And no one else would really know more about this right now, cause im constantly testing Claude and ChatGPT at the edge of translation, almost 247... and, speaking for the free models, ChatGPT is quite a distance from Claude (in that particular area...). Generally though, they're all pretty good, i mean, im not knocking on any model or anything.

Anyway, i just thought id ask. i havent tried Grok in a long while, or any of the others. P.s. Yous might know this, but ChatGPT was sortve the proof-of-concept around generality... Like whatever ingredients went into ChatGPT, that sortve general grab of everything (meaning, its training), that was what makes it so good... If you change that, trying to steer things in certain directions, you screw up that balance. Dont quote me on that, but thats sortve what the story is...

Edited 5 hours ago by kavaris

[kavaris]

^Thats prolly a good thread/topic to ask ppl — What tech., or applications, etc , is every1 intimately familar ~ attached to, such that it second nature, or its the primary part of what you do and such, as that then gets yas discovery what everyones into, wat they like.

[Joseph Maynor]

I tried Premiere and it was off-putting almost immediately to me.  

[Joshe]

5 hours ago, kavaris said:

Has anyone tried Grok in awhile?

I haven't tried it myself, but I follow lots of people testing these models and I've seen its output. Its coding and design capabilities are far below Claude and ChatGPT. Claude Haiku 5.5, which is one of Anthropic's cheapest models, outperforms Grok at it's best. 

Check out how bad it is as design. Timestamped so you can see it right away: