Sep 10 2007
So-called Photoshop contenders
Once in a while, a so-called photoshop contender creeps up in the news. Normally, for me, it’s for mac since it’s the only software I currently follow. Now, as I said here, I only normally take a couple of minutes to check it out since they normally fail two fundamental aspects to even think about being as useful as a shitty photoshop. (let alone the useful plugins and built-in image editing features)
Note that my interest in photoshop is normally two-fold: As an amateur photographer and as a Biology PhD Student that has to analyze high-resolution microscope images (that are 12 bit). That said, I’ve used in the past Photoshop for pre-press work so you will understand why CMYK support is fundamental to even consider using anything else besides Photoshop.
- Native cmyk support. I don’t want to convert at the end. If I want my images to be in cmyk, I want to do everything to them in this format.
- 16 bit file support. What use will a raster image program have in a lab if it can’t read > 8 bit grayscale images? Most people in a lab use raster editing programs to deal with microscope images, which are, by today’s standards normally at least 12bit (encapsulated in 16bit tiffs normally). You certainly do not draw schematics using it… (I hope!).
- If 2 is valid, does it actually understand 12bit images and display them accordingly? Notice that not even the latest photoshop does this. (scientific photoshop they said…)
The CMYK issue is not only confined to my former life tasks in a pre-press environment. It also applies to my current scientific endeavors. For example, scientific journals ask - if they have any clue about how to decently publish a journal that is - for images in cmyk format.
Why have I wasted my time on this rant? Because I’d really enjoy a new image editor that is not crazily bloated as photoshop is. For example, I have no intentions what so ever to update to the newest photoshop - and I could get it for free! - due to the fact that I know it will occupy 50% more space on my tiny powerbook HD and give me 0,05% of features that I would actually use.
My advice for anyone planning on starting yet another raster image editor is to do it with support for these semi-pro features. Otherwise, we have plenty of editors out there. They all do the same thing, are based on the same Apple’s Core Image but aren’t bringing anything new to the table in terms of image editors. If you want to focus more on pre-press environments, fully support cmyk. There’s no way around it. Gimp finally has done it after many many years… I guess it’s not that easy 
And do support higher resolution files. This way you will both please academia and photographers (mainly ones shooting raw). Onwards!
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