
If You're Not Gonna Use It, Why Are You Building It? - johndcook
http://prog21.dadgum.com/94.html
======
ChuckMcM
When my daughter was about 8 or 9 her curiosity was peaked by me looking at
the stock market value. (she was 8 in 1998 :-))

She asked, "Why would you put any money at all in the stock market, where one
day it was worth more than you started with and the next day it was worth
less? When you could put it into a savings account and every month it was
worth a little bit more and never less?"

That question set the stage for an interesting discussion about risk and
return, but the really important part was a discussion about money, money that
you needed to pay the bills, vs money that you needed "just in case", vs money
that you were saving to have available in 30 or 40 years for your retirement.
The complexity of money management is something that develops with a deeper
understanding of the role of money in the context of your current and future
life goals. A mutual fund is of little value to an 8 year old, but a great
tool for someone planning their retirement.

The linked article shows someone who has a photo manipulation program, and
that program has image adjustment tools that he has never used. He erroneously
generalizes that to an unsupported hypothesis that _nobody_ ever uses those
tools, and then goes on to talk about photo applications which are much less
flexible (Instagram and its competitors) and how he does use their tools. It
is a great learning moment.

This is a huge trap for young entrepreneurs and it helps to think about it and
not fall into it. The platitude is "know your customers." This guy clearly
gets along just fine with a tool which makes amusing transformations 'easy'
sort of the MacOS photobooth equivalent. And yet the tools he belittles in his
mini-rant are ones that are used daily by artists all around the world, and
there are even companies built around still more manipulation 'effects'
because an artist doesn't see a picture, they see input into what they are
trying to express.

So when your customers come to you and ask you for these features in your
tools, it helps you get to know them better and helps you understand their
needs. And while we often start by building tools for ourselves, if we can add
a feature that other people find useful (even if we don't) and it gives wider
appeal to that tool, its a Good Thing to do. Even if, as posited, we are not
gonna use it.

~~~
barrkel
Pet pedantic peeve: it's "piqued", not "peaked".

~~~
pzxc
At least he didn't spell "lose" with two O's like I've seen half a dozen times
on HN in the past month!

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patio11
Instagram doesn't sell because it has a superior filter versus Photoshop.
Instagram sells because it lets the user express to their friends that the
user is the kind of person who, given his druthers, would prefer tactile,
authentic, classical, work-of-artisanal-hands-rather-than-mass-produced-at-a-
sweatshop-in-China camera to an iPhone.

Critically, the user _actually_ prefers iPhones, or he would _actually use_ an
antique film camera. But that doesn't matter to him and it doesn't matter to
his friend and it doesn't matter to Instagram.

c.f. The discussion about using emotions to sell software.

P.S. Photoshop is _also_ an emotionally compelling piece of software, but its
narrative is completely different. For one thing, if you use Photoshop, you
get to sneer at this blog post.

~~~
halostatue
I think you're wrong here. Different people use Instagram for different
reasons. For some people, I'm sure there's the "hipster" aesthetic that you've
described. For others, it's about the simplicity involved.

My wife uses Instagram because it's the _easiest_ camera on the iPhone to
share with Facebook (tap, tap, describe, done). I could have set her up with
Best Camera, Camera+, Camera Genius, or anything like that, but Instagram has
the "easy" part down pat in a way that the others don't, even though the
others aren't _hard_.

I will use any of those (but have been using Instagram lately because of the
ease), but I also have other choices I can make if I want to use more than the
iPhone. I can shoot with my Canon 40D and edit the pictures on my iPad with
some of the features that the blog post sneers at (in fact, I did exactly that
in Italy last summer: <http://aureolastatua.tumblr.com>). I can shoot with a
Minolta XG9 that my parents gave me (I'm mostly through the two rolls of film
that I bought for it), or I can even shoot with my mom's mom's camera:
<http://home.tiscali.nl/benbojo/kodak%20bullet%20open.jpg>

Instagram doesn't force you to put styles on the photos; you can just use it
to upload the pictures you take. It gives you those styles because it can
bring out the emotion behind the picture you took better.

Fundamentally, I agree with the point of the blog post: there are features
that I will never use in Tiffen's Photo fx Ultra, and I suspect that very few
people will use them (is there a single photograph that I've taken that would
be improved by putting the "Light (foliage)/Jungle Leaf" filter offered? no).
I have, however, used a bunch of other filters in that and in Lightroom on the
Mac that, yes, sometimes add grain or make the photos sepia. Not because I am
aiming for a specific "look", but because I think the photo _looks_ better
with those filters applied.

I bought Instagram for the same reason I bought Best Camera: it gave me a
quick interface for taking pictures, doing quick edits, and uploading those
pictures to where those who I know will be able to see them. That's it.

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statictype
I used to wonder the same thing. Until I started actually using Photoshop for
more than just manipulating photos.

When you want to create a block of marble or granite or clouds, then suddenly
all those filters you never even knew existed turn out to be quite useful.

 _If you find yourself creating something, and you don't understand how it
will be used, and you don't plan on using it yourself, then it's time to take
a few steps back and reevaluate what you're doing._

Agreed. The disconnect here is that he thinks the people who created Photoshop
don't know or care how it gets used.

I think there's reason why Photoshop is the de-facto standard for artists and
designers.

~~~
wladimir
Thanks for posting this.

A novice might not see the usefulness of those additional features. But a good
artist uses the right tools at the right times, and that obscure filter might
do exactly what you want (usually in combination with some other filter).

There's a market for programs that are simplified and dumbed down to the
lowest common denominator, and there's a market for pro-tools bloated with
features. Pros really like to get into a program, and for it to be as powerful
as possible.

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holdenc
PhotoShop stock filters (even the really kitschy looking ones) can be combined
in moderation with other techniques to make some startling surfaces such as
glass, skin and water. They are tools for generative design, and not really
decorative filters as many might presume.

~~~
muhuk
A quick google search gave me these two tutorials, second one builds on the
technique explained in the first:

[http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/lightning/lightning.h...](http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/lightning/lightning.htm)

<http://tutorialblog.org/lightning/>

------
defroost
As someone who dabbles in tradition "wet" darkroom film processes for medium
and large-format photography, and enjoys digital photography with a DSLR, I
have a few observations:

There are some fantastic digital filters available that try to mimic the look
of film, infrared, vignette filters, colored filters with B&W film, etc. These
have been available for years, and a company like Olympus has a successful
products line of DSLR, rangefinder that have one-touch access to filters like
neon, etc. These can be fun for about 2 weeks, but some people use them to
great effect.

I could play the luddite snob and sneer at the output of camera-phones with
"retro" filters. But a quick look at Flickr demonstrates that people are
making some amazingly interesting images with this digital filters.

As far as the authors assertion that developers might take note of "unused"
watercolor type filters built into Photoshop. Photoshop's stock filters are
different in that they are designed to be combined, layered, etc.

In 2011, there is nothing interesting about an image presented with one
application of the Watercolor filter. A retro look with the stock install of
PS is not a one-click operation. To achieve that look takes work on PS. _But_
, there are countless PS filters from NIK and others that mimic old films,
Ilford, the now defunct Kodachrome slide film, Fujichrome Velvia, and on and
on. The better ones cost $$$. I suspect that if people had access to them,
they would use them. Only then would you be able to approach the instantaneous
gratification of an app like Instagram.

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wmboy
I'm not sure why this has turned into a photo editing app conversation. I
think the paragraph that would be a better use of time to discuss was the last
one; "If you find yourself creating something, and you don't understand how it
will be used, and you don't plan on using it yourself, then it's time to take
a few steps back and reevaluate what you're doing."

This is a pretty good rule, right? Even if no one else pays to use it at least
you've built a tool to make your life a little easier, or solve a problem you
have.

An exception to this rule though, would be people already selling a service to
customers and turning this into a product you can reuse for others (I think
Carbonmade started kind of like this - they had non-technical
friends/acquaintances that needed galleries set up). In fact this would
probably be better than simply building a product you'd use yourself as you've
already validated that people are willing to pay to use it, not just use it.

------
olalonde
I never really liked the mantra "build it for yourself". If this were true,
we'd have tons of programming IDEs and project management software. What
programmers and entrepreneurs really need to serve are markets where
programmers are under represented. I'm talking about agriculture, natural
resources, transport, finance, manufacturing, etc.

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dkersten
I agree with the overall message, but in the case of image editing programs
and their filters, I actually really like (and use) the large number of random
filters that photoshop ships with. On the other hand, I've never used
Instagram or Hipstamatic and likely never will..

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willheim
Instagram and Hipstamatic are fine... for now. Let's face it, they create
intriguing images today that very likely we will look stylistically dated in
5-10 years as "Hipstamatic" or "Instagram" shots. On the other hand PS or any
of the numerous photo editors I have on my iPhone allow me to take a raw image
and process it as I would like and then save a copy. I much prefer this route
even though it takes more time. I am left in the end with the "image" and the
"art" which can then be reinterpreted at a later date. And I think that is
something the author gets at... these new filter programs are "fun"... but
will they look like those 1980's strip mall glamour shots in the year 2020?

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apedley
Interestingly I have found that the apps I build for myself then decide this
would be great for others, lets build it for everyone to use, have been the
most successful of my apps.

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rythie
The problem with building for yourself is that you end up with lots of apps
for computing professionals, who are male and in their 20s which is not the
only demographic.

