
Team behind Mac image editor Pixelmator plays David to Adobe's Goliath (2015) - breck
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/11/09/the-team-behind-mac-photo-editor-pixelmator-plays-david-to-adobes-goliath
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clumsysmurf
I think Affinity is closer to being David vs Adobe's Goliath.

With existing Windows / Mac vector and pixel tools, and a forthcoming Digital
Asset Management (1) tool like Adobe Lr, they can take on Ai, Ps, and Lr.

I've been enjoying Lr for years but am turned off by Adobe's subscription
cloud pricing model. The standalone hasn't been updated with features in quite
some time. I think Adobe needs some competition.

(1)
[https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/13981-digi...](https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/13981-digital-
asset-manager-asap/)

~~~
open-source-ux
I agree - although I think Affinity (and Sketch and Pixelmator) might not
necessarily displace Adobe's design apps, but rather dent their market share.

What's nice about the Affinity apps:

\- they are cross-platform: Windows and Mac (unlike Sketch and PixelMator)

\- they are not subscription-based (like Adobe)

\- they cover vector (Affinity Designer), Raster (Affinity Photo) and DTP
(still-to-be-released app)

\- they are much more affordable than an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription

\- they feel faster and much less bloated than Adobe's apps

However, the sheer amount of tutorials and design assets available for Adobe
apps means that Adobe will remain popular. And there are some apps like After
Effects that simply don't have any serious rivals.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
Do you have any details about the DTP app?

~~~
open-source-ux
No screenshots or feature list for the DTP app (called Publisher) have been
released yet.

Here is a post from the Affinity forums from October 2016 from one of the
Serif staff on the current state of the app:

[https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/26715-why-...](https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/26715-why-
publisher-shouldnt-be-released-anytime-soon/#entry129110)

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sdegutis
Haven't tried Pixelmator, but for the past 7 or so years, Acorn has been very
useful to me for most of the same stuff I would have used Photoshop for.

[http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/](http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/)

~~~
endemic
I'll second that recommendation; it really is top notch. Loads of
tutorials/documentation on the website as well.

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apetresc
I love the Pixelmator UI, but it's severely lacking in some basic features.
For example – it can't even open or import an SVG file, in spite of having an
entire "Vectormator" mode.

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overcast
I snagged Pixelmator for I think $15 at the time, well worth the price, as
it's a pretty solid editor. However I spent most of my time in Capture One
these days. It does basically everything anyone would want to do to a photo,
without the super processing available in a Photoshop type app.

~~~
Razengan
Pixelmator is also fairly nice and relatively capable on an iPad. Just wish
they would add support for 16-bit images and wide color on iOS.

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mirekrusin
What does "[flagged]" prefix in the title mean?

~~~
grzm
It means enough users have flagged the submission that it's been marked
"[flagged]".

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mattkevan
Pixelmator is great - I use it all the time for basic image editing. It's so
much snappier. On startup pixelmator is like 'yep!', whereas ps is like me
getting out of bed in the morning - it takes a while and there's a lot of
grumbling.

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taivare
I like what Gravit.io has done for an online app it's my go to for getting
anything out on Twitter fast ( quick templates). I read somewhere Gravit
started out as the old Macromedia Freehand base code - don't quote me on this
one. Go kick the tires , they also have YouTube videos up. ps. I have also
used Affinity Designer beta it was fast and I liked it. I have also used
Affinity's lighter weight InDesign software X8 an that worked well for an
ebook / PDF.

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mtgx
And it's going to have a David-size market share until they make a Windows
client as well.

I don't think the "but our program is so fine-tuned for the Mac!" excuse is
going to cut it anymore. Other competitors _will_ build a Windows app, too,
and they will be the ones to actually eat Adobe's lunch. And who knows how
much Apple will even care about macOS in the future, so Pixelmator may already
be looking at a _decreasing_ market share in the future.

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orionblastar
I remember Deluxe Paint for DOS and the Amiga before Photoshop existed.

I also remember Quark Express.

Somehow Adobe ran them out of business or at least trying to compete with
them.

~~~
mattkevan
It was Quark that lost the game for themselves, mostly. Hubris and bad timing.

Quark was _really_ expensive, didn't support transparency (had to make shadows
and overlays in PS and import in as TIFFs), and they totally botched the OSX
transition with v5 which was again expensive and buggy.

Adobe releasing Creative Suite which worked on OSX and cost less than the new
version of Quark, meant it was a no-brainer considering you still needed
photoshop and acrobat anyway.

In its defence, Quark was really snappy - something Indesign has never
matched.

~~~
grzm
_It was Quark that lost the game for themselves, mostly. Hubris and bad
timing._

That was my impression, too. Kinda sad.

 _Quark was really snappy_

I remember QuarkXPress 3.32 being snappy; v4 seemed more sluggish, if memory
serves. Moved from v4 to InDesign.

Oh, boy. This is bringing back memories of system crashes. That's been a
while.

------
grennis
Pixelmator is still trying to catch up to Windows paint.net and is still not
even close.

~~~
dewiz
Care to elaborate please?

