TL;DR:
Semple, a multi-disciplinary British artist, promised to build “a brand new suite of world-class design and photography tools, with an uncanny similarity to the tools you’ve been indoctrinated in.”
“There’s a really urgent need for a suite of creative tools for creators that they actually own rather than rent. In a way, this first started when Adobe and Pantone decided to paywall the Pantone colors and I created Freetone — which was a free color plugin so creators could continue to access their palette,” he says.
“I have lawyers, and I’ve taken advice. We have solid plans in place. I would also point out that nobody has seen the final branding and no software that infringes on any of Adobe’s trademarks has been produced,”
“I have successfully challenged IP owned by Tiffany and Co, Pantone, Mattel, and others over the years. I feel we have a good and thorough understanding of where the legal line is and an ability to get as close to that as possible without overstepping it.”
I kind of wish he’d just raise money for or contribute to existing FOSS Adobe alternatives that are still feature-lacking.
Unfortunately I think the name is kinda poor. I get why they named it but the SEO is always going to be bad against Adobe.
That name really sucks tbh. I suppose they should change the name. Adobe’s current updates really bottlenecks my max spec PC, that’s why I switched from Premiere to Davinci Resolve. Biggest switch in my career, but so far I’m currently loving it!
Like others, I’m doubtful he will produce anything with that little, I hope I’m wrong.
Maybe if he was forking existing open source projects and polishing them it’s possible, but it’s supposed to be closed source.
I‘m not yet convinced. Not enough to see what this is going to look like. And I don‘t find the copycat-name very serious. I hear already the lawyers knocking on their doors.
For alternatives to Adobe I can recommend Affinity software, which is a non-subscription alternative and Photopea as a free browser alternative for PS.
Great idea, but the money they have is barely enough to make a dent in the development scope they are aiming for.
tfw dyslexic people trying to read this post
I have dyslexia and had such a hard time. Took like 3 reads to get it right
I don’t have dyslexia and I had a hard time as well… but I just woke up so IDK
Even after reading the post I still wasn’t sure how Adobe was taking on Adobe.
I had to read it a few times and I don’t have dyslexia either. Abode and Adobe are close together words.
I don’t and until the comments explained it I couldn’t see it either.
Took me 3 reads to notice that ABODE is not ADOBE
Maybe I’m a little dyslexic after 8 hours of work.
Bruh, till I read this I was so confused, like Adobe is taking on Adobe? lol, what?
I thought the article was going to be about a trademark dispute, lol.
Same lol
Jesus Christ thank you. I thought I had a stroke.
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I’m highly sceptical of this shipping in a state that can compete with Adobe at the end of it all. The branding itself is asking for trouble, which is just plain stupid if you are serious about long-term and sustainable development of the whole suite, and 180k is not enough to even put together a competent alternative to Illustrator, not to mention Photoshop and InDesign.
And before people start claiming that you can fund this by outsourcing to Eastern Europe / India etc, please bear in mind that you usually get what you pay for. A competent developer with enough experience to actually make this happen won’t come cheap, and opportunistic juniors with big ambitions won’t deliver.
I wish this project all the luck it can get, but I’m personally banking on Graphite and Inkscape from the FOSS world and Affinity suite from (as of yet) less corpo commercial offerings.
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They have managed to build software suites that have been stable, consistent, and near the cutting edge of their industry for decades while avoid significant bloat and legacy hangover.
Are we talking about the same Adobe here? Adobe software generally does work but avoiding bloat? Have you installed Reader lately? They have their share of instability as well.
Yeah I had the same reaction. Adobe software is pretty great, but that’s in spite of running slow. If I had to pick 5 words to describe adobe products, I might pick bloat as one of them.
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Had never heard about Graphite, thank you! I’ll try to stay updated about it. But please feel free to post important news about it in this community, whenever there’ll be steps forward.
To be honest if this was released on 1st of April, it would have been a perfect prank. I don’t think it’s realistic the buy once, own forever approach if you don’t have any other source of income. Like Blackmagic has with their hardware so they can afford to do a buy once type of deal with Davinci Resolve.
A more realistic approach would be like Affinity where you buy every major release, every 3-4-5 years.
Even if I agree with him 100% and I switched to Davinci/Affinity, the whole branding and naming feels like a well made shitpost and I cannot take it seriously.
I get where you’re coming from, but for me, I HATE the Adobe corporation, so the shitpost feeling of Abode truly abides.
Just to add in here, a few years back I decided to make a project to cut adobe out of my life.
I wanted to start by giving all the FOSS tools a go first.
In the end, I decided none of them were up to scratch. Inkscape is clunky AF, gimp is a PITA, darktable was pretty clunky but usable.
In any case I landed on the affinity suite for a PS, Illustrator, and InDesign alternative, and I got very cheap / free versions of Skylum Luminar for Lightroom although that’s going to shit with every release.
DaVinchi for video editing. Not yet found a competent replacement for AE.
ShotCut works pretty good for basic video editing.
Next to the edit tab is the Fusion tab in Davinci :), that’s your AE replacement.
How did photopea rank?
I actually really like Darktable. It took some time to get used to, but I bounced from Lightroom to Apple Photos to Darktable as Image editors. Unlike the others, I feel no need to leave Darktable now that I’m used to it.
I think darktable is one of the better alternatives for Adobe software.
A couple of years ago, I took a Lightroom workshop and did all the tasks with darktable. I was amazed at how similar it actually is and I managed to keep up with the workshop, even though I didn’t use darktable nor Lightroom before.
I actually prefer Krita over GIMP, even for photo editing. I can’t stand how bad stylus support with GIMP is and I much prefer Krita’s UI. I wish Krita would focus on areas beyond drawing more, as Krita is quite close to being a good program for editing photos in my opinion.
I have never used Adobe’s or Affinity’s products though, as they aren’t available for Linux and are therefore not an option for me. I would probably consider them, but those companies apparently decided that I am not worth their business.
In my opinion Paint.net is a lot better than Gimp. Tried both and the former has given me a much more pleasant time.
The only open source replacement for Adobe that really works for me is Audacity. And that’s probably more because I’m not a very advanced audio editor compared to my demands when it comes to photo and video editing tools, rather than an actual statement on the quality of the tool itself.
I was gonna get mad you at first, but then you provided some sweet links. 😂 Thank you. And also good luck to abode. The more competition the better.
Just not Canva. We have customers that use Canva and, unless they use presets, the results are universally awful.
Yeah, that this is a name and logo that they even entertained for half a second is pretty strong evidence that they’re not up to this challenge. This is like starting a law firm and calling it “Buttfuckers”. No one is going to take you seriously, and you not seeing the problem means they shouldn’t.
“Buttfuckers & Sons” 😅
If you read the words under the title you’ll know it’s not going to be the name for the tools.
Just fyi engineers in every other part of the world are as good or better than Americans or whatever you may consider “developed” countries. I’m not in love with outsourcing considering I’ve lost my job to it a couple times. But it’s not because the devs across the world aren’t fantastic amazing people.
The root commenter wasn’t claiming that foreign engineers can’t be good, but rather that good foreign engineers are already charging competitive rates because they can, so there’s not a huge amount of savings to be had there.
and opportunistic juniors with big ambitions won’t deliver.
Have you ever heard about photopea.com? Made by ONE guy.
I’ve never heard of that project, looks pretty cool! To be clear, I do not say that “one guy” cannot possibly make great software. Passion projects are a thing. What differentiates them from the Abode situation, in my opinion, is that passion projects rarely have strict deadlines and paying backers who expect software that is Adobe-level in terms of quality and polish in a roughly 1 year.
Fair point.
Case in point. I’m still waking up and thought that said adobe is taking on adobe
I’m still not sure that’s not what it says
Same, actually! And that happened even after I had my morning coffee too.
I especially like how “legal issues” is not even in “Risks and challenges” section on Kickstarter.
What can possibly go wrong?
Now you guys know what it’s like to be dyslexic!
It took until reading your comment and then going back to check the title again for me to realise it didn’t say Adobe twice.
Took 4 takes for me to finally work out what it said
While your skepticism is valid, it’s important to consider that competition doesn’t solely rely on branding but also on innovation, user experience, and pricing. The concerns about funding and developer quality are legitimate, but success can be achieved by striking the right balance. While alternatives like Graphite, Inkscape, and Affinity have their merits, it’s worth keeping an eye on emerging projects as well. For a broader perspective on outsourcing development, this article on IT outsourcing in Europe (https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/it-outsourcing-europe/) can provide insights into potential options and considerations for ensuring competent and successful development, addressing some of the concerns raised.
What about Akira? Is it still being developed?
as a dyslexic person I had to read that 6 times to see the difference.
I’m not dyslexix, and I didn’t realize the issue until I saw your comment.
how about working with already existing adobe alternatives and help get them better
After the Pantone fallout last year, I cancelled my Adobe subscription and bought Serif Affinity’s apps and haven’t looked back. Yes, there are a few work arounds and even almost a year in, I’m still looking up the occasional tool/feature that is comparable but I have saved $55/month. The ONLY features I miss are GREP and Scripts in InDesign but I have lived without them.
Oh, it’s that guy. The “Semple vs Kapoor” stuff was funny.
Before I recognized who was doing “abode” I was going to say that name was just asking for trouble, but yeah, he knew what he was doing.
His pigments are pretty cool. I’ve used several over the years and quite liked them.
If I depend on yours software to work, I’m not willing to pay a subscription. Period.
I’d happily pay for a 2023 Adobe Lightroom classic. Unfortunately Adobe doesn’t offer this, but I can find it sailing the high seas branded this way.
It’d be cool to just buy it and get a year’s worth of updates with the option of going subscription then
What? If you require a hammer to do work you refuse to pay for hammer?
A subscription isn’t buying a hammer. A subscription is buying access to a hammer. Access that can be revoked at any time. That’s not very reliable.
I’m not buying a hammer subscription
I buy a hammer. I don’t want to depend on another company for my hammer to work.
Subscribe to go fuck your dumb analogy.
I buy a hammer. I don’t rent it. When I buy a hammer I pay up front for the one I’m getting and keep it until it breaks or I replace it (and even when I replace it I likely keep the old one). I’ve got four hammers that I’ve had for between 20 and 4 years. And I paid for each of them once.
If you require a hammer to do work, you just buy a hammer that you can use for the rest of time or until you buy a better hammer.
You don’t pay $10 dollars a month for the rest of time for the same hammer you could have just paid for previously. Especially since HammerCo might up the price, go out of business, or flat out stop offering the hammer subscription you rely on, and you lose access to your vital resource.
What a dumb argument.
When you shove crayons up your nose and you’re only paying a subscription for those crayons, you’re going to have to return the crayons after the subscription ends
But see if you bought those crayons, you could leave them up there as long as you’d like.
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