Weekly videos on computing and related topics. ExplainingComputers is produced and presented by Christopher Barnatt, who spent 25 years teaching computing and future studies in the University of Nottingham, and who is the author of thirteen books including "Digital Genesis: The Future of Computing, Robots and AI", "3D Printing: Third Edition" and "The Next Big Thing".
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got this case and its really good quality, well worth the money!
You are a legend. Congratulations. Great content!
Photopea running in Docker would be an ideal. I'm always concerned that these online apps will suddenly disappear.
I like PhotoPea. One of it's killer features for me is the "Magic replacement tool" that is great for removing people and artifacts in life photos. Also I like the user plug-ins and although it doesn't support PS plug-ins, its library is increasing with the amazing effects.
PtSD...
on Linux I mostly use GIMP on even on windows, no PS
KDE is ugly Windows rip off.
Hi, technically this video is misleading in regards to Photoshop pricing. If you visit Adobe's website Photoshop is indeed £19.99 a month. However, this isn't the only Photoshop plan available for instance there's the Photography Plan for £9.99 a month. Now I know this isn't a Photography Channel and you probably only need Photoshop for your every day work on this excellent KZread Channel but, I felt it had to be said that there is a cheeper plan available. The Photography Plan £9.99 a month For this you get Photoshop and Lightroom on all devices, including the Web on top of that this plan also has a whole host of other app including Premier Rush video editor, incidentally Photoshop has a fully functional video editor built in. Plus all the Plug-ins, Panels, Filters Actions and anything else you can think of to add, not forgetting all the tutorials which are available. Besides all this if purchase the Photography Plan on Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day, you can pick up the Photography Plan for less then Photoshop Elements. Photoshop on Black Friday or Prime Day is give or take around £75 to £80 for the year, incidentally you can purchase more than subscription on the day and stack them to continue consecutively one after the other. Now compare this with Photopea's pricing and considering all of the app you get with this plan including Photoshop and Lightroom is there really that much difference I can remember when I was paying nearly £400 every 18 months to 2 years just for upgrading Photoshop and Lightroom alone The fact is no other application free or otherwise compares to Photoshop in versatility and value Thanks for your time
What Linux browser are you using? I was really keen to try Photopea after watching your video but on FireFox on Linux Mint Debian, it says it can't open file from computer. (Looks like you were using Mint as well).
I was working in Chrome. I'm increasingly giving up on Firefox, as it does not support an increasing range of mainstream sites/apps.
I've just opened an image in Photopea in Firefox! :)
I don't understand why anyone would use an online photo editor? Some of my Photoshop files are over 200mb. It would be impossible to work with a file of that size online.
I think the video makes obvious what the benefits are (the ability to work with PSD files on computers that do not or cannot have Photoshop installed). Some of my Photoshop files are hundreds of MB in size too. But most are not. And I've just loaded in a multi-layer 5100x7200 pixel PSD for a test, and it works pretty well. Web apps have come a long way in recent years.
I have a nearly the same collection, namely various models of usb A to C, an rj45 eth to usb, usb micro sd adapter, too many sata 3 to usb and most of the logical one audiovisual data cable type to another(e.g. hdmi to dpi). I must say that premade LED test circuit sure beats making one each time... =D
Thanks Chris for another outstanding review. I have allot of my parents photos that I need to be retouched so I can send my nephews. This looks like the acceptable alternative to the $$$ Adobe Photoshop program when Gimp can handle the load. Have a great week! BTW! Nice drawing, from a stick-figure school graduate….😂!
Why was the photopea so advanced and more polished than GIMP (Photoshop of Linux)? Even smart object feature took GIMP ages to arrive but that was in photopea for a significantly longer time. Remember Photopea was developed by only one person but GIMP has a fairly large team.
I don't really agree that we should expect our image editors to fully support PSD, which remains a *closed* format. While Microsoft standardized and (eventually) opened its Office formats long ago (a twisted story of its own), Adobe has refused to do this with PSD. I understand that PSD is ubiquitous in the industry, but Adobe has leveraged that popularity to protect its position in this market. I thus despise PSD and avoid using it at all costs, though I fully understand that this is not an option for professionals in this field. They have work to do and can't lose money tilting at windmills :(. But why didn't the imaging/graphics world migrate to the XCF format long ago? XCF and PSD are both 32-bpc and support the same general features and XCF could probably add support for including Undo information, if desired, as it's designed to be extensible. It's long past time for PSD/PSB to have been made an open standard, so it's obvious that Adobe will *never* do so. I propose that this gives us no other choice than to introduce or adopt an *open* replacement format for PSD.
What about Canva? 😂 Just kidding 😂😂😂😂
I was SCREWED by adobe. I owned photoshop and premiere, meaning: I had perpetual licenses, until that is ... adobe literally removed their server* and COMPLETELY denied me ALL access to my programs. Programs I had paid a LOT of money for over the years, including the original purchase price along with multiple upgrades. I cannot even read my old (premiere) projects without succumbing to their extortion, by paying for a subscription to replace software I already bought. They stole from me. I will NEVER PAY another nickel to this HORRID GREEDY company ever again. I needed an alternative, so for the graphics editor I chose Affinity Photo. I love it. It is a VERY capable program, from a descent company, with a much superior licensing arrangement, for a very reasonable price. I see that Canva has recently acquired Affinity, but this seems to be a favourable arrangement between 2 companies who have similar respect for consumers. Honestly, I have no understanding at all why anyone would want to do graphics editing 'online'; I much prefer a solid program like Affinity, but for those who do, my vote would be with Canva. * For the record, the reason this mattered is that after a routine windoze update, both programs complained that my system had substantially changed, requiring online validation, which couldn't happen, because ... the server no longer existed.
Sir, The information is high value. Thank you. I think i have backup with DVD with Premium Quality for Certain Data like Family and Documents Scan.
Unless you are a serious photographer or pro image manipulator, PSD is not the be all and end all of image file formats and Gimp, for example, uses a perfectly servicable alternative file format. As for importing existing PSD files into Gimp, just a little work on them will restore the the missing elements using Gimps own tools and the image can be resaved using Gimps file format. This, again, is a small price to pay for saving £260 a year. Of course, Gimp might make PSD files 100% compatible in the coming versions so we do not need to worry about this anyway.
Not true if you make videos, do 3D graphics, or do print work. PSD is a standard format that lots of non-image-editing applications (eg video compositors) import and work with -- so it is absolutely not just an image editing issue. Text handling in GIMP is dire. And as I explicitly demonstrated in the video, GIMP does NOT introduce PSD compatibility in version 3.0! :) Oh, and the comparison is not GIMP for free vs the Adobe subscription, as Photopea is either free (with advertising) or c.$5/month. :)
The Internet as a whole has a fundamental problem identifying and understanding the difference between a single sample and a trend/average/statistical significant amount. (Eagerly awaiting the "Well *I* don't that problem" replies.)
So true!
mr vosh goes by "warranty voider" in my house
I was literally just researching this yesterday. How coincidental.
Still too high 3 yrs later. Better to by a 3 yr old lenova mini for 75 bucks.
The genuine "alternate to" video I ever watched...
Question, how do you get sound out of the Odroid N2+ ? I would also like to connect a microphone but can't find any video's or info on how to connect a microphone and speakers to do video's. Please help. Thank you.
The true Photoshop alternative is Serif's Affinity Photo
This video is clearly labelled "ONLINE Photoshop alternatives", and Affinity Photo -- whilst a great application -- is NOT online. Nor is it available for Linux.
Great episode! However, I think we can analyze this in two ways: 1) Alternatives to do similar work as Pshop.; 2) Alternatives to Pshop. but being able to use already created files in the application. I think that are two related things, but different. Of course, someone would like to be able to use already edited work in a new alternative, but that's the catch: staying in that proprietary format and ecosystem or not. If you can sacrifice a part of the already made work, there are more alternatives. If you can't... Well, as we saw, not many. Very interesting and is a real problem when you have experience and known workflow, to migrate. I have a similar dilemma right now with C.Draw... And I'm using an old version for now. (product names edited to avoid YT automated censorship).
Why do so many people here not appreciate that PSD files are an industry standard used in pipelines and by applications way beyond image editing? For example, video compositing applications (like After Effects and Autograph), and 3D graphics applications, import and rely on elements created in PSD format? So it's not just about being able to use existing assets, but also being about to create assets in a pipeline of other applications.
I'm not a Photoshop user, but I do have DxO Photolab installed on the Windows 10 disk on my laptop. I use it for processing the NEF RAW image files from my Nikon DSLR cameras. My PC is normally booted into Debian 12. Can you make any suggestions for Linux based RAW image processing software that's equivalent to DxO Photolab?
Thank you. I have sent links to my 2 Granddaughters and will try this out (I can't stand the UI and usability mess of GIMP !) FYI, I used to have both Photoshop and Corel because of client requirements. I could always do whatever was needed faster, easier with less clicks in Corel than Photoshop, including Apple's show demonstrators.
Very interesting episode Chris. As a long time user of Photoshop 7 for photographic work, when I needed a 64 bit program to cooperate with the latest version of Neat Image I bought the very reasonably priced program Photoline, which is an excellent Photoshop replacement. It will handle psd files but I've never tried it with multiple layer files. In it you can create actions, similar to Photoshop, which is a most important feature as far as I'm concerned. Edit. Just tried it with a 5 layer file and no problems at all. Btw, Photoline runs perfectly in Wine on Linux.
I will take a look at Photoline. But as you note, it always depends on the use case. For some of us, Photoline needs to to a lot more than handle layers -- it also needs to handle text, vectors, masks and all Photoshop layer effects. As this video shows, every package can handle layers, only two here can do so correctly. As far as I can see from a quick check, Photoline has good PSD import, but not export, so cannot be use in a pipeline that requires Photoshop (eg in video editing, video compositing or 3D graphics).
I primarily use GIMP for photo editing "Bring out the GIMP" but it lacks a function which Adobe Photoshop has and is enormously useful: Curves. Open the curves function and move the slider dot on the right to where the curves are in the rectangle, then do the same on the left and TA-DA! Photo comes alive. I do wish GIMP had this function!
Huh... I didn't know until the 17:00 mark there was a new version of Photoshop. It could be that the new version doesn't have Curves. I use my 15 year old version in my Windows 7 Pro PC.
Thanks, more useful even than usual as I'm a photographer and very dependent on LR & PS.
Many years ago I worked at a TV station in Telecine. When tweeking the colour and exposure of a film we did it mostly by looking at the waveform on the CRO. So, make the blacks black and the whites white (easy to do by waveform once you know what to look for) and you were 90% done as it did not depend upon the colour accuracy of the monitor. A final look at the image for any additional tweeks. Run the film for a few seconds to be sure then cue it up for transmission. The same applies for any still images we needed for transmission. I still use the 'make the blacks black and the whites white' technique in PhotoShop.
And it remains a good way to work! :)
Krita can open .psd files Chris. Why not use Krita on Linux?
Because it doesn't work! :) Lots of programs can open a PSD, but that's not the same as being able to accurately import one, let alone retain all functionality. Krita is a stunningly good painting program, but like GIMP it cannot accurately open a PSD file. Not least, just as in GIMP, text is rasterized into a bitmap on import, so is no longer editable text. And layer effects also do not work properly. Krita is a painting program, not a Photoshop alterative. If there were a local Linux program that was a true alternative to Photoshop, then I -- and many others -- would be using it. But regardless of how much the FOSS community wishes it to be the case, there is no Linux alternative to Photoshop. Hence I'm looking at the online alternatives, as it remains one the fundamental barriers to Linux adoption for many people.
That’s not quite true , it doesn’t support the complete feature set your after. Inkscape can import psd with a plug-in but the raster images are ignored. So it’s the complete feature set that psd provides which you want. Which shows in the video to some degree.
As for krita , krita doesn’t support vector or text layers😟
Thank you for another clear and coherent video that makes choosing an option much easier.
What about Gimp and Krita?
As discussed and shown with the example PSD file in the video, GIMP is not fully Photoshop compatible, as it has poor text handling, does not support all layer effects, and so cannot import and export PSD files with these features working. And GIMP as no native CMYK mode. But GIMP is a great package for other types of work. :) Kritia is similarly a fantastic painting application, and actually has better PSD support and text support than GIMP. So as always it comes down to use case. But if handling text and layers in PSD compatible files is what is required, Photopea significantly outperforms GIMP and Krita.
For linux, you have a photopea flatpak.
You can, but only if you want to break Photopea's terms and conditions and remove the source of income that allows them to develop the software. The flatpack is not official.
I would recommend not using PSD files and instead using a standard that isn't tied almost exclusively to one program. It was a bit tedious converting all of my MS Office archives to plain text, PDFs, or CSVs in order to conserve storage space and make them (more) readable outside of MSO. What's more, given the ridiculous SaaS model Adobe has adopted, there's even more reason to abandon PSDs. I don't understand why people are paying perpetually for software that has little more to add. Has image editing changed much in the past 10+ years that you need a monthly/annual subscription just to keep up? Maybe some prefer it, but I have no idea why one would finish a thumbnail and want to keep a huge PSD instead of just the storage-friendly flattened image in a common format (JPG, GIF, PNG, even webp). Changing the thumbnail isn't all that common, is it?
Thanks for this. But you seem unaware that PSD files are a very widely used industry standard, and not just in image editing. Not least, most professional video editor, compositor and 3D modelling/rendering packages work with PSD files, and PSD is also widely used in professional printing. So if you are working in video production, 3D graphics and related areas, you have to use PSD. Going back to archive PSD files is incredibly common. Here I used an example of a video thumbnail (and I personally very regularly do go back to older thumbnails to reuse elements in new ones, or following KZread A/B/C testing). But more broadly, stock composites are widely used for many other things -- again we are back to video compositing, professional print work (eg book covers), etc. Print and video production pipelines often rely heavily on stock assets to achieve speed and to maintain quality and consistency, and these assets commonly include PSD files. I do, however, full agree that photo editing has changed little in 10 years (aside from the AI stuff), and I would much prefer a non-subscription model for Adobe's suite. But this is all why I'm exploring Photoshop alternatives! :)
@@ExplainingComputers That's fair. I am definitely not an expert in image editing.
Woow nice! 👍👍
Thanks 👍
My kind of video, this, Chris. Thank you. I use Pixlr for my thumbnails and my go-to for text in Shotcut who sadly can't do things like drop-shadow. Pixlr is so simple but I feel like giving PhotoPea a go. So will look forward to doing my next thumbnail with it. Also, looking forward to the video on GIMP 3.0 video.
Greetings! I remember for many years being very impressed with Pixlr. Then I found Photopea . . .
@@ExplainingComputers Just so I don't forget, I'm adding this to Google Keep.
Time to paint 🎨 a pea!
The best paint 🎨 software are those that are offline!
Well (a) this video is called "Online Photoshop Alternatives", (b) as the video shows, Photopea can be used off-line, and (c) there are no fully Photoshop compatible off-line alternatives that run in Linux (as the video shows, GIMP is not Photoshop compatible).
Well I don’t use Linux for painting 🖼
Nice !
Informative as usual. I had thought that GIMP was clearly the best alternative to PhotoShop. You amazed me to find one non-Adobe photo editor that can handle PSD files. Canva is something I use only for posters and flyers - which it's quite good at. I didn't think its image editing capabilities were on a par with the others. Never heard of Pixelr or PhotoPea. I have now. 👍
Thanks for this. Once you've tried Photopea, it's hard to go back to GIMP. :)
Thanks Chris. The "photography" plan from Adobe costs a tad under £10 a month and includes Photoshop and Lightroom Classis as well as the mobile and web versions (and 20GB cloud storage). In my opinion, that's a bargain, especially for those who use a lot of AI effects (with supported GPUs).
Greetings! The Photography Plan indeed costs £10 a month in the UK. :) But I cited the US price, which is currently $19.99. I cannot win, and did not want to get bogged-down in the video with Adobe's bizarre pricing (eg currently in the UK £21.98 for a single app, or £9.98 for Photoshop and Lightroom). So I cited the figure for the largest audience base. £10 a month is indeed a much better price, although I've paid £13.84 for 90 days of Photopea (and that includes a 10% surcharge for paying via PayPal). And if I don't pay again, I can still use the software (with advertising), and drop in and out of the paid version as I choose. And whilst this does not include local software, it doesn't work on Linux anyway! :)
@@ExplainingComputers Indeed. I cannot understand their bizarre pricing. May be it's a mistake that they shouldn't be alerted about ;)
Photopea is awesome, for me I can set canvas size and create pictures for low res Oled displays in an instant and I am sure I could do this in all the other stuff too !! But I just like it and now with your seal of approval I like it even more because I know you use this software in the wild...cheers.
Please start including timestamps Please!
What do you mean? I ALWAYS include timestamps, and they ARE included for this video. You can clearly see them in the video description, and I can see them in both KZread search and in the play bar. I really give up.
Trying this out on an old laptop, easy to install like you showed, thanks for the recommendation
Thank you sir, may I know why in my Ubuntu 24.04 I don't have a power botton in top right of the bar , best regards
About damn time, way better content than tons of other channels that offer nothing of value, congratulations
Such great information, Thank you, :)