If you are a creative freelancer and have any confidentiality agreement with your clients, then it is now impossible to use Adobe without violating those agreements.
Right, I'm not a creative professional but the occasions I need tools adobe provides there are plenty of open source alternatives I use instead.
Sadly most people won't care about what adobe is doing, but I can only hope they continue to shoot themselves in the foot. I yearn for the day when they aren't the dominant player in the space, maybe in 15 years.
If this post is true a lot more of the people who matter should be caring once they become aware and if they don't them the people who need confidentiality should. We'll see how the cards fall.
Adobe does not train Firefly Gen AI models on customer content. Firefly generative AI models are trained on a dataset of licensed content, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content where copyright has expired. Read more here: https://helpx.adobe.com/firefly/faq.html#training-data
Adobe will never assume ownership of a customer's work. Adobe hosts content to enable customers to use our applications and services. Customers own their content and Adobe does not assume any ownership of customer work.
@ArmokGoB@kde Those statements sound reassuring but they don't mean much. Adobe can say anything it wants on a blog about what it is and isn't doing right now, but the TOS changes still explicitly protect their right to do those things if they want to, so they are free to just change their mind at any time, reassurances aside.
If Adobe really wants to reassure customers, they need to write those limitations on themselves and their activities into the TOS.
This is PR bullshit. They have not changed their license one iota from what it was 2 days ago and, ultimately, the license is what goes. They have not corrected course. All they have done is asked users to trust them in a blog post. The problem with that is that blog posts are not legally binding and, in a field full of nasty, predatory and untrustworthy firms, Adobe is one of the nastiest, most predatory and least trustworthy . You do with that what you will.
This isn't binding tho, Adobe could change their minds in a year and then legally train an AI on all the data they've collected. Their own blog post doesn't even preclude that, their AI language is present tense. In addition they could just license the data to other AI companies.
And the product director is openly lying about it:
We are not accessing or reading Substance users’s projects in any way, shape or form nor are we planning to or have any means to do it in the first place.
It's either that, or their lawyers decided to put that in without asking him? There needs to be some serious legislation for when companies try to pull this off
Locked a bunch of the production industry/creatives/graphic artists/etc. completely out of creative cloud and all of its apps until they signed a new TOS.
They gave no heads up about it and basically it lets them use all your media however they want, super invasive stuff.
Two months ago I convinced my company to switch over to Da Vinci resolve and I am never going back. It is objectively the better tool in every regard for video editing. The only thing I will miss from Adobe is their audio enhance tool, but we will survive lol
Good job. I already switched to Affinity for photo editing & design because they don't have a subscription model, though they've been bought by a company that plans to introduce the subscription model.
Black magic design has proven themselves a pretty capable, reasonable, mostly consumer friendly company for a good decade now. I feel safe for now. But always gotta be on the lookout!
@kde@kde
I support people trying new things! I hate Adobe!
However, all of the tools here, save for Blender and maybe Kdenlive, are lacking somewhat in either features or UX. Inkscape is not comparable to Illustrator in my recent experience, and even Krita, while decent, has some weird decisions that don't make much sense from a workflow perspective.
I commonly hear criticism met with either "Add the feature yourself, it's open source" (I am a visual artist with experience using digital art tools, not a C++ programmer) or "It's not supposed to replace <comparable software>" (then your software might as well not bother competing if it's not going to work much better than the other options). I have a necessity to switch, but I can't use these tools yet if they don't behave how I need them to, often how swaths of other competing software behaves. I'm willing to curb my expectations, I don't expect things to be perfect, but the amount of configuration I need to do to get similar workflows like comparable software is rough. I think once that gets addressed, more people will be interested in switching.
I'm so convinced it isn't even a feature issue, more of a look and feel with sane defaults sort of issue.
@manos_de_papel I've done a bit of that, but it's difficult once you find a way that's objectively faster/less keystrokes to get something done. Not all proprietary software's got it figured out either, I just wish I had option to configure things how I want with the open source tools.
Not to mention, people looking for alternatives may not be as patient as I am. I think the value of UX cannot be understated when it comes to creative tools
If you want open source adoption to continue to be low, please, keep making comments like this.
If you want people to switch, the apps need to be appealing not a chore. And relearning a workflow you've fine tuned over decades is a serious chore and may even be detrimental to your job.
Don't take this the wrong way. While I appreciate the tact with which you have expressed your criticisms, but you may find that your objections all boil down to "I am used to a certain set of tools and now I have to change. The new tools do things differently and I am confused and it is messing with my productivity", that is, the problem is not entirely with the new software, but with you, your workflow and your muscle memory.
@Bro666 i appreciate your reply! I'll link you to my response to a different post here outlining a bit more of my experience. tl;dr, I've used multiple programs in personal and academic settings. Some FOSS options are great and comparable! Some miss the mark, even if they get close. It's not for lack of trying, it's that out of the multiple programs I've learned over the years, the FOSS options tend to be the odd ones out.
Even blender is guity of this with its default control scheme being the odd one out among Maya, Unity, and Substance, but it can be modified enough to make up for this and has other attractive aspects to make it a worthy contender. Digital tools tend to be used in an ecosystem that they are integrated with. Learning new workflows if fine, but there's value in being able to do what's already being done well in a similar way without much fuss.
Even if you lack knowledge regarding development, advice from professional designers and artists is always appreciated. I think it would be helpful if you picked a project with receptive developers and offered them your insight.
@Bro666 thanks for the encouragement! I joined a forum when researching some Krita features, but only because I felt the need to stand up for someone who suggested a good feature and ended up getting told it was a stupid idea, even though other painting programs had already implemented something similar... FOSS is tough, and all respect to the developers and communities that make it happen. I trust many of these things are already being worked on/implemented, or the groups have bigger fish to fry.
There are abrasive people everywhere and everyone has an opinion. In a community without a top-down hierarchical structure, every Tom, Dick and Henrietta thinks they know what's best for the project and will tell you so. Don't take it personally, remember everybody wants what is best, and, if you believe in your proposal, persevere. There is someone who agrees with you.
@minecraftchest1@Bro666 options for default control schemes are a good start! Blender's welcome popup thingy asks on first run whether or not the user wants blender or "industry standard" controls which is definitely useful. I know Krita has the option to use keybinds from other popular programs, but my pain points with it have less to do with keybinds and more to do with other small behaviors that add up to making it frustrating to use. I outlined some of them here if you're curious:
hi! this is a way of reacting to criticism that I feel very often, but this is misleading to me because it does not consider the most important structural factor, that is the environment in which it "grows", also digitally.
you are inhabited since young people to use the pc in a certain way, to use programs in a certain way.
for me the FOSS software is a political issue, if it is important that people approach you should mediate through interfaces and beautiful workflows to see (and imo current ones are not beautiful) and easy to adopt for those coming from the most mainstream programs.
if it is believed that the software foss is official remains in the niche in which it is locate (so that people outside the FOSS or should not approach or can do it hard to get used to a new way of using IT means, thus invisible the structural action of society and responsibilities and culpritizing the individual people without doing a collective and broad analysis, typical discussion brought by non-politicized or liberal people) while the rest of society is devoured by multinationals I understand it but I do not agree: I consider it part of a political struggle also anti-capitalist
The issue comes when trying to convince many people used to the old tools to adopt the new one. Having to un- and relearn your skills is a massive UX hurdle. That's not an issue of the users, but of the application not catering to that use case (encouraging people to switch and easing them into the new environment). Every difficulty, every extra step you have to take, every workflow habit you have to adapt is a detriment.
The tools can be great in a vacuum, but when we're talking about people switching, they're no longer in a vacuum.
Have you sent any tickets to tell them to fix what you think needs fixing? Just like you are a visual artist and not a programmer, they are programmers and not visual artist (at least not all of them) so any feedback is welcomed.
@bufalo1973 I've gotten some mixed feedback by the community in the past that was discouraging enough to dissuade getting involved, but I'm reconsidering it now. Thanks for the input!
Thank God .... I've been on Gimp and Scribus for the past 15 years, mainly because I could never afford Adobe products for the little bit of work I needed them for.
I was open source a long time ago because I just couldn't afford paying for stuff for the little time I needed software. Now I'm happy to be fully open source and even contribute with donations to the projects I like the most. I donate annually now to projects like Wikipedia, Libreoffice, Scribus and Fediverse developers and projects.
This is one criticism I'll always have with open source supporters ... if you want open source alternatives, contribute with donations to them. Give anything you can afford ... $1, $2, $10 ... because they need money to survive and stay engaged and committed to their project.
If we all just stand aside and take advantage of free open software and not give anything, then we are no better than the corporations we were trying to avoid. Instead of corporations taking advantage of us, we are taking advantage of developers.
So if you want these open projects to live and survive, contribute to them with whatever you got. If we all just gave a dollar each to these projects, no matter what they are, the developers would have more than enough to maintain their work.
And whatever you contribute, it will be far less than the hundreds of dollars annually you would have given to a big corporation that would have just counted your money as profit and not directly contribute or support the actual developers.
I like to support by buying merch. My Blender Hat got me so many thumbs up by strangers, it feels like bikers or Westphalia 0r brotherhood's signing each other's.
Great idea because the merch acts as an advertisement to support the project and create awareness. It's the main reason why corporations like Adobe are so successful - they have a pervasive marketing campaign. We should do the same and wearing a hat, t-shirt or bag would help do that.
Now you got me thinking about what to buy from the projects I like to support. Thanks
@kde@kde you can also use #FreeCAD to draw up your house or anything else parametrically, and then export as STL and use #blender to make a movie of it/with it.
@Bro666@werefreeatlast It’s critically important to manage users expectations with #FOSS - FC is still uniquely set up and challenging to use.
It’s amazing what it can do, but development-wise it feels like #Blender long before it really hit its stride (as well as getting quality tutorials like Blender Guru) several years ago.
I agree! Nevertheless I am still astounded at the progress FreeCAD has made in the last... What? Four ~ five years? It has gone from "barely usable" and "lacking in even basic features" to "woah! You can make that with FreeCAD?". Also, the community and third party support and contributions have also exploded. This is vital for the survival of a project like this.
Be advised that FreeCAD, much like Blender, is in no way easy to use! It is software for doing engineering and architecture stuff. These thing are not simple. FreeCAD's learning curve is steep.
The good news is that there are more and more tutorials online (and many are follow-along videos) that can help get you started.
@Bro666 I did some AutoCad at university. Brilliant software if you know how to make stuff happen. Would you say that FreeCad is more difficult? I'm fully aware that this is engineering software. I would hope to be able to afford a 3D Printer one day.
Very hard to say for me. I did use AutoCAD, but it was years ago. I'm talking more than two decades (AutoCAD was first released in the early 80s), so impossible to judge the current state of the software now.
I can say FreeCAD is good for 3D printing stuff. I also like OpenSCAD, a 3D scripting language.
I wrote a 4 part tutorial series that takes you from designing to printing and covered both FreeCAD and OpenSCAD from a beginner's perspective, if you are interested:
@Bro666@DeltaWye Same with Kdenlive. 4-5 years ago, it lacked to many features and was a bit too buggy for me. These days, it's hugely updated, pretty darn stable and frankly... awesome.
@Bro666@DeltaWye
FreeCAD can cope with low end, sketch-and-pad work. New users seem quite happy. It really needs a usability upgrade to help on-boarding though. More visual interaction feedback would help a lot. A verb-noun UI too. Start a command, which then guides what selections are needed.
For high end and surfacing work it's a non starter.
We need more people with programming, CAD and usability skills. A rare combination, it seems.
@Bro666@werefreeatlast Has it? I was using it not even 1 year ago and I concluded I'd rather use Blender.
The face naming problem aside, I left feeling very frustrated about a lot of things. Like how hard it was to reuse sketches on parts that would mesh because you'd end up with the dependency loop checker refusing to solve for constraints across parts that shared a sketch.
It is not perfect, of course! It also does not have the resources of Blender. Then again, both pieces of software are quite different and have different uses.
@werefreeatlast@kde@kde Worth noting Blender has improved dramatically for precision work, including a full blown CAD skarcher plugin that uses SolveSpace under the hood.
I have been using adobe for over a decade and started disliking the corporate part more and more. Then I discovered Darktable and immediately fell in love. If I could chose I'd pick Darktable always.
I was using Krita for almost everything anyway already. The only thing I still need Photoshop for is in the very rare times I need to add curved text to an image. And for that I have a Jack Sparrow edition of Photoshop that runs in a virtual machine that isn't allowed to connect to the internet.
It's really not that bad. Depending on what you are doing. Personally I always seem to be learning new software, My goal is to not pay a monthly sub. I'm mostly using Clip Studio, which... yes, it's a sub, so... dumb. But GIMP isn't super user friendly, it does get a lot done though.
It's fine for a user who needs specific things not that often. I always have to look up how to do anything anyway, and by the next time I do it I've either forgotten or the software has updated.
I hate adobe and have been actively trying to switch away from them for a while. I work in game development, though, and for some reason no one has made it as easy to directly modify the alpha channel of a texture. It's something I have to do a lot and is probably the one thing keeping me from using krita or affinity photo.
@Nachorella@minecraftchest1 I do that a lot in GIMP: right-click a layer, "add layer mask", and it makes a secondary grayscale layer that works like a second alpha channel, that you can directly draw on, apply filters to, etc. A lot of my stuff has solid-color layers with all the work done in those layer masks.
I might be misunderstanding but that sounds different to a specific alpha channel. Sometimes in game art you'll store extra information in the alpha channel of a texture. Or even pack four different grayscale images into the rgba channels of a single texture. Is it easy to do stuff like that?
@Nachorella You can right-click a layer and Apply Layer Mask to bake it into the main layer's alpha channel (or Merge Visible Layers to combine all layers and their masks).
I think you can work with individual R/G/B channels in GIMP, or at least add a Channels tab where they're visible separately and you can add arbitrary channels; but I don't have experience drawing on the channels independently like that. But my gut says it may be doable.
I have been searching for good alternatives to AE and Premiere for a while now. I have messed with DaVinci a few times, but always bounced off. Any suggestions. Bonus points if anyone can point me in the direction of a Lightroom alternative.
You could try pirating an older version of Premiere and Lightroom with GenP and CCstopper. Blender is hard to use but it works well for Video Editing.
It's gonna be hard to replace AE and Premiere, tbh. It's been the main program for the highest grade of films for a long time. There just hasn't been enough investment into other options to make them viable, yet.
For video editing, Kdenlive is the best alternative I found so far, although it takes some time to get used to. For something AE related, check out Blender. It might be a bit overkill for most projects, but it is very powerful. As a lightroom alternative there's Darktable. All of the mentioned software also has the advantage of being free and open source.
Y'all dont block all the .exe files with your firewall? I been doing that for years. I anticipate being stuck with the near current version of Photoshop I have now. An update never occurs, but thats okay. Ive got windows update disconfigured and blocked, too.
Ive found that originally, updates actually fixed problems, but it seems for the last few years, updates only benefit the company and not the user. They are either trying to reinvent the wheel, increase data mining, restricting access in the name of better services, to gear up towards changing to some bullshit form of a subscription service (again, to provide you better services! Better for them...)
And, sometimes, updates just straight up break things. I've soured to allowing any updates when things are already working smoothly.
Only problem is that by disabling all windows updates, you don't even get security updates, which on windows, is more critical than anywhere else, from where I am sitting
Inkscape is far inferior to illustrator, has stability issues, support for filetypes is limited, copy pasting to other software non existant.
Scribus is just awful dogshit.
Gimp is a graphic software that is hostile to UX, not to mention has stability issues, is slow and in every category inferior to photoshop.
Blender is fucking amazing but 3d graphics is not really the same kind of software as the rest. Different type of users use it that have a very different set of skills and needs. And with all video software.
Beyond all of this, even if we ignore all of that, almost all graphic designers use Adobe, companies use Adobe, if you are sending files back and forth, the files have to be Adobe files either for collaboration or for text amendments...
If you are a freelancer and work for any company, they will want Adobe files from you
(I'm sure there is an exception somewhere).
None of this is threatened. If companies don't care, Adobe will go with it. Nobody will switch. Especially because there isn't really anything to switch to. Not realistically.
You can switch to another program, and learn it, instead of making up a thousand reasons why you want your work to be scraped by Adobe and their scammer CEO
Confidentiality agreements REALLY mater to big companies. Once they're made aware that Adobe does this they'll either kick up a fuss so Adobe won't do it to them or switch programs. We've already seen people break Ai in plenty of ways, I wouldn't out it past people to figure out how to break the Adobe one to show original artwork for confidential projects at some point. We'll see how it goes.