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Comment by iwr | Hacker News Reader

What particular piece of software would you want or need but can't afford? Nowadays there are complete F/OSS development stacks and tools available.

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The original HN thread was referring to how expensive Photoshop is.

But surely you can buy one license for $1,000. Setup one workspace that is for Photoshop only.

If your business relies on continuous access to Photoshop by all your employees, then you must plan for it.

I paid a designer and an integrator a little more than what Photoshop costs to launch http://talkerapp.com/

And I also used a trial version to finish up a few things.

If you can afford an employee, I have a hard time picturing how you couldn't afford, say, 10 grand for proper and properly-licensed tools.

You're right, of course, but I suspect a lot of us here have had to plead (sometimes unsuccessfully) with "management" to buy a license for software a lot cheaper than Photoshop.

And while that's an unfortunate waste of most people's time, and self-defeating attempt at 'optimization', "justify it" is a very different policy than "pirate it".

Exactly, while they might not be as powerful as others, there are definitely free versions of these floating around that are more than able.

The GIMP to replace PS: http://www.gimp.org/

Inkscape to replace Illustrator: http://inkscape.org/

Both of these are really good tools and you don't have to worry about any licensing constraints. The only piece of the puzzle that I haven't found an F/OSS version of is for animation.

Photoshop skills do not directly map to GIMP skills.

However if you are hiring a professional designer, they most likely will have their own copy of the software.

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