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Comment by superasn | Hacker News Reader

Windows 10 was the final push for me to switch to Linux once and for all. And so far I'm super happy with it. I'm using Linux mint and I must recommended it highly for any long time windows user as they've hugely reduced the learning curve.

The only thing I miss is Photoshop. I've tried so many alternatives like gimp, etc but I find graphics editing a big struggle, for example I can't even do simple things like adding a red arrow to a screenshot till date without googling for it first. Also wine it didn't work for me for some reason. But thankfully my graphics requirements are pretty less so I boot up windows for that, other than that I don't miss Windows at all now. Rather it would be very hard to go back now.

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Photoshop was a big one that I missed, until someone posted their self-made online editor to reddit: https://www.photopea.com/

I'm not sure what modern photoshop looks like, but the interface is completely familiar to me as a former CS2 user.

While Photopea is online, its completely satisfactory for small editing tasks that I need to do. Only gripe is that saving massive pngs with 100% quality causes the site to freeze

>Only gripe is that saving massive pngs with 100% quality causes the site to freeze

Png or jpg? Pngs shouldn't have a quality % level given it's a lossless format.

If the site is freezing while it's trying to compress the image, you may have better luck saving in a clunky format like bmp and using a local program to compress it later. Hard to tell what issues can arise from trying to do cpu-intensive tasks in a JS browser app.

They’re probably referring to png compression level. All levels are lossless it’s just about how long it takes to encode/decode and resulting file size. Actual image quality is identical (which can be verified via hashing the decoded images)

Photoshop is the main reason I still have a Windows boot on my home desktop. I wish Linux had a comparable alternative to Photoshop (for which I would gladly pay a sum comparable to what I paid Adobe). Any time I tried Gimp or something similar I really missed the clean visual UI of CS, ability to accurately work with at least 16-bit color and support for printing large files (say, 17x40" panoramas) without killing my workstation.

What about Krita?

I have not tried Krita yet. It seemed to be geared to artists drawing / creating images, where my main (in fact only) use case is enhancement of my DSLR or phone-captured photos. That said, Krita is on my "to try sometime" list.

Didn't Google sponsor some work to run Photoshop under Wine? That's ages ago, so it probably doesn't apply to modern Adobe stuff, but sitll, I'm curious, can't you use Wine for that? Not saying it's silver bullet, but usually popular programs gets love from Wine contributors. Sadly, Richard Burns Rally is not that popular. :(

For me the same. Since the mid 90s I had Windows and Linux installed at home. But Windows 10 was a no go. I mean I even have the Pro Licence. But serious, Candy Crash and XBox all over the place. After one week trying to delete all that things, I had to accept, thats not what I want and deleted it. So I'm also a Linux only now.

You probably have already, but have you tried Krita? After usuing it I much prefer it over gimp. Inkscape for vector.

I also recommend Krita. I started using it when I tried KDE and never went back to GIMP. It's even available in the Microsoft Store for Windows users.

Maybe try Inkscape for some of your graphics needs. Adding arrows etc. is very easy.

I find Dia easier to use than Inkscape and both do vector graphics, but Inkscape might be better to learn how to use in the long run because it can do more things.

Not a wholesale PS alternative, but for screenshot annotations specifically, I'd recommend https://shutter-project.org

Funny, for me it was the other way around.

Windows 10 was the reason for me to switch back from Linux to Windows, due to WSL.

I hate the ads and build in tracking like any other, but in the end this is my work laptop and I need to get the job done. I can't be spending hours fiddling with graphic drivers and GTK issues when a customer is paying for my time.

Just wanted to say that the recommendations you guys made are just awesome.. Especially shutter.

I think this is another great thing about using linux, the super helpful community that jumps on the first chance to help someone out. Thanks.

I'm the other way around... I've been using Gimp for so long that I cannot use Photoshop.

Adobe Illustrator is no problem. And I can sort of fumble my way through other Adobe products. But Photoshop is another story.

Pinta is the software I use for quick little edits (like adding a red arrow!)

re: adding arrows, I've had success with Shutter (which doesn't work on latest), and flameshot (which works now)

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