Hacker News Reader

Comment by nnq | Hacker News Reader

My recipe for dealing with "cranky" proprietary software like this:

Step 1. Buy CC subscription and install what you need.

Step 2. Look for a good patch/crack that makes everything work ofline, and that still allows you to update.

Step 3. Make peace with the risk of having installed some possible malware on your machine with the patch/crack (ie. do the sensible thing of doing you shopping and ebanking on the other dedicated machine you only use for this).

Step 4. Stop caring that step 2 is illegal and get on with your life, you paid for the damn thing and nobody will really sue you for using it in a way that breaks the damn EULA anyway...

View on HN

My "recipe" is this:

Uninstall and switch to Sketch. http://bohemiancoding.com/sketch/

I have been so, so happy. Not 100% apples-to-apples of course but it's been great for my UI design needs, way better than Photoshop/Fireworks.

For bitmap editing I supplement with Pixelmator (only $15!). I used to say Photoshop couldn't be beat because of insanely hardcore features like content-aware fill, but then this is happening: http://www.pixelmator.com/blog/2014/04/17/sneak-peek-at-pixe...

I'm going to have to see that in person to believe it.

There is a similar plugin for GIMP, though it is less refined.

It is like magic, but Adobe demoed (and, I think, shipped) it in Photoshop over four years ago: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/cs5-web-premium-feature-tour/conte..., so the technology does exist.

I was curious about how content-aware fill works, so I did some digging. Photoshop's content-aware fill uses the PatchMatch algorithm, originally developed at Princeton:

http://gfx.cs.princeton.edu/pubs/Barnes_2009_PAR/patchmatch....

Does anyone know if Pixelmator is using the same technology, or is it something new?

I do wish there were better alternatives for each and every app in the CC. The only one that's competently matched is Premiere.

Pixelmator is good, but Mac/OSX only. It also doesn't have adjustment layers, meaning that if I want a layer to be black and white, I'd have to open it up separately, desaturate, then import it back in as a new layer, delete the old one and rearrange.

They finally have a 16bit color, and apparently the content aware fill is coming.

I'd love to know where the idea came from that Mac OS X has a slash in it somewhere. I've seen Mac/OSX, and I've seen Mac OS/X. I reckon it's probably because of OS/2.

People sometimes call the Playstation 2 the "PS/2" as well, which is all kinds of wrong.

No slashes in OS X!

I think it was being used the same way as people write PC/Windows, or perhaps Unix/Linux.

Wait, what... where is Premiere matched? I am tied to Windows because of CC. Namely, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects and AME - all Adobe. If Adobe only ported their stuff to linux then I could switch completely. Autodesk already has me covered with Maya and other tools, The Foundry as well, FadeIn is a great alternative to Final Draft (although I bought both)... I only need Adobe CC alternatives, especially Premiere - or AVID to port MediaComposer.

Sony Vegas Pro is decent.

Edius is decent too, not close to MC or Premiere though, but neither Vegas or Edius have Linux versions. Only, close enough, app that is on Linux is Lightworks - yet it is cumbersome to work with.

As I said elsewhere in the thread, I believe that Nuke is a more than capable After Effects replacement - although it's a LOT more expensive.

I wouldn't agree with Premiere being particularly well matched by anything else - what are you thinking of?

Final Cut is what I was thinking of, along with something else that hasn't been mentioned. Avid I think?

Is there anything similar that works in Ubuntu?

For web UI work, I have to agree, Sketch is superior in all the ways that matter. Your output in sketch will look like your out out in the browser, and the way things are designed in sketch lines up nicely with the way things will be built in code.

But it's not Photoshop, and I've seen first hand how designers decry Sketch as inferior, not on its merits, but on the bad habits and false friends that Photoshop offers.

I've personally been on a path to rid myself of Adohe Products for years, and that means trying new things, learning new software and celebrating things that are different to what Adobe offers.

Also, Pixelmator does a great job of picking up the slack. I'm comfortable with the idea that i need two apps to design UIs. Sketch feels so much more focused because it's not dealing with image manipulation, and Pixelmator is so much more performant than Photoshop that I'm constantly reminded just how powerful my Mac actually.

For anyone up there looking for replacements to Adobe software, you won't find anything worthwhile. But if you're willing to consider alternatives, there's a lot of choice.

I saw your comment yesterday, I already started the trials and I just wanted to say thanks. I'm not a designer myself, so I just assumed that since Adobe was the industry standard, anything else must be much worse; it seems it's not the case anymore.

And this is why "cloud" software will always be worse then regular software.

What happens when these "cloud" companies go out of business?

You're pretty much SOL if you can't find a replacement quick.

Don't ever rely on "cloud" software for critical infrastructure unless you own that cloud.

Everybody get CS6 and delay upgrading as long as you can.

> You're pretty much SOL if you can't find a replacement quick.

Everyone who seriously considers moving mission-critical software or infrastructure to the cloud should (if they don't already) have a contingency plan at the forefront of their evaluation of any platform/service. Evaluations of solutions like that take away much of the risk that you're proposing. It's also just smart business.

The problem is, Adobe never did this and abruptly forced everyone to switch to a subscription model if they wanted to upgrade. And existing versions only keep working for so long unless you keep the same hardware/operating system with them forever. So suddenly, thousands of people who rely on Adobe software daily are forced to switch to a subscription-only model.

I disagree in some specific cases. For software that is focused around accessing shared data. Say, ERP, document collaboration, etc. for small businesses that can't afford or don't want dedicated IT staff cloud based software makes a lot of sense.

It makes a lot of sense iff those businesses lose less money on cloud+ISP downtime than they would spend on IT staff or on-site support from a retail store.

What's the point of that? You still need to worry about your own off-cloud backups and a contingency plan for when your vendor goes out of business.

The Adobe "Creative Cloud" is not cloud software. It just the Adobe Creative Suite desktop applications sold on a subscription model.

The problem here was that they added DRM to it to make sure you can't use it if you don't have an active subscription and those 'call home' servers failed.

It is more of a DRM problem than a 'cloud' problem.

Our shop is currently holding at CS6, and we have no desire to 'upgrade' to CC. Unfortunately, customers have been sending in artwork and source files created in CC, so we will eventually be forced into Adobe's subscription plan unless some other full-featured software suite of equal or greater capability comes along.

Does Creative Cloud not allow you to save in a format compatible with previous versions of Photoshop?

I ask for open formats from people. Send me something I can work with in my choice of software! Save multiple versions and deliver those just for redundancy. There's no excuse if you're using pro-level software to ever say "well I guess you'll have to buy it to do something with this"

This all seems sensible until Adobe revokes your license and you lose all money you invested so far and access to the work you produced. There should be consumer protection laws for these cases. When you pirate software, everything works smoothly (unless you catch some trojan), but if you are a paying customer, all kinds of unpleasant and artificial problems are thrown at you.

Or just let the consumer vote with his money. (sketch and pixelmator look like they're growing nicely) All "protection" laws will do is add compliance costs and increase the barrier to entry.

> risk of having installed some possible malware

Are you talking about the Creative Cloud drm or the crack?

Both probably ;-).

Most likely just the crack...sometimes they come with additional crap and people (who are none the wiser) click on it and get something bad installed.

You don't need a crack for CC, just to block Adobe's activation servers in your hosts after installing. (AFAIK)

That only work for 90 days though once the counter hits 90 you're screwed.

You still code that can either crack the software or act is a server for it.

Not anymore, this was valid up to CS5. CS5.5 and later need the amtlib.dll patch on Windows, dunno what's the state of affairs on Macintosh.

I'm pretty sure they don't..I had CS6 without using any patched files iirc

The DRM on a game creation IDE I use stopped working not too long ago. I'd bought the product, but the DRM didn't care. So I just used a crack.

>Step 3

That is what VM's are for.....

http://www.prtfl.io/muellerwolfram/blog/2013/1/23/how-to-use...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com