Apple should simply buy Adobe and make it a Macintosh company again and let Windows users drown in their own spit.

http://www.openoffice.org/product/index.html

http://www.openoffice.org/product/index.html

Everyday that another magazine goes digital and a another print shop goes out of business, CMYK becomes less relevant in todays digital RGB world. There are tons of Pros that have no use for CMYK. I work with digital imaging and post work everyday and can count the number of times I’ve had to use CMYK on one hand in the past year.

Adjustment Layer…. um… enough said. They are something the Pixelmator team should really look into.

Outside a test image designed to make it obvious, some elaborate 30 curve adjustment posterizing test, or some other none real world test, 16 bit doesn’t really make a visible difference. Don’t get me wrong, I use 16 bit just like I use Pro Photo RGB. Archival, in case someday advanced technology can render the benefits in the real world. Check out some of the old Dan Margulis arguments and tests. Pretty much put this debate to bed when it comes to working with real images and real world output.

HDR, Stitching… It’s ok. I use better tools such as Photomatix, Calico, and HDR Effects Pro, but if you don’t have them its nice to have. However, Pixelmator, Photomatix, and Calico combined is still less than 1/5 of Photoshops price.

Channels again? Are there people that need Photoshop’s power? Hell yes, I’m one. Do pro’s need channels? Many do, I love making channel base selections and more. Am I or any retouch pro the average image manipulation user? No, I would say we are deep in the minority of people who edit images. I never said Pixelmator is the only tool that should be in a retouch pro’s Application folder.

I say that Pixelmator is a great alternative for the majority of image editing users short of working pro photographers or extreme digital artists. At it’s price and feature set, the ROI for most people doesn’t extend to full Photoshop. It just is a waste of money for them.

Also, if you forgot to do your lens correction before sending your RAW to processing and then proceed to perform a bunch Liquify steps, 42 Layer Adjustments, and then step to CMYK. Yes you need Photoshop, but second you’re a sloppy pro for not following a good workflow to start with.

“First, Lighting Effects haven’t been in Photoshop on the Mac since CS4.”

Huh? I don’t really use them, but they do exist. Filter>Render>Lighting Effects.

I have to agree w/ Moscow. Pixelmator just doesn’t cut it for pros. CMYK is hugely important, don’t try to minimize it. Also:

*Adjustment Layers – I can’t live without them

*16-bit editing – once you break free of the limitations of 8-bit, it’s impossible to go back. Pixelmator just doesn’t feel modern without it.

*HDR support built-in – goes with the above, but very important. HDR is here to stay. Yes we’ve all seen bad HDR. But I do a lot of HDR that doesn’t look at all like HDR, and sometimes it’s the only way you’ll get the shot.

*Channels – Come on, if you are a pro, you’ll miss channels.

*Liquify – It’s not just for rendering really cool fire effects and making people look thinner (which can sometimes be a deciding factor whether you get a follow-up job later, LOL) it’s a really useful tool for a lot of stuff if you know how to use it and don’t go crazy with it.

*Lens Correction that works with metadata – awesome feature to correct known issues with the lenses we love. The ability to set custom settings and recall and apply them is really really cool. You can minimize the importance of this by saying “Oh, I can do this in Aperture,” but sometimes you don’t want to go back to Aperture and re-process if you forgot to do it in RAW the first time.

*Native stitching/photomerge – I use it all the time, even when not shooting panos. Again, it’s often super convenient to have this built-in instead of having to do it in a stand-alone. It’s all about workflow.

First, Lighting Effects haven’t been in Photoshop on the Mac since CS4. It’s true there is no CMYK in Pixelmator. Who cares unless you do offset press work (I do, but most don’t). No masking Radio Moscow? Really? When was the last time you used Pixelmator? It has had masking for literally years. Channels don’t exist for making channel masks, but channel mixer is there. You can do many of the automated tasks by tying Automator to Pixelmator. For being stared nearly twenty years behind Photoshop, it has amazing feature parity and works faster.

We’re long overdue for an update.

Pivot tables are your friend, but is not a friend of numbers….

I ask because I am in the market to get one or the other.

But NONE could explain exactly why….except some unconvincing BS about “attaching” documents. Which can be done simply by clicking the “box with the arrow” while viewing the file (you want to attach) in iOS.

Now we are getting the same BS about Excel and Pages. That’s all it is…..complete BS.

Apple will update iWork (I would prefer it be called iWorkPro…. since most people are quite fickle) anyway to be totally the thing you use for the best office experience without question.

That is just a guess I have never worked there and seen any of it first hand!

Just asking, since they run their company so well. Do you think they use MS OFFICE?

Apple’s product lines are doing fine now. Unless their next move is into the television market, they should direct their focus towards strengthening their productivity / multimedia / pro apps and pro desktops. Then they can move onto making that car.

(You welcome for the guidance, Apple. I understand that it’s appreciated so you don’t have to thank me )

At the same time, however,

I wish Apple would buy freehand from Adobe, or make another professional level vector program.

All of us wish some competition would pop up against Photoshop while there are some programs that come close, no REAL professional level programs exist, nothing has the level of tools for print professionals except Adobe. This sucks because Adobe’s programs are a bloated mess done the “Adobe way” and that also sucks.

I have had a similarly positive experience with Numbers as well.

Powerpoint is laughably convoluted.

Excel is how companies track and manage their finances. As much as I hate to admit it all other spreadsheets fail for business users because of interoperability. I’ve tried Quattro Pro, Numbers, and Google. They just won’t work. Excel by itself will keep Microsoft rolling in the dough for many years to come.

I envy this guy’s easy days!

However, a big update is missing. Apple never took their office software serious enough, see AppleWorks, was just the same.

Keynote is way better than powerpoint. No question about using it for all my presentations.

Numbers is so far inferior to Excel. I keep trying to use it, but it is just pathetic.

Number works well for me, but I’m not a serious numbers cruncher so I don’t understand or need the differences with Excel. Keynote absolutely is better than PowerPoint, and I only use PowerPoint when my kids have to use it for school because their Windows teachers don’t have Keynote (I know you can export Keynote as a PPT file or QuickTime movie, but I can’t take a chance on my kids’ presentation not working and a QT movie doesn’t work in most presentation situations).