Someone vibe coded the Adobe Creative Suite

[Reverend Conehead]

I have mixed feelings about this. It's pretty cool that this is possible, but it does make me concerned about (non-Adobe) software developers. If Adobe goes bankrupt, I'll throw a party and crank up that Kool and the Gang song that goes, "Celebrate good times, come on!" I really, really dislike Adobe for the way it treats its customers. So if this clone of their suite takes off, I'll cheer, and I'll probably use it. I downloaded their Photoshop clone, PhotoCraft. For an alpha, this is pretty good. My needs are currently met by Gimp, so I don't need this immediately, which is good because it's still a work in progress. It's in Alpha. But it does seem intriguing.

Another plus is that's Naomi Brockwell in the video. Mmmmmmmmm, so gorgeous.

 

[Reality]

There is no way they built this by just "decompiling" Photoshop. Even if they did, they would ultimately end up using identifiable routines, structures or design patterns that Adobe could easily prove in court.

They likely vibe-coded it by using the available documentation, specifications, etc. and including a lot of screenshots. It's likely very buggy and highly insecure at this point.

Lastly, there are a lot of Photoshop clones, commercial and open source, out there and have been for years. Gimp is probably the most popular one.

Also, the comments near the end talking about tracking and privacy will never be AI'ed out of software. The companies will simply move the bulk of that code to the servers where you have no access to it.

The truth is most people are willing to give up their privacy for complacency and convenience.

The only real defense against corporate privacy violations will be government regulations and laws that will have to be strictly enforced and costly enough to deter companies from doing it.

 

[CyberB0b]

There is no way they built this by just "decompiling" Photoshop. Even if they did, they would ultimately end up using identifiable routines, structures or design patterns that Adobe could easily prove in court.

They likely vibe-coded it by using the available documentation, specifications, etc. and including a lot of screenshots. It's likely very buggy and highly insecure at this point.

Lastly, there are a lot of Photoshop clones, commercial and open source, out there and have been for years. Gimp is probably the most popular one.

Also, the comments near the end talking about tracking and privacy will never be AI'ed out of software. The companies will simply move the bulk of that code to the servers where you have no access to it.

The truth is most people are willing to give up their privacy for complacency and convenience.

The only real defense against corporate privacy violations will be government regulations and laws that will have to be strictly enforced and costly enough to deter companies from doing it.

That’s what I thought at first, but it seems like they are decompiling lots of software with this suite. https://github.com/morluto/rea

 

[Reverend Conehead]

There is no way they built this by just "decompiling" Photoshop. Even if they did, they would ultimately end up using identifiable routines, structures or design patterns that Adobe could easily prove in court.

They likely vibe-coded it by using the available documentation, specifications, etc. and including a lot of screenshots. It's likely very buggy and highly insecure at this point.

Lastly, there are a lot of Photoshop clones, commercial and open source, out there and have been for years. Gimp is probably the most popular one.

Also, the comments near the end talking about tracking and privacy will never be AI'ed out of software. The companies will simply move the bulk of that code to the servers where you have no access to it.

The truth is most people are willing to give up their privacy for complacency and convenience.

The only real defense against corporate privacy violations will be government regulations and laws that will have to be strictly enforced and costly enough to deter companies from doing it.

I don't think they decompiled Photoshop (or the other apps). I think they simply described in detail what they wanted the a feature to do and then gave pseudocode to the AI to build it. You could just go feature by feature and build the GUI in QT or something similar. It's more like working as a manager of a software team who jobs out the coding to junior developers.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Full Adobe Photoshop and side effects programs used to be free on all the warezs sites. I think I still have a full copy of it and side programs with all legit passwords saved on a cd or two somewhere.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

Full Adobe Photoshop and side effects programs used to be free on all the warezs sites. I think I still have a full copy of it and side programs with all legit passwords saved on a cd or two somewhere.

True. You can use an old pre-subscription version of Photoshop that you got free via warez (not that that's legal). The downsides are it's not legal and it won't run under Linux.

Gimp is good, but it's interface is awkward. Back in my Windows days I used Ulead PhotoImpact, which didn't cost all that much money. I think I paid something like 40 bucks. It was so good that I ended up just never needing Photoshop.

In Gimp I miss a PhotoImpact feature named the Easy Pallette. It's basically a tree-based directory with stock images that are already cut out with transparent backgrounds. All you have to do is drag and drop or double click on one of them and it goes into your photo you're working on. For example, if you're working on a picture of a woman and you want to put a flower in her hair, you could just find one in the Easy Pallette, double click it, and it's in your image. Then you can easily move and resize it. Since vibe coding is working for people, I'm thinking of creating a plugin that will give Gimp the Easy Pallette.

 

[Cowboys5217]

You gotta love the irony of this. Big Tech companies are replacing people with A.I., so in response, some people have started using A.I. to replace Big Tech companies.

 

[ShortRound]

Good, Adobe needs to be brought down.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

Good, Adobe needs to be brought down.

I know. I despise them. They're the ones that started this software on subscription crap. If I pay for software, I want to pay to use that version indefinitely.

 

[ShortRound]

I know. I despise them. They're the ones that started this software on subscription crap. If I pay for software, I want to pay to use that version indefinitely.

Yeah it's about $900 a year now for creative suite, it's ridiculous.

 

[YosemiteSam]

I tend to use Gimp for general photo editing, but as an Astrophotographer, I still have the (grandfathered in) $99/year for Photoshop.

I don't really use Gimp or Photoshop in Astrophotography, but there are edge cases where I do use Photoshop for some finishing touches to specific types of astrophotography.

I was quite excited when Gimp 3 finally released given it was in development for three ice ages! Though, it's some of the tooling that already exists in Photoshop that makes it more artist friendly, but Gimp is quite powerful itself.

As for this suite, it's par for the course that he did it in Rust lol. The fact that Thomas is a experienced developer is helpful, but I would be skeptical of the quality of the suite and feature parity claims. I would also be skeptical of a true full decompilation and re-engineering of the suite. I know a lot of people say that is what happen and from what I read, the README is considerably more restrained in that rhetoric.

Finally, I've heard they have started working on cloning Microsoft suites (Word, Excel, etc) also lol. It takes a lot of work to manage a single application like this, but to manage suites and keep them updated, new features, and secure is a very LARGE ask. There are many companies now getting a rude awakening around AI development and application sprawl and the sheer level of headaches it brings to the forefront.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

I tend to use Gimp for general photo editing, but as an Astrophotographer, I still have the (grandfathered in) $99/year for Photoshop.

I don't really use Gimp or Photoshop in Astrophotography, but there are edge cases where I do use Photoshop for some finishing touches to specific types of astrophotography.

I was quite excited when Gimp 3 finally released given it was in development for three ice ages! Though, it's some of the tooling that already exists in Photoshop that makes it more artist friendly, but Gimp is quite powerful itself.

As for this suite, it's par for the course that he did it in Rust lol. The fact that Thomas is a experienced developer is helpful, but I would be skeptical of the quality of the suite and feature parity claims. I would also be skeptical of a true full decompilation and re-engineering of the suite. I know a lot of people say that is what happen and from what I read, the README is considerably more restrained in that rhetoric.

Finally, I've heard they have started working on cloning Microsoft suites (Word, Excel, etc) also lol. It takes a lot of work to manage a single application like this, but to manage suites and keep them updated, new features, and secure is a very LARGE ask. There are many companies now getting a rude awakening around AI development and application sprawl and the sheer level of headaches it brings to the forefront.

There's a plugin for Gimp that makes its interface more like that of Photoshop. I've never used it because I've never been a regular Photoshop user. However, if the plugin made its interface more like that of PhotoImpact, I would probably use it. I do think they made Gimp a lot better with versino 3.

 

[ShortRound]

I’ve been using ChatGPT for a lot of basic photo editing. While it’s not nowhere near photoshop for print ready quality but for basic web stuff though it’s really good.

 

[SlammedZero]

I absolutely loved Lightroom for my drone photography, but I refuse to pay a subscription. Of course, I could go out and find a cracked version on BitTorrent, but those usually only last so long before Adobe patches them.

So, I found ON1 as an alternative, and I love it! It's a one-time purchase, works great, and the layout is fairly similar to Lightroom.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

I haven't heard of ON1. I ended up not needing Lightroom. For a while I had an open source alternative named Darktable installed, but I ended up not using it.

 

[Rockport]

I absolutely loved Lightroom for my drone photography, but I refuse to pay a subscription. Of course, I could go out and find a cracked version on BitTorrent, but those usually only last so long before Adobe patches them.

So, I found ON1 as an alternative, and I love it! It's a one-time purchase, works great, and the layout is fairly similar to Lightroom.

I use ON1 as well after cancelling the Adobe subscription. I interviewed with Adobe a few years back and was shocked at the work environment. No cubicles, no privacy just tables with work stations and chairs side by side. I’m familiar with those types of work environments and it’s a horrible way to work. I was offered a job but said no thanks. Cancelled my subscription after that.

 

[SlammedZero]

I haven't heard of ON1. I ended up not needing Lightroom. For a while I had an open source alternative named Darktable installed, but I ended up not using it.

It's quite good (for me). Now, it should be noted that I'm not a professional photographer. I just do it as a hobby, so my needs may be different from others, but I really like this program.

I tried Darktable and I found it overly complicated for what I needed out of it. I've heard it's a great program, it just has a steep learning curve.

I really enjoy the layout of ON1 (example pic below).

 

[Reverend Conehead]

It's quite good (for me). Now, it should be noted that I'm not a professional photographer. I just do it as a hobby, so my needs may be different from others, but I really like this program.

I tried Darktable and I found it overly complicated for what I needed out of it. I've heard it's a great program, it just has a steep learning curve.

I really enjoy the layout of ON1 (example pic below).

Some of these graphic design tools can get quite complex. I'm busy learning Inkscape, which is a vector graphics program similar to Adobe Illustrator. Now I've downloaded and installed the VectorCraft clone of Illustrator just to check it out. I want to make T shirt designs, and vector graphics are often better than raster ones (though not always).

So it's Gimp and Inkscape as my main workhorses, but I'm keeping my eye on these other tools. I also have Paint Shop Pro, but I was really disappointed in it. It's such a resource hog, I can't effectively run it in a virtual machine with Windows. My main computer is a Linux one. However, I also have a Windows 10 PC hooked up via KVM that I can run Paint Shop Pro on. Even on that separate PC, it doesn't run anywhere near as well as Gimp. I usually just reach for Gimp for raster image work.

 

[speedkilz88]