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      /  Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
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Hypex 
Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 6-Jan-2017 14:59:12
#1 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

The Amiga is considered, at least by us, to be a major graphics player back in the day. Yet at the same time the Amiga was gaining a foot hold, so was a new graphics program, that eventually would become Photoshop.

It sounds like a perfect mix of computer and software. But Photoshop only existed for the Mac and PC. What happened to the Amiga version?

According to what I read a primitive Photoshop was wrtiten on a Mac to simply display greyscale images. And then developed futher to include editing features. No big deal so far. And greyscale sounds vastly inferior to what the Amiga could do. Infact, greyscale is vastly inferior to a C16 even. LOL.

Soon after the program is demonstrated to Apple and a deal made with Adobe. The rest history. Comes out on the Mac. Eventually PC as well.

Perhaps this explains why. Written on an Apple. Showed to Apple.

When I read it was started in 1987 I wondered where was the Amiga? It's just the timing. By then the Amiga should have been well known. But somehow it just kept missing the mark. Typical. Was it stupid Commodore?

Last edited by Hypex on 08-Jan-2017 at 12:37 PM.

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BigD 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 6-Jan-2017 15:31:37
#2 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Aug-2005
Posts: 7307
From: UK

@Hypex

Quote:
Typical. Was it stupid Commodore?


In the sense they were trying to base their distribution network on big toy stores rather than serious computer stores; YES it was their fault.

In 1997 my school friends were still telling me (an Amiga owner) that the Amiga was JUST a games machine! Who entered the only computer animation in the house art competition in 1999, I did. I was still trying to prove the point. I did prove a point I came 4th overall (in all categories) and handed in my entry on a VHS Tape proving the capabilities of the system and it's ease of use as a full computer system! I used Deluxe Paint IV and Scala 400. I later used Photogenics for Photoshop type editing. Although useful and the increased time I now spend with Photoshop on the Mac I still don't view it was as much of a creative program as Deluxe Paint and Scala. It's fine for photography and editing or touching up photos but the Amiga was more about creating things from scratch. Saying that Computer Active ran a three part feature on using Photogenics with photographic textures so it was possible.

Commodore completely mis-marketed the machine to serious computer users and developers. Heck, they couldn't even see the value of giving Steven Spielberg an A3000 or A4000 for product placement in the Jurassic Park film! They were a horrendously short sighted and greedy company at the corporate level. When Tramiel left they lost all common sense and business nous! Commodore ultimately only committed to buying out the Amiga to get one up on Jack at Atari

Last edited by BigD on 06-Jan-2017 at 03:39 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 06-Jan-2017 at 03:34 PM.

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Kronos 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 6-Jan-2017 15:39:48
#3 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2553
From: Unknown

@Hypex

Early PhotoShop was rather primitive as you have noticed yourself. By the time it actually did pass SW available on the Amiga, Amiga was allready out of the picture when it came to such jobs.

Sure one could buy an A2000 with flickerfixer, 68020(030) and SCSI, but for that price one could also buy a PC or Mac with an early truecolor gfx card.

Lot of photo editing at that time was done for magazines, which allmost all allready had a bunch of Macs for DTP.

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Xenic 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 6-Jan-2017 16:13:27
#4 ]
Super Member
Joined: 2-Feb-2004
Posts: 1246
From: Pennsylvania, USA

@Kronos
The closest thing I've found for Amiga is ImageFX. Supposedly, A-EON has purchased ImageFX and at some point we will see a new version. I own the last release of 68k ImageFX and there is very little that a friend can do with Photoshop that I can't do with ImageFX. Besides, Adobe has switched Photoshop to a licensed product so they can collect annual fees for using it; which a lot of people don't like.

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asymetrix 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 6-Jan-2017 21:08:53
#5 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 9-Mar-2003
Posts: 868
From: United Kingdom

@Xenic

True, alot of Photoshop users were created by cleverly using universities - just the same way M$ has Office & Visual Studio in every school or college or Uni - so that users would be too accustomed to using that specific branded software.

Brainwashing.

The new payment system is forcing people to move onto different software. EG Digital Artrists are moving to the Free & Open Sources paint software Krita - it is very popular.

Krita

Also Googles portable assembly software Go/Golang - has plugin capability for any processor is very popular for programmers.

Write once run on any system - it has capability to auto update seemlessly, porting is vastly superior.

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Signal 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 6-Jan-2017 21:31:43
#6 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 1-Jun-2013
Posts: 664
From: USA

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote:
@Hypex

[quote]
Commodore completely mis-marketed the machine to serious computer users and developers.


That disease seems to be in the DNA.

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TRIPOS 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 6-Jan-2017 22:12:10
#7 ]
Super Member
Joined: 4-Apr-2014
Posts: 1204
From: Unknown

@Xenic

Quote:
there is very little that a friend can do with Photoshop that I can't do with ImageFX.


Sorry, but that's simply not true.

By far.


Quote:
Adobe has switched Photoshop to a licensed product so they can collect annual fees for using it


Even monthly subscriptions.


Quote:
which a lot of people don't like.


True that.

I'm holding on to my CS6 version...

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broadblues 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 6-Jan-2017 22:27:48
#8 ]
Amiga Developer Team
Joined: 20-Jul-2004
Posts: 4446
From: Portsmouth England

@TRIPOS

Quote:

@Xenic

Quote:
there is very little that a friend can do with Photoshop that I can't do with ImageFX.


Sorry, but that's simply not true.

By far.


Much as I like ImageFX for certain quick operations, (and some more adavnce things too) I must agree, Xenics photoshop using 'friend' must not be trying vary hard if Xenic can keep up in ImageFX.

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wawa 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 1:29:07
#9 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jan-2008
Posts: 6259
From: Unknown

omg.. image fx or photogenics as valid photoshop alternative, because someone heard about it from a fiend, who knows a guy who met a person who says image fx is better and its all apple conspiracy that photoshop was used on universities. yes. certainly..

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BigD 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 3:42:30
#10 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Aug-2005
Posts: 7307
From: UK

@wawa

Photogenics is fine for what it does but messing around with Photoshop you get the sense that your just scratching the surface and that the pros know how to use it properly. But that's the problem isn't it; the gulf between the pros with Photoshop is massive but the gulf with Deluxe Paint or Image FX or Photogenics didn't have to be as great because most great Amiga programs were intuitive whereas modern PC/Mac apps (other than iMovie and iDVD IMHO) are a confusing mess that require a college course or many many Youtube tutorials just to access what seemed like basic features in Amiga programs i.e. masks, curved lines, brushes, anim brushes, colour cycling etc

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amigang 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 8:16:41
#11 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-Jan-2005
Posts: 2018
From: Cheshire, England

@Hypex

Photoshop was pretty poor when Amiga was mainstream, like others have said it wasn't until really late 90's it became one of the leaders in its field and Amiga was no longer really a big enough market.

I feel It's kinda of more of shame EA did'nt continue to develop deluxe paint, even if it had to make the move to the other platform, I know a pc version was developed but I think they throw in the towel to quick on making it successful on the pc market.

I also agree that adobe has made the main photoshop app a bit to bloated, and yes you can do a lot but you need hours and hours to follow the tutorials, I think I'm glad they made a more simple version for tablet markets, it pretty good for quick edits and best of all it's free.

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wawa 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 9:05:16
#12 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jan-2008
Posts: 6259
From: Unknown

scratching the surface? photoshop was poor until late nineties? i still have here version 7 which is what i still use. i could use version 5 or 3 for that matter, which i have used in the nineties, it wouldnt make that much difference and i have no need for anything newer. and i have done some art work using both amiga and macs at that time, i can assure you , as an educated artist, amiga was great in some ways, but there was no professional painting package on amiga or pc at the time photoshop was mac exclusive. not even tvpaint.

only since i have bought ms surface pro for drawing im using now krita also. which is a great software in its own right, but a bit awkward interface and a bit unusual workflow.

edit: also even if i agree that current day photoshop may be considered bloathed, since it needs 3d acceleration even to work and not a budget one, its interface and basic functionality is as self explanatory as it ever was. i would consider it as noob friendly as dpaint or whatever comparable.

Last edited by wawa on 07-Jan-2017 at 09:18 AM.
Last edited by wawa on 07-Jan-2017 at 09:17 AM.

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Leo 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 10:56:55
#13 ]
Super Member
Joined: 21-Aug-2003
Posts: 1597
From: Unknown

I think these are two different apps not permetting the same things.

Photoshop had no equivalent on the Amiga, and although the first versions were not complete, they already paved the way for the future: you could open almost any file format (DPaint has always been limited to IFF, although it could be patched to use DataTypes: but these came in 1993 anyway), supported high color/true color from day one although the display was grayscale, ability to edit files larger than the display, supported scanners,...

To find this kind of functionnality alone on the Amiga you had to wait for a long time...

Some information here: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/adobe-photoshop-source-code/

Note that it was also programmed in Pascal: not sure there was a compiler for the Amiga back then.

Last edited by Leo on 07-Jan-2017 at 11:01 AM.

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wawa 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 11:07:45
#14 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jan-2008
Posts: 6259
From: Unknown

@Leo

dont get me wrong. dpaint is a cool tool, but it isnt a photo retouching nor true color image manipulating software. even though i recall as i once took my a1200 to a pc owner i wanted to buy a multisync screen from, he was totally amazed at how slow dpaint was flooding a circle with a color.

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BigD 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 11:21:34
#15 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Aug-2005
Posts: 7307
From: UK

@wawa

Quote:
edit: also even if i agree that current day photoshop may be considered bloathed, since it needs 3d acceleration even to work and not a budget one, its interface and basic functionality is as self explanatory as it ever was. i would consider it as noob friendly as dpaint or whatever comparable.


That is not my experience. The use of the pen/stroke paths to create curved lines is very contrived and in practice does not produce the results you necessarily expect. It is also very slow in comparison to the Deluxe Paint curved line tool. The 3D manipulation tools are powerful but again it's not intuitive and requires tutorials every time Amiga programs were simply not like that! Again the way Deluxe Paint handled masks, brushes and animbrushes just made sense, Photoshop is a mess of weird work processes that breeds elitism and back slapping of the people at the top of the industry who put up with its poor user interface design for the money.

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wawa 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 11:40:56
#16 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jan-2008
Posts: 6259
From: Unknown

@BigD

i think you must be mistaking photoshop for freehand or illustrator. photoshop, as the name says, is image manipulation and retouching software, which by its nature is geared towards raster rather than vector graphics. any vector/path functionality is a primarly a bonus, and such was also completely absent on dpaint and co. painting with photoshop is as natural as it gets when it comes to digital media. of course you have more dedicated software like painter or the like, but then im not sure about how much advantage they really offer in basic terms.

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wawa 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 11:50:58
#17 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jan-2008
Posts: 6259
From: Unknown

just to give a handy example. im looking into creating a low color iff icon set for aros just yet again, and try to figure a workflow not to get stuck too soon. on my surface both krita and my olde ps7 come perfectly along with the pressure sensitive wacom precision stylus. but id prefer to draw directly under uae, it works really more like "sort of" than really. not only the pointer is off the spot, but there isnt even a proper tool to design icons natively, the one i downloaded from aminet is rather limited and an ancient demo version beyond that, the only option is grafx2, actually, but then i almost prefer to use it under the host system instead of uae.

that gives an impression about how the reaity of imaging is and ever was on amiga in fact

Last edited by wawa on 07-Jan-2017 at 11:53 AM.

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BigD 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 12:23:18
#18 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Aug-2005
Posts: 7307
From: UK

@wawa

Quote:
think you must be mistaking photoshop for freehand or illustrator. photoshop, as the name says, is image manipulation and retouching software, which by its nature is geared towards raster rather than vector graphics. any vector/path functionality is a primarly a bonus, and such was also completely absent on dpaint and co. painting with photoshop is as natural as it gets when it comes to digital media.


I know what Photoshop is designed to do, my comments were about ease of of use and intuitiveness. The way you draw curves, produce masks and use the clone brush in Photoshop is not intuitive in the same way as Deluxe Paint, Photogenics or DrawStudio2 was. Using all three I used to get by without poring over tutorials! With Photoshop that's all I ever seem to do when trying to replicate a basic tool in Deluxe Paint!

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Hypex 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 14:43:21
#19 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@BigD

Quote:
In 1997 my school friends were still telling me (an Amiga owner) that the Amiga was JUST a games machine! Who entered the only computer animation in the house art competition in 1999, I did. I was still trying to prove the point. I did prove a point I came 4th overall (in all categories)


Great story.

But you bring up a good point. Around the mid 90's I got my first A1200. And my brother in law bought his first PC, with Windows 95. So he tells me how I bought a games machine. Excuse me? His PC came with ten or so games, mostly 3d, including an updated version of an Amiga bike game I forget the name of. And the new Amiga which was stuck with 80's style 2d games is the games machine? Yeah right!

The difference between opinions and facts.

Quote:
Although useful and the increased time I now spend with Photoshop on the Mac I still don't view it was as much of a creative program as Deluxe Paint and Scala.


I wonder if it's down to know the workflow. I recall at times looking up things in the DPaint manual but it wasn't long to find what I needed to know.

I don't have any experience with Photoshop but I agree with you when it comes to GIMP. So I wanted to take a brush and overlay it on an image. Simple DPaint stuff. I knew how it would be done. I could not figure GIMP out. I googled for guides. I hate videos as my computers are always too slow, it sucks my net and my time. I want the information layed out in front of me in steps and pictures. No BS. Found some stuff on GIMP site but the instructions weren't working for me well.

I found the brush tool. But it wasn't like load up a picture as brush. Click to stamp. Not so simple. Didn't work for me. I ended up loading brush as a layer and merging in another layer. The scissor tools worked well for me at least.

The problem is all these layers. Everything is a layer. I needed to load up a sprite brush and overlay it. Not have another layer. But all I could see are layers!

I had same problem trying to edit AnimGIF. GIMP can load them but anim support sucks. Every frame is a layer and it doesn't bring each to front when clicking on thumbnail. It has some anim plugin I tested but it didn't work very well. I also tried heaps of GIF software on PC and Mac. Most just fell over and crashed. Only thing that worked was some old PPC Cocoa app. LOL.

If DPaint could have loaded them job would have been done quickly.

Last edited by Hypex on 07-Jan-2017 at 02:47 PM.

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Hypex 
Re: Photoshop on the Amiga: What happened?
Posted on 7-Jan-2017 14:58:03
#20 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@Kronos

I suppose by the mid 90's the Amiga graphic hardware was wearing a bit thin. And Commodore implementing 32-but gun values in the API was overkill. Especially when the hardware hadn't advanced that far and even today 8-bit ARGB is still used in a framebufer.

The Amiga needed true colour built in for pro work or an affordable video card included. Since by the late 80's there were Amiga true colour cards. Usually using a PC graphic chip. Ok maybe not exclusive to PC but that's what a lot of chipsets were made for.

The Mac really took on the DTP market. And then it had the music market. My mum has a John Farnham CD and there are obvious images of the Mac OS classic interface on the cover! It even had subliminal advertising for Mac. Was any Amiga program printed on a CD cover?

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