The End of Photoshop and other thoughts

December 20, 2006 by pmelcher.

Hard to avoid working with Photoshop if you are in this industry. And a great product too, with so many possibilities that shelves of books are available in book stores, numerous websites, classes, courses, workshops, video and soon, after the “certified” they will have a PH.D for it. My oldest son learned how to use it in school. I remember playing with my 2.5 version back in the early 90’s and having to figure it out alone, with the useful help from photographers who were doing the same. We should receive a medal from Adobe.

Anyway, I found this great tool : FAUXTO, and it is amazing. It is a proto version of an online photo enhancing tool. Of course, it is still in Beta right now but they are on the right track and soon, instead of using the 800 Lbs. gorilla that Photoshop has become, web based tools like these will allow for quick and efficient edits, either as a pay per use or subscription.
Since web browsers only handle sRGB color space, I am assuming that is the only color space available right now, but it is strong enough to enhance an image for web usage. Soon enough, color management will make it to web browsers, at least in Open Source at first.

We are getting closer to a fully web based workflow that could allow anyone one to use any computer to manage their entire workflow from start to finish. How does that help us ? Not sure as computer are going faster and space is becoming cheaper at a much faster pace than web access is improving. Web browsers are not improving very fast and offer many limitations, while broadband is not becoming neither cheaper nor faster.
Other notes:

The winners of UNICEF Photo of the Year have be announced. Not my favorite organization but always a very good selection of images.

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