ArtCraft suite - This stuff is good

[heyvern]

I have been desperate to dump Adobe. it is costing a fortune and they don't even fix bugs. Also it's HUGE takes up massive space on my hard drive, etc etc blah blah. So a few weeks ago another guy got really annoyed with Adobe and "cloned" the entire suite with a small team and Claude AI. And It's OPEN SOURCE. instead of 6gb for photoshop, it's like 500mb for Photocraft and as far as I can tell it works the same... within limits based on the alpha status. The apps are tiny in size... but they are free.

I have been trying to use these apps exclusively. As much as I can. if I find something I need and can't get around it I am forced to open photoshop but so far this has been rare. I have tested many of my ancient files and they all open fine. Everything just works. I got worried about Moho, since I USED to save as old Illustrator to open in Moho. Instead Ive been using SVG and it works perfectly, seemlessly no issues. I am working on new animations for my website and needed to import some stuff. It worked great. Set text outlined it exported to SVG instanty imported into Moho.

This new suite of apps launch INSTANTLY I mean, they just OPEN... instantly. Files open super fast. I have HIGH HOPES for an Adobe replacement. I wish I could dump the darn thing immediately but can't take the chance yet. There are still missing features and issues, even if I can't find them or encounter them.

I mention this for anyone needing something to work with Moho, ArtCraft is free and works. Be careful its "very alpha" but it works. And yes, it can save PSDs for import into Moho. I tested it. I say be careful... but I've been using Photocraft and Vectorcraft since they were released and update them regularly and have not had a crash yet. I have found a few missing features but sometimes they get fixed so fast it's hard to keep up.

p.s. It runs on Mac, windows, AND LINUX and also WebAssembly. the source code is available on Github. Also it has BUILT IN MCP for AI access and control. The dev created it from scratch so that every app and all the tools in it are completely open to AI for creating and editing files.

[gaz_hollis71]

reckon i know the feeling about adobe mate... i got fed up paying thier monthly fee last year just to open the odd logo file for the garage club newsletter. tried gimp for a weekend, swore at it alot, then went back to paying might have a look at this lot though, a 500mb download wouldnt hurt on my old laptop.

[SimplSam]

I fear that this type of Generative AI software cloning may only serve to stifle future innovation and software development.

It seems far too easy to rip-off the blood sweat and tears of others. We risk creating a race to the bottom. Today it targets major apps, tomorrow the smaller guys, and tomorrows' tomorrow we will be fully submerged in the bottomless void of the abyss.

[Maestral]

Initially, I thought this could be a great idea and gave Vectorcraft a go, but I couldn't ignore the notion of the rip-off, and I still can't understand why they would go that way. Let alone the same "obstacles" already present in Illustrator. There are so many vector editors (i.e.), and now, when you have a chance to derive The One of Them All - you go for a rip-off of just one of them.

You can go for a walk, ride a bike, drive a car, drive a truck, even add a trailer to it, and now, you can fly a plane. But out of all those options, you decide to roll a plane to the next-door grocery shop and back. I would never understand that.

Slowtiger often mentions TVPaint, which was developed by friends. Some of them were animators, and the other group were coders. Are we supposed to believe there's no such group of friends now to develop some new piece of software?

[slowtiger]

People advocating "vibe coding", or better "rip off existing software while not understanding anything of the underlying concepts", don't understand anything about software, namely not about maintainability and reliability. Adobe didn't become one of the biggest players just because of their marketing department, they earned that position by delivering several of the most reliable programs in the field. (I simplify here and and will not talk about buying other companies.)

They lost that position now by the combination of delivering bloatware (plus AI) at a subscription pricing model which no one was willing to follow. Competitors stepped in with cheaper software, less bloat, and several new interface paradigms. I don't think all of them are "better" than Adobe's - the "room" concept of Affinity is a pain in the ass, but their way to have a handle at every selection to easily scale and rotate without switching tools is an improvement.

What made Adobe successful is their history of basically having invented tools and functions from the very beginning. I remember having a book by one of the original programmers about basic image processing techniques in the shelves of the company: how to determine which pixels are selected, how to rotate an image by any degree, how to interpolate each step etc. These are the bones of everything, and anyone pretending to "code" software without this foundation doesn't know shit.

Every professional will value reliability over fancy new features. Deadlines are a thing. Standards, especially for printing, are a thing. Each time I have to guess which action will give the result I want, each time I have to repeat something often because the reslts are not the same, I lose money.