Supposedly full blown Photoshop for iPad this fall...

But this still doesn't answer my question - what is wrong with Smart Objects? What is it about them that people don't like?

BigAl007 wrote in post #18697051
In a perfect world Adobe would ...

Please.

medd63 wrote in post #18697085
But this still doesn't answer my question - what is wrong with Smart Objects? What is it about them that people don't like?

In my opinion, they are a kludge. Modern computers and GPUs have the ability to render adjustments and filter stacks in real time now. Affinity Photo already does this (it is node-based under the hood) and so does Photoline (with adjustment layers for things like sharpening, blur, etc.) as do applications that are explicitly node-based in the UI like DaVinci Resolve, and even the free and open-source Blender compositor.

It takes too long to render changes in the SO stack to make it a useable method for creating an efficient workflow and you cannot mask individual
"smart filters" so whatever filters, etc. your SO contains are all applied to the masked area. And you cannot branch your workflow into other variations in a smart object either. Smart Objects do preserve the ability to adjust settings from plug-ins, which is cool. In Resolve, for example, you can do this in any node with built-in and 3rd party OFX.

A smarter "object" would be a node system that permits branching and grouping for commonly used arrangements of adjustments. These would just be instructions sent to the render pipeline. You could even have a real-time proxy render node that would give you a lo-res preview of the adjustments, or a full render of a small window of the image, just like most image and video processing applications provide.

Photoshop could benefit from a serious overhaul and retool to bring it into the modern high-resolution, fast computing digital age. The longer Adobe waits, the worse it will get. But hell, it took them until 2014 just to increase the number of color sampler points from 4 to 10 - and when they actually did it, it was done on the spot at Photoshop World (a "JDI" request - Just Do It). See how easy it can be?

https://photoshopcafe.​com/photoshopCCJan2014​.htm

Anyway, one can dream. Fortunately we have choices and alternative workflows. I still use Photoshop every day, but when I use it, I am always thinking about how much better it could be.

Kirk

Grove, when he was CEO, guided Intel on the principle that they should drive themselves out of business by coming out with new products which damaged their previous products position in the market. This intentional development of disruptive technologies was based on his principle that if they didn't do it, someone else would.

AMD has always been playing catch-up with Intel. Motorola was a significant player in the processor market and very visible in Apple; where are they now? Intel is dominant.

I think the reason it is a viable strategy for Adobe to rebuild a leaner and stronger product is because not doing so will be a mistake. Why? Because someone is already doing it. Affinity may not yet be killing them on Mac and Windows, but they are killing it on iPad and have become Apple's darling and proof of the iPad's viability as a laptop replacement. If Adobe doesn't answer this threat, the risk will grow because many PS users will use Affinity on their tablets and begin to wonder about the desktop product.

And answering the threat is an opportunity for Adobe to recode the desktop-platform based version at the same time. I would be quite surprised if they are not already doing this.

Once you know how the end product is "supposed" to work and you have access to all the internally developed methods, it is much easier to code it up from the ground. And it is easier to maintain. And to create new features. This is why Affinity is so much more nimble even though they have a small fraction of the resources.

Look at the Mac operating system. Jobs left Apple and developed a Unix based GUI platform, and Unix was clearly a better long-term answer. When he came back to Apple, he led them in that direction and we got a stable Mac which was far less vulnerable to viruses, easier to update and superior in many ways. Microsoft still needs constant patching just to keep vulnerabilities under control and the level of control is unstable.

Adobe also has the resources. And a 10% gain in speed, marginal interface improvements, etc help Adobe a lot. They have a solid place in the market today. So did Lotus 123, Word Star, Word Perfect, dBase, etc.--very few remember those giants of the past.

But why can't we have scopes like all the video programs have which make so many color correction and grading issues so much easier? Adobe's answer:silence. I've asked for years. Affinity's answer: just activate them.

So I think recoding is not only viable but necessary. And Adobe has the resources.