I feel like, unless your situation dictates a specific product (which is unlikely), this should be rephrased "Unfortunately, no graphics editor that does x, y, z". If you continue to put up a 'Photoshop' barrier, then you will never be able to consider any alternatives — assume Photoshop will never happen on Linux, but that there may well be a graphics tool in future that is far superior as far as your needs are concerned; it may even already exist! Furthermore, the developers behind OS alternatives will never know what functionality you require if all the details you give are "Photoshop".
> If you continue to put up a 'Photoshop' barrier, then you will never be able to consider any alternatives
It's an industry/education barrier more than anything else. Photoshop has been the standard for years because it generally works quite well and is supported on the two major desktop operating systems.
> assume Photoshop will never happen on Linux
Probably not, no money in it for Adobe. I've always said I'd happily pay for a commercial Linux OS developed by Adobe that ran Creative Suite.
> it may even already exist
It doesn't.
> the developers behind OS alternatives will never know what functionality you require if all the details you give are "Photoshop"
No offence but you're kind of talking about Photoshop like it's MS Paint. It's a ubiquitous, massively bloated, complicated piece of software (10 million LOC, roughly the same as the Linux kernel?) that can take years to master.
One factor you don't mention is the learning curve required for someone to develop the skills needed to be, at a professionally viable level, productive and effective with a tool like Photoshop or Lightroom.
Even if there was a collection of Linux-compatible software that was just as effective as PS and LR, professionals don't necessarily have the time available to learn those tools.
Not really, The functionality required is "Everything photoshop does" I think the problem with the Linux desktop is that everyone thinks its fine and blames users for being dumb instead of providing a better experience.
As an engineer part of your skill is trying to translate what people are saying into something meaningful
The truth about PS and Lightroom is that many of their users wouldn't really need them.
A workflow of, for example, Rawtherapee + GIMP would be more than enough for basic to upper intermediate tasks to replace Lightroom with. ( No, I'm not talking bs, my wife is actually using this for work; just like Mixxx is usable for professional DJing. ) There is also digiKam, which is rather impressive; it is lacking a few features, yet, but not as many as you'd think.
PS & Lightroom is everywhere, that is what's tought in schools; it's the MS Office of photo & design, and it shouldn't be.
There are, of course, situations, when the all-in-one PS is needed, but it's really, really rare.
Give digiKam and GIMP a go, but give them weeks, not minutes. Most of those who run away are only literally trying them for hours at max while these are utterly different tools.
UI&UX are both object to taste.
You know, the good thing is, that with the afromentioned software, it can be easily fixed, since the accept patches and pull requests.
I honestly wonder where GIMP, digiKam and the rest would be with the money PS subscriptions generate, paying for People With Good UX Taste.
It also makes sure that there won't be native ports of these applications.
Adobe won't make a Photoshop port, unless it is 100% obvious to them, that they are leaving more money on the table by not porting it than is the cost of porting and support.
Which may suck for you, if your business or job requires Photoshop right now. You aren't going to switch to Linux then, because you will get Photoshop and whatever OS it requires in the state it is today - which decreases the motivation for Adobe from previous paragraph.
If you actually check Wine compatibility charts and user ratings you will see that there is a lof of garbage (the worst rating) ratings for the most popular Windows/Mac software. So it is not a viable option for the biggest applications like Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, etc.
And certainly no option for a business, but rarely for your average Joe, either. It is often hit and miss.
Like I have said countless times, a lot of users are bound to using either Windows or Mac because of a few applications. There is Microsoft Office (cloud versions are not good enough). Visual Studio. Adobe products. Avid. Ableton. Apple’s own software (Logic, Final Cut).
Where there even is alternatives, they are just not good enough.
Where Linux has gotten some support, is from the VFX industry, especially from Autodesk. You can use Maya and Nuke and Linux. Actually, almost all VFX companies use Linux in their shop.
Photoshop CC 2015 has gold rating and should be stable with Crossover or a fixed Wine version - not too hard to setup with Playonlinux. Of course, a native version from Adobe is preferrable but that is unlikely to happen until market share is 5%.
The difficulty in practice is that this isn't 100% complete. Observe the debug messages spewed out in the console when you run a Windows app under Wine.
Despite saying this, this is a fairly good option and I applaud Wine for its existence and the monumental undertaking they undertook (poor grammar, sorry).
