For people who actually use them, are current open alternatives that bad in comparison?

Its not about good or bad the software people learn and use are the ones that bring them gainful employment. You learn what the industry uses to get a job in the same way i didn't learn java because its a fun and exciting language i learned it because people hire for it. Also universities have a lot of sway on what people learn as well but I think thats more just reacting to what the industry does than leading it in any way

Krita is surprisingly good. GIMP is almost aggressively bad.

If you use GIMP and Krita together, you can get like 80-90% of the features photoshop had

The main problem for me is that GIMP has no equivalent to content-aware fill, so the closest open source equivalent to that afaik is using krita's AI slop stable diffusion plugin to generate fill ins, which takes much longer to generate and comes with its own foibles

this is coming from someone that uses graphic design software primarily to make memes though so

while making this comment i searched online and apparently GIMP has a content-aware fill esque plugin called resynthesizer, idk if its any good but if it is that is huge

https://github.com/bootchk/resynthesizer

GIMP is a little better than Photoshop CS2; I have not used a newer photoshop.

Inkscape is just plainly better than Illustrator.

Those are the two I actually use.

Kdenlive has really leveled up as a video editor lately. I don't think it has feature parity with premiere or after effects, but it has become a very capable piece of software. I'm very excited to see where it goes in the future.

Adobe is fucking expensive.

I haven't used anything other than PS very much but I generally struggle to do fairly basic shit with GIMP.

I used to use PS and InDesign daily for creating flyers, posters, memes, agitprop, etc. for fun, for organizing, and just to help out local charitable or community orgs. I decided to switch to FOSS stuff a few years ago when I went all-in on Linux as my primary OS.

I can use some combination of Krita, Scribus, and Gimp for about 95% of my image editing, design, and publishing workflow. Every so often I do have to switch back to Photoshop or InDesign to do one or two specific things before going back to Scribus or Krita for the entire rest of the project. A few of these things are ones I could probably figure out how to do in a FOSS editor, but mostly they're things that are either too convoluted or just don't work (or at least, don't work the way I want them to.)

I use GIMP a lot and learning the interface was hell, but other than that it's perfectly good software. Haven't dabbled much with Krita, but I've heard from colleagues it's pretty great.

Main issue is what the other user pointed out, if you work at a company you need to either use locked in software or somehow convince the whole company to use the foss version. Nowadays lots of people are using Canva despite it also being shit and increasingly enshittified.

This also affects enterprises that also create proprietary graphical arts tools. If the office uses adobe, then you will use adobe because when your co-worker sends you a .psd file then you're going to be a team player or get fired. You can apply this thinking to most computer programs where a proprietary instance of it has become a hegemon. It's sometimes called the Network Effect where the use of the program spreads not because of technical merit or respect but because there is no other viable option.

GNU Imp, Krita, Kdenlive, etc are not faulty programs, as mentioned, they can do 90% of tasks that most people need technically speaking (It's the 10% that Adobe has that causes users pain and frustration). It's just that they don't get enough attention and support because if you want to survive in capitalism you can't argue with your boss.

But also if China does do a Deepseek on Adobe then humanity will be in a far better place.

I've never like gimp, I would use it but have always found its differences to photoshop to be an unintuitive pain in the ass.

I've been using Photopea.com lately though, which obviously isn't open but it fills most of my quick free editing needs.

Here's the thing, I use Gimp and it's great... but it is probably only great because I haven't used Photoshop in over 20 years, so I can't really compare the two.

I use GIMP mostly these days. I don't do anything too involved that often, but it has most of the features from the pre-CS days (I started using PS around version 3.x). If you are relying on new features constantly, then probably will not feel too great for a while. But all the essentials are fine (color curves, layers, selection tools, etc). I hear a lot of good things about Krita for vector stuff, but I haven't used it much.

I've been using Pixelmator for about a decade and would recommend it.

i use photoshop and have had a bad time trying to start using clip studio/gimp/etc, but tbh i'm pretty sure that's because i've been using PS forever and there's tutorials for everything. and its always cracked!

Davinci resolve and affinity photo/designer have been my bread and butter for years

GIMP is fine. I’m not a pro or anything though and I haven’t used PS in years

Yes, they suck. Don't @ me Linux bros.

I've had to use Adobe software a few times. I'm not very techy, I always feel like I'm wrestling the program in order to just get it to PRINT OUT DA PDF PLEASEUH but with Adobe I felt like I was doing that AND wrestling its' pimp

Open alternatives exist, and in multiple cases are not strictly worse than Adobe products, but for artists who have integrated Adobe products deeply into their workflow switching is difficult. It'll take too much time to learn the new tool and port the workflow to it, time that may not be available.