First off kudos to Ivan - both because i love being a fan of the underdog, but also because what he built really is great! (Maybe a little also because i am definitely NOT a fan of adobe. sorry.)
There are a cople of quotes here that are intriguing to me...
> "...From 2012 - 2016, Photopea had no monetization plans built in. And after graduation, Ivan only produced $29k in the first year and a half of monetizing..."
"Only" $29k!?! "Only" $29k!? I don't know about anyone else, but i actually find that number to be wonderful. Not everyone needs to be facebook-level monetized for their first year. I wish my startup/saas service monetized that much on its first year!
> "...Photopea is web-based, but it also is completely built using Javascript with no backend. This means it works offline with no internet connection and doesn't require huge computing power..."
I'll admit that when i first learned of photopea - from my offspring no less during one of their homework assignments! - i was impressed right away. Even if it was online only...But i guess i never knew that it can be used offline too! I guess i'll have to play around with it offline. Further, if it is in fact offline usable, well that impresses me a bit from a javascript perspective. I'll admit that i'm not the biggest fan of javascript...but if this kind of comprehensive application can be built with javascript and be usable offline, that's pretty dan impressive, and i guess i gotta give javascript much more respect (and of course play wuith things myself). (Yes, yes, i know that there are Electron apps that leverage lots of javascript for offline purposes, etc...but this thing was built on mostly maintained by one person!)
Finally, I really appreciate that they noted that this was not one of those instant success stories.
> "...these features weren't built in a day, Ivan spent the better part of 10 years slowly building out Photopea! He's solved over 4,000 feature requests and issues on GitHub alone!...With no paid marketing, Photopea found success through AMAs and old-fashioned, word-of-mouth sharing..."
Once again, kudos to Ivan for such a wonderful thing that he built, and for providing with himself a livelihood!!
> Once again, kudos to Ivan for such a wonderful thing that he built, and for providing with himself a livelihood!!
Agreed. But he had to slog on this for years making zero. It would be nice to have a way to get people like him some money before something goes viral.
It also goes to show that "Most overnight successes are 10 years in the making."
There is little to no time spent in this article on how photopea is monetized. I even went to the product itself to find out but couldn’t, at least on mobile. Is there some subscription? What do you pay for? Genuinely asking since I used it a few times and never noticed any payment nagging.
I remember learning about content-aware fill algorithms in my computer vision class back when it was the hot new thing, and it felt like it was yesterday!
I have used Photopea for 3-4 years now for creating all the screenshots and icons required for my iOS and android apps. It’s one of the best software I have used. Super quick to load in browser and not having to install anything on a new Mac are incredible.
I should probably buy the premium membership to support the developer.
Photopea is what I go for when I need an example of a product that's 100% perfect. Pretty much everything about it is polished, quick, intuitive, bug-free, and just works. I've been using it and advocating for it for years. The cost to remove the ads is absolutely worth it too.
> But it has a few problems. It takes up a ton of computing power and battery, which makes it difficult to use on old/slow computers. And the biggest thing, cost.
Given it's a Javascript program I'm not sure how Photopea solves those problems with Adobe Photoshop other than cost.
photopea is one of the best examples of a web application imo. Its a full featured image editing software just running in your browser. No sign up or login required and you can just upload and quickly work off a local file for your computer. You just fire it up and start working.
If this product is just a few static javascript files, what keeps someone else from just taking these and hosting them on their own site, building up their own user base and pocketing the money?
I recently switched back to using Ubuntu as my desktop OS, and was intrigued to see that Photopea was the default app to open many file types, including PDF.
I thought that was odd because while Photopea is free-of-charge, it's not completely open source [1].
It's not the default on my Ubuntu, and I don't even see it in apt or snap. I wonder if perhaps you've confused it with another program, or are running an Ubuntu derivative.
If you go to www.Photopea.com and press More - "Install Photopea", it will install the so-called "PWA". This allows starting Photopea with a homescreen icon, in a window without a browser UI. It also allows associating a website with certain extensions, so your system will "open files in a website". It should work on every device/OS/browser (in the long run). You can uninstall it in your browser under about://apps
I use this almost daily for putting together random image assets for other things Im building. Every penny the founder makes us well deserved, I can’t imagine the amount of value for users Photopea has created since inception.
I've tried Photopea a million times, but the interface always messes up somehow. I just tried it, and sure enough, a huge grey box is stuck on the right side of the screen and can't be removed.
[+] [-] jwilk|3 years ago|reply
• Ivan Kutskir: https://twitter.com/ivankutskir
• Photopea: https://www.photopea.com/
• first Reddit AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_...
• another Reddit AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/c8ru2y/i_made_a_free_...
• Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26768550
• Pieter Levels tweet: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1381584225380528129?s=20...
• Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/products/photopea
• 4,000 feature requests: https://github.com/photopea/photopea/issues
[+] [-] mxuribe|3 years ago|reply
There are a cople of quotes here that are intriguing to me...
> "...From 2012 - 2016, Photopea had no monetization plans built in. And after graduation, Ivan only produced $29k in the first year and a half of monetizing..."
"Only" $29k!?! "Only" $29k!? I don't know about anyone else, but i actually find that number to be wonderful. Not everyone needs to be facebook-level monetized for their first year. I wish my startup/saas service monetized that much on its first year!
> "...Photopea is web-based, but it also is completely built using Javascript with no backend. This means it works offline with no internet connection and doesn't require huge computing power..."
I'll admit that when i first learned of photopea - from my offspring no less during one of their homework assignments! - i was impressed right away. Even if it was online only...But i guess i never knew that it can be used offline too! I guess i'll have to play around with it offline. Further, if it is in fact offline usable, well that impresses me a bit from a javascript perspective. I'll admit that i'm not the biggest fan of javascript...but if this kind of comprehensive application can be built with javascript and be usable offline, that's pretty dan impressive, and i guess i gotta give javascript much more respect (and of course play wuith things myself). (Yes, yes, i know that there are Electron apps that leverage lots of javascript for offline purposes, etc...but this thing was built on mostly maintained by one person!)
Finally, I really appreciate that they noted that this was not one of those instant success stories.
> "...these features weren't built in a day, Ivan spent the better part of 10 years slowly building out Photopea! He's solved over 4,000 feature requests and issues on GitHub alone!...With no paid marketing, Photopea found success through AMAs and old-fashioned, word-of-mouth sharing..."
Once again, kudos to Ivan for such a wonderful thing that he built, and for providing with himself a livelihood!!
[+] [-] bsder|3 years ago|reply
Agreed. But he had to slog on this for years making zero. It would be nice to have a way to get people like him some money before something goes viral.
It also goes to show that "Most overnight successes are 10 years in the making."
[+] [-] sdfhbdf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forte124|3 years ago|reply
I also asked him if he considered creating his own header bidding system, but he said this wasn’t worth it
[+] [-] lagrange77|3 years ago|reply
Have a look at the 'Advertising' section.
[+] [-] tintor|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IvanK_net|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] berelig|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tgsovlerkhgsel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hamuko|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] busymom0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ignoramous|3 years ago|reply
Amazing feat to not only have the skill but the patience to make something people want. Projects rarely die in mid-keystroke. Keep typing, Ivan.
[+] [-] tantalor|3 years ago|reply
Wow, even GIF!
Quick history lesson:
1987: GIF invented (Wilhite)
2010: Content aware fill invented (Barnes)
[+] [-] romwell|3 years ago|reply
I remember learning about content-aware fill algorithms in my computer vision class back when it was the hot new thing, and it felt like it was yesterday!
...it was, in fact, 2010. God damn it.
[+] [-] johndough|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] busymom0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mgomez|3 years ago|reply
https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/s2elpv/i_made_a_free_...
[+] [-] rco8786|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lxe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobarian|3 years ago|reply
Given it's a Javascript program I'm not sure how Photopea solves those problems with Adobe Photoshop other than cost.
[+] [-] SparkyMcUnicorn|3 years ago|reply
It also "boots" almost instantly, and doesn't require installing anything other than a browser.
[+] [-] pier25|3 years ago|reply
The core engine might be fast for computational intensive stuff (eg: radial blur, liquify, etc) but the UI itself is tremendously clunky.
I used to love using PS (and the whole Adobe suite) but now I dread it.
[+] [-] techsin101|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jollyllama|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] farisjarrah|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 60secs|3 years ago|reply
Photopea just works.
[+] [-] johnthuss|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kabes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conductr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|3 years ago|reply
Building a Free Photo Editor and Making $100k/Mo as a Solo Founder - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32693191 - Sept 2022 (3 comments)
Photopea: A Photoshop clone web app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32692372 - Sept 2022 (50 comments)
Reddit Photopea founder – I have millions of users, but no businesses use it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30357839 - Feb 2022 (19 comments)
Photopea: A free alternative to Photoshop used by millions of people - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26898836 - April 2021 (5 comments)
AMA: Ivan Kutskir, creator of Photopea - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26768550 - April 2021 (267 comments)
AMA with the Creator of Photopea - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24143189 - Aug 2020 (6 comments)
Reddit AMA on Photopea, a free alternative to Photoshop used by 1.5M people - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18397380 - Nov 2018 (179 comments)
My name is Ivan and I want to make the best photo editor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15924402 - Dec 2017 (80 comments)
Photo Pea 0.3 – New features - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624264 - Oct 2013 (7 comments)
HTML5 image editor wants to replace Photoshop and Gimp - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6396474 - Sept 2013 (4 comments)
[+] [-] troymc|3 years ago|reply
I thought that was odd because while Photopea is free-of-charge, it's not completely open source [1].
[1] https://github.com/photopea/photopea
[+] [-] jewel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IvanK_net|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orra|3 years ago|reply
Quite the understatement. Photopea isn't open source at all.
[+] [-] yunohn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] czhu12|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Daunk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tgsovlerkhgsel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] recursive|3 years ago|reply
https://blog.photopea.com/
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mattbee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IceWreck|3 years ago|reply
It wont gain more features but it is an alternative.
[+] [-] cutler|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _nalply|3 years ago|reply