[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":27},["ShallowReactive",2],{"nr-en-photoshop-rebuilt-with-ai-copying-cheap-deciding-not":3},{"slug":4,"title":5,"dek":6,"date":7,"time":8,"publishedAt":9,"updated":10,"updatedAt":10,"dateFmt":11,"updatedFmt":10,"kind":12,"tier":13,"author":14,"authorName":15,"topics":16,"tracker":10,"trackerLabel":10,"headlineStat":21,"image":22,"ogImage":23,"imageAlt":5,"csv":10,"minutes":24,"words":25,"html":26},"photoshop-rebuilt-with-ai-copying-cheap-deciding-not","Photoshop rebuilt with AI: copying is cheap, deciding is not","A developer used AI to release seven Adobe clones and declared software development over. Golo Roden considers this conclusion wrong.","2026-10-28","10:03","2026-10-28T10:03:00+01:00","","October 28, 2026","analyse","standard","ideal-syka","Ideal Syka",[17,18,19,20],"AI coding","Software development","Adobe","Coding agents","45% parity estimate","\u002Fnewsroom\u002Fimg\u002Fphotoshop-rebuilt-with-ai-copying-cheap-deciding-not.webp","\u002Fog-nr\u002Fphotoshop-rebuilt-with-ai-copying-cheap-deciding-not.en.png",2,322,"\u003Cp>In early October, developer Brandon Thomas released seven programs under the project name ArtCraft that replicate Adobe's best-known tools, including Photoshop, Lightroom and Premiere Pro. According to heise online, there are now 13 applications, written in Rust, with the code produced essentially by Claude Opus 5.5 from Anthropic. The Photoshop clone PhotoCraft collected tens of thousands of GitHub stars within days. Thomas wrote on Reddit: "Software is over".\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>Background\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>The author Golo Roden disputes this reading. According to the project's README, it is a open-source clean-room reimplementation based on public specifications and the observed behavior of the original. More than 1,700 tests secure the result, some comparing output directly with Photoshop. Thomas announced full feature parity within a month but later corrected this on Hacker News to months. The project's parity assessment estimates in mid-October that PhotoCraft is about 45 percent usable for real work and needs a further 2,300 to 4,100 hours of agent work to reach full equivalence. The README names typography and professional workflows as major gaps; according to the project's gap list, the result still deviates from the original in roughly a quarter of the reference files.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>Assessment\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>Roden sees the project as an ideal case for coding agents: the target is exactly available, the behavior is observable and the file format publicly specified. Decisions about workflows and product design that have grown in a program like Photoshop over three decades are merely replicated by a clone. For individual software, such as for an energy supplier, no comparable original exists to test against. The bottleneck there lies in understanding the problem, not in writing the code. For companies this could mean that clone promises pay off mainly for standardized products with a clear template, while custom specialist software still needs time for analysis and decisions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>Sources\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.heise.de\u002Fblog\u002FKommentar-Photoshop-per-KI-nachgebaut-Kopieren-ist-billig-Entscheiden-nicht-11495511.html\">heise online\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003C\u002Ful>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>Editorially owned by \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fen\u002Fautor\u002Fideal-syka\">Ideal Syka\u003C\u002Fa>. Sources and method: \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fen\u002Fredaktion\">Newsroom & method\u003C\u002Fa>. Tips and corrections: \u003Ca href=\"mailto:ai@i6eal.de\">ai@i6eal.de\u003C\u002Fa>.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fp>\n",1793190632350]