Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

In this digital age, image processing has become an indispensable part of everyone's life. Whether it is personal photo editing or corporate publicity materials, they all need the help of image processing software. When we 17 million designers are strongly promoting our country from a "big design country" to a "design power", we have to face an important problem that can not be avoided: we lack of domestic professional image processing software.

A long-term blank

From a global point of view, the field of professional image processing software has always been "occupied" by Adobe's flagship product PhotoShop. With its powerful functions and wide applicability, it has become the first choice of image processing software for many professionals and enthusiasts.

In the domestic professional image processing software market, this "dominant" situation is more "serious". Before 2000, PS was almost the only image processing software in the Chinese market.

On the one hand, because this market is relatively professional and relatively segmented, few domestic manufacturers pay attention to this market, let alone develop corresponding software; on the other hand, PS has achieved an obvious dominant position in this field and has almost become the factual standard of the design community. Even if some manufacturers see the development potential of this professional software, they also choose to give up because of the competitive barriers of Adobe.

Therefore, although there are many domestic software companies trying to get a piece of the image processing software market, they have not done so because of technical barriers and brand awareness and other problems. In the domestic market, there have been no domestic brands and products that can compete with Photoshop, which makes China's professional image processing software market blank for a long time.

The colorful warring States period

Until around 2000, this situation began to change.

In 2002, Mirage 2002 was born, which opened the prelude for domestic manufacturers to march into image processing software. The emergence of this software makes it more convenient for domestic users to process and edit images, and meets the needs of the public for beautifying photos and design works.

In the following years, the Light and Shadow Magic hand was born in 2004 and Meitu came out in 2008, which further promoted the rise of domestic manufacturers in the field of image processing software. With the characteristics of easy to use and rich functions, these software have won the love and recognition of the majority of users. It can be said that 2000 to 2010 is the Spring and Autumn period of domestic image processing software, Phantom, Light and Shadow, Meitu became the leader at that time.

However, after entering 2010, with the rise of online tools, the domestic image software processing market has entered the warring States era. New software such as picture monster, manuscript design and love design have emerged one after another, which further facilitate the user experience by providing online editing, cloud storage and other functions. At the same time, these software also introduce social elements, so that users can share works, communicate with each other and learn from each other.

At the same time, a similar pattern has emerged abroad. The emergence of software such as Krita, Canva (paintable) and Figma provides more choices for users around the world. These softwares not only have powerful image processing functions, but also pay attention to user experience and simplicity of design, so they are widely welcomed.

Generally speaking, whether Meitu, love design or manuscript design, they have made obvious achievements in their respective fields and made corresponding contributions to the breakthrough of the domestic image processing software market. However, with the higher and higher professional requirements of image processing, more and more manufacturers enter this field, and the domestic image processing software market begins to become chaotic.

Lack of the weight of the country

This confusion manifests itself in two ways.

On the one hand, the homogenization of domestic manufacturers' products is becoming more and more serious, and all kinds of abnormal competition methods that even destroy the market order begin to appear. Especially after the birth of AI mapping, many manufacturers rely on open source models, soon launched the so-called "image processing software", the market has become more chaotic.

On the other hand, many manufacturers are involved, but there is no high-end, professional image processing software that can really replace PS. Although Meitu and Love Design are more popular products by users, according to the feedback of some high-end professional designers, there are two common problems in many image processing software represented by them.

First, about the professionalism of image design. Although they and other software provide a wealth of filters, special effects and templates, so that users can produce beautiful photos or simple graphics and image design in a short time, the design ability and level of these software is far from comparable to professional image design software such as Adobe Photoshop or CorelDRAW. For example, in vector graphics design, multi-page document layout, advanced color management and other aspects, the functions of these software are relatively limited, which can not effectively meet the requirements of professional designers for fine and customized design.

Second, about the ability to handle large pictures and pixel-level operations. Because the development goal of these software is mainly to meet the needs of ordinary users, they do not make efforts in how to effectively deal with high-resolution and large-size images. For images of more than 200 megapixels, if you use these software for processing, in most cases, it may not be opened, and even if you open it, there may be stutter, image quality decline, or even software crash, and only one company can handle more than 500 megapixel images. In addition, it is generally difficult for these software to achieve precise control and modification at the pixel level. This is very inconvenient for users who need to fine-tune the picture.

In a word, although Meitu and other software have certain application value in the field of image processing, because their positioning and target customers are different, they are mainly for consumer users, and they can not meet the needs of high-end professional design. for example, the commonly used image design of Elabo needs more than 200 million pixels. If professional designers want to carry out more professional and high-quality image design, we still need to rely on professional image processing software such as Photoshop. Domestic products are lack of such "the most important thing of the country".

The New call of the Intelligent Age

Under the background of the current scientific and technological war between China and the United States, the complex international geopolitics, and the national strategic opportunity for China to vigorously develop Xinchuang, this competitive pattern must be changed. the domestic market urgently needs a professional image processing software that can be used freely in the intelligent era. Breaking the monopoly of Photoshop and developing domestic brands that surpass Photoshop have become an important mission of domestic image processing manufacturers in Xinchuang and intelligent era.

In fact, this mission comes not only from the demand of breaking monopoly and domestic substitution, but also from the demand of huge market space and product upgrading.

With the advent of the digital age, image processing has become an important part of daily life, especially for enterprises, it is very important to have high-quality image processing tools. According to a report released by market research institutes, the global image processing market is expected to reach 14 billion US dollars by 2025. There is no doubt that China occupies an important place in this huge market.

Furthermore, although China's image processing software market is almost monopolized by Photoshop, it also has many major defects. Not to mention its high price, many Chinese users find it difficult to use it because of language and cultural differences. According to the analysis of industry experts, the domestic development strategy of Adobe is also worthy of our attention. On the one hand, it "releases water to nurture" among ordinary users, continuing to cultivate and monopolize users' habits; on the other hand, it is also speeding up harvesting at home and stepping up efforts to increase revenue by cracking down on piracy.

More importantly, the future image processing is not only to modify and adjust the existing pictures, but also to have more intelligent functions, such as automatic recognition of objects, intelligent repair of image defects and so on. This requires software to have deep learning and artificial intelligence, which is China's strength in the field of science and technology. By vigorously developing artificial intelligence technology, it is possible for China to create more advanced and intelligent image processing tools than Photoshop.

Therefore, what we need is not only an image processing software that can replace Photoshop, but also a "national important device" with more intelligent image processing functions. Only in this way can we seize the opportunities brought about by the digital age and promote China's scientific and technological progress and economic development.

Star of hope

The good news is that the author has found that similar products have begun to appear in the domestic market. Wukong image is a typical example. In fact, since 2019, the image processing software market has ushered in a heavyweight new force. Emerging image processing software providers such as Wukong Image, MasterGo, Pixso, just-in-time Design, etc., are beginning to come to the fore. With their innovative technology, rich features and good user experience, these companies have attracted the attention and love of a large number of users.

Wukong Image is a professional image processing software independently developed in China, produced by Yixin Technology. Its founder, Mr. Liu Changwei, has rich experience in software development and has worked as an executive in Jinshan Office. In an interview with the media, he made it clear that Wukong's goal is to become a Chinese version of Photoshop, providing users with a professional image processing tool that is more suitable for Chinese people.

According to reports, compared with Photoshop, Wukong image has unique advantages in many aspects. First of all, Wukong Image is designed to pay attention to user experience, using a simple and intuitive interface, reducing the learning threshold for users and making it easy for non-professionals to use. Secondly, Wukong image integrates the latest AI technology to achieve intelligent recognition, one-click repair and other advanced functions, making image processing faster and more efficient. Finally, Wukong Image adheres to the principle of free basic functions and open resources, so that more people have access to high-quality image processing software.

"what we need to do is an image processing software that belongs to the Chinese people," said Liu Changwei. " He firmly believes that as long as we do a good job in products and services, Wukong Image may break the monopoly position of Photoshop and become the first choice for domestic users.

In fact, Wukong Image has begun to make some achievements. Since its release, it has attracted a group of loyal professional image processing users and performed well in a number of evaluations. Shougang, procuratorate, subway company, design institute, school and other heavyweight enterprise customers have begun to apply in depth.

With the continuous development of Wukong image, we can expect it to show greater potential in the future competition. Among more and more domestic image processing software products, will it become the first domestic professional image processing software in China that can compete with Photoshop, as Mr. Liu said? Let's wait and see.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.