How can FOSS/Linux alternatives compete now that most proprietary software implemented actually useful AI tools?
Posted by Qweedo420@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 69 comments
My job is photography so I have two things in mind mostly: image manipulation software and RAW processors.
Photoshop, Lightroom and Capture One implemented AI tools like generative fill, AI masking and AI noise reduction which often transform literal hours of work into a quick five second operation. These programs can afford to give their users access to AI solutions because of their business model, you have to pay (expensive) monthly subscriptions so they don't actively lose money.
However, Gimp, Krita, DarkTable, RawTherapee and any other FOSS application can't do that. What's the solution then? Running local AI models wouldn't be feasible for most users, and would the developers behind those projects be willing to enable a subscription model or per-operation payments in order to access AI tools? What's the general consensus of Linux users (and the developers of those programs) on this topic?
DadLoCo@reddit
It can compete bcos AI is crap.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
If it makes the most boring parts of my job significantly faster, I'm all for it
DadLoCo@reddit
I agree entirely. It’s just been of little use to me in that regard.
Bridge_Adventurous@reddit
AI is a technological miracle. Just because you personally can't find a use for it and companies abuse the term "AI" for terrible marketing, doesn't mean that AI in and of itself is "crap".
Pugs-r-cool@reddit
AI is too broad of a term. The current host of LLM chat bots are crap, the only things they're good at is helping college students pass exams (to the detriment of the students education), but even then they hallucinate the answers and shouldn't really be trusted. Oh and I guess they're good at generating shitty text that bots can use to fill social media with spam. How revolutionary
Brufar_308@reddit
AI can easily earn you sanctions and fines in court though, that has to be worth something.
I think this is my favorite cautionary AI story of the year so far. Imagine relying on ai to do your work, and not bothering to check the results before filing with the court, in a case worth potentially millions of dollars.
Pugs-r-cool@reddit
Even in the early days of chatGPT lawyers got in trouble for citing case law that didn’t exist, all because it made up citations and the lawyers never bothered to check. Even with all the tools that are supposed to prevent this from happening it still does, and if we’re being honest people are lying to themselves when they say they check everything the AI says.
VTHMgNPipola@reddit
I don't agree with the use of AI for doing work that humans should be doing, but you're crazy if you think that AI is useless. It's the most useful tool since the internet for doing all kinds of work.
TheTrueOrangeGuy@reddit
AI is worthless. You can do those things yourself even in the proprietary tools.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
Sure, and it takes hours instead of seconds
Now repeat that for thousands of photos
TheTrueOrangeGuy@reddit
Why do you even exist if you want to be replaced by AI?
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
I don't want to be replaced by AI, I want to automate and simplify the repetitive tasks of my job
TheTrueOrangeGuy@reddit
Just hire more people and leave some part of your work to them.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
The hired people would use AI anyway because there's no reason not to, so what's the point?
DesNilpferdsLenker@reddit
From the answers in this thread I am slowly coming to the conclusion that he, like all AI fans, just can't be arsed to gain any proficiency in any creative tool.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
I've been proficient with all my creative tools for a decade, now I want to avoid the repetitive parts of my job since they're boring af, and focus on the fun and creative parts
I feel like some of you guys never worked a day if you unironically think that automating certain tasks means that I "can't be arsed" to do stuff
Druben-hinterm-Dorfe@reddit
There was a recent post on the r/emacs subreddit by someone claiming that 'emacs has reached its true potential only now, thanks to an llm plugin of some sort'. By his/her own admission, that person had been an emacs user for '6 months'.
Somewhere else I read posts by an individual gushing about how 'ai' finally made full-text search on his/her email inbox possible.
... so, yeah, I'm bracing for a torrent of know-nothing triumphalists now.
DesNilpferdsLenker@reddit
While I am not a professional anymore, I don`t understand the benefit "AI Noise reduction" is supposed to have over the "Noise" slider in my oldschool, bought and paid for, Lightroom Version (Or how that is something taking anybody an hour).
On a more personal note, I do not see the need to light a forest on fire whenever I edit a picture, as such a resource hungry technology is just not necessary in 99,99% of cases.
I recently shot a fashion line, for several reasons this happened in the designers backyard on a white background. Wind ripped the background, cloud cover was unpredictable. Catastrophic production environment. End result:500 pictures, total editing time: 6hours with background repairs and MakeUp touch Ups.
I do not see a use-case for AI, and I don't think the smaller players will move in that direction, nor need to.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
Standard noise reduction will end up smudging the photo if the ISO is too high, while AI noise reduction will give you a completely clean image
In certain scenarios, like event photography, it's necessary
DesNilpferdsLenker@reddit
Oh thank god for AI, finally event photography is possible! It never was a thing before! /s
Not sure what kind of event you shoot, but a somewhat recent camera (Like, from somewhere in the last 5years) and the most minimal light SetUp will save you a lot of postprocessing. Like, there is a shit-ton of RGB LED Lights for on-camera use that can be used to blend into whatever a club is doing while getting decent images of party goers who are close by. I think mine where 5euro on aliexpress, I would spent more if it was a business expense (Also, one hung-over model did NOT appreciate the accidental switch to the "police lights" setting those cheapo things have)
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
We travel via airplane for most of our international shootings, so we generally don't bring extra lights, just two cameras each and a flash
For obvious reasons, we can't always use our flash, especially when we have giant dim-lit rooms. Regular noise reduction is extremely visible when printed on a magazine, and Lightroom's AI NR gives significantly sharper images
TheTrueOrangeGuy@reddit
That's right. AI should only exist for NPCs in videdgames and specifically for pathfinding. And we had this feature for decades.
DesNilpferdsLenker@reddit
Not sure that is what is considered AI these days, but then again "12 if-statements also make an AI". For the purpose of this discussion, I would not go with Algorithmic Pathfinding but with "Trained machine learning model" as a definition. And that has tremendous potential in research. Protein folding, spotting cancer cells early, that sort of thing.
A one click solution to blast the pores out of your clients skin is not one of them (and if that is the intended use, feel free to bring back the "everything is blurred" phase of the early 2000s Emo portraiture)
alerikaisattera@reddit
Keep the AI creep out of free software. If you want to use AI, use it as independent AI programs or plugins. There is no reason to put AI into existing, previously AI-free software
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
I mean yeah, modular is always better, but they need to be integrated into those programs. Plug-ins are definitely a good idea
eduard14@reddit
Like others have mentioned, most of the “AI” model these companies are providing are very small and can and probably do run locally, I know for sure the photoshop generative fill runs locally, I haven’t tested any AI features from Capture One but unless there’s something crazy heavy I doubt it’s not running locally.
Competing for free is completely reasonable, the developers have to prioritize it though, I would love generative fill to become a standard feature of GIMP or Darktable for starters
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
Are you sure that Photoshop's generative AI runs locally? We tried disabling our internet connection and both generative fill and AI masking won't work
Capture One does seem to work, but the masks seem to be a bit less precise than Photoshop's and Lightroom's
eduard14@reddit
I don’t know if they specifically changed something recently but yes I am sure, I never paid for photoshop in my life. I know there are some features that only work server side but historically generative fill was not one of those
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
Are you talking about content-aware fill or generative fill? Because they're completely different and the latter was added in the stable release of Photoshop CC just a few months ago
eduard14@reddit
I think I’m talking about the older one then :)
audioen@reddit
I would not categorize any AI model particularly small. Everything is relative, but image generation models from what I've seen are somewhere from 1-10 GB in size even after the models have been optimized for small size. Various superscaler models that just scale images up can be considerably smaller, but they still go for hundreds of megabytes as well, and they are relatively primitive in capability.
Generative fill is likely of similar complexity than full image generation from scratch, so we'd probably be talking about multi-gigabyte files to be delivered and loaded into user's GPU as needed. Number crunching speed is considerable -- this is not something you can do on top of CPU very easily, bur rather something suitable for executing on hundreds of GPU cores in parallel. Some kind of accelerator is pretty much a must, or this will simply not fly.
eduard14@reddit
Frankly you’re way off.
It’s true that for image generation, models like the stable diffusion ones, are pretty heavy, but generative fill to remove some small object or imperfections from a photo don’t need that much power and can run decently on any reasonably modern computer.
If you don’t believe me take a look at https://github.com/Sanster/IOPaint
Unexpected_Cranberry@reddit
I don't know much about graphic design or Ai, but I would assume the best solution would be a local AI. I've no idea how resource intensive that would be though.
I would assume down the line hardware will catch up to the requirements though. I understand why the commercial models are going for cloud based solutions. It's a great way to get people to pay for subscriptions.
But there's a reason why we moved away from mainframes. Compute is expensive in a datacenter compared to a laptop. Plus it requires a connection. I would assume that if someone creates a standardized engine or whatever it's called in AI which allows you to plug in multiple pre trained models depending on what you need.
A midterm solution for companies might be a self-hosted solution. I've started seeing hardware now marketed with things I'm mentally categorizing as Ai-acceleration, similar to 3D acceleration of years past. I've no idea what benefits that hardware gets you?
All in all, it's still very early days for all of this stuff. But long term I suspect AI will run locally if it gets to a point where it's something everyone uses. I don't think it will take over the world and spell the end of the whole labor markets, but it might wreak havoc in some fields and become a useful tool that increases productivity in others.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
Running AI locally would definitely be the best solution, although most professionals work on their MacBook so it will probably take plenty of time to reach that point, those devices often struggle with regular Photoshop
Dedicated AI chips could help, hopefully they can be cheaper and less power-hungry then recent GPUs
DesNilpferdsLenker@reddit
Less power hungry and AI is a combo that could be called "optimistic" up to "delusional" . But then again, you seem to be under the impression that Mac offers any benefits in terms of Graphics work, which they haven't since I started my apprenticeship something like 16years ago.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
I don't think Mac offers any benefit, people just use it because Windows is shit and Linux doesn't support Adobe apps
Hypfer@reddit
I believe that most FOSS rejects taking part in that rat race
cdshift@reddit
There's a significantly large community of open sourcing AI models and solutions.
This statement makes no sense
Hypfer@reddit
No, you're just misunderstanding it.
The answer is they don't. They do not compete. Said competition is the rat race I was talking about.
After all, why would they? They're usually not for-profit. The whole business model looks differently because usually, there is no business hence no model.
cdshift@reddit
You're absolutely right, I misread and misunderstood.
There's so much anti AI sentiment in this thread that it caught my eye wrong!
ThomasterXXL@reddit
Open Source and whatever prompt engineers call "Open Source" are two entirely different concepts that are completely foreign to each other.
cdshift@reddit
Releasing models, model weights, and training data, much like releasing traditional ml and deep learning is clearly open source.
Plenty of ai software (llama.cpp, openwebui) to run local models are foss.
Texting and training techniques, and white papers are open on arxiv.
What you said makes no sense unless you dont understand the technology at all and have some weird animosity towards decades of data science and software engineering.
ThomasterXXL@reddit
The Open Source AI "community" celebrates literally anything that's not as malicious and deceptive as OpenAI. They frequently tout DeepSeek as some sort of Open Source champion in some pointless attempt to stick it to Sam Altman.
All the Open Source AI community is, is an arena for hyping products and manipulating stock valuation.
I don't understand your interpretation of "prompt engineers" as the people who are doing actual research and/or development.
As for the Open Source AI "community", it's just another dumpster on reddit (or discord, etc.) for people to twist and abuse ideology, so they can feel good about themselves without admitting that they really just want shit for free.
cdshift@reddit
This is just silly. You were the person who introduced prompt engineers as the whole of ai open sourcing as a way to minimize it. You're using scare quotes around community for the same reason.
If youve spent any time on huggingface and looked around you'd see it. Stable diffusion and ai generated text to images/video/audio have their own disciplines.
Stop making your hangups around corporate buzz cloud your judgements on technologists who are building things with these tools and sharing them for free to other enthusiasts. "These people just want stuff for free". What? Bro, what do you think the F in FOSS means?
"The people who are actually doing research and development" a lot of those people work for meta, openAI, IBM, Google, and anthropic. Not a lot of those people are doing open sourced work for their company but are building stuff on the side and open sourcing it.
We get it. You dont like generative AI. You seem super cool for that. Its really awesome of you to be super aggressive about a subject you know little about.
AcidCommunist_AC@reddit
What makes it a rat race?
Awkward_Tradition@reddit
Everyone is losing a shit load of money while hoping they'll recover it in the future.
AcidCommunist_AC@reddit
Ok, well good thing FOSS apps are primarily developed by volunteers, and you can still put money in something without it being too much even though others put in too much.
Fun-Badger3724@reddit
Pffft. That rat race runs on FOSS.
tomscharbach@reddit
AI is becoming more and more integrated into applications. We don't know where that is going to lead us. That is nothing new. I've been using personal computers for about 50 years, and I've watched wave after wave of new technology be introduced and absorbed, usually in sensible ways.
I suspect that we will see different approaches from different projects. Keep in mind that FOSS is open source, so the projects themselves might or might not need to integrate AI as part of the base applications (see Krita AI Diffusion - Generative AI For Krita as an example).
At this point, there is no general consensus. Mostly likely, none will emerge. The Linux community isn't heavy on developing "one size fits all" consensus. That's why we have 900+ distributions rather than a dozen.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
Does Krita's plugin run entirely locally?
I don't like using Krita as a photoediting software but that would be an insane proof of concept for Gimp and such
tomscharbach@reddit
You can rest assured that the developers of GIMP and other Linux applications are already looking into AI and AI approaches.
As are third-party projects (see 7 Best AI Plugins for GIMP [2025] - Pix Cores) developing plug-ins and extensions for GIMP and other Linux applications.
I'm sure that the Linux applications you are interested have forums where you can express your thoughts, ideas and opinions (see GIMP - Discuss as an example).
flo-at@reddit
For Krita there's a pretty powerful AI plugin, don't know about the others.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
Thank you, I'll try it
TheTrueOrangeGuy@reddit
That's bad. That plugin shouldn't exist.
ThomasterXXL@reddit
OrangeGuy bad.
TheTrueOrangeGuy@reddit
ThomasterXXL lazy ape
cdshift@reddit
Not sure about the others youve mentioned but krita does have an AI plug in that is really cool.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
Thank you, I'll try it
daemonpenguin@reddit
But they do, in fact, do that.
Look up information before posting these weird questions with incorrect premises?
Except that it is and works fine.
That a lot of people don't know what they are talking about when it comes to open source, AI, and professional software.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
Someone mentioned that Krita's plugin isn't that good, I will test it but at least it's a starting point
Jealous_Response_492@reddit
Running local models is really super simple on Linux, Krita already has a great AI plugin, and the GIMP is very extensble with plugins and scripting, I'd be surprised if there isn't also AI plugins for it. and with much of linux application stack having great documented api's and structure, integrating AI's far from a difficult task.
Qweedo420@reddit (OP)
The last time I tried running Deepseek generative AI locally, it almost filled my 32 GB of RAM
I haven't tried Krita's plugin, I'll look into it
MattyGWS@reddit
FOSS isn’t competing with anything, it simply exists.
TheTrueOrangeGuy@reddit
So corporations just jerk off on circles?
Acceptable_Rub8279@reddit
Blender has a plugins that let you enter your own api key for a llm provider.
KontoOficjalneMR@reddit
Has a plugin that allows you to plug in any locally run AI generation code as well as plugins for cloud services.
Do your own research before possting FUD please.
Pleasant-Shallot-707@reddit
Offer an API integration option that lets users specify an API key for their preferred generative system.
alice_ofswords@reddit
Lol. Lmao even.
felipec@reddit
There's plenty of open source AI software.