P: Merge Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign into one application

InDesign is much more likely to merge with Illustrator than either of the two with Photoshop. They have a lot more fundamentals in common. The way they handle type, for example.

and I will remind my last conclusion, it is most likely inDesign should be combined with Illustrator rather then illustrator with photoshop

Who would you want fixing your plumbing? A plumber or someone who pretends to plumb? While the difference don't mean much to you, there are people out there that use Illustrator and never touch Photoshop, because Photoshop doesn't do the types of things they require. And this isn't about adding some more features to Photoshop. This is about the fundamental, bedrock differences in the types of technology we are dealing with.

Maybe, one day in the future when computer technology has moved away from digital, pixel based art, the lines will blur enough that we can finally merge the two (or maybe three) applications together. Then there could be just one place to go for all creative, artistic endeavors.

Lets try another analogy. You are asking that all artists that may use one of three media, lets say Photography, oil paints, and a typewriter, to just use one that has extra features that make it seem like it can do the work of all three. Maybe a camera that has a way of blurring the capture to make it more painterly and an option to add text to the image as well. While this might cover some workflows, there would be those who use oils and produce things that no camera ever could, and especially no typewriter.

But the way you've been describing things so far, it sounds like Photoshop already does everything you could ask for. Why do you go into Illustrator and InDesign sometimes?

when I took over the analogies, a good cook was a software 🙂 and pies, cakes and bread were the photographs, illustrations and magazines 🙂

I cannot see the technical challenges as I am not a developer. But as a user of all 3 I don't see why not. Photoshop pretends to work with vector, illustrator - with bitmap. Why not to combine if they both pretend?

A good graphic artist can use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign (you are confusing the elements of the analogy). No matter how good the cook is he/she cannot make a single item that is simultaneously a cake, pie, and bread.

As to consistency of language, you have to remember that each of these products come from different artistic disciplines that had language unique to each. We didn't create this language, we continued to use what was already there. For example, Photoshop uses photography and darkroom terms for naming things. However, that doesn't prevent some of the same words from appearing in each with different meanings.

I see the difference between the applications, I was talking about UI which was mentioned above. What about your theory about cakes, pies and bread - the output is different but a good cook can make them all, it is just about the recipe and ingredients combination. You have a nice analogy, but a nice example would help better. And going back to Adobe layers, I believe you wouldn't have to suspect me of not understanding the difference between Photoshop layers and Illustrator layers if Adobe products would have some consistency in names, for an example: Page > layer > group > item.

Photoshop only pretends to work with vector. It actually uses vector information as a mask to fill with pixels. This is quite different than Illustrator which uses true vector. No matter how closely you zoom in on graphic art in Illustrator, you still have smooth lines. If you ever see pixels in Illustrator, this is a limitation of your monitor, not the application or the information.

Illustrator doesn't truly work with pixels. It can display them in the same you can use a gradient as a fill for a vector object. But you cannot modify those pixels. They are there like a texture map on a 3d polygon in a video game or movie special effect.

If you don't see a difference between these applications, I can only guess that you haven't been using them long or for more than surface functions.

Illustrator and Photoshop may share something called "Layers" but they are not the same thing functionally, nor philosophically.

To use another analogy, it's like comparing cake, pie, and bread. Sure they have some similarities, and even share some of the same ingredients. But they have very different workflows, work with different kinds of information, and have different expected output.

You layered them nicely like a cake :)

But :)

"Photoshop: Pixel image editing"
it also has a pretty complex set of tools to work with vector 🙂 And illustrator has tools to work with bitmaps.

And btw Corel Draw did it in one: "Illustrator: Vector graphic editing, InDesign: Page layout", unfortunately cannot say how well they are doing it now, as wasn't using it since I moved to north america where Adobe has its monopoly in designers' minds.