Gimp Turns 25 (theregister.com) 121
New submitter thegreatbob shares a report: The General Image Manipulation Program, GIMP, has turned 25. A brief celebration post detailed how the package started life as a July 1995 Usenet thought bubble by then-student Peter Mattis, who posted the following to several newsgroups: Suppose someone decided to write a graphical image manipulation program (akin to photoshop). Out of curiosity (and maybe something else), I have a few (2) questions: What kind of features should it have? (tools, selections, filters, etc.) What file formats should it support? (jpeg, gif, tiff, etc.)" Four months later, Mattis and fellow University of California Berkeley student Spencer Kimball delivered what they described as software "designed to provide an intuitive graphical interface to a variety of image editing operations."
The software ran on Linux 1.2.13, Solaris 2.4, HPUX 9.05, and SGI IRIX. The answer to the file format support question turned out to be GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and XPM. The rest is history. Richard Stallman gave Mattis and Kimball permission to change the "General" in its name to "GNU", reflecting its open-source status. Today the program is released under the GNU General Public License. As the program added features such as layers, it grew more popular and eventually became a byword for offering a FOSS alternative to Photoshop even though the project pushes back against that description. The project's celebration page says volunteers did their "best to provide a sensible workflow to users by using common user interface patterns. That gave us a few questionable monikers like 'Photoshop for Linux', 'free Photoshop', and 'that ugly piece of software'. We still can wholeheartedly agree with the latter one only!"
The software ran on Linux 1.2.13, Solaris 2.4, HPUX 9.05, and SGI IRIX. The answer to the file format support question turned out to be GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and XPM. The rest is history. Richard Stallman gave Mattis and Kimball permission to change the "General" in its name to "GNU", reflecting its open-source status. Today the program is released under the GNU General Public License. As the program added features such as layers, it grew more popular and eventually became a byword for offering a FOSS alternative to Photoshop even though the project pushes back against that description. The project's celebration page says volunteers did their "best to provide a sensible workflow to users by using common user interface patterns. That gave us a few questionable monikers like 'Photoshop for Linux', 'free Photoshop', and 'that ugly piece of software'. We still can wholeheartedly agree with the latter one only!"
Can somebody please take the gag out now? (Score:2, Redundant)
It's been a long time since I fucked with the Gimp.
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It's been a long time since I fucked with the Gimp.
From "The Prisoner" (German "Nummer 6"):
The Prisoner: “Who is Number 1 ?”
No. 2: “You are . . . Number 6.”
And now, for something completely different:
BAReFO0t: "Who is the Gimp . . . ?"
No. 2: "You are . . . "
"The Economist" recommended watching "The Prisoner as required viewing at the Academy during the lock-downs.
They also recommended the two Stanley Kubrick films "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "The Shining". Both films have a common connection: When three people are loc
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Re: Can somebody please take the gag out now? (Score:2)
As a German, I second that motion. :)
Still painful after all these years (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Still painful after all these years (Score:5, Insightful)
I learnt using Gimp before even hearing about Photoshop, and I am completely confused and helpless whenever I have to do anything with the latter. I really don't understand claims that Gimp is ununderstandable. I think it's more a matter of being used to other tools and finding it hard to master a new one.
Re:Still painful after all these years (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more that GIMP is designed and implemented by programmers of a certain mindset for programmers of a certain mindset, many of them with a further philosophy of "I only need these 5 functions and no others, therefore noone else needs those other functions either", and the workflow is thus quite out of line with how many artists think. Compare it with Krita, which does a FAR better job of listening to artists on what the workflow should be like. Many artists are now using Krita+GMIC to perform the work GIMP is intended for, due to better workflow. For me, GIMP gets in the way of my work, much like Blender's UI did for over 20 years, until 2.8 was released and they started using a more sane workflow.
I originally learned with Photon Paint, ImageFX and Art Department Pro on the Amiga, but then learned Photoshop and GIMP(and learned to loathe GIMP....)
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wat (Score:2)
Proving FOSS has come a long way (Score:5, Interesting)
These days look to Blender and Krita for the pinnacles of FOSS desktop applications. They're clearly made for artists and BY artists, whereas The GIMP was clearly made by engineers who have a flawed understanding of what an artist might want, with a lack of flexibility when artists complain about it.
You can only tell them so many times "there's no reason to have layer boundaries and the image size be different" before it just becomes pointless. Or, of course, "I can't recommend The GIMP to anyone professionally because the name is retarded."
Re:Proving FOSS has come a long way (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, how about, "Photoshop's interface might not be the most intuitive, but The GIMP's interface is demonstrably, and substantially, worse."
It's rare that I come across a program that has such a poor interface for so long. Pretty quickly, the developers realize from overwhelming feedback that they've made a mistake. With The GIMP, it took what, three or four major releases before the single pane interface became standard? And then when it did, the default color selection for the tool panels has such low contrast that it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish one tool from another. Sure, you can change it, but why punish your users? With the most recent release, many of the broken ways I had learned to find things have disappeared and been replaced by even more broken behavior: when you click on a tool, God knows why you wouldn't want the parameters for that tool to be immediately displayed somewhere, like every other successful package, ever.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say they don't want users.
Re:Proving FOSS has come a long way (Score:5, Insightful)
Gimp is why you don't let a programmer design an interface.
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Re:Proving FOSS has come a long way (Score:4, Interesting)
I find Gimp's interface to be intuitive and quite usable. It helps that there's no need to distinguish between the squished junebug icon and the squished grashopper icon.
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yes, it's fine. I'm not one of the developers.
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I like putting the toolbars on my smaller side monitor leaving the big monitor for what I'm working on ONLY and nothing obscuring it.
Re:Proving FOSS has come a long way (Score:5, Interesting)
Its a bigger, better, challenge than playing "Call of Duty" while blind drunk!
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Don't want the programmers to design the UI. Definitely don't want the UX designers working on it. The users don't know what they want beyond "make it the same as this other thing I don't want to pay for anymore".
Re:Proving FOSS has come a long way (Score:5, Funny)
When I was doing my Master's in HCI 10 years ago, our lab used the GIMP for research in creating software documentation. We needed software that pepole couldn't figure out on their own, so they'd have to rely on our documentation, letting us measure its effectiveness. Our subjects were all computer science students, pretty technically savvy, but the GIMP was there for us when we needed it most.
Happy 25th birthday!
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That's the funniest story I have read on this wobsite. If there is ever a documentary on gimp your story should be the interval.
Re:Proving FOSS has come a long way (Score:4, Interesting)
You can only tell them so many times "there's no reason to have layer boundaries and the image size be different" before it just becomes pointless.
Except that there may be a subset of users (albeit small) that finds this capability useful. If you don't need that option, don't fiddle with it.
Userland is full of people who cry that they don't use a feature (network capable displays, scriptable init systems, cars with manual transmissions, etc.) and whine until someone steps forward and deletes them. Yeah, Gimp was written by software engineers. People who think along the lines that if some option might be useful to someone, allow them access to it.
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Please explain how it's logically possible to use it to do something you couldn't do just as easily by stacking transparent layers.
You have to fiddle with it daily, because you have to go through and tell it to expand the layer to the image size every single time.
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You have to fiddle with it daily
No. I'm no expert user. So I don't know what you might have unchecked. But when I create a new layer, it always defaults to the image size. Now I'm not one of that small subset of users that might need to change it. So I just leave the size alone. And everything is good.
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I would suggest that your workflow for proposed layer usage with GIMP may be non-optimal.
If you frequently need it, assign a hotkey to the Layer To Image Size function, and then after moving any layer around, you can expand/re-crop the layer to the image size as needed.
Ideally, IMO, layers should typically just always be cropped to content until you need to paint on them outside of their current content. Again, you can attach a hotkey to this function if it is needed frequently. But regardless, that'
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THIS! If you don't need a feature, don't use it, but leave it for others who do.
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Funny, way too many software engineers, even on here, are of the philosophy "I only need these 5 functions, therefore noone else should need anything other than those 5 functions either!", and label any software not fitting those criteria bloated, useless etc. Just go back through all the various GIMP/Blender posts here on Slashdot, and you'll find hundreds of examples.
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Userland is full of people who cry that they don't use a feature (network capable displays, scriptable init systems, cars with manual transmissions, etc.) and whine until someone steps forward and deletes them.
I don't see that in userland very often. I see that in UXland all the time. Normal people don't want features deleted, they just want them out of the way via sensible defaults.
Software engineers tend to be bad at making interfaces, but usually they seem to care about doing the right thing. UX people are artists, and pretend to care, but ultimately just like to stroke their own egos. That's why today's web is a mess and the pinnacle of UI design was about 15 years ago.
Re: Proving FOSS has come a long way (Score:3)
Exactly. I actually like GIMP's UI even if it's a bit dated. To me flipping between full-screen single pane apps is a step backwards. I use multiple monitors, often have multiple apps open, drag and drop objects between them to get things done, etc. Just because the average user is computer illiterate and a moron doesn't mean we have to cripple all of our desktop apps until they look and act like useless poke and drool tablet apps. Modern UI's suck across the board. I was incredibly fast and productiv
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On the other hand, I find it to be quite usable in many situations. I'm not looking to create a digital Mona Lisa, I just need to get some practical work done on existing images.
Personally, I found the first few versions of Blender to be unusable. It's improved a bit since.
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You can only tell them so many times "there's no reason to have layer boundaries and the image size be different" before it just becomes pointless. Or, of course, "I can't recommend The GIMP to anyone professionally because the name is retarded."
Wait, doesn't Photoshop do this too? And isn't this incredibly useful when working with pasted / resized content, or are you talking about something different?
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Eh, Blender were INCREDIBLY obstinate about their UI until the last couple of years. I'd say that it wasn't until 2.8 that they finally caught up with 1999 era Maya in terms of useful UI and workflow.
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Inkscape is another open source program that seems to have gotten the UI right.
I have used commercial vector drawing programs in the past and Inkscape is just as good.
25 years later (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:25 years later (Score:5, Insightful)
I only use Gimp on occasion. However, the UI seems rather normal and conventional to me, not too different from most other applications on my desktop. What's wrong with it, other than it's not identical to Photoshop? It's got nice tool palettes on the left side of the window (hide-able), the usual menu, and a very normal tabbed document interface. Even has a dark mode. What exactly makes it such an awful interface?
As for features, it is certainly missing things like 16-bit channels, no CMYK, etc. But for every day photo processing, it's probably on the heavy side of features.
I don't have any real problem with the name. GIMP isn't the name that most people will actually see on the program either. Menu and window title say "GNU Image Manipulation Program." No big deal.
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Don't know where you got a version with that interface, but for the rest of us it doesn't have tabs and tools all open in different windows and float around and get buried every time you open another image or raise one to the foreground.
Re:25 years later (Score:4, Informative)
Make sure you have a reasonably recent version (though it's been available for a while now) then click the "Windows" menu on the menu bar, followed by "Single Window Mode."
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Yes, and it also supports 16 bit images now that the GEGL thing is done (for 5 years in the 2.9 branch and 2 in the 2.10 mainline).
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Thanks. Never noticed that.
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Have you used Gimp in the last 10 years? Gimp has been the way I describe it for nearly a decade now by default. Since version 2.8 or so, released back in 2007. If I uncheck Windows->Single Window Mode, then I can get the old floating palette interface (which I actually liked just fine).
Here's a picture of the latest stable version: https://www.gimp.org/release-n... [gimp.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Really the old UI criticisms of Gimp are way out of date. But if you can describe how to improve the cu
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I am mistaken. The single window mode with tabs certainly was introduced in 2007 but it was not the default for some time after that. The single window interface was made the default more recently with the release of 2.10 I believe. 2018. So it's likely many older, long-term distributions are still defaulting to the older, more confusing interface. Users running a recent distro (Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS 8) probably have 2.10 now.
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Still gimped by its stupid name and shitty interface.
Clearly you haven't used it in a long time. The interface went through a major redesign years ago addressing some of the biggest problems people had with it. On the flip side the workflow and the way it works is still very much a testament to the fact that engineers think they know better than end user.
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I'm reminded of the Nintendo Wii, which was a huge success probably due to the publicity caused by everyone making fun of its stupid name.
Similar to Microsoft UI's... (Score:4, Interesting)
It has a horrible interface design, but one gets used to it out of rote and it becomes second nature. One just memorizes the arbitrariness.
For example, why is "Color Management" under "Images" and not "Colors"? View also has "Color Management".
Why is Transform under both Images and Tools, and similar but not the same in each case? It's also under Layer, which kind of makes sense because layers may be manipulated independent of the entire image, but other potential commonalities are not mirrored between Layer and Image.
"Image" is vague, it's all images: it's what the software does. It would be like MS-Word having a "Word Processing" menu. (Knowing MS, it probably does.)
If it's a scope: entire image versus layer, then make the scope an option selection for each feature.
And what's the difference between filters, tools, colors, and "images"?
I would perhaps split it into "colors", which changes tint, brightness etc., "shapers" which alters coordinate positions (distortions), "Content" which adds extra elements such as texture or shadows, and "Media", which controls input/output/storage formats. There may be better words for such, but it's a more natural taxonomy in my opinion.
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Perhaps somebody just need to do the work to figure out what to do about it and then go clean it up.
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Another approach is to make the menus customizable via XML and/or a "menu editor". Users could select from pre-built templates and/or make their own layout. However, the features would have to be designed to be re-composable in terms of context.
It also makes how-to's difficult when every users' menu is different. One solution is a "feature ID": You can type in "234" for feature 234, and the corresponding screen pops up (or is instantly executed if no screen needed). Then tutorials can give a list of feature
GIMP is great (Score:3)
In my opinion, GIMP is one of the best computer programs in existence.
Random comment (Score:2)
I like The GIMP but not being a trained graphic designer i do find Krita's interface easier to use. For the little use i have.
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I like The GIMP but not being a trained graphic designer i do find Krita's interface easier to use. For the little use i have.
If you were a trained graphics designer you would find GIMP even harder to use after training your brain to use Photoshop for years, and putting hours of work into researching how to do cool stuff with it that can't actually be done with the GIMP because it doesn't implement the functionality of Photoshop's Layer Effects...
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I like The GIMP but not being a trained graphic designer i do find Krita's interface easier to use. For the little use i have.
If you were a trained graphics designer you would find GIMP even harder to use after training your brain to use Photoshop for years, and putting hours of work into researching how to do cool stuff with it that can't actually be done with the GIMP because it doesn't implement the functionality of Photoshop's Layer Effects...
That all depends on what you want to do with GIMP at any given time.
My wife is a trained graphic designer (BFA and lots of experience). She uses Photoshop, Illustrator, and the rest of the Adobe suite constantly. Photoshop is as straightforward to her as breathing.
Yet one day we were traveling and I had only my laptop with when she was asked by a friend to do some photo manipulation. My said laptop was running LInux so all I could do was offer her GIMP. It really didn't take long for her to do
Say WHAAATTT??!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
"intuitive graphical interface "
I've used GIMP many times. Still do sometimes I have also used and long ago taught people to use photoshop.
To me what makes a GUI _intutive_ is given a specified unfamiliar operation, the speed at which someone can discover how to use it through simple trial and error.
This is NOT a virtue I would have ever CONSIDERED as something the GIMP designers were trying to accomplish.
As a free, open source, relatively useful product with all kinds of cool features it does quite well. I like it , but intuitive it IS NOT.
Re:Say WHAAATTT??!!! (Score:4, Informative)
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Every program has two types of users:
1. People who use the program as their main tool. Every day, they spend multiple hours in the program. For them, an unintuitive interface is annoying in the beginning, but they can expend the 3 days of training it needs to get to the point where they're productive.
2. Casual users: these use the tool for anywhere between a few hours per week to a few hours per year. For them, an intuitive interface is crucial, because they'll never get over the steep section of the learni
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The problem is that intuitive interfaces might be less productive interfaces with some level of training in the unintuitive interface.
Was Word for Windows more intuitive that WordPerfect 5.1? I am sure it was, but at the law firm that my brother worked at the productivity of the typing pool dropped dramatically with the introduction of Word for Windows.
Alternatively is it better to write your thesis in Word or LaTeX? Looking about when I was at University the former was a shit show.
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That's not an argument for either. Given the same amount of experience in both programs, the typing pool would be as productive in Word as they were in WP. Of course productivity is going to fall while your personnel is being retrained.
This is an argument in favor of standardization (which is closely linked to intuitive interfaces). When every program has the same basic menu structure, familiarization with one program also brings benefits in other programs. Word (even back then) had interface commonalities
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Reveal Codes is what I was referring to: WP would routinely place codes incorrectly and be unable to fix this automatically. You'd get things like incorrect nesting of codes: [a][b]text[a][b]. Or multiple instances of the same property: [font=a][font=b][font=c]text.
In WP, you'd be stuck cleaning this up manually using the Reveal Codes screen. I had to do this once on a 100-page document. It took me about 40 hours.
Word was much smarter about automatically fixing problems like this, or avoiding them in the fi
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I think there is such a thing as having both worlds in this case. Just because you have an easily discovery-able interface, doesn't mean you need to expose every feature. Nor does it mean you need to have only 1 interface. You can have a 'advanced' interface and a 'novice' interface, you can allow the assignment of hot keys and all kinds of customizations that speed the workflow of 'professionals' while at the same time supporting discoverability for novices.
I think if you want to write a good UI, the qu
I just could not ask my students to use it (Score:4, Interesting)
I ended up using Photopea. I realize the developer puts his heart into it, so I am not going to say anything bad. All I can say is that for my needs, teaching basic photoshop, it is better than GIMP.
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The reality was that switching them to GIMP was just too complicated.
That's kind of a damning report isn't it. It's one thing to be unique and innovative in a world of unique innovation. But it's quite the other to be needlessly different when implementing standard features in an otherwise very standard world.
I've jumped between a lot of image programs, but I can't figure out GIMP.
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I've jumped between a lot of image programs, but I can't figure out GIMP.
What I can't figure out about GIMP is how to accomplish the stuff I do with Layer Effects in Photoshop. They make creating certain types of content trivial, that I can't do at all or can't do in reasonable time in GIMP.
Layer Effects make Photoshop powerful and easy. It's obvious how they work, and how to use them. GIMP is so counterintuitive it hurts. I usually don't even bother to install it any more, instead leaning on CS2 under Win7 in a VM.
Turtle not a hare (Score:2)
"Four months later, Mattis and fellow University of California Berkeley student Spencer Kimball delivered what they described as software "designed to provide an intuitive graphical interface to a variety of image editing operations." ...and it took 15 of those 25 years just to become moderately usable to those who know Photoshop.
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I don't understand the hate.
I have been using GIMP since i abandoned Photoshop 4.
It has been improving in Function, GUI, and stability at a constant rate the entire time.
I don't find it hard to use, but maybe that is just because I have used it for my hobby for so long.
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I learned GIMP and Photoshop in parallell, back in the 90's, after originally having learned image manipulation with packages on the Amiga, and I quickly learned to loathe GIMP, not for its lack of features, but for how clunky the UI/workflow was, and still is.
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> I don't understand the hate.
Every year GIMP inches along, but it is still shit for professionals.
Specifically, I've been using GIMP on and off again since the Photoshop CS2 days. I use it for new projects when I can, but I keep coming back to Photoshop.
* Multi-monitor support was crap until ~2.10.20. Placing tools on the 2nd or 3rd monitor would NOT be saved / restored in the correct location when restarting GIMP
* I have a Photoshop file created back in 2006. GIMP 2.10.22 still can't import it properly
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> I don't understand the hate.
Every year GIMP inches along, but it is still shit for professionals.
Specifically, I've been using GIMP on and off again since the Photoshop CS2 days. I use it for new projects when I can, but I keep coming back to Photoshop.
Lets see why you do so:
[...] Photoshop file [...]
[...] import my Photoshop files [...]
No option to have default Photoshop key bindings [...]
[...] behaves different from Photoshop [...]
[...] blindly copies Photoshop [...]
Your argument is a tautology, the type of argument made only by idiots, clowns and/or politicians: "I prefer photoshop because I prefer photoshop".
Geez, Captain Obvious, any other arguments to make?
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Your argument is a tautology, the type of argument made only by idiots, clowns and/or politicians: "I prefer photoshop because I prefer photoshop".
What you don't get is that Photoshop is the industry standard because it is the best, and that thousands people have each spent thousands of hours using it, and they have literally built structures in their brains for that purpose. To expect them to throw all of that away and use a less-featured replacement which won't even faithfully load their existing Photoshop documents is idiotic and clownish.
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Your argument is a tautology, the type of argument made only by idiots, clowns and/or politicians: "I prefer photoshop because I prefer photoshop".
What you don't get is that Photoshop is the industry standard because it is the best, and that thousands people have each spent thousands of hours using it, and they have literally built structures in their brains for that purpose. To expect them to throw all of that away and use a less-featured replacement which won't even faithfully load their existing Photoshop documents is idiotic and clownish.
It doesn't matter if something is the industry standard, the de facto standard, or an ANSI standard, the argument that you prefer $FOO because you prefer $FOO is idiotic. You could change it to "I prefer $FOO because it is the de facto standard", and that would make sense.
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What part of I use it for new projects when I can do you not understand?
Photoshop, for better or worse, IS the gold standard. If it can't even match the functionality of a Photoshop file made ~15+ years ago then it will NEVER replace Photoshop.
For GIMP to succeed it not only needs to 100% match the functionality of Photoshop it needs to surpass it. It STILL isn't there in 2020.
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What part of I use it for new projects when I can do you not understand?
What part of
"I prefer photoshop because I prefer photoshop".
is a good argument?
Photoshop, for better or worse, IS the gold standard. If it can't even match the functionality of a Photoshop file made ~15+ years ago then it will NEVER replace Photoshop.
For GIMP to succeed it not only needs to 100% match the functionality of Photoshop it needs to surpass it. It STILL isn't there in 2020.
Neither is photoshop - after all, it can't surpass itself. You are exhibiting the lack of logic that I am pointing out. Well Done!
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Not sure if stupid or if trolling.
What part of can't even match the functionality of a Photoshop file made ~15+ years
Do you even use GIMP???
A nickname to troll us all? (Score:2)
So painfull (Score:2)
I stared with PS 3 and used it for quite a few years so yes trying out GIMP in mid 2000's was a learning curve yet no matter how much I've tried to switch and even removed PS I still can't get used to the tool icons vs PS. Found Krita and had no problem after some time to know which icon belong to which too, GIMP fuck me still can't remember.
Either way Dark Table is all I need for any photo development.
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Just use Partha's GIMP build. I recommend that to everyone looking for "free photoshop." He makes lots of little changes to make it more photoshop-like.
incredible (Score:3)
a register article where they don't once refer to someone as a "boffin". this is a special day, my friends.
Reading through these comments. . . (Score:3)
It's hard to believe anybody enjoys it enough to keep using it. FWIW, I've used it most of the time it's been available and always enjoyed it, even when the learning curve was steep. I've heard good things elsewhere about it too. But, man, Slashdot would make me believe it's not useful at all.
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Seems like most of them haven't used it since 2010 or want it to be exactly Photoshop. Tough pleasing some people, but I like it.
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It doesn't have to be exactly Photoshop, it just has to be as easy to use. There's no excuse for the interface to be a PITA.
There's also no excuse for the name, which alone has kept it from adoption at many sites which would have struggled through using the interface.
have they updated the ui at all (Score:2)
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For screenshots (and the easiest to use build, IMO): https://www.partha.com/ [partha.com]
For the MacOS (Score:3, Informative)
GraphicConverter, which costs little money, has expanded to become a "poor man's P-shop." It converts any of the world's graphic formats to any other. I've used it through several versions and find it capable of what a photo-hobbyist needs. Its manual answers most of my questions. GIMP perplexed me so much I deleted it years ago.
GIMP is Fantastic (Score:2)
UI says enough about the organisation (Score:2)
If you stick to a UI shitshow like GIMP for 25 years, there must be some real dictators running GIMP.
Best under Linux (Score:2)
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If you only want to run a couple of filters then it's great, many of them are very powerful. If you want to do a lot of stuff to an image, it's torturous. I've used it to good effect on occasion, but any time I try to get deep into it I find myself angry at the UI developers.
PBM, older, better (Score:2)
PBM, portable bitmap format, is 32 years old.
Image editing, the UNIX way.
Let us not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
It's been really helpful (Score:2)
2.10 Works well for me in Ubuntu (Score:2)
I think a lot of the people posting haven't tried GIMP recently. The 2.10 release (I think around 2018) has a much more standard interface that works really well out of the box, on Ubuntu 18.04 at least.
I was a long time Photoshop user on Mac (since Photoshop 5.5), mostly for my web site design needs. I finally ditched Apple hardware and went to Dell running Ubuntu a few years ago. Originally, getting the older version of Gimp up and running was an ugly beast. Since 2.10 though, it looks a lot like the Phot
I gave it up long ago (Score:2)
I gave it up long ago, when 3x16bit images were promised for like 30 years in the future, while the GUI was utter crap.
Maybe it's better now? But at the time it sure looked like it was being developed by incompetents.
The UI really does suck (Score:2)
Nor is Gimp helpful.
For example, I wanted to use a capture feature, to bend some of the picture. I'd created the picture from several others. No matter how many times I told it to flatten all layers, it seemed to work only on an invisible layer.
I finally got it to work by, IIRC, exporting it as a gif, then converting it to jpg, then pulling it into the GIMP.
Now arnings, no clues.
Re: Bad Reputation (Score:1)
It's a case of a bad thing in the context of a bad thing.
It's onl shitty in the context of the desktop methaphor it was forced into. Which is itself already shitty. So its own shittiness is irrelevant at this point.
Kinda like complaining that there's this thrashy guy at Trailer Park County Walmart.
Correction: (Score:2)
Ok, my memory was wrong. I somehow thought it was developed as a GUI for imagemagick, but it turns out I misremembered reading that it was the origin of GTK, when I assumed it was the other way around.
I wrote the above in the context of implying that it would have beem better to have a universal toolbox for graphics manipulation that goes well with all software and any kind of automation/scripting, than to make the box a monolithic application with a half-assed scripting facility, just to serve the usual de
Re: (Score:3)
Ugly, shitty software like GIMP is what gives open source software a bad reputation.
That's stupid. IMO, people like you - with your blindly crutching on generalizations, don't help the reputation of anything at all.
Re: (Score:3)
I have to generally agree with the criticism. While it has lots of powerful features, the UI is a mess, as I describe in another message. In general, most OSS has shitty UI's, to be frank. Most exceptions are copied or inherited from commercial products.
Because techies tend to think more about machines than people, they just don't understand how end users think (and don't think). It's rare a given brain does everything well, so don't take this as being mean. On the flip side, those good at UI's are probably
Re:Bad Reputation (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that it won't do four color and spot color separations out of the box makes it a non-starter for the print industry. The UI is bad, but not that bad. If it did what magazine, newspaper, and packaging folks needed, they'd learn the interface. But it doesn't. Never has, and apparently, never will.
Industry standards (Score:2)
You are absolutely correct in your observations, these two features are required in an industrial context. However, a novice in computers (as I was 35 years ago) or a teenager who just got his first PC and wants to draw/edit something or make a video, does not ask "what is the industry standard software for my needs? -they just use what is readily available or already installed on his device. Unless one wanted to earn extra geek points among their peers they wouldn't use pirated software like Photoshop (whi
Re: Industry standards (Score:3)
Youâ(TM)ll remember when Paint Shop came out 30 years ago. That was far more accessible and usable to computer novices.
GIMP is awful. I stopped using it because it was so bad. Tell me, does it still implement itâ(TM)s own file open and save dialogs instead of delegating to the native system ones? What kind of idiot thought that was a good idea, never mind how good awful and usable these were in early versions?
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, absolutely. And that's why every computer I own has GIMP on it. Once you get over the UI hurdle, it's a very good program.
Re:Bad Reputation (Score:4, Funny)