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GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

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Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a designer - purely curious.

I get aoloe 's reaction though. Whenever someone posts something cool about Gimp, invariably a bunch of “yeah it's free, but it's not Adobe Photoshop is it?” comments pop up. Why should we care? Why not judge it on its own merits? This reminds me of how a lot of people used to respond to the notion of using GNU/Linux distributions as free operating systems suitable for day-to-day desktop use. Sure, I get why not ever…

I would add that most people arguing that Photoshop is superior in these threads have never had to pay for it, either due to piracy or because of their employer.

Another thing of value for me is that open source can not die for as long as there's demand. This makes it a safer bet for long term investments. So GIMP may never be on par with Photoshop and the Linux desktop may never happen for ordinary people, but you can bet they'll still be around and probably maintained and developed in 50 years from now, because they aren't subject to the same market forces as proprietary stuff.

Hence the comparison is often unfair. For me GIMP gets the job done, for my needs it is perfectly suitable, works on all 3 major desktop operating systems, therefore it has an unbeatable price tag and license.

Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#12
The action search feature is nice. I like it that more software is getting search-across-all-menu-entries.

I'd have really liked Ubuntu's HUD menu-search to have become a standard on the Linux desktop; adding search-across-menus would become much easier for softwares, most wouldn't need any addition of code.

Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#13
post #6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unlikely, while a certainly poewrful piece of software that can do much of what photoshop can (in the 2D realm), it has no support for 3D work, real vector support, active filters (this is a huge one in traditional 2D work, esp icons/logos)

The one feature that breaks it for me for professional work is that filters happen to a layer instead of being attached to them an are able to be changed on a whim. It's impossible to do any real work if you have to render and re-render every shadow on every text and object when its size changes. I think I could do without everything else but that.

For this reason I use Inkscape for most things I used GIMP for in the past.

Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#14

GIMP is an icon of open-source software, but do any professional designers use it full-time over Photoshop? Compare with Sketch, which has taken scores of users from Illustrator.

Ok, you want the longer answer?

I know several professional designers who only (or mostly) use free software.

Gimp inclusive.

They do this as a matter of choice.

And there are many more professional designers, who use free software for parts of their workflow. They do it, for many different reasons, but mostly because it just happens to fit their needs.

Some of them use Gimp.

If you would have read the article linked above, you would know that it's mostly about a professional designer (Aryeom) who is using Gimp for her work on an animation film.

Personally, I still believe that you're question would have deserved only a "42" type of answer.

"Professional designers" is such a vast term...

But, hey I'm so generous today :-)

P.S.: I don't want to get into a discussion on who is a professional designer and who is not, so I avoid putting links to the ones I know are using only/mostly free software...

But here are the names of the first ones that comes to mind: Cédric, Elisa, Vlada, Camille, David, ...

Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#15
post #10
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unlikely, while a certainly poewrful piece of software that can do much of what photoshop can (in the 2D realm), it has no support for 3D work, real vector support, active filters (this is a huge one in traditional 2D work, esp icons/logos)

Is this mandatory nowadays? I mean it's nice that PS (and even Pixelmator and Affinity) have that, but I did design work many years ago and managed fine. Sure it will be more inconvenient, but it's doable.

People did design work without any of these digital tools before.

Give people better tools and it's hard to go back. Can you imagine writing a large piece of software without autocomplete or syntax highlighting these days?

Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a designer - purely curious.

I get aoloe 's reaction though. Whenever someone posts something cool about Gimp, invariably a bunch of “yeah it's free, but it's not Adobe Photoshop is it?” comments pop up. Why should we care? Why not judge it on its own merits? This reminds me of how a lot of people used to respond to the notion of using GNU/Linux distributions as free operating systems suitable for day-to-day desktop use. Sure, I get why not ever…

Because in professional environments, there are industry standards. You can use whatever editor you like as long as it can handle text files. Same goes for graphics tool and .psd files.

This is true especially for Gimp. I imagine there are many people like me, who work on Linux and already use Gimp for their own stuff, but since Linux + Gimp is usually the toolset of a technical person, most of the time we work with graphical tools it is not our own work, but something a designer created with OSX + Photoshop.

So please, Gimp, create a way for me to fund everything related to better .psd support. On everything else, Gimp can and should find its own way. I like Gimp more anyway due to decades (wtf, I am old) of usage.

Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#17
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this mandatory nowadays? I mean it's nice that PS (and even Pixelmator and Affinity) have that, but I did design work many years ago and managed fine. Sure it will be more inconvenient, but it's doable.

People did design work without any of these digital tools before. Give people better tools and it's hard to go back. Can you imagine writing a large piece of software without autocomplete or syntax highlighting these days?

[deleted]

Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#18

GIMP is an icon of open-source software, but do any professional designers use it full-time over Photoshop? Compare with Sketch, which has taken scores of users from Illustrator.

Realistic answer is not really. There are people who probably use it, but they are invisible in the whole. However, Krita got some serious attention by digital painters and is used enough to be visible as an alternative to both ps and coral paint.

Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#19

The action search feature is nice. I like it that more software is getting search-across-all-menu-entries. I'd have really liked Ubuntu's HUD menu-search to have become a standard on the Linux desktop; adding search-across-menus would become much easier for softwares, most wouldn't need any addition of code.

It's one of the better features built into OS X, ⌘⇧? will search through all menu items, combined with ability to assign a shortcut to one even if it had none originally.

Re: GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future

#20
Gimp 2.8 frustrated me: I could no longer open a .png, edit it and easily resave it back to .png. The Gimp developers knew better and made the UI strongly favor saving as .xcf, which makes sense in some use-cases, but not mine.

I found this fix, which made quick uses of GIMP less painful for me: http://shallowsky.com/software/gimp-save/

I'm assuming the new save behavior persists in Gimp 2.9.x, but I don't know.

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