GIMP development - What’s the point? • Hacker News Board

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#51

Post by kaybe » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

6DM wrote: post #44

WhitneyLand wrote: post #42

Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project. Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close. They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios. The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code. They are 5-10 years behind what you get in P…

Edit: [Deleted] I'm sorry, but I don't find the tool intuitive. I ran into issues using it. I installed fresh copy and tried steps commenters suggested and it worked well. However this was not my experience a mere two days ago.

What are the problems you encounter?

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#52

Post by pmoriarty » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 2:47 PM UTC

6DM wrote: post #44

WhitneyLand wrote: post #42

Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project. Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close. They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios. The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code. They are 5-10 years behind what you get in P…

Edit: [Deleted] I'm sorry, but I don't find the tool intuitive. I ran into issues using it. I installed fresh copy and tried steps commenters suggested and it worked well. However this was not my experience a mere two days ago.

Cropping is a "HUGE pain"? Are you kidding me?

1. Rectangle select.

2. Image -> Crop to selection.

How much simpler can you get?

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#53

Post by Grishnakh » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

6DM wrote: post #44

WhitneyLand wrote: post #42

Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project. Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close. They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios. The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code. They are 5-10 years behind what you get in P…

Edit: [Deleted] I'm sorry, but I don't find the tool intuitive. I ran into issues using it. I installed fresh copy and tried steps commenters suggested and it worked well. However this was not my experience a mere two days ago.

That's weird. I'm not a regular user of GIMP at all, but cropping and scaling are pretty much the main things I do use it for, and it's pretty simple and easy. The crop tool is the one that looks like an Xacto knife blade, and the scaling tool is right there in one of the main menus.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#54

Post by MildlySerious » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #52

6DM wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: [Deleted] I'm sorry, but I don't find the tool intuitive. I ran into issues using it. I installed fresh copy and tried steps commenters suggested and it worked well. However this was not my experience a mere two days ago.

Cropping is a "HUGE pain"? Are you kidding me? 1. Rectangle select. 2. Image -> Crop to selection. How much simpler can you get?

Exactly. I found myself using GIMP for exactly those "quick" scenarios because PS, especially before CS6, was just bulky and overcomplicated.

GIMP: Roughly select something, zoom in to make it pixel-perfect, see the size of the selection in the bottom left, and just drag until it fits your need.

PS? Roughly select something. Figure out the size of the selection. Zoom in. Dig into the menu.. Transform selection? Adjust. What's the size now? .. Nope, thanks. I am done 5 times over in GIMP by the time I did that.

I get that GIMP is not perfect, but some people treat like the PHP of graphics software.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#55

Post by exDM69 » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

WhitneyLand wrote: post #42

Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project. Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close. They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios. The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code. They are 5-10 years behind what you get in P…

GIMP, Inkscape, Blender and other open source art production tools have a big chicken and egg problem. To really improve, they need more professionals using them and a part of them should be developers or willing to chip in by other means. But because there are issues (education included) that are deal breakers for pros, you can't expect it to get better quickly. The situation is much worse for art production tools (than e.g. programmers' tools), because a smaller portion of professionals in the field are also capable programmers.

This is a pretty sad situation and I can't how it would change, apart from giant (in open source terms) donations that would allow a developer-year or few full-time.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#56

Post by nnq » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

WhitneyLand wrote: post #42

Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project. Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close. They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios. The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code. They are 5-10 years behind what you get in P…

> There are many examples of complex professional systems that prove a decent UX is still possible

...and Adobe PS is not one of them!

People tolerate its UX/I because the functionality is unequaled and, after you commit to visual and muscle-memory all the shortcuts and locations of commands and options, you can be extremely productive despite the UX/I.

Also, people coming from the "physical arts" category are kind of used to horrible UX/I... I mean, the "UX/I" of a paint brush is pure horror story, even if you use acrylic paint... so the "suffering leads to great art" mantra when applied to tools too, carried into the digital world, makes artists pretty "masochistic" which pairs well with Adobe products' UI "sadism" :)

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#57

Post by justavoice » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

WhitneyLand wrote: post #42

Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project. Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close. They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios. The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code. They are 5-10 years behind what you get in P…

yeah, but for that $10 a month you get a free service running that checks your licensing status. No thanks, unless I'm a very high-end pro artist I'm not going to waste the time or the $10 a month when I could download Gimp for free and have 80% of the functionality.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#58

Post by pmoriarty » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

People whining about GIMP not being as good as PS don't appreciate what life was like on Linux before GIMP existed, or how primitive GIMP was when it first came out.

GIMP has advanced leaps and bound over what it once was.

I remember for ages PS fans were complaining about how GIMP had a multiple window layout, and how unnecessarily complex that was, and they wanted a single window layout. So the volunteers who work on GIMP eventually came out with a single window layout.

I'm not a PS user, but I heard that around that time PS changed to a multi-window layout. Whether that's true or not, now I hear complaints from some users that GIMP is not any good because it doesn't have a multi-window layout (not realizing that changing it to multi-window layout is as simple as unchecking "Single-window mode" under the "Windows" menu). Give me a break!

Some people will never be satisfied and will never appreciate the hundreds or thousands of man hours of free work that GIMP developers have poured in to this product.

Could it be improved? Of course! Anything can. Should they strive to make it better? Yes. Feature requests and help are great. But indignant insults coming from people who didn't pay for the development of the product, who don't contribute any of their own time to make it better, and who clearly don't appreciate the massive achievement that GIMP is just take the cake. GIMP developers must have skins of steel to put up with this crap year in and year out.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#59

Post by monksy » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 3:03 PM UTC

nnq wrote: post #56

WhitneyLand wrote: post #42

Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project. Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close. They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios. The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code. They are 5-10 years behind what you get in P…

> There are many examples of complex professional systems that prove a decent UX is still possible ...and Adobe PS is not one of them! People tolerate its UX/I because the functionality is unequaled and, after you commit to visual and muscle-memory all the shortcuts and locations of commands and options, you can be extremely productive despite the UX/I. Also, people coming from the "physical arts" category are kind o…

That makes a good point. A lot of software being pushed out is targeted to beginner users and is broken in terms of encouraging users to to continue using it. We've gotten rid of "Advanced" settings and giving a deeper way of using the tool.

I'm not suggesting that we should leave all tools and products completely unusable unless you're a level 20 night elf. However, reward your frequent users.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#60

Post by bobajeff » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 3:03 PM UTC

Gimp is wonderful software. It's really amazing all of the work that's been done with it.

I fully respect all of the work developers have put into open source art creation tools/libraries. Blender, Gimp, InkScape, Krita, G'MIC etc. are incredible pieces of software and if more people spent time to explore, celebrate and contribute to these efforts there is no way any commercial product could keep up.