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GIMP – 2016 in review

gimp.org

11–20 of 188 posts

Re: GIMP – 2016 in review

#11

Glad to hear they're planning to work on non destructive editing - that might even convince some photoshop users to make the switch. Then again, I really like gimp for the incredible variety of work it does well already, like editing animated gifs.

Count me as one Photoshop user who avoids GIMP because it lacks non-destructive editing. Photoshop had Adjustment Layers since 1996, and using them is a widely accepted best practice. It is hard to imagine a valid reason why GIMP developers have taken so long to implement them.

Re: GIMP – 2016 in review

#12

Great stuff. I'm looking forward to 2.10. GIMP is my tool when I want to edit photos or create Christmas cards. Even though I hear this quote ringing in my ear, and I can't seem to shake it, mainly because of who said it: "Yet I think that a few programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, will always be superior to competitors like the Gimp—for some reason, I really don’t know why! I’m quite willing to pay good money for real…

I wonder sometimes if the reason GIMP development doesn't surpass other options is simply not having enough developers, having a user base that is more art centered than programming centered, and having a somewhat bottlenecked development culture. These could just be perceptions. I am hoping that when the transition to GEGL is fully implemented, there will be an acceleration. Its hard to use it for serious work. The…

I don't know, as someone who moved from GIMP to Photoshop a long time ago I never saw that as being the reason it was/is(in my opinion) inferior. It has plenty of features - more than enough. What it never had was as good of a user interface and user experience. It always felt clunky and awkward by comparison.

If I were to give them one additional project member it wouldn't be a developer. It would be a product owner who uses Photoshop daily.

Re: GIMP – 2016 in review

#13
post #9

I didn't know GIMP nowadays run natively (without X11) on macOS, cool.

It works really well, I have been using it for about 2 years. The only two minor problems I found so far:

1. when you start it up from launcher, it doesn't show up in the foreground, so you have to click the icon again

2. if you have multiple monitors and you plug out the monitor with the gimp window it sometimes crashes. It doesn't happen every time, but as I precaution I first move the Gimp window to the other monitor before disconnecting.

Re: GIMP – 2016 in review

#14
post #5

I don't use the GIMP nearly as much as Inkscape (the two form an awesome free software graphics suite together), but I am always pleasantly surprised by the gradual improvements — the layer improvements look useful! What really impresses me though is how the GIMP has managed to remain such a constant ever-present factor on the free software desktop. It feels as if it has just always been there. Kudos to all the devel…

GIMP indeed just is always there, on all platforms. As a developer my needs are quite modest: editing screenshots, juggling graphics assets, etc. But I do use GIMP at least weekly, and it always delivers. Big thanks for the developers.

Re: GIMP – 2016 in review

#16
post #5

I don't use the GIMP nearly as much as Inkscape (the two form an awesome free software graphics suite together), but I am always pleasantly surprised by the gradual improvements — the layer improvements look useful! What really impresses me though is how the GIMP has managed to remain such a constant ever-present factor on the free software desktop. It feels as if it has just always been there. Kudos to all the devel…

Inkscape on the other has started to show gradual decline in the UI department.

For example every time you open a tool (the small dialogs on the right) all others will collapse. Since you normally jump back and forth between these tools during drawing you have to ask yourself what went on in their heads when they decided to make this change.

Re: GIMP – 2016 in review

#17
Why stick with such an old codebase? Wouldn't it just make sense to start a new Rust project with editable shaders. It could have an extensible, clean task-based interface, instead of the antiquated control room with lots of buttons and switches. Or maybe even a dispatcher/server with protocols to send graphic commands from UIs to different image processors.

Re: GIMP – 2016 in review

#19
post #9

I didn't know GIMP nowadays run natively (without X11) on macOS, cool.

It works really well, I have been using it for about 2 years. The only two minor problems I found so far: 1. when you start it up from launcher, it doesn't show up in the foreground, so you have to click the icon again 2. if you have multiple monitors and you plug out the monitor with the gimp window it sometimes crashes. It doesn't happen every time, but as I precaution I first move the Gimp window to the other moni…

Also it does not seem to support retina mode, making it practically useless for a big share of Mac users. Besides, Pixelmator has raised the bar really high.

Re: GIMP – 2016 in review

#20
post #11

Glad to hear they're planning to work on non destructive editing - that might even convince some photoshop users to make the switch. Then again, I really like gimp for the incredible variety of work it does well already, like editing animated gifs.

Count me as one Photoshop user who avoids GIMP because it lacks non-destructive editing. Photoshop had Adjustment Layers since 1996, and using them is a widely accepted best practice. It is hard to imagine a valid reason why GIMP developers have taken so long to implement them.

It's an open source project with a million things to work on whenever the contributors can spare a few moments. Adobe has a full time paid staff to make progress on numerous fronts at any time.
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