Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gimp and Inkscape are both extremely sub-par apps... Paint.NET beats Gimp in usability, Photoshop in both features and stability. Last time I tried to use Gimp for anything mildly complex (heavy usage of cage distort on a high res pic with quite a few layers) it crashed every 10min (though I was told it was the fault of the Ubuntu packaged, it's not acceptable to make a clusterfuck of the versions targetting the most…
> 2. a good vector graphics app Check out Scribus. I'd describe it as more of a serious publishing app, where Inkscape may be more for artists. Scribus uses less resources and supports multipage documents. I've also had issues with the cage transform in Gimp, but it's fixed now, so if you're on Ubuntu, just add a PPA with the latest version of Gimp. > 1. a good raster photo editor with non-destructive editing capabil…
> give up your freedom for a few extra features
Not really, I use like 10% max of Photoshop's features I guess. But those features simply feel perfectly implemented, they just f work. Heck, I even use it for vector graphics sometimes because it "just works" and feels more natural than Illustrator.
And I'm not just used to PS. I actually liked Corel Photoshop more back in the day.
And Inkscape has the same natural/intuitive feel to it after you use it a bit. Starts to crack once the complexity grows, but for starter it just works. Blender has a learning curve, but afterwards it also feels "natural" and "well built".
Gimp is just bad at... everything: (1) performance feels horrible, like doing everything in slow mo compared to anything else (2) UI feels very inconsistent and has very weird concepts about the relationship between layers and selections and stuff like that (like "wtf is a 'floating selection' thingy doing in my layers panel? ...you get used to it, but boy it's weird), keyboard shortcuts don't work in all contexts (sometimes it feels like they randomly stop working) and (3) there's no easy way to reversibly do things like ad an adjustment/effect layer, turn effect on and of on a layer or some groups from the layers panel etc.
I don't care about color space support or even mildly advanced features. And I could put up with a "weird" UI if I could find some logic or intuition for it. But at least stellar performance and stability would be requirements. If you can do things fast enough and things don't crash at 30 huge layers, even non-destructive edits cease to be a "must have" since you can just clone stuff like crazy and always have multiple "versions" of the "same" layer in the same doc. That's how lots of professional graphic designers use PS anyway. I was once handed a 20GB "trashcan psd" from a designer, and I hated every second of touching it, but it miraculously worked, relevant content was extractable, and the job got done.
Honestly, its hard to say what's wrong with Gimp, because I can't figure out anything fully right about it. Even the fact that I'm comparing with Adobe Photoshop, a program itself known for horribly beginner-hostile and unintuitive (but in a weird way "learnable" and "natural") UI is a sign of how off things are.