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GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

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Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#81
post #51
post #29

GIMP was the first advanced image editor I have used. I grew quite fond of it and its tools. Nowadays I have moved away from it because it does not play well with macOS, but still return to it when I am on a Linux box. For me, GIMP has always excelled in making simple actions simple. Even today I am quite surprised that other software has not taken some of the ideas for interface that gimp has. Mainly: - The selectio…

Out of curiosity, what issues do you see on macOS? I use it fairly rarely for minor editing, but haven't hit any real issues with it

Dialog windows will sometimes appear behind the app window or other windows, and won't come to the foreground or accept input focus until another app is focused first. This also affects other OSes on which Gimp runs.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#82
post #25
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did and will keep getting downvoted (like my comment below about GIMP's usability will), but you're absolutely right. This is another case where developers decide what's cool, and of course pick features that are cool to them, not their users. Not once in my life would I ever think I'm missing that feature in GIMP.

With that logic, you can argue against any debugging facility in software. Log files? Only developers think those are cool, useless! FWIW, I have missed better tools for performance tweaking in competing (Adobe) products, so while I don't know if the one in GIMP would be useful, I can see why one would want something like it even as an end user.

> With that logic, you can argue against any debugging facility in software. Log files? Only developers think those are cool, useless!

Log files aren't user-facing. A performance meter in an image editing program is completely useless to 99% of its users.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#83
post #6

Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to a…

Maybe i'm an outlier, but with zero prior experience in image editing software, i've found GIMP UI much more approachable than Photoshop. With PS i felt that the UI was much more tailored to experts or at least to people that knew what they were doing, whereas with GIMP i found the UI to be more beginner-friendly and discoverable. So yeah, YMMV. What a shocker! :) > Downvote all you want--I know open source can't han…

> I'm intrigued by this. Do you genuinely think that the GIMP developers don't want or don't try to make it usable or to improve it as much as they can

Yes. They focus on features _they_ care about, not what users care about. The features announced in this release are good proof of that, but if you look in a comment below there's a first-hand experience of how GIMP's developers are annoyed by usability and the fact that users would want a more usable software.

I far from think that GIMP's developers owe me or anyone else anything. I just think it's a shame that GIMP is recommended so often to people that just moved to Linux (or actually in general), because there are good programs--like Pinta for editing and Krita for drawing--that are at par with Photoshop and are totally usable without installing Photoshop or going back to Windows.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#84
post #44

Side note: GIMP user here that has recently moved to a new image editor called Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, that is super cheap and I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good quality Photoshop and Illustrator alternative, with new ideas and concepts; They are doing an amazing job!

I bought Affinity Designer when I was still on Mac, and it was the first affordable non-Adobe app that I used that could open up Illustrator files without mangling them.

When I eventually switched to Windows, I basically ended up repurchasing Designer and Photo. Their software is great for the price.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#85
post #78
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative option for PS is not same as being feature parity replacement of PS. PS is a commercial image editor owned by a company with billions of dollars and many years worth of commercial development and improvements - it is used by a very specific group of users with specific needs and specific skills. And they don't mind paying a hefty fee for it. GIMP (and other similar OS projects) is for everyone else, wh…

GIMP (and other similar OS projects) is for everyone else, who wants to do light image editing in an amateur setting without having to pay a large amount for it Except that isn't really true either. If you want to do "light image editing in an amateur setting" GIMP is massive overkill, and there are plenty of easier to use tools. GIMP lives in a strange limbo between not 'light' enough for light work and not heavy en…

Yes, there are a lot of lighter image editing options out there, and most of them are even free. But at least my understanding is that GIMP is still predominantly used by amateurs. I didn't say it's the only option, it's one of the more powerful image editing options for amateurs.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#86
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that logic, you can argue against any debugging facility in software. Log files? Only developers think those are cool, useless! FWIW, I have missed better tools for performance tweaking in competing (Adobe) products, so while I don't know if the one in GIMP would be useful, I can see why one would want something like it even as an end user.

> With that logic, you can argue against any debugging facility in software. Log files? Only developers think those are cool, useless! Log files aren't user-facing. A performance meter in an image editing program is completely useless to 99% of its users.

So performance tools are fine, as long as they are hard to find (=not user-facing)? And the percentage of users that would want them has to live with worse access to them to not scare the others with an extra menu entry?

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#87
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I must be slow but many, many times I _forced_ myself to learn it, and there's just no way. I've finally come to the conclusion that it isn't me, but it's the usability that is completely flawed. Unfortunately, when one tries to say anything the response is "you go fix it then, asshole!" but I don't know how to develop desktop apps, so...

> Unfortunately, when one tries to say anything the response is "you go fix it then, asshole!" but I don't know how to develop desktop apps, so... There are other ways you can help! As someone with experience using graphics applications, you could look into making UI mockups of the changes / improvements you have in mind. Seeing the mockups might get someone interested enough to start work on user-testing, prototypin…

Tried, and failed miserably.

They don't care.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s all well and good, but if GIMP is targeting devs first who are also artists, Linux remains an OS without an image editor targeted at artists first. IMO that’s an important hole in the software library that prevents wider adoption.

Krita ( https://krita.org ) is 12 years old, and just released version 4.0 last week. HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16647445

Krita is great, but maybe more for drawing.

I think Pinta is a really good software for artists.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#89
post #54
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you complain that Krita lacks photo manipulation features, you're told "Of course, because Krita is only targeted at illustrators!" The open source evangelists always have a dodge.

Inkscape, mypaint and gimp is pretty much all there is to use professionally on linux. And they complement each other surprisingly well. Inkscape is the main workhorse, mypaint is for sketches and gimp is to prepare some photos and raster images to import into inkscape (you can't do a lot in gimp).

It's been a while since I've used Inkscape to import .ai files, but does Inkscape still have a tendency to mangle them when you try to import them?

If you're moving from one platform to another, you want legacy files to import perfectly, especially when you don't have time to convert old Illustrator assets into svg files.

On Mac/Windows at least, Affinity Designer was the first app around $50 or under that didn't mangle any of the .ai files I threw at it.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#90
post #6

Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to a…

I agree with you, and it's disappointing people are downvoting you. I ended up having beers with several core GIMP developers a few years ago, and they outright stated that improving usability was not a goal for them, in fact they would rather not have the burden of users who expected it to be easier to use. Speaking for myself, I've found other graphics programs were very intuitive and helped me be very creative, ye…

Is GimpShop still actively maintained to keep up with the latest Gimp (the Gimpshot site is a little vague on these details)?

Didn't that provide a decent migration path for PhotoShop users to GIMP?

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