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GIMP Turns 27

gimp.org

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Re: GIMP Turns 27

#251

Post by npteljes »

pessimizer wrote: post #135
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #119

Man, who would've guessed I'd be tempted to flag a post about GIMP. The level of vitriol in these comments is truly impressive...

There's an instinct for pre-emptive attacks on minority opinions from people who have gone with the crowd and experience some cognitive dissonance over it. There are a lot of people who think that they should be using the GIMP (for whatever reason), but of course found it easier to do what everyone else was doing, and have to justify that by attacking the software and the people who use it. The reason definitely isn'…

>See, GIMP doesn't have the means to steal colors from work you've already done, and you don't have to rent it.

Yeah, because with GIMP, you can't use Pantone colors to begin with :)

I like and use GIMP, but the color issue is a misrepresentation. Mainly because I don't imagine that 99% of the Photoshop users ever touched the Pantone stuff.

Re: GIMP Turns 27

#252

Post by smallstepforman »

wetpaws wrote: post #48
guntherhermann wrote: post #17

GIMP is legendary. One of the first FOSS projects I ever used. I pirated Photoshop soon after trying it. Krita ( https://github.com/KDE/krita | https://krita.org/en/ ) is a more intuitive UX imo.

Krita is better in any conceivable way.

I use GIMP as a software engineer in game development for modifying assets created by artists. My workflow is typically cropping / resizing, merging images, repositioning, running batch scripts, etc. I never touch a paint brush, but do all sorts of other modifications.

GIMP is perfect for my workflow. Simple tasks like resizing selected regions is a chore with Krita. And did I mention that GIMP is scriptable? I've been using GIMP professionally since 2008.

Re: GIMP Turns 27

#253

Post by troad »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #119

Man, who would've guessed I'd be tempted to flag a post about GIMP. The level of vitriol in these comments is truly impressive...

I don’t see all that much vitriol. I do see a lot of people who honestly don’t think the GIMP is very good, and that better (free and open source) alternatives exist. That’s not in and of itself vitriol.

I think some of us can be unduly sensitive to criticism of the GIMP, because it’s a long standing project we have all used at one time or another and may have fond memories of. But it’s no longer the only kid on the block, and it’s just not holding its own against new free projects. It’s mediocre, and it could be better. We’re not doing it any favours by refraining from fair critique.

Re: GIMP Turns 27

#254

Post by cinntaile »

oblio wrote: post #234
RubyRidgeRandy wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking into it, Krita does seem very capable. I don't think we should really be mad at healthy competition existing in these spaces though, they should lead to better tools for end users.

We should drop this "healthy competition" myth. Some of this software has been around as long as I've been alive. I love Open Source but we should just accept that some of it will always be mediocre at best. And as the other commenter mentioned, there are also negative consequences to something being around (mind share, presence in distributions and online docs, etc). Nobody has time to wait 4 decades for software to…

Blender started getting good only a few years ago, before that it was a big UI mess.

Re: GIMP Turns 27

#255

Post by npteljes »

intrepidhero wrote: post #118
endofreach wrote: post #114

I was a heavy GIMP user back in the day. Just last week i downloaded again. I didn‘t understand anything. Maybe i just forgot it all, but it felt unusable to me. The UI seemed so cluttered and unnecessarily complex. Almost like they want to prove how powerful the tool is, by shoving it all in your face. I didn‘t like it. I think it might be time to reinvent. It would be a shame if GIMP joined the club of 27…

Has the UI even changed in 27 years? The fact that the I don't have to relearn it every time I update it has been my favorite feature.

The one window thing was a lifesaver change as far as I'm concerned, otherwise I don't think it changed much.

Re: GIMP Turns 27

#256

Post by RadiozRadioz »

zulban wrote: post #55

GIMP is great, I use it all the time. I wish they would change their name so it could have more mainstream acceptance.

I have never, and do not know anybody who has, avoided good software for something as stupidly trivial as its name. If the name were one of the more hardcore expletives I'd maybe think twice. As it stands, this one is fairly vanilla as far as problematic words go, is clearly typeset as an acronym, and is principally a reference to Pulp Fiction, therefore being at least one referential layer away from the original term. I would like to see statistics on who actually cares about this.

Re: GIMP Turns 27

#257

Post by Smithalicious »

anigbrowl wrote: post #65

> To celebrate [...] this nice birthday illustration (fully drawn within GIMP [...] There's some sort of weird inferiority complex when your graphics software is 27 years old and you're still saying 'look we used it for one of our website assets.' It's like telling people at the birthday party that you dressed yourself. I find it equally strange that there are almost no screenshots on the website, outside of the docs…

Are they the ones with a weird complex, or are you? Your post suggests that you feel like GIMP has something to prove much more than the four word throwaway line you're criticizing to me.

Re: GIMP Turns 27

#258

Post by oblio »

matkoniecz wrote: post #237
oblio wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should drop this "healthy competition" myth. Some of this software has been around as long as I've been alive. I love Open Source but we should just accept that some of it will always be mediocre at best. And as the other commenter mentioned, there are also negative consequences to something being around (mind share, presence in distributions and online docs, etc). Nobody has time to wait 4 decades for software to…

> some of it will always be mediocre at best Noone claims that all open source is great.

I wanted to be nice. Gimp is mediocre at best.

Which is a shame for the huge volume of work put into it. Across 27 (!) years.

Re: GIMP Turns 27

#259

Post by piyush_soni »

colordrops wrote: post #200

It seems for years in every thread about Gimp I've seen, people are shitting on it. I don't get it. I suppose that it's from people comparing it to Photoshop? I've never been a heavy Photoshop user though, and Gimp has been perfect for all my basic non-pro-level needs over the years. I'm sure this is true for many others as well. Just wanted to say thank you to the devs in case you are here.

I having a masters in Computer Science could never make my way through GIMP, tried quite a few times. I have never seen a more complicated UI (while I was at least functional in Photoshop). Thankfully hundreds of online image editors arrived in last few years that did precisely what I wanted in a much easier way.

Re: GIMP Turns 27

#260

Post by npteljes »

flaviut wrote: post #160
gcau wrote: post #157

GIMP is missing such basic, basic features and things, that I genuinely wonder what's going on with the development or how anyone uses it for anything other than basic editing. It's nice that it's free and open though I guess.

Which basic features are missing?

Adjustment layers / nondestructive editing, text and shape effects are huge productivity boosters. It's a pain going back to a world where they don't exist - and many hours of paid labor for the employer, or taken out of your life. Missing CYMK made GIMP a non-starter for people working in print. A nice healing tool exists, but it's a pain to install as it is a plugin, even on Linux I had to hunt for dependencies from different repos.

How "basic" are these is debatable though. They are very useful, and widely used, and multiple image tools support them, that's for sure.

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