Live data from Hacker News

GIMP receives a $100K donation

gimp.org

111–120 of 318 posts

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#111

> ... will use the money to do much overdue hardware upgrade for the core team members and organize the next hackfest to bring the team together $100k is a sizable donation. I would have hoped that it could do more for the project than update some hardware and organize a hackfest. That's not to say donations in general shouldn't be used for those things. I just would have assumed that a donation of this size would ha…

If you want to raise $100k directly for GIMP development, it is already possible. See the Patreon pages linked here: https://www.gimp.org/donating/

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#112
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to support GIMP but, especially for fast, professional use, the UI makes it impossible. Their raw features are on par with anything I'd want to do in Photoshop, it's 100% a UI issue at this point. And I don't get why it's this hard for open source projects to realize that (the only notable exception I know is Firefox, which I love).

Does Photoshop have a good UI? Everything good is hidden 36 levels deep somewhere, or requires you to press control-shift-command-alt-option-windows key + F26. There are just too many special-use-case tools to make a "good" UI. Learn it and forget about what it looks like, it's the only way you'll ever be happy.

I somewhat agree, I used Gimp before trying Photoshop and now I'm very used to the Gimp menus and it's easy for me to find tools. I had to use Photoshop CS5 at work a few weeks ago and 80% of my time was trying to find what I needed.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#113
post #105

This is great, I hope Gimp puts it to good use. I would love for Gimp to focus more on artistic uses instead of only on software types (which is probably a vain hope). We would greatly benefit from a good artistic/photo image editing tool that does not belong to the Adobe's subscription license racket. Unfortunately, Gimp is not nearly in the same class as Photoshop, so most artists grumble about Adobe but still pay…

Adjustment layers....

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#114

My hope: whichever direction Gimp development goes, they should try doing something similar to Blender - where they bring a bunch of developers and artists into a space. While they're in that space (for a limited amount of time) work on some big project involving Gimp. Develop Gimp to suite that project's needs.

I believe this is a key reason Blender is as good as it is today; they developed a tool that addressed the needs of artist that use their software (scratching a need).

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#115
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to support GIMP but, especially for fast, professional use, the UI makes it impossible. Their raw features are on par with anything I'd want to do in Photoshop, it's 100% a UI issue at this point. And I don't get why it's this hard for open source projects to realize that (the only notable exception I know is Firefox, which I love).

Sometimes when there isn’t unlimited funding and the ability to spend unlimited time, the efforts are probably spent on core functionality over aesthetics. GIMP is a highly featureful project with powerful scripting capabilities. I wouldn’t say it isn’t already on par or more powerful than Photoshop.

“Aesthetics” is dismissive to what UX is about. I am certain there are some that would prefer doing image editing at the command line if they were in charge of UI which is exactly the wrong answer for this type of software.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#116
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to support GIMP but, especially for fast, professional use, the UI makes it impossible. Their raw features are on par with anything I'd want to do in Photoshop, it's 100% a UI issue at this point. And I don't get why it's this hard for open source projects to realize that (the only notable exception I know is Firefox, which I love).

Personally I've found GIMP's UI to be easier than Photoshop's, but I started out with the GIMP. I wonder if maybe they shouldn't go with a XUL like system where the UI can be greatly customized by third parties. Someone would undoubtedly create the Photoshop clone UI and make a bunch of people happy.

I don't know if XUL is the right choice, but I think this general direction might be a good idea.

The idea of an independant open source project focusing itself on producing a commercial quality UI seems a little ludicrous to me. This type of UI requires continued multi-disciplinary effort and process over a timeframe of years. And this is the exact weak spot of projects funded entirely/mostly on a volunteer/contribution basis.

This idea of a highly customizable toolkit (a la Emacs for graphics), in contrast, goes to the strengths of the open source model. Open source projects tend to be developer-heavy, and developers tend to like to build frameworks/abstractions... so a natural fit. Frameworks tend to be easier to use when the underlying code is available for various kinds of inspection, so the open source model fits there too. I'm not saying it'd necessarily be a cakewalk, but it seems like a closer fit to that OSS is really good at.

(Of course, frameworks are more complex and expensive to develop than single applications, so this idea has that going against it.)

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#117
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is exactly the problem with gimp's UI? I find it intuitive and very easy to use (but then, I have not used many other interactive imaging programs). Is it missing something important? Has too many useless features? GIMP's UI is alright for me, what I need are more features that are sorely lacking: 1) ability to work with images having an arbitrary number of spectral bands 2) floating-point pixel values 3) comple…

> What is exactly the problem with gimp's UI? Where do I start? - sometimes when I start it it doesn't display toolbox - when I open the toolbox it is (sometimes) a vertical line of buttons (single column) instead of 5 columns that I begged it countless times to be - setting the size of pencil is completely unintuitive - I usually click in what appears to be input field, only to discover it is not (but instead some m…

> setting the size of pencil is completely unintuitive - I usually click in what appears to be input field, only to discover it is not (but instead some meter that sets size to some huge number)

It actually is an input field, but it can be interacted with in 3 ways. Clicking on the value focuses it, and allows editing by keyboard. Clicking and dragging in the bottom half of the block allows you to increase or decrease the value by dragging left or right, and the movements you make translate to relatively smaller value changes, so you can be relatively precise. Clicking and dragging in the top half of the block allows you to select a specific value by dragging, and the position of the cursor translates directly to the position of that value on the bar.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#118

My hope: whichever direction Gimp development goes, they should try doing something similar to Blender - where they bring a bunch of developers and artists into a space. While they're in that space (for a limited amount of time) work on some big project involving Gimp. Develop Gimp to suite that project's needs.

Can we streamline the controls?

Thats what GIMP needs. After 9 years of using GIMP I switched to photoshop because I was doing many photos and couldnt hand the inconsistency of what each button does.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#119
post #97

Free-to-play is huge in gaming, but in tooling it’s not. Why? A free Photoshop integrating a brush marketplace would make a shit ton of money. A free Premiere with a marketplace for effects?

I think when you're in a serious work mood, not having fun playing a game, that sort of thing would be incredibly infuriating. Also, Photoshop is usually paid for by people's employees anyway, so the user doesn't really care about the price.

> that sort of thing would be incredibly infuriating

Why? You already have to pay for these things, except you need to go look for them everywhere and find out how to import them and restore them from somewhere if you change machine. A marketplace for tooling is uber-valuable, and it's also an insane opportunity for creators who want to sell on these marketplaces.

The only thing I'm talking about is:

1. make the software free

2. incorporate a marketplace to find free or paid add-ons, brushes, effects, etc...

3. take a cut

Post reply on HN