GIMP development - What’s the point? • Hacker News Board

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#131

Post by throwanem » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #67

nnq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many examples of complex professional systems that prove a decent UX is still possible ...and Adobe PS is not one of them! People tolerate its UX/I because the functionality is unequaled and, after you commit to visual and muscle-memory all the shortcuts and locations of commands and options, you can be extremely productive despite the UX/I. Also, people coming from the "physical arts" category are kind o…

"people coming from the "physical arts" category are kind of used to horrible UX/I... I mean, the "UX/I" of a paint brush is pure horror story" How would you improve on the UI of a physical paint brush?

Unsuccessfully, I'd wager.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#132

Post by throwanem » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 6:38 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #118

freehunter wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought we left the idea of "you can't complain about something unless you built it yourself" way behind us. That's not a constructive way to talk about anything. I can't write a "hello world" in Clojure, but I still know it's a trivial thing to do. If someone was bragging to me about their hello world and I said "that's really simple", should they respond back "So you contributed to my hello world, right?" I'm not…

There's constructive criticism, which is usually welcomed, and then there are just plain complaints. Alleging that the uniform transport tool is simple to code helps no one. It just expresses the author's disdain for the accomplishments of volunteers who added a feature to a free and open source tool. If he thought it was so simple, he could have actually spent a few minutes to help a project which everybody can see…

> a few minutes

Have you looked at the GIMP wiki's "how to build" pages lately? The build environment is quite complex, especially if you're doing cross-platform builds, and between the "work in progress" disclaimer and the fact that nobody's paid much attention to those pages this year, I have a strong feeling that following those directions as written doesn't result in a working build env.

If you're already a GIMP dev, sure, it might be a few minutes. If you're not, it's probably going to be more like a few hours, more or less depending on whether anyone who can help is paying attention to IRC, just to get to the point where you can start hacking on it at all. That's a lot of time and irritation to invest.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#133

Post by throwanem » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

MildlySerious wrote: post #54

pmoriarty wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cropping is a "HUGE pain"? Are you kidding me? 1. Rectangle select. 2. Image -> Crop to selection. How much simpler can you get?

Exactly. I found myself using GIMP for exactly those "quick" scenarios because PS, especially before CS6, was just bulky and overcomplicated. GIMP: Roughly select something, zoom in to make it pixel-perfect, see the size of the selection in the bottom left, and just drag until it fits your need. PS? Roughly select something. Figure out the size of the selection. Zoom in. Dig into the menu.. Transform selection? Adjus…

> PS? Roughly select something. Figure out the size of the selection. Zoom in. Dig into the menu.. Transform selection? Adjust. What's the size now? .. Nope, thanks. I am done 5 times over in GIMP by the time I did that.

Photoshop has a separate crop tool. It gives you a region with handles so you can make fine adjustments before pulling the trigger. You can crop to selection in Photoshop, but it's not the primary way of doing so.

"Why not just use selections the way GIMP does?" you might ask. Well, why not just split the functionality the way Photoshop does? Both approaches are valid. Complaining about one or the other because it's not the way you are accustomed to do things is at best unproductive.

(Edited to add: And I gather GIMP has a crop tool, too, and has done since at least 2.4, which was released in 2007. So maybe it's just a matter of learning to use the tool at hand? I mean, don't get me wrong - there's a whole lot I don't like about GIMP! I won't use it unless I have literally no other alternative, including Paint.net and command-line transforms via ImageMagick. But I do try to avoid complaining about problems it doesn't actually have.)

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#134

Post by initram » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

exDM69 wrote: post #55

WhitneyLand wrote: post #42

Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project. Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close. They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios. The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code. They are 5-10 years behind what you get in P…

GIMP, Inkscape, Blender and other open source art production tools have a big chicken and egg problem. To really improve, they need more professionals using them and a part of them should be developers or willing to chip in by other means. But because there are issues (education included) that are deal breakers for pros, you can't expect it to get better quickly. The situation is much worse for art production tools (…

I would think that you could find a well-known artist who would be willing to consult on improving a product, especially if they got to have someone implement their pet features the way they want them to be implemented. But the question is - are the tools good enough to even get there or are there so many missing or poorly implemented features that it would be a full rewrite (at least of the UI) to even start?

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#135

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #67

nnq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many examples of complex professional systems that prove a decent UX is still possible ...and Adobe PS is not one of them! People tolerate its UX/I because the functionality is unequaled and, after you commit to visual and muscle-memory all the shortcuts and locations of commands and options, you can be extremely productive despite the UX/I. Also, people coming from the "physical arts" category are kind o…

"people coming from the "physical arts" category are kind of used to horrible UX/I... I mean, the "UX/I" of a paint brush is pure horror story" How would you improve on the UI of a physical paint brush?

[deleted]

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#136

Post by nnq » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #67

nnq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many examples of complex professional systems that prove a decent UX is still possible ...and Adobe PS is not one of them! People tolerate its UX/I because the functionality is unequaled and, after you commit to visual and muscle-memory all the shortcuts and locations of commands and options, you can be extremely productive despite the UX/I. Also, people coming from the "physical arts" category are kind o…

"people coming from the "physical arts" category are kind of used to horrible UX/I... I mean, the "UX/I" of a paint brush is pure horror story" How would you improve on the UI of a physical paint brush?

A self-washing brush with a paint-injection system coupled to a digital paints mixer? Add a system to only harden the paint when a special wavelength UV light is shined on it (maybe include the "hardening lamp" in brush's head?). Add away to switch between jet-mode (spray can paint) and brush mode, and you get a graffitty artist's wet dream.

Joke aside, with paint and anything physical you got constraints of physics and chemistry. And anything too sophisticated will be expensive and prone to breaking so nobody will use it. Try to make it reliable and it will have the cost of a piece from an F-35.

None of these constraints exist for software, so you don't really have any excuse to not do UX/I right.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#137

Post by makomk » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

exDM69 wrote: post #55

WhitneyLand wrote: post #42

Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project. Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options but GIMP is not even close. They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed for so many scenarios. The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code. They are 5-10 years behind what you get in P…

GIMP, Inkscape, Blender and other open source art production tools have a big chicken and egg problem. To really improve, they need more professionals using them and a part of them should be developers or willing to chip in by other means. But because there are issues (education included) that are deal breakers for pros, you can't expect it to get better quickly. The situation is much worse for art production tools (…

Not all open source art production tools, though - Krita seems to have carved out a niche community of happy artistic users, probably because there's room for tools that take a different approach to Photoshop.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#138

Post by douche » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 7:57 PM UTC

aikah wrote: post #74

tomtomtom777 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For professional use, how does modern GIMP compare to modern PS?

It can't. If you work in the industry you'll be expected to use a specific format (.psd). I'm pretty sure you can't open a file created with the latest version of Photoshop in Gimp. The graphic design industry is one of these industries that have been completely monopolized by a single vendor. I liked Macromedia approach with Fireworks, which didn't require the software in order to preview what a project looked like…

Fireworks was great. I still have a copy somewhere for those tasks that Paint.Net isn't quite good enough for.

Every time I try to use Photoshop or GIMP, it feels like it is just too complicated for what I'm trying to do, and I don't have the time to invest in learning where they've hidden my cheese.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#139

Post by Retra » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

WhitneyLand wrote: post #63

nnq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many examples of complex professional systems that prove a decent UX is still possible ...and Adobe PS is not one of them! People tolerate its UX/I because the functionality is unequaled and, after you commit to visual and muscle-memory all the shortcuts and locations of commands and options, you can be extremely productive despite the UX/I. Also, people coming from the "physical arts" category are kind o…

Totally agree PS has its own UX issues. My personal favorite: different key combinations for the first time you undo and the second time you undo.

You're just undoing the undo.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#140

Post by MicroBerto » Fri, Sep 23, 2016, 8:18 PM UTC

Not sure what he's talking about (Warp stuff) since I'm a GIMP amateur, but he should make a YouTube video of his finest 3-minute GIMP presentation then.