Live data from Hacker News

GIMP receives a $100K donation

gimp.org

301–310 of 318 posts

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#301
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point exactly! GIMP is GNU's image manipulation program, not photo manipulation program. Most images are not photos.

GIMP is called the GNU Image Manipulation Program, but that doesn't mean it should do every imaginable kind of image manipulation. Scientific image processing and the things that GIMP and Photoshop are useful for are different enough that to add all of ImageJ features to GIMP or vice versa would make them more confusing, waste developer time and focus, and overall hurt users. And I say this as a user of both. Just us…

I'm interested in the democratization of access to taxpayer-funded public high resolution images. So far, GIMP cannot easily open any of those, and it bothers me, because it is a useful tool otherwise. I do not want to install "scientific" software just for viewing and cropping a satellite image.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#302
post #288
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…

I'm genuinely curious out of ignorance more than anything. I've farted around with ps but since I've only ever used gimp as an artist, what am I missing?

I know this sounds lame, but this is kind of like explaining why Vim or Emacs is a better editor than Notepad -- you can describe a feature (say, syntax highlighting or compile and jump to first error), but its power is not clear unless you see it in action a few times. If you are genuinely curious, maybe find a local photo hobbyist and just ask to watch him work after a photo shoot.

To me (and I am just an occasional hobbyist), it is mostly the UI: the interface, flow and visual appearance is just right. As a simple example, moving levels slider ( https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/levels-adjustment.ht... ) with mouse and having a single-click option to see clipped areas is a killer feature. You can see it in other ways, but having this on/off before/after without moving a mouse is super powerful. Someone mentioned adjustment levels (and masks) that, to me, are done just right.

Gimp is the right tool for thinking about images in numbers: average the area, find maximum channel intensity, stretch to full range. But it is lacking for folks who want to drag sliders around and see the changes to find out what looks good.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#303
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GIMP is called the GNU Image Manipulation Program, but that doesn't mean it should do every imaginable kind of image manipulation. Scientific image processing and the things that GIMP and Photoshop are useful for are different enough that to add all of ImageJ features to GIMP or vice versa would make them more confusing, waste developer time and focus, and overall hurt users. And I say this as a user of both. Just us…

I'm interested in the democratization of access to taxpayer-funded public high resolution images. So far, GIMP cannot easily open any of those, and it bothers me, because it is a useful tool otherwise. I do not want to install "scientific" software just for viewing and cropping a satellite image.

[deleted]

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're about an order of magnitude off.

I wonder what kind of wonderland you live in where most senior developers make close to half a million dollars.

$20/hr was a contract rate. Your 1/2 million presumably is a salary (base). Not the same thing. $20/hr is roughly equivalent to $20k salary. $200k salary is reasonable for a competent developer who can hop on adding features to Gimp.

In my reality no developer (even a sh*y one) makes $20k.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're about an order of magnitude off.

Do people really expect to be paid market rate for open source work?

I think that "what people expect to be paid" is the very definition of "market rate".

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Does Photoshop have a good UI?" No, Photoshop has never had a good UI (neither has Illustrator). The problem is that people who use Photoshop on a regular basis have memorised the keyboard shortcuts and steps needed to complete tasks. The Photoshop way of doing things, no matter how clunky or unintuitive, is now the natural way of doing things for them (and their frame of reference when trying out another app). It's…

I disagree.

Illustrator is a pain, fine, whatever.

Photoshops UI is optimized for its workflows. I was able to learn Photoshop easily enough, I've been able to learn other image manipulation programs quickly, but despite having spent many hours in GIMP, I hate every minute of using it.

If I go "create new image", there isn't an option to create a new image that is the size of the image on my clipboard.

There is not a dedicated "interact with this selection" tool, like the arrow tool in PS, instead there is a tool that sometimes draws new boundaries, bit the rectangle select tool also moves newly pasted layers, which is a different action than the move tool, which is also confusing.

Pasting just sucks. Why is it a new floating layer that I then have to right click on and say "new layer", just create a new layer, not this annoying psuedo-layer thing.

Everytime I want to move something I have selected, I want to scream. I create a selection, so, move tool right? NO. The move tool lets me move layers I have made. Joy.

In fact after having spent a couple minutes on it, I still can't figure it out, but then again why GIMP is so damn confusing I have to figure things out every time I use it? Good programs are learned, GIMP is suffered through.

The way to move something that is selected is the same in literally every other image manipulation program ever made, but GIMP has to be different.

Hilariously enough, all other transforms on selections are super easy, just not translates.

Actually, you know what, I just looked it up.

To move the selected pixels, the user is supposed to control-alt-drag, then release control and alt, and keep dragging.

One of the most common interactions in an image manipulation program is hidden behind a double-meta with a click drag attached to it, and then a release of that double-meta?

That is jaw droppingly bad UI.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there are people who are UI experts who would be willing to improve FLOSS UIs in their spare time. The problem is that the current developer base of many FLOSS project don't understand that a) decent UI requires an expertise and b) knowing how their poor UIs are implemented doesn't count as expertise in UI development. For example-- if I write to a FLOSS mailing list that the way they are using realloc leave…

> the current developer base of many FLOSS project don't understand that a) decent UI requires an expertise One additional problem is that it's hard to know who to listen to. Someone who seems like a confident UI expert might as well be a misguided visionary who will turn GIMP into the next Windows 8. Randomly trusting a designer is probably just as dangerous as randomly trusting a software developer.

If problems "a" and "b" above have been addressed, this doesn't matter. Developers can simply delegate part of the decision process to some UI expert they already know and trust.

Compare

"Your UI improvement sounds interesting but it's too risky to trust a random UI expert. Sorry."

To

"I ran the idea by X and they mentioned that accessibility would become a problem with your approach. How do you plan to address that?"

IMO one sounds more likely to attract quality contributions than the other.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, this line came across as pretty snarky: "This isn't at all hard to find." (I don't necessarily object to snarkiness. And obviously, tone can be hard to judge in plain text.)

Oh, good god. If I really thought the question meant the person was being lazy or something, I simply wouldn't have answered it. I'm well aware that if you know what to search on, it can be easy, and if you don't, it can be impossible. I did the search, found lots of stuff readily available, shared my exact search phrase so it could be replicated and explained my reasoning for sharing the search phrase instead of a l…

I'm not trying to bust your chops, I'm trying to let you know how you come across. If you don't care, that's fine.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, good god. If I really thought the question meant the person was being lazy or something, I simply wouldn't have answered it. I'm well aware that if you know what to search on, it can be easy, and if you don't, it can be impossible. I did the search, found lots of stuff readily available, shared my exact search phrase so it could be replicated and explained my reasoning for sharing the search phrase instead of a l…

I'm not trying to bust your chops, I'm trying to let you know how you come across. If you don't care, that's fine.

> let you know how you come across.

To you which may mean that it is merely possible to infer snarkiness.

> If you don't care, that's fine.

Haha that doesn't help.

Re: GIMP receives a $100K donation

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you'll provide more detail as to which inconsistencies you've found, I'll take the time to test and write up an actionable bug report.

That would actually be a valuable service.

Many users don't know where or how or what to put in a bug report.

If some had a site that you could just write free-form prose others more experienced could convert that to actionable bug reports.

Post reply on HN