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GIMP development - What’s the point?

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Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#71

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…

Complaining about php is like complaining about an axe:

Yes, it might hurt incompetent people but the people who master it have a truly nifty tool at their disposal.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#72
post #56

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…

> 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…

I would argue that while the photoshop user interface is unintuitive and inconsistent, it does have the saving grace that once you learn it, you can actually do things very quickly. It definitely caters to its entrenched, professional userbase rather than neophytes.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#73

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…

I have too agree, there are software (sketch, pixelmator, etc) on Mac that just got released a few years ago that surpass gimp in basically every single function including usability.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#74

People whining about GIMP not being as good as PS don't appreciate what life was like on Linux before GIMP existed, or how primitive GIMP was when it first came out. GIMP has advanced leaps and bound over what it once was. I remember for ages PS fans were complaining about how GIMP had a multiple window layout, and how unnecessarily complex that was, and they wanted a single window layout. So the volunteers who work…

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 since it used PNG format. All Macromedia tools have since then been flushed down the toilets by Adobe. There is something Macromedia achieve with the notion of "community" that Adobe was never able to do.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#75
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…

I would argue that while the photoshop user interface is unintuitive and inconsistent, it does have the saving grace that once you learn it, you can actually do things very quickly. It definitely caters to its entrenched, professional userbase rather than neophytes.

The same is mostly true of Gimp as well. In fact I find Gimp has more intuitive ways to do a good number of tasks than Photoshop, but if you already know Photoshop the Gimp way will seem foreign.

As someone who figured out Gimp and was then asked to work on Photoshop some, I found Photoshop's methods to be awkward and needlessly complicated in places.

I am still an amateur however. I might break out the Gimp once a month or so.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#76
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: [Deleted] I'm sorry, but I don't find the tool intuitive. I ran into issues using it. I installed fresh copy and tried steps commenters suggested and it worked well. However this was not my experience a mere two days ago.

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

You can get simpler in GIMP: just use a specialized Crop tool instead of Rectangle Select.

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#77

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…

"The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple thing to code."

So you contributed to its development, right?

Re: GIMP development - What’s the point?

#80

People whining about GIMP not being as good as PS don't appreciate what life was like on Linux before GIMP existed, or how primitive GIMP was when it first came out. GIMP has advanced leaps and bound over what it once was. I remember for ages PS fans were complaining about how GIMP had a multiple window layout, and how unnecessarily complex that was, and they wanted a single window layout. So the volunteers who work…

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

I recently tried PS for the first time after using Gimp for almost 20 years. My images I work with are about 40"x40" at 600-1200 dpi.

First impressions was that PS was a somewhat faster (about 25%) for certain operations like duplicating layers and it's interface was intuitive after using GIMP for so long, but the advantages I saw aren't enough to convince me to switch on OSX.

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