GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released
gimp.org
gimp.org
For me, GIMP has always excelled in making simple actions simple. Even today I am quite surprised that other software has not taken some of the ideas for interface that gimp has.
Mainly:
- The selection tool is just miles ahead any of the software I have used. It makes the crop tool obsolete and every time I have to switch modes just to resize my previous rectangular selection I long for it.
- Resizing and clipping layers is dead simple. Other programs I have used have no "clip to selection" on layers and I have never understood why.
- Color to transparency is a single button
- Masks are actually simple to use as one can draw on them using all tools, not just some arbitrary subset
It has its dose of quirks and the interface is in dire need of a rework, however I must say that despite what many people say I find GIMP quite intuitive to use. I suppose that it is a force of habit.
Edit: formatting
This is huge. I've used Pixelmator because I liked its UI, but even simplest tasks like this one were unnecessary hard. I kept Gimp just for this.
Adobe Photoshop and GIMP's interfaces have always felt clunky and non-intuitive to me. I use Photoshop occasionally at work and GIMP at home and really don't enjoy or look forward to using either. I actually try to stay in Inkscape as much as possible with everything I do these days.
That being said, GIMP is capable and it's fantastic for the price. I just don't like it.
I still use GIMP to this day, largely because I've never ran into limitations that a little scheme or python didn't solve. I've never had a reason to use something else. I still install GIMP as one of the first apps on Windows or Mac OS machines I need to use for any length of time.
Did you ever try mtPaint[0]? It has such selection feature too
> - Resizing and clipping layers is dead simple. Other programs I have used have no "clip to selection" on layers and I have never understood why.
In mtPaint just select rectangle and click "Delete" button ;-)
[0] https://github.com/matyler/mtPaint
[1] http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/handbook/en_GB/chap_04.html
If I want to do something similar in Affinity Photo for example, I have to make the selection, go to quick mask mode, and then use the move tool. In Pixelmator it had similar issues.
> In mtPaint just select rectangle and click "Delete" button ;-)
That looks a bit unintuitive to me. I would expect that this would either fill the selection with white (or the set document background color, or with transparency).
Kudos to the dev team.
That looks so ridiculous and out-of-place in an image editing program. If it weren't for the left side, you'd think it was Visual Studio!
https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/MSDNBlogsFS/p...
This is another case where developers decide what's cool, and of course pick features that are cool to them, not their users.
Not once in my life would I ever think I'm missing that feature in GIMP.
If you're moving from one platform to another, you want legacy files to import perfectly, especially when you don't have time to convert old Illustrator assets into svg files.
On Mac/Windows at least, Affinity Designer was the first app around $50 or under that didn't mangle any of the .ai files I threw at it.
The confrontation comes from the fact that one side insists the software is there (GIMP), whereas the other side view them as disconnected from reality since its use in industry rounds to 0%.
And I think the attitude comes in when GIMP is ignorantly held up as if it were a serious competitor. It isn't. It's something else entirely. It might be good enough for people to make memes for internet shitposting, but between the missing features and the alien UI (to the point where a massive reskin [1] was around for a while), it's never going to be used in industry.
If the GIMP devs want to continue down this path, more power to 'em, I just want the people claiming that it's a Photoshop competitor to educate themselves :)
Who here is claiming GIMP is a serious competitor to Photoshop, or even a competitor at all? Even the GIMP team doesn't (https://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#are-you-trying-to-dev...).
Or that GIMP is targeting graphics professionals or graphics industry? Don't think so... "We do, however, acknowledge the fact that people will treat GIMP as Photoshop replacement no matter what we tell them, and that’s all right with us. You own this software, it’s up to you to decide how you make use of it."
It is what it is. A tool. That happens to be free and is good enough for some. As somebody above said, it's like complaining why emacs / kate / geany or whatever editor can't do something that visual studio can. If the industry wants a serious competitor to Photoshop, time for them to start building it anew or taking existing free tools nearer to that goal or funding open source devs to do it for them. Complaining and ranting against open source devs who have zero obligations to the industry is not going to achieve anything.
Further, people have tried to get usability fixes into GIMP, and been shot down, as "that's not what the project wants to do."
What is the "dodging" in limiting functional scope of a tool? Each and every software project I know of places some limits on what it will and won't implement. Even Adobe has a suite of tools where one tool like Photoshop can do things Illustrator can't and vice versa. It's not Adobe being "dodgy" about their tools, and nor are open source projects.
Nothing stops people from forking GIMP, implementing whatever fixes they want, distributing, and even selling it. Refusing pull requests is not a crime.
To put that up as the solution is to be fully divorced from reality.
Just gimme the facts, please.
Krita is targeted at artists and illustrators, just like any other specialized tool. People don't look at Vim and complain that lacks desktop publishing features, despite novelists and programmers both needing to manipulate text.
The original complaint regarded tools for artists, and that's Krita. For photographers, there's DarkTable (https://www.darktable.org/), RawTherapee (http://www.rawtherapee.com/), and many others. For my modest needs, I find DigiKam (and occasionally The GIMP) adequate, though I am envious of proprietary tools.
And thus the cyclical debate continues for another turn while a competitive raster editor remains unavailable in the open source ecosystem.
But not, and I repeat -- not when complaints are made in demanding and offensive tone, without providing useful feedback.
I think Pinta is a really good software for artists.
No, it's not :)
"At the 31st of May, 1999, the KImageShop project officially kicked off with a mail by Matthias Elter."
From the very website you linked to :)
Still, a truly amazing project.
And unless you're an artist who does that yourself, it's a bit much to ask others to meet your needs for free like that in the first place.
If non-dev artists want to see that gap close, they need to contribute, not just wait for mana from heaven.
No, that doesn't have to mean actually writing the software. But it could mean paying someone else to do the coding, even if the software is ultimately released as OSS.
It's astounding that a company that makes graphics software can't support modern hardware at all.
But I guess they are the company that can't fix the tremendous piece of shit known as flash
That's a surprise and nice to hear! I thought the support wasn't too great and it requires GTK+3.x or newer. It still uses GTK+2.x (see https://wiki.gimp.org/wiki/Roadmap).
GIMP's users aren't the handful of developers who develop GIMP. GIMP's users would be people that switch to Linux and are looking for an alternative to Photoshop. GIMP is for some reason referred to them as the go-to for image manipulation on Linux so they try it, and when they can't use it they either install Photoshop via Wine or go back to Windows.
I don't know why people recommend GIMP instead of Pinta or more usable software, honestly.
Try adding a text line, then editing it. See if you still want to recommend Pinta.
I absolutely love the idea of having a simple image editor for users who don't need most GIMP features. Pinta devs got quite a few things right, but it needs SO much more work...
FWIW, I have missed better tools for performance tweaking in competing (Adobe) products, so while I don't know if the one in GIMP would be useful, I can see why one would want something like it even as an end user.
Log files aren't user-facing. A performance meter in an image editing program is completely useless to 99% of its users.
The more commonly used features are, the more prominent they should be in the UI.
If not, the "Compose" or "Send" button in email clients should be as big as "view connection details" (to give you an example).
That's how you reduce clutter. GIMP does that horribly, so they should probably _remove_ something, not add.
Come on, get a grip on yourself.
So, as a user I have to identify bottlenecks, now..? That would be my first question.
Since you're implying that by not thinking the performance indicator is an important feature for the average user I want GIMP to be slower, yes--actually I would definitely opt for a slower, usable program than a fast unusable one, and I never thought speed was a problem of GIMP.
Right now I'm running Wine to be able to edit this PSD file without going crazy trying to use GIMP's interface, so obviously speed is not what I care about. I'm sure I'm not the only one, since other problems and not speed seem to be stopping people from using GIMP as their image editor.
Please do pay attention. The release notes specifically describe who did that and for what purpose, and what's in it for end-users. It's all there for you to read. Just please pay attention.
> and I never thought speed was a problem of GIMP
Which suggests that you never used such a basic feature as Gaussian blur in both Photoshop and GIMP.
GIMP _is_ slower than it should be. It actually _is_ a problem for people with modern DSLRs. We want to fix that problem.
Are you sure that performance is a problem for most users? I have talked to people about GIMP before, and it came out 0 times, while usability was the problem that forced most people to install Photoshop or go back to Windows.
In the past 3 days, I've opened pretty big illustrations (about 20,000px* 8000px) on a i35 thinker (mobile phone processor), and I had absolutely no problem opening them, scrolling around, etc.
Doing basic operations like moving, cropping, and resizing layers was so cumbersome that after 3 days I gave up and installed Photoshop 7.
You don't like my tone, and I don't like your inability to process basic information written in clear English in the first two paragraphs of an article that you are discussing, followed by making ridiculous offensive statements. Are we even?
> Are you sure that performance is a problem for most users?
The majority of people who work on large images and use filters do have issue with performance of GIMP. Helping them is a priority to us.
> Doing basic operations like moving, cropping, and resizing layers was so cumbersome that after 3 days I gave up and installed Photoshop 7.
I'm still waiting for those "4 times fewer steps" in Pinta.
If you're part of the project, your attitude is exactly what I'm talking about, so thanks for reinforcing my convictions.
If you're not, since I'm unable to process basic information I wouldn't want to waste your time.
Let's call it a day.
That's funny. They can't be inaccurate, because I'm talking about my personal experience using the software.
As for offending, I never even talked about anyone--just the project, and you are the one who's offended me personally by saying that I should get a grip of myself, I don't understand basic concepts in English, etc. etc.--which let me tell you doesn't look that good for GIMP as a project.
This is how many open source projects handle criticism. I've seen this before, and I'm not surprised. Like I said, thanks for reinforcing the conviction I have that many projects stay in their silos and don't listen to users--to say it nicely--because they don't owe them anything (which of course it's true, but still).
Regular users have no idea how to or have the willingness to get in touch with you, they'll just uninstall and move on. When someone in the middle like me does offer criticism, he doesn't understand basic concepts explained clearly to him--like you said--so obviously there's no solution.
> That said, my way of handling them is most likely far from being humble.
I guess we agree on this one (yay!)
No, this is how some projects handle bullshit.
Criticism is fine and even useful.
Lemme explain the difference, because you are still not taking a grip on yourself.
When you think developers introduced a regression and refuse to fix it, and you can use arguments other than 'because I said so' to prove your point — this is criticism.
When you completely disregard all explanations why a certain feature was added, when you completely dismiss people pointing out that no, in fact other software has the same feature, and people do use it, then continue arguing ad nauseam — this is bullshit.
Got it? Good.
Now, you can be constructive and pay attention, and then we can have a conversation, or you can continue dismissing facts and go on living in an echo chamber. Your choice.
You both prove my point further and give me something to link to for whenever the attitude of GIMP devs towards users will come up.
Photoshop has it too (https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/performance-preferen...)
> A new Dashboard dock helps with monitoring GIMP’s resource usage to keep things in check, allowing you to make more educated decisions about various configuration options. Dashboard dock
> On the developer side, it also helps us in debugging and profiling various operations or parts of the interface, which is important in our constant quest to improve GIMP and GEGL, and detect which parts are the biggest bottlenecks.
[0] http://appimage.github.io/apps
[1] https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/tag/c...
[2] https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/downl...
Now I'm back to Photoshop CS3 from 11 years ago, yet many years ahead of today's GIMP. It has smart objects and filters, layer effects, live previews and the very good UI means I can get things done much faster.
There's this annoying FLOSS motte-and-bailey conversation that you see over and over again that starts with "X is a Free replacement for Y!" and ends with "Why don't you fix it yourself then?", via "Nobody ever said X was a replacement for Y".
PS is a commercial image editor owned by a company with billions of dollars and many years worth of commercial development and improvements - it is used by a very specific group of users with specific needs and specific skills. And they don't mind paying a hefty fee for it.
GIMP (and other similar OS projects) is for everyone else, who wants to do light image editing in an amateur setting without having to pay a large amount for it.
Having said that - GIMP has some very powerful features that are as good as PS, but not a feature parity replacement of it. Nor do I think GIMP has the funding or the development mind-share to achieve that.
Except that isn't really true either. If you want to do "light image editing in an amateur setting" GIMP is massive overkill, and there are plenty of easier to use tools. GIMP lives in a strange limbo between not 'light' enough for light work and not heavy enough for 'heavy' work.
I work in a team of two on a game with an artist that uses Photoshop and as I sometimes look behind their arm, I see lots of UI conventions that GIMP just does so much better and easier, especially when it comes to selecting and placing stuff around. However, I do envy some of the features like live effects on layers that would actually make my life as GIMP user so much easier; and using effects in GIMP generally isn't as pleasant as it should be.
For me it looks like both come with their own strengths and weaknesses and both would benefit from copying some ideas from each other.
I know I am being a bit bitter for an open source project with less funding, but GIMP was supposed to be a poster boy GTK application in the first place.
Anyway, turns out maintaining a professional image editing program is a lot of work. While it is true many fanboys named gimp as some kind of foss and gtk showcase its not like most of them were actively contributing to either gtk or gimp.
There was never any longterm large scale commercial investment in gimp similar to how redhat threw massive resources into gnome and gtk.
This is wrong. GNOME was already well underway when Qt switched to GPL. Before that it used QPL and before that yet another license.
"Sadly, the KDE effort is based on the Qt user interface toolkit which is a non-free library. The main problem is that modification of the toolkit is not allowed. The ability to modify the interface toolkit is a requirement of free software[6] and of the Open Source Software Guidelines[17]. Although Qt is released in source form, permission to redistribute changes made to it is denied."
This is a serious question in general. There will always be s steady stream of significant upgrades/changes of any popular open source project as later developers add in things they consider important. At some point the decision has to be made to stop following those changes. This decision is usually made by default when it turns out that no one can be bothered to follow the changes of a project from another project.
At the same time there is an ongoing transition to use GEGL as the pixel manipulation API, which eventually plugins also need to be updated for.
2.10 is the release which provides all the new APIs for plugins to use, so they can start updating (but existing code will work). 3.0 will then remove the old pixel manipulation APIs, and also transition to GTK3+.
This hopefully keeps the burden on plugin devs to a minimum, and keep the compatibility clear for users (plugins for GIMP2 dont work on GIMP3, and vica versa).
We really need more interdisciplinary developers and free software enthusiasts. I know I'm already working on it as an artist-turned-coder :D
I like free software. It doesn't have to be free as in price. Various small free software developers are supported by its users, e.g. Liberapay / Patreon / Tipeee. Various things were contributed by ZeMarmot. This project is supported by its users using above methods.
> We really need more interdisciplinary developers and free software enthusiasts.
It seems just having people contribute by paying a small amount per week/month is also pretty good method. This allows the existing developers to dedicate more of their time to the project.
When I eventually switched to Windows, I basically ended up repurchasing Designer and Photo. Their software is great for the price.
I realized that I am willing to pay around 60$ for a marvelous editor (Sublime Text) or audio recording program (Reaper), in a non-subscription model, with non-cumbersome licence handling. I wish there was something similar for CAD software - something like Fusion 360, but where I can pay 60$ and be sure to be able to use it for the next 5 years.
I used to pay for Photoshop, but it's so darn expensive and I even had to pay to get out of my subscription plan. Affinity Photo cost like one or two months of Photoshop and isn't a subscription service.
I guess the people in this thread are only interested in open source alternatives, because I can't imagine anyone objecting to it on its merits!