Open source graphic design
ponnuki.net
ponnuki.net
> The code is open, if you want your tools to do
> something different you are welcome to change it.
Wait... do people consider that a serious argument? Have they been drinking the open source kool-aid a little too much?
The thing is, that corporate plan is driven by profitability, and profitability is driven by what people want. It's just basic economics at work.
In contrast, the FOSS approach is to rely on either charity or an alternative business model. When it comes to doing the nasty but necessary hard work to make good software, neither of those has proved as reliable an incentive as being able to pay the rent.
> this is mainly a comparison to closed source - if it's not
> in the corporation plan - you won't ever see the change
> you want.
Also, it's not that closed source design applications are a walled garden, Photoshop supports plugins since way before Gimp was released. I beleive it was a feature the Knoll brothers worked on from the first version.
> And I also think that everyone should learn programming
> too ;) but that's another story!
This is so not true or at least not on an absolute level.
The possibility that Scribus is a cumbersome mess (I haven't used it) is irrelevant to this point.
BTW, I'm not saying it's easy I'm just saying what would get an entrenched person like me to change. There are plenty of designers I know who feel the same.
After getting through the UI differences and learning curve, I was still disappointed. Most of these apps feel like they've only been handled by causal users.
The worst memory was in GIMP working with layer sizing and floating objects, so many things were fixed and required hunting through menus or googling shortcuts to get them to resize or to place an object out of edit mode. The equivalent in photoshop is the enter key, or automatic layer boundary resizing, etc. The application does a much better job of staying out of your way.
If you're noodling about with a few photos its no big deal but the first major file I had to tackle with a few dozen layers and objects burned me out completely. I literally stood up, went to the shops, purchased a copy of windows and got my old setup back.
The secondary issue in the background of all this was the time invested to work around rendering speed issues, video drivers, wacom compatibility etc; none of which earns me any coin but needed to be resolved before doing any work. Unfortunately this will always be measured against the ease of getting Windows setup on a machine (less than half a day to a production ready box versus a solid week of problem resolution under the Ubuntu/Suse/Gimp combo).
I aim for open source usage whenever I can, and the quality is there, my main gripe always seems to be workflow. If more professionals start using it and providing feedback, yes, it will mature. However I think at this point to claim they are a straight replacement (in the case of Gimp and inkscape) is a bit short sighted when you consider the workload some of these tools support.
And it's not about features (apart from the retarded "layer size" micromanagement Gimp forces on you), but the UI is so confusing and inconsistent even Photoshop 5.0 is lightyears ahead.
Disclaimer: My main use is photography. I have friends more into drawing that have different opinions.
You mentioned a technical issue, the handling of big raster images. Does it run out of memory quickly in comparison to Photoshop? What is the issue? I thought I remember gimp not being able to handle 16-bit tiffs or something along those lines.
> You mentioned a technical issue, the handling of big
> raster images. Does it run out of memory quickly in
> comparison to Photoshop? What is the issue? I thought I
> remember gimp not being able to handle 16-bit tiffs or
> something along those lines.
I haven't tried on Linux but was told it has the same problem. I won't try it because color management in Linux is a PITA even if you are only interested in calibrating your monitor, which is my only need as a hobbyist without money for a decent printing setup.
I believe support for 16bit TIFFs is already built into yet-unreleased GIMP 3, but yes, having only 24 bit colour is also another huge problem with GIMP, and totally a dealbreaker once you get serious with photography. Most prosumer flatbeds or DSRLs already take measurable advantage of 48bit colour. I didn't comment on that because the original post was on usability.
What I'd really like to see from the Open Source Community is a Fireworks alternative. It has just the right blend between bitmap and vector editing in a speedy lightweight package.
Or loved it.
A few years ago, they decided to drastically change the UI without any apparent way of changing it back (2.6 vs 2.4 -- the way the windows are layed out has changed).
I think this was probably done to make it easier for people to transition from photoshop to GIMP, but what the gimp people are neglecting is that there are lots of people, like me, who grew up using GIMP. I've probably put about an hour of photoshop time in in my entire life, all of it happening while I'm sitting at the photo shop waiting in line to talk to a tech (they have a huge wacom tablet there to play with as a demo).
Same goes for inkscape, same goes for scribus.
I think what's important to understand is that the OSS solutions aren't just for people transitioning away from adobe. There are a lot of us who have been using them all along. When the maintainers make changes to these things to make it easier for new users, they're also making it harder for us.
Which sucks.
See this related discussion from Slashdot the other day, which highlighted the practical flaws fairly well: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/12/1855250/Interview-Wi...
Free software – meaning you don’t pay for it (you still can donate what you want!)
Gimp can do what Photoshop can do but it will take you twice the amount of time. If time is not an issue it's not a problem.
Some things slowing you down in Gimp:
Working with text.
A layer has a size.
Out of focus problems of your tools and working area.Try it: http://gimpusers.com/tutorials/compiling-gimp-for-ubuntu
Every time there is a major release I'll download it & try it out but it always ends the same. The UI is clunky. The workflow with complex documents (lots of layers & shapes, etc) is a byzantine & obscure click-a-thon. Wacom support is glitchy. Users of the Mac version (some graphic design types run macs, btw) get to enjoy the fun of x11 non-nativeness & all the weird behaviour that brings (my 'favourite' being having to click each UI element twice: once to gain focus & then once to actually click the desired item. Grrr).
The whole thing feels disjointed & I find it hard to just get down to making images. I hate that this is the case as I would love for gimp to be a world beating graphics tool (OSS FTW, and all that), but there are just too many rough edges for it to be considered best of breed.
The problem is, who is working on an alternative open source graphics app that's better? Guess we're stuck with photoshop…
What if humankind got better results with an unethically (to some) produced program. Would it then be unethical to promote software or technology that would hinder our advancement, just because it doesn't promote certain ideologies that this person believes in? (This applies to any technology). Should the ideology of software be more valued than what the software itself does?
Why not just carry on using the old version? Bob Staake apparently keeps an old Mac running OS 9 so he can use Photoshop 3.
General point: open source can't be taken from you in the way (say) Final Cut Pro was.
Try this one:
javascript:var%20s%20=%20document.createElement('script');s.type='text/javascript';document.body.appendChild(s);s.src='http://erkie.github.com/asteroids.min.js;void(0);