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Comment by trinovantes | Hacker News Reader

I can't explain why but I keep getting the uncanny valley feeling whenever I try to use GIMP after years of Photoshop. Hopefully the improved device support will help

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Having used Photoshop almost daily between the 5 and CS3 days (after switching from PaintShop Pro) I still find GIMP an absolute pain to use aside from fairly basic re-touching and adjustment or 'oh look generic word-art' despite repeatedly giving it second chances.

The GIMP just doesn't manage to hit the productivity nexus for anything constructive. Simple things are annoying, complex things are infuriating, vector support sucks, mixed vector/raster mode with layer styles doesn't really exist, layer management is barely reaching parity with where Photoshop was 20 years ago, and overall it has consistently left me frustrated and unable to get into the flow - you have to work around its deficits rather than being able to compose its features in novel ways.

Do you want a vector graphics program or a bitmap graphics program? Can you name a scenario, where both must be in the same tool? Otherwise Gimp is not what you are looking for, if you want to do vector graphics stuff.

What if you just want to create art by mixing vector/bitmap elements? It sucks to not be able to create something because your tools restrict you from doing so.

In my experience, most of the time vector capabilities in PS are used for masks and selections. Drawing accurate scalable multipart masks with bezier curves and the ability to edit them and their properties any time is paramount. This is a workflow which relies on direct integration, while vector art can be used as smart objects, edited in an outside program.

The multipart masks is a good example, another is one or more layers in a group each with styles for adjusting hue/contrast/background-pattern/gradient/border/shadow etc. in a non-destructive way, the introduction of layer styles in combination with good vector support (and smart objects) completely changed how people worked and literally defined how the web looked & functioned for a good few years afterwards (a lot of 'Web 2.0' is just interesting applications of layer styles in Illustrator and Photoshop)

Being able to maintain several 'versions' of the same image just by showing/hiding layer groups while still being able to edit & adjust things fluidly is a crucial feature in Photoshop, with GIMP you end up making copies of copies of copies and if anything needs adjusting or re-composing in the source layers you'll have to go back and perform the same sequence of steps and discard most if not all of the layers you made.

Yes, you have 'make selection from curve' and other tricks in GIMP to maintain your masks as vector data, but it's an awful lot of trouble and is a laborious N step manual process after every change.

Layer styles were basically CSS, for complex raster data, and it works beautifully.

>Can you name a scenario, where both must be in the same tool?

Literally every modern graphics workflow.

Sure, and every time I try emacs after years of vim it feels weird; don't be too quick to assume the software is the problem.

I love emacs and vim. I used GIMP nearly daily for over a year; it still feels weird.

The copy/paste flow in particular still trips me up.

Pasting creates a "floating layer". A "floating layer" usually needs to either be "anchored" (merged down into the layer below) or converted to a "new layer". In the meantime, for example:

* If the move tool is selected and the "floating layer" is clicked, the "floating layer" is draggable on that click. * If the move tool is selected and the canvas is clicked outside of the "floating layer", the "floating layer" is anchored and undraggable on that click. * If the unified transform tool is selected and the canvas is clicked anywhere, the transform frame is activated for the "floating layer" and it is rotatable on that click. * If the erase tool is selected and the canvas is clicked anywhere, nothing happens, except that the UI flashes. * If the paintbrush tool is selected and the "floating layer" is clicked anywhere, it "paints" – though pixels are only affected within the bounds of the "floating layer", as that's just how things work in GIMP.

I'm sure there are perfectly sane reasons that things ended up like this, but the result feels weird to me. I don't really want to have to think about "anchoring" a "floating layer" after pasting it, much less think about what the UI is capable/incapable of doing while there's a "floating layer".

I've since moved on to Krita. It feels far less weird.

Uncanny valley may not mean what one of us thinks.

Not in the literal definition but the feeling that something inexplicable is off is similar

That's "uncanny feeling", not "uncanny valley".

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