A while back I was working on an indie game dev project and I wanted to see if I could do it without using Photoshop and in my naïveté I downloaded gimp expecting it to be an easy switch over. It was probably one of the most frustrating experiences in software in my life, I knew what I wanted to do but it seemed like gimp was going out of its way to make it as difficult and unintuitive as possible. I was literally getting angry in front of my computer which never happens.

My solution in the end was to download Krita, without using any tutorials I was able to figure it out and was working on assets and textures with very little friction.

Now days Photopea, a web based editor is much more useful and less frustrating than gimp.

I still think of gimp as one of the worst UX experiences in my life and it makes blenders interface seem amazing in comparison which is sad because blender too has an awful unintuitive interface that keeps getting “fixed”.

In the end, what the gimp team should focus on is the UX of gimp and make using it not feel like pulling teeth.