Longing to bin Photoshop? Rock-solid GIMP a major leap forward Despite its relatively obscure version number, GIMP 2.9.2, released recently, represents a major leap forward for the popular image editing suite. Like all odd-numbered GIMP releases, 2.9.2 is considered a technical preview, but the features here will form the base of the stable release GIMP 2.10. In the mean time, I've found …
This post has been deleted by its author
Pliers?!?!? Silver-spoon-fed bassards ye all! We 'ad ter gouge bits of sinew wit' bare fingers, wave 'em ter us dogs, and hope doggies would yank them out fer us, then chase doggie down crawling with bare hands to retrieve said sinews, before makin good 'n' proper use of 'em.. Pliers - pfffffft!
So many d/vs!!!
Imagemagick is amazingly useful. I was trying to manipulate some images a couple of years back and found using a ui was just something I was not practised at. As a coder I found being able to code my solution much more compatible with my mental pathways.
Personally I prefer to script imagmagick functions in Ruby, although the CLI version is much better documented on the web. I still use Gimp for simple one off operations that require manual edits.
My only experience of Gimp was quite a few years ago, when as a non-artist I wanted to a little image-editing and 3D modelling and looked into Gimp and Blender respectively.
Back then, both of these epitomised the old-school Linux school of thought on UI i.e. it was awful. Both were already very powerful but for a Windows user like myself, the barrier to entry was just too high.
This was as I say a long time ago so I'm genuinely interested, how have things changed? If we compare it with tools like Photoshop how easy is it to get started and do a few basic things, figure out what the buttons do and the UX hangs together just by using general computer-savvyness?
It did the last time I tried it (last year I think). There's clearly a lot of great functionality in there but I can never get past the awkward and ugly UI reminiscent of 90's Windows shareware written with Borland OWL. Shame. If I had the time it would be an interesting project to try to "fix" the UI.
I have exactly the same issue with Inkscape (although all vector editing tools, regardless of provenance, seem to be either far too simple or have weird UI conventions).
Blender always did have an esoteric UI model, but it at least appeared to be well thought out and consistent. I've witnessed people with a high degree of proficiency in Blender and it all seems to make a lot of sense once you get up the learning curve.
The only reason people think Adobe Photoshop is easy to use is because it's what all graphic designers have been brought up on. If you take a step back and come at it as a new user without preconceptions, Photoshop's user interface is as inconsistent and esoteric as The GIMP's, if not more. Same goes for Illustrator/Inkscape. It's mostly down to historical contingency.
I don't disagree that The GIMP lacks many essential features and has a long way to go before becoming a contender. Non-destructive editing being the killer feature here.
If you're referring to the floaty MDI, then there is now a one window interface (since about 2009) which was the biggest bug bear of most Windows users (not so much of a problem for Mac users as they would be used to it).
My only issue (I use it about 5 times a year) is that I keep thinking of it as an object based program like Inkscape and looking for the select arrow, rather than an image based program. But that's more to do with the work I do with it (not so much photo editing, image manipulation) rather than the program.
I also struggle a little with the floating text, pasted layers, anchoring and that difference between the layer, the image and the selected area (e.g. Thinking I am pasting onto the canvas when I am actually pasting within a selected image on a selected layer and so can't see my pasted item as it is out of the image bounds).
However, with live filtering and when it gets non-destructive editing it will be amazing (for the role it is designed for). This along with Inkscape would suit my (limited) purposes completely.
I think it's gotten much friendlier (personal opinion). It hardly bites ever, and only messes on your foot now and then. (I'm on 2.8.10, in Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora, depending.)
Teh Gimp's got single-window mode since a couple of revisions ago, which does away with the floating ducks if you want. I mean docks! I still have trouble with the text tool. Other stuff seems pretty easy to figure out, supposing that you're familiar with a graphics editor providing multiple selection tools, color curve / level features, filters, etc.
But to tell the truth, I've been using it long enough to not remember where my original learning curve was steepest. I suppose it was getting used to layers. But Photoshop uses layers as well.
Thanks, El Reg, for the article. I look forward to the stable release.
Once again, my post vanished. Suppose I had better use anything but Opera for reg. posts in general, I foolishly lost everything but phone list, mail, photos, and one-seg videos with recent repair.
I hope that the 'one window' approach does not preclude floating toolboxes, I prefer them.
Even with the archaic version of the Gimp on my PC, it does what one wants, if one wants to do something complex, it takes a little thought and planning, but that is as true of Photoshop.
My one irritation when learnimg the Gimp was the extreme lack of forgiveness re. not having precisely matching numbers of pixels, liked that except when trying to mix something smaller in, that was irritating. Sounds like it is beyond that now.
>I hope that the 'one window' approach does not preclude floating toolboxes, I prefer them.
Don't worry it's all configurable and you can set it to archaic mode if that's what you like, while the Windows users can have it look and operate like PSP/PS/whatever and stop thinking it hates them. 2.10 is still GTK2, so still has that old lumpy look to its widgets but they're perfectly serviceable and I can't think why anyone but the most extreme of fashions would shy at something so trivial.
As much as I'd like to use GIMP I find the learning curve too steep to dedicate enough time to learn to use it. Whenever I've tried to use it for something simple it leaves me scratching my head. I wanted to knock up a little map to help someone find our house but couldn't even figure out how to draw a straight line. Gave up in the end and (shock horror) drew one on a sheet of paper and scanned it.
As much as I'd like to use PHOTOSHOP I find the learning curve too steep to dedicate enough time to learn to use it. Whenever I've tried to use it for something simple it leaves me scratching my head. I wanted to knock up a little map to help someone find our house but couldn't even figure out how to draw a straight line. Gave up in the end and USED GIMP
I have tried to use PS. I've even learned a lot from watching others use PS. But I cannot use PS, without learning a lot and a hell of a lot of unlearning stuff that I find quite natural and intuitive in GIMP.
For those who say "GIMP is too different to PS" I say "That's good, because I cannot for the life of me figure out PS!".
Oh, and there is a slight untruth - I wouldn't actually want to use PS - I've looked at it to please others/see if all the fuss is worth it but I have no desire to use it, GIMP is more than sufficient for my needs... But then, I live by "If you can't do it in the camera you can't do it" for taking pics, and only "edit" for the purposes of combining/cropping/etc)
The Gimp is fucking awful!
I'm chomping at the bit to abandon OSX and move to Linux full-time. But the total lack of any half-decent graphics software to replace Photoshop and Illustrator is a complete deal-breaker. Every few months I'll read an article about how great the new version of The Gimp is, or "How to set up The Gimp, for Photoshop users" and get my hopes up for a while. Only to be disappointed again, when I find it's still as much of a barely functional mess as last time I looked at it.
Non-Destructive-Editing coming in a "future release" WTF?! Photoshop has had NDE for years. I have free throwaway apps on my phone that can do NDE —and the so-called no.1 professional image editor on Linux still hasn't implemented it. Just take it out the back and shoot it, someone!
As regards:
"...As much as I'd like to use PHOTOSHOP I find the learning curve too steep to dedicate enough time to learn to use it. Whenever I've tried to use it for something simple it leaves me scratching my head. I wanted to knock up a little map to help someone find our house but couldn't even figure out how to draw a straight line..."
Sounds to me like you're using the wrong tool for the job. Photoshop is primarily designed for photo/video type image manipulation. For creating graphics/logos/diagrams/maps and the like, you'd be far better off using something like Illustrator [or Inkscape, it you want to continue on the self-flagellation route]
I would also still avoid GIMP at all costs, due to horrible UI experiences in the past, where trying to do simple things left me scratching my head.
I have no interest in internal wiring changes if the UI hasn't been completely overhauled (binned and started again).
Don't know about Gimp, it's always had a degree of "we're not photoshop, so we'll do it our way" attitude to user feedback, but Blender's made some big updates over the last few years as a result of the feedback from the Blender Foundation animation projects (which are largely funded to provide real world feedback on the software). I still wouldn't call it "easy to use" since most 3D modelling and animation tools tend to be a bit on the technical side, but it's at least on par with things like Maya for usability and the workflow works well once you get into it
Freetard perhaps ? I suppose you would like Photoshop elegance and performance for the price of GIMP. Anyway, what you're saying amounts to complaining a Boeing 747 is rubbish because it is so complex and difficult to fly for a beginner.
I couldn't find from your post if you did any effort to read the documentation but I will excuse you since this is typical for Windows users as well as Linux wannabes (effortless instant knowledge - I know, your time is money and stuff like that).
Being myself equally exposed to GIMP (on Windows) and PS I can tell you I had the same learning curve when trying to achieve basic tasks and none of the UI proved more difficult than the other. More than that, on several occasions I've been forced to google on how to do some tasks in MS Office 2016 because its UI was far from clear and I surely don't consider it being old-school Linux.
Didn't give you any down-vote though.
The difference is you can find a lot of good documentation and tutorials about Photoshop, not so much on GIMP. Thereby it's "easier" to learn PS than GIMP, if you're a novice (and most people may be more interested in investing resources on PS because it is a de facto standard)
Moreover, if people believe PS is really a great pile of bad stuff when it comes to UI and usability, why deliver more or less the same in GIMP?
I couldn't find from your post if you did any effort to read the documentation but I will excuse you since this is typical for Windows users as well as Linux wannabes (effortless instant knowledge - I know, your time is money and stuff like that).
Documentation? In an FOSS program? Shirley, you jest!
And that's exactly why Linux won't ever make gig strides on the desktop. You ask a perfectly nice "has the UI improved over the last few years" question and get randomly insulted for not buying into some world-view about how one is supposed to use the software.
As for "you can't make a simple interface to a powerful program", that is just crap. Older FOSS used to be very obviously made by coders who didn't know or care about UX, as a coder myself I know what it looks like when a coder designs a UI.
As for documentation, a)most FOSS documentation is crap and if you complain you get told to look at the source b)it wouldn't answer my question, only trying to use the thing would.
God preserve us from UIs made by coders (unless for coders)
God preserve us from UIs made by Graphic Artists
You need a UI designer who understands what the implications are for the coders (and pushes the lazy bastards to make an effort) and is graphically literate but reigns in the wilder excesses of the "make it pretty and flashy at the expense of understanding" brigade. Crucially the UI designer must also understand the way the user thinks so that the end result is intuitive but also is harmonious, at least to a significant degree, with the UI metaphors in the environment in which it will be employed.
Engineers who are also psychologists and artists in equal measure are as hard to find as artists who are competent engineers. Not impossible but difficult.
If Linux, and the FOSS programs associated with it, can crack this problem they have a future as the third force on the desktop (4th if you count Android). If they don't crack it they will remain forever a technical walled garden for the techno nerd, speaking in a strange language and conducting some sort of voodoo like religious activity that provides background services to the real world.
No, it does not. It IS different, and unfamiliar to experienced Photoshop users, but they had to learn Photoshop in the past, as I did. I switched to GIMP, a long time ago, and I had to go through the learning curve like anyone else. GIMP is very powerful, and does far more things than I am ever likely to need.
THE BEST SOFTWARE IN THE WORLD IS THE SOFTWARE YOU KNOW BEST
>THE BEST SOFTWARE IN THE WORLD IS THE SOFTWARE YOU KNOW BEST
Until the smart asses come along and change the "Save" dialog. When you inquire as to "why" they changed it, they reply "Because power users did not know that saving an image to compressed GIF actually causes data loss." By no means do I consider myself a gimp power user, but #!$@!!
That is why I stick with 2.6, does what I need AND has a "proper" Save dialog.
NB: I work on something like 20 images at a time: open image, little touch-up here, little touch-up there, Ctrl+s, Alt+F4, on to next image.
With the new save dialog (I think in 2.8+), I have to click through the menu, confirm I want to overwrite a file and when I accidentally hit Ctrl+S, I have native GIMP images lying around, which are utterly useless to me.
In case other readers interpret what you said as hyperbole: yes, that was EXACTLY the reasoning expressed. GIMP developers think "power users" are too stupid to understand compression and data loss.
I found a couple of scripts to do "save current" and "save as..." and put them into the main menu above the official ones.
With the new save dialog (I think in 2.8+), I have to click through the menu, confirm I want to overwrite a file and when I accidentally hit Ctrl+S, I have native GIMP images lying around, which are utterly useless to me.
I've seen enough cases where someone's spent a bit of time creating a picture and then saved it out to JPG or GIF in a very low resolution, and not saving the the original files means they lose work - on that regard I can understand why the writers of GIMP may've chosen to make such errors harder to make.
But I do agree with your sentiment. Much of my work is for web or non-GIMP users, and I want to choose what things are saved to quickly and easily. Give me a config option to let me choose defaults and let me take the risk - maybe with a warning or something at the time but let me quickly save work to whatever format I wish. Hell, even a dual save would be nice - xcf and jpg/gif/whatever, if I want to save like that.
THE BEST SOFTWARE IN THE WORLD IS THE SOFTWARE YOU KNOW BEST
Not always true! I fix Windows for a living and know a lot of it a hell of a lot better than I know things with Linux. I struggle to fix things with Linux when I do manage to break them because I don't get the practice. I have machines with uptimes measured in hundreds of days1 or longer and time between actual "repairs" is in years (repairs != hardware upgrades).
For learning how to fix broken things, Windows is better. For learning what a truly wonderful computing experience can be, you need *Nix..
1Reboots for kernel updates etc
Maybe I'm an oddball but I've always found Gimp's UI to be much more intuitive that Photoshop's. I picked up Gimp and started using it sometime in the late 90s or early 00s when I no longer had access to a high school computer with Photoshop on it and achieved a reasonable level of proficiency fairly quickly. It took a college course years later for me to hit the same level of proficiency in Photoshop, and I still feel like it's easier to find stuff in Gimp's UI.
sisk: Maybe I'm an oddball but I've always found Gimp's UI to be much more intuitive that Photoshop's.
Maybe I'm an oddball but I've always found both Gimp and Photoshop (and Pixelmator on the Mac) to be hideously difficult and unintuitive to use. It always takes ten times as long as it should to do anything, and involves copious use of 'undo'.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
