It’s that phenomenon where people who endured trauma to attain something expect others to also endure the trauma.
I’ve tried learning GIMP, and it sucks. I’m not saying GIMP sucks, but you have to be crazy to not see that it’s hard to learn.
Not vonly hard to learn, it lacks some really basic stuff like undestructive ediring (adjusment layers) and such.
I am using 2.99.18 (non release, unstable build). Non destructive editing has landed. You can make adjustments through the usual menus and then enable/disable the adjustment under layer effects.
I’ve tried learning GIMP, and it sucks. I’m not saying GIMP sucks, but you have to be crazy to not see that it’s hard to learn.
I use GIMP for memes and here’s my two favorite tips
-
Hit the forward slash key
/to open a command palette and jump to any action -
To remove backgrounds, use a layer mask. select around the object and paint a white/black section on the layer mask. Here comes the trick: use a Gaussian filter on the layer mask to create a transition from black to white and the crop job looks a lot less choppy.
My anti-tip
- Adding text and shapes sucks and I never found a way to make it better. Export your image and finish the job in Krita, Pinta, Photopea, …
fuck, i neverthought of the gaussian blur thing, i always just traced over the edge with a soft edged brush…
I used the Blur Border (or whatever it’s called) option that’s right there in every selection tool’s settings.
select around the object
Any tricks on getting the fuzzy select tool to work? Even after adjusting the threshold, it is just garbage in my experience. Nothing close to Affinity/Photoshop. Unless I am selecting something that is in front of a very solid background, I just use a paint brush on a layer mask in order to “cut out” an object.
No, GIMP does suck.
It has the same problem as most FOSS packages that are too wide in breadth and have multiple contributors with their own hobby horses pulling in all different directions, and to this day does not actually provide a feature-complete whole, nor an interface that actually makes sense. And it’s not a matter of the workflow just being different – it categorically fails to replicate functionality that is core to its commercial competitors. Numerous other “big” productivity packages have the same problem including FreeCAD (boy does it ever), LibreOffice, etc. I say this as a staunch supporter of FreeCAD, by the way. It’s the only CAD software I use even though it’s a pain in my ass.
The shining exception to this I see is Inkscape, but it is still significantly less powerful than even early versions of CorelDraw.
For 2D graphics work these days, I hold my nose and just use Corel. I use it for work. Like, actual commercial work. That I get paid for. It is at least a lesser evil than doing business with Adobe.
And if you want to stick it to the man, it is easily pirated.
In FOSS most people can program, but only a hand full of people can design a decent UI.
I always wondered if I could contribute/volunteer to a FOSS somehow with some UIX stuff, but I don’t even know where to start. Would you just draw a concept ui for the team to work out or something?
Not that I’m great at it, but man, we gotta start somewhere, right?
There’s also two main plus one lesser issue that are less commonly discussed:
- Lack of manpower. FOSS devs often doing it as a side project on top of some other and/or a full-time job, so that even lowers one’s ability of concentrate on stuff like the UI, when you’re already working hard on fixing bugs, looking up things (which is getting harder and harder thanks to AI slop - I once managed to destroy a Linux on my Raspberry Pi while trying to adjust the path variables).
- Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable parts of your application. There are many times I haven’t noticed a a very uncomfortable part of my GUI after months of use, then I had to refactor things, which obviously took time away from other things. This also affects the users already in the userbase.
Elitism is also a factor. A lot of people like the feeling of being part of a special group, and for them, the steep learning curve is a feature, not a bug. I’ve seen Blender users being angry at the devs for “spoonfeeding” the normies, and letting in all kinds of people. Also just look at OP’s image.
This never ceases to amaze me.
My old best friend and I used to be a programming tag team that worked pretty well; he’d slap together w semi-functional version of the idea we had and then id go in and make the UI make sense and fix all the logic bugs and typos.
I’m not saying I’m some perfect UI guru or anything but the way he (and other people I’ve met) seem to have no internal base knowledge of shit like “similar settings probably shouldn’t go on completely opposite sides of the screen under different menus” or “5-deep nested drop-down menus hurt people’s souls”
So, why do UI people not use and contribute to FOSS then? Are they all on Mac? Then go complain to them or contribute your desired UI improvements. FOSS isn’t an all you can eat buffet.
Personally, I think UI people are less idealistic and I do look down on them for that.
I’ve worked professionally both using and developing (proprietary) CAD software, but even I have trouble getting FreeCAD to do what I want.
The Autodesk forums are 40% this, 20% “just learn to program, spend a few years getting good at it, then write yourself a custom script to do what you are struggling with”, 20% “you are wrong for wanting that in the first place” or “you are wrong for having this issue”, 15% “this has been brought up once at some point in the past two decades, try searching”, 4% “OMG yes I have this issue too!”…
…and 1% split between actual helpful answers, and confirmation that it’s a known issue.
Yeah, I recently found a post there where a person wanted to modify a downloaded mesh. The first comment was telling them they would need years of experience to do it well. The OP responded that they had figured out a solution that they were happy with, to which someone told him that his results were shitty and then explained a way to do it better. When the OP got upset at this back to back dismissal, everyone unanimously decided they were an asshole.
So much this
It’s infuriating trying to find solutions to issues with Autodesk.
But you did forget a classic one: “Hello I’m X from Autodesk support, you should open a support ticket so we can discuss this issue in a more one on one manner.” And then the thread is closed without a solution.
Oh yeah that’s a good one too.
The old “you embarrassed the company, report to the principal’s office”.
I’ve been happier worth with Bricscad, but I mostly just need it for designing stuff to 3d print, so your mileage may vary.
It’s also not FOSS, of course, but I haven’t yet found FOSS cad software that works for me.
I stuggled with GIMP at first, it was super frustrating because it does UI things differently than other image tools. i.e. in other tools your active layer masks your drag selection, and in GIMP I would constantly be grabbing lmages from another layer, till I realized the pixel under pointer determines what image is moved. That function can make you highly productive since you don’t need to preset layer, but god was it enraging at first
I’ve been using Gimp for years. It’s the only way I know. If I tried to use photoshop I would have a hard time getting anything done too. I’m really good with gimp though.
I’ve used Gimp all through my teenage years. And I used it a LOT. It was quite a difficult transition to Photoshop (which my workplace uses). But once I got the hang of photoshop, I realized how convoluted Gimp really is.
Half the time spent in Gimp is making backups before making an edit. A third of your layers will be backup layers in case you change your mind about a design decision. The whole design process is super inflexible and therefor kills creativity.
Want to use an effect like gaussian blur or drop shadow? Make sure you backup your layer! Want to edit text after you stretched it all out? I hope you made a backup of that layer! Want to work with large files with many layers? You better hit ctrl S after every edit, because the program just might crash on you if you make a difficult selection!
To be fair, I haven’t used much Gimp since 2.8, so if stuff is different now: awesome! And I admire all volunteers that work to make stuff better. But for now, I’ll stay away from it if I need to do heavy editing.
Photoshop is also hard to learn. What’s your point? Just because it’s different to what you used to does not means it’s more or less difficult to learn.
I’m not used to photoshop so I can’t say anything about that.
I was a big fan of paint.NET but now that I stopped using Windows, it’s the only software that I really miss.
It had fewer features than GIMP, but it was so intuitive yet surprisingly powerful.
Have not found a similarly amazing alrernative, I wish Wine could make it work…
Not having Paint.NET sucked when I switched to Linux. I got very used to it and that was the one I missed most… it took a few years bouncing between programs but I’m happy with Krita now. GIMP just never clicked for me unfortunately.
I sometimes think about making a Paint.NET clone for linux but i have too many other projects and hobbies i wanna do instead yk
I’ve tried learning GIMP, and it sucks. I’m not saying GIMP sucks, but you have to be crazy to not see that it’s hard to learn.
“Im not saying it sucks but it does” How do you want us to take you seriously when you don’t even agree with yourself ?
I feel like it would be helpful to include the text of their post rather than just the title:
TL;DR Sorry if this is wrong group. GIMP = Epic POS. Do not use. Please recommend a decent alternative. Don’t waste your time with GIMP help because I am done.
I hope the mods or the bots don’t kill this post right away. It’s a serious and legitimate question from a UX designer with several decades of experience, who doesn’t want anyone else to suffer what I have. I didn’t know where else to post it, so I’m trying here as a first-timer. I apologize if this is not in the spirit of the group.
I quit Adobe, can’t afford the price any more (long story). I thought GIMP could replace Photoshop. But the user interface is horrible, and the app is full o’ bugs.
Here’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I tried to make a meme. The font selection overlay was a tiny, pathetic, hard to read joke. Not even a font selection dropdown, let alone one that provided previews with every line item like PS does. Deep breath, continue. I type “Impact”. Red text. I backspaced and typed “Im”. All I got was Impact Condensed. (Yes, I have Impact, and have used it in PS). So I picked it anyway. Then I tried to find the outline font feature. In Photoshop, it’s a simple “choose stroke” feature. GIMP? Hello?
I want to the Web to find a tutorial where it pointed out the feature. No luck. Searched again to find a workaround / hack. Mostly crap. Found one that was current and seemed decent. Followed it carefully. GIMP crashed.
While I appreciate the thoughts of anyone who may be compelled to point out a simple workaround or feature that I missed, don’t bother. This is the last of many dozens of problems I have wasted my time working around while suffering many crashes, and I already uninstalled it.
So. Recommendations?
I think it’s also worth giving the correction that there is a font selection dropdown with previews in GIMP. It’s to the left of the font input box.
I use gimp but OP isn’t wrong. Doing a stroke on text is mindless in Photoshop and very convoluted in gimp.
GIMP needs the Blender treatment honestly. Inkscape too. That would cover the vast majority of what I do art-wise.
Inkscape has been a lifesaver many times, but it’s packed like a shit in a bag.
I can’t believe they still use the old file selection on windows without a path input box. I literally can not open a file from my network drive. It doesn’t even remember the last path!
The easiest workflow I found is to just copy projects to downloads for editing.
Besides other things.
From my amateur experience Krita is really nice for drawing, painting and sketching, especially if you have a graphic tablet, as it bundles commonly used features and makes them easily accessible.
But it is by far not a sophisticated image manipulation program such as GIMP, which comes with a plethora of more features you’ll probably not use if you’re just doing some “typical Krita stuff”.
anyone who has ever used image editing software professionally knows gimp’s ui sucks very much.
we could have had an opensource photoshop killer if the developers werent adamant to keep the 90s workflow holding it back for so damn long.
“you are using it wrong!!” my ass.
I feel like the issue is that people expect a “Photoshop killer” to be Photoshop verbatim. Instead of focusing on making a good tool, people just constantly compare it to the commercial pack leader.
Most of the complaints I hear about GIMP are just “x isn’t like Photoshop”. I would take the complaints more seriously if any of the people voicing them could actually articulate what should be improved.
I mean, there’s something to be said about adhering to an industry standard. Of course no project has to do so if they don’t want to, but people trying to get on with their work don’t want to spend a bunch of time relearning everything. I think Blender really thrived when they loosened up a little on their ideas of what a workflow should be and gave people industry standard options out of the gate.
Whether we like it or not, GIMP isn’t going to be most people’s first experience with image manipulation. Whether they had a free PS license through school/work, had a subscription at some point, or once got it through ahem alternative means, people will be coming into GIMP with certain expectation of what the workflow should look like and will get frustrated pretty quickly.
That’s fair, but it doesn’t answer any of the questions about what should be improved. “Industry standards” is a vacuous term when the standard is defined by a singular piece of software made by one company.
Sure, GIMP isn’t Photoshop, and those familiar with Photoshop will have to re-learn things to use it. But what exactly needs to be changed? The developers have no chance of improving the program if the feedback is this generic.
we saw a similar thing with blender, everyone kept shitting their pants over blender, until studios started actually using it, and then nobody cared.
Most of the complaints are just people mad that they have to learn something. As is true for most things in life.
Blender has also undergone multiple UI changes over the years to make it more usable for new people.
There was a very distinct switch between ~2.7 to ~3.0 where they actually started listening to the users. If you look up the release posts on social media, you can see the community talking about it at that time. Many of them touch on the exact issue of GIMP failing where Blender succeeded.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/r849q1/blender_30_is_out/
Blender’s UI has seen incredible changes in the past several years. To the point it has become exceptional today. For a program that accomplishes so much (3d modeling, rendering, compositing, video editing) it manages to keep everything very intuitive and easy to use. Gimp --a fucking image editor-- is like trying to solve quantum entanglement theory.
Just run photoshop on linux.
I don’t understand why nobody ever mentions that it just works.
There isn’t even a real photoshop competitor in the broader market, but you want to further split the hobbyist devs effort on linux as well?
I think instead it would be better to focus all the effort on a single solution that strives to cover all of photoshops features, with at least equal or better usability. Like has been done with Blender and godot for example. (And GIMP is sadly faaar from it still)
I am pretty sure it would run in the same wine setup, but nobody bothered to set it up as an install script yet, so you’d need to do some manual dirtywork.
many such cases. good to call it out, and needs to happen more often and consistently as toxicity is the #1 barrier to the “year of the Linux desktop” in my experience
edit: also https://krita.org/
