These people who hate GIMP didn’t really practice with it all that much. I use for my day job, editing photos and making content for marketplaces. It works very well. The workflow may be different to PS, yes, but that does not make GIMP bad. Also, for those who hate the UI, two things. First, why don’t you help the dev team? And second, we’ll have GTK3 support soon (finally).
GIMP is bad. If the problem was simply that it was “different to PS” then other apps like Krita and Affinity Photo would have the same reputation.
If a user goes looking for a tool or feature and it’s not in the first place they look, that’s a problem of “didn’t really practice that much”. If experienced people need to look up how to do basic operations and their reaction is “that’s fucking stupid”, then the software is bad.
To then say “well why don’t you help the Dev team then” is insane. I’m not spending hundreds of hours digging GIMP out of bad design decisions when I could just use better software and I haven’t seen any evidence that my PR would even be accepted.
Nobody needs excuses and apologism, they need Blender for image editing and GIMP just isn’t that.
I mean, I’ve been using GIMP as my primary photo editor for…over a decade. When I use other programs, nothing is where I expect it to be and I think “well, that’s fucking stupid”
So you open any other image editor, click the rectangle select button, draw a rectangle, then select a move button beside the rectangle select tool, then it moves the rectangle you just selected and you think “That’s fucking stupid, it should’ve moved the entire image, not the rectangle I just selected!”
Really?
I’ve been using GIMP since the very dawn, I use plenty of other image editors for variety of reasons (Affinity Photo, DxO PhotoLab, ArtRage, Clip Studio), and I have no problems with the UIs in any of them.
Yet every time I use Adobe software I’m like “why is it doing this? Why is it designed this way? Who thought that was a good idea? This is stupid.”
help the dev team
And we wonder why people don’t like using Linux or FOSS software.
That’s their prerogative. FLOSS is a communal effort of equals. Users are not customers; not entitled to anything as it’s donated freely. If you want to be bannied and not contribute, there’s proprietary software out there but they’ll exact a price (currently more than just financial).
I tried. I really tried to like GIMP. The main reason I don’t like it is because it’s trying so hard to be a professional picture editor and the UI.
Why can’t I deselect things? Why does something need to be selected at all times? Let me just click a button and remove the selection outline and deselect things.
No. I won’t help the dev team because I can’t code to save my ass. I turn wrenchs and fix things for a living.
I use other, simpler pic editors. Why should I learn to fly a Boeing 747 when a Cessna 172 will get me where I need to go? I’m making a shit post once every three months, not professional art.
You can deselect all with CTRL + SHIFT + A and deselect a specific part by changing the selection mode from replace or additive to subtract.
‘help the dev team’ is a lunatics response. I use Linux but fuck the users man.
It’s a bit lunatic, but it’s arguably the only way forward. GIMP doesn’t have a multi billion dollar company behind - only volunteers.
Expecting the developers to have the capacity and skill to emulate the features and looks of Photoshop (and quickly, please) - in their free time - is even more lunatic.
I’m not expecting anything. But if your response to genuine criticism is “fix it urself in the code lol” then fuck off
Please teach to how draw good circles and eclipse And how to resize sollection by corner
good circles and eclipse
I assume “eclipse” is a typo of ellipse? Anyway, just use the ellipse select tool (keybind: e) to make a selection in the shape that you want, then fill it in with the bucket tool (b). Hold shift while using the bucket tool to fill in the entire selection, ignoring anything that’s drawn inside it. If you want to draw a ring rather than a completely filled circle, use the “border” command from the “select” dropdown menu to replace the ellipse/circle selection with its border.
how to resize selection by corner
I’m curious, what is your usecase for this? I’ve never had to do it myself. But if I had to, here’s how I would do it: first, convert the seleciton to a path. Make sure the path is visible from the “Paths” dialog (you have to explicitly show the paths dialog using the “window > dockable dialogs” option. From then on, you can use any of the usual transform tools (perspective, resize, roate, etc) on the path. You just have to select the path icon under "Transform: " in the “tool properties” dialog to make sure you’re transforming the path, not a pixel layer. Once you’ve transformed the path to your liking, you can turn it back to a selection, fill it with color, or stroke it with a brush by right-clicking on it in the “layers” dialog.
Also, bonus tip: never use the dropdown menus, it’s a huge waste of time. Just press / to pull up for the command palette and search for the tool you need.
EDIT: I love lovingly ranting about gimp, I can do it four hours on end. I’m not some sort of gimp guru, but I know a thing or two. If anyone has any more questions, feel free to reply to this comment and I’ll do my best to give advice.
Not op, but if I’m trying to rectangle select something, I sometimes get it close on the first try but not exactly right, so instead of trying to redraw the selection or use additive/subtractive selections, it is more intuitive to me to try and resize the selection box.
I had to use PS for school recently and it’s nice that it supports this use case, although I did have to search for a guide to learn how to do it.
I know it’s a consequence of open source development, but I just absolutely despise the file picker. Everything else is dreamy.
Maybe they dislike the filepicker because it doesn’t support icon view, only list view (just like the standard gtk filepicker)? I remember a while back lots of people were getting their panties in a twist over it, it was a huge meme in the gnome hater community.
Everything else is dreamy.
Gimp spolied me. Now every time I’m forced to use a GUI app with lots of dropdown menu items, I get irrationally angry that I can’t just hit / to search through them like I can in gimp lol.
Blender changed it to just start typing one or two minor versions ago. There’s certainly stuff I have no idea how to find in the menus because F3 is way more convenient than remembering things (just be aware that you still need to be in the right mode for stuff to show up).
I’m just glad they added non destructive editing in the latest version. I’ve tried to rotate/resize something in gimp before and it was a chore to keep quality acceptable.
I think what burns people the most is that after Photoshop 5 or so, GIMP stopped keeping up with all the improvements in the later Photoshop versions. People making the jump from 2024 Photoshop to 1996 Photoshop UI/UX are gonna have a bad time.
Edit: as a software developer I can say that I’ve never seen a user more frustrated, sometimes even irrationally so, when they are forced to re-learn muscle memory to perform a familiar task. I’ve also seen people practically riot at the mere suggestion that this will happen. If you wish to curry favor with your userbase, never ever, remove keyboard accelerators, move toolbars around, break workflow, etc.
Gimp sucks. That’s why people on Linux rather use krita to edit photos and it wasn’t even built to do that.
Gimp is a horrible mistake that should literally be killed off and it should be put into a failure museum to serve as a warning and a reminder how Foss can take a wrong turn and many free development hours are spent towards building the wrong things and continue to disappoint any user that tries it.
You don’t get it.
If you’re not spending hours trying to figure out how to do the most basic shit then it’s not for you, pal. Ever heard the expression pressure turns coal into diamonds?
That’s right.
That’s because we’re not bitch ass pussies. Last night I spent five hours trying to merge some layers, and you know what? Worth it! I read the docu, had a back and forth with the developers and after they threatened to kill my family I got it. I’m now a proud member of the Gimp Club Tm (choker and gag ball not included).
Ya gotta give to get some, Shirley. Now move over, I need to block out the rest of the day so I can figure out how to export a PNG.
That’s fucking stupid. What are you even doing in this community? It seems like you’re completely against the idea of investing time. Gonna guess you are a fan of Windows
This comment was exactly for people like you. Criticism of Gimp and you went straight to:
You must like windows, huh? I bet you take that Steve Ballmer Bill Gates double d all day
Ya boiiiiii I’ll take the Ballmer Dick any day over having to endure opening that abhorrent nightmare of an interface from hell
Why don’t you invest time
Why don’t you invest in deez
How stupid must you be that merging layers takes you hours? It is a single button press. Exporting PNGs is a matter of under 10 seconds. It is clearly labelled in the dropdown menu.
lol this person can’t merge layers in gimp. there’s at least 3 obvious ways to do it, e.g. right clicking on a layer.
It’s called being hyperbolic. I know you guys only understand literal readings of things.
Got to love it when people think they’re making a statement when they’re really just exposing themselves.
Merging layers? There’s a button on the layer window that does just that. You can also right click -> merge.
Exporting PNGs? File -> Export -> File Type at bottom of the window -> PNG
Not that hard unless you’re somehow incredibly inept.
Woosh. I love how this comment went over 99% of you people. You’re so predictable.
Do you really think I couldn’t figure out how to export a goddamn PNG?
:)
Gimp is for Chads only I guess. :D
I’m soft with my UX requirements and time constraints.
If you’re not clicking through 20 menus to do one thing then I can’t help you brother you’re just a pleb
so I can figure out how to export a PNG.
- File > Export As
- Under ‘Select File Type’ choose png, or name the file anything ending in .png
- Click Export. Leave the settings as-is or tweak them if you know what you’re doing
- Confirm
I spent five hours trying to merge some layers
- Right Click the Layer
- In the context menu, click Merge Down
Your examples suck. Got any real examples?
Issa joke pal. No need to cry crocodile tears about it. No, pal, I don’t like windows. Why even bring that up? I just don’t like the attitude you guys have whenever someone dares criticize your precious Gimp. No I haven’t used it in ten years because it was a nightmare to figure out the most basic functions
I’m so sorry that you feel the $0.00 you’ve spent on GIMP’s development were not well spent
No idea what you’re on about. GIMP works fine, it’s just not a drop-in replacement for Photoshop. People need to use layers more.
And it is intentionally horrible. It is how the developers want it.
Lack of a user friendly art suite is a major barrier to Linux adoption.
Sometimes “intuitive UI/UX” leads to long “where is the fucking menu” confusion. Shitvendor of my phone shipped it with some garbage crApple-like launcher, where I couldn’t remove app from home screen without removing entire app. This lasted untill I installed Trebuchet.
Absolute you problem. GIMP is some of the best and most powerful FOSS ever made, and better than most proprietary applications. But this is probably just bait anyway.
Not a problem at all for me. What I said is true. The proof is that people rather use krita.
I use Krita a lot and I like it. I also use Gimp. Many people do. That fact that you don’t like it is not an argument against it
That most users rather use a painting program to edit photos?
Sorry but there has to be something there…
Most users? You can’t just make statistical claims without actual data. It’s fine to dislike something, but you don’t have to force your opinions on others. Gimp has its flaws and lack features a lot of professionals need, but a lot of people happily use it daily for their tasks. I agree that we need more open source software in this field, but that doesn’t mean gimp can’t coexist.
I literally use GIMP every day at my job. It’s a very powerful application that makes my life easier.
I’ve used GIMP to create all of my memes. It’s just fine, even if the UI can be unintuitive.
It lacks features compared to Photoshop, which is a reference to the fact that 2 developers maintain the core features of it.
I have no idea how selection works anywhere else, since I only ever used gimp.
For me, I don’t understand this meme, selection seems to work very intuitively, it seems to do what I expect it to do.
Lol, all these GIMP haters who don’t seem to understand the goal was being on par with Photoshop when it was a desktop application. It works exactly like Photoshop always did. And I agree, selection makes sense. There were many apps that worked the same… Paint Shop Pro as well.
I guess the kids have all grown up with some other tools and would rather call things they don’t understand stupid than try to grasp where the tool came from.
I’m not sure how Krita is different but then again I haven’t used it. I installed it, saw it looked like a fork of GIMP, and stuck with what I knew. Which is probably what anyone who hates GIMP should do.
It works exactly like Photoshop always did.
Unequivocally false (source: been a PS user since version 7)
I know, its so hard to press F1 and change the keys to be whatever you want; even copying adobe’s keybindings. It takes a whole 15 minutes of setup, the horror.
Yes, people are handicapped and entrapped by using Adobe products.
My man GIMP is the only software I’ve ever seen that doesn’t use CTRL+D for deselect
Blender uses Alt+A.
It consistently uses Alt as a modifier to execute inverse operations. I to insert a keyframe, Alt+I to delete it. Ctrl+F to set a text filter/search, Alt+F to clear it. Ctrl+P to set parent, Alt+P to clear it. H to hide selected objects, Shift+H to hide unselected objects, Alt+H to unhide all. {G,R,S} to move/rotate/scale, Alt+{G,R,S} to reset transformations. It’s not exactly industry standard, but internally consistent that makes learning it easy.
Ctrl+D to deselect is stupid.
