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.
Wow, that’s greate!
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
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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, …
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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?
This is probably common. The people that work on UI often aren’t the people who do pull requests. But I think if you want to contribute it would be best to get in touch with a maintainer on the chat of the project. Projects often have a matrix/irc/discord on the git page.
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.
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.
It’s super hard to get involved as a UI person. If you’re a developer, you can just rock up to a project and fix bugs, and if you follow the coding style they’ll probably get accepted.
If you want to successfully contribute as a UI person you have to convince a bunch of developers that you know what they should be doing better than they do. It basically never happens.
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 ?
They didn’t say GIMP itself sucks, they said leaning to use it sucks. Those are two different things.
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.
this is also true
I kind of agree. I’m not a pro but I’ve been using gimp to do little bits of editing (mostly to make slack emojis and memes) for a few years, and I constantly encounter little things that seem like they should be simple and intuitive, but are not.
I haven’t used Photoshop in over a decade, but I feel like I rarely felt the same frustration regarding basic tasks.
Tux Paint is feckin awesome. Not even photoshop has sound effects when you use a tool.
I honestly think it’s unfair to judge someone for not putting significant time into learning another complex program. I’ve used Photoshop since it first existed, and it’s basically a lifetime of knowledge. A combination of things has brought me to exploring other open source solutions, but GIMP is definitely unintuitive in comparison. I’m only putting the time in because there’s literally no alternative that’s as powerful and ubiquitous an image editing solution, but I’d also be the first to jump on alternatives that would make the transition easier. It’s especially not fair to cast that judgement on professionals who don’t really have the time to invest in learning a new tool from scratch.
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.
Gimp 3 might clear some of that up we will see
I hear good things about Krita.
I dunno if it was you asking the question or not but ^^;; if you want some decent replacements for gimp I recommend krita, it’s more Photoshop like and honestly it’s my go-to however there is also photopea which is a browser editor that I heard is actually pretty good, and if you’re on Mac or Windows (if so I dunno why you’d post here XD) I recommend the Affinity suit, it’s cheaper than Photoshop and it’s a one time payment instead of a subscription.
I was just lurking, but I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and I like your use of the ^^;; and XD emojis :3
GIMP would be infinitely better if they just changed the name so we could talk about it around normal people without getting dirty looks
Just don’t live in an English speaking country, easy!
Also if they made it have a workflow friendly to people who are used to almost anything else
Krita is great.
I feel like Krita is more focused on digital painting, rather than image editing
I mean, what exactly does gimp or photoshop do (besides the RAW editing tools–but if you’re using those you’re already a professional) that Krita doesn’t?
I tried using Krita instead of gimp but found it hard to do color management: adjust levels, exposure, color curves and such. At the time I simply couldn’t find any dialogs to do many of those tasks.
Yeah you’re right, it’s not meant for that
Right now I’m in a bit of a bind because part of my workflow relies on exporting particular layers and layer groups as separate images. GIMP has a plugin for it, but it uses Python 2, no longer developed, and likely won’t work in GIMP 3. If Krita can do this, I’m switching immediately.
Oh I wish GIMP had a “export visible” functionality. My workaround is usually to “copy visible” and then paste to a new image.
Isn’t that what the basic “Export” does?
Looks like it can: https://superuser.com/a/1347993
I’ve tried using GIMP and it absolutely sucks and I wish there was a good paint.net replacement.
Something I found about a lot of open source projects is that the UI is always terrible
I do get, why people dislike GIMP. It has a bit of a steep learning curve. And approaches things uniquely.
But for a FOSS paint equivalent: have you tried Pinta? It’s much less complicated, and the UI isn’t too bad.
Based on the screenshots I see, it looks a lot better. I’ll give it a try, thanks!
Krita is pretty good.
https://www.pinta-project.com/ based on older version of paint.net source code.
It looks like this was asked in a GIMP forum, so I’m not really surprised at the backlash. It’s super rude to ask that in that forum. Like, they shouldn’t be rude back, but I understand why they were.
Is it? It’s just a forum it’s not like he’s asking the devs
It looks like this was asked in a GIMP forum, […] It’s super rude to ask that in that forum.
Why? Just because you’re using a forum for a piece of software, presumably because you want to receive or offer help on using the software for the most part, doesn’t mean you’re obsessed with it and hate all other alternatives that exist.
It’s software, not a religion. These people need some perspective.
Imagine being in a community where being asked about alternatives is considered extremely rude. What a weird group of cult-like obsessives that would be. Creepy o.O
Also regarding why one would ask GIMP users about alternatives, theoretically these would be the best people to ask for GIMP alternatives. They presumably know the software well, and have probably tried alternatives (because they’re not obsessive weirdos that worship a single brand image their whole lives), and can give good answers on what alternatives exist and how they compare to GIMP in its current feature set.
They may even actively use multiple softwares on a regular basis. There’s no law against using GIMP and one or two similar pieces of software that perhaps have slightly different features or are better at one thing vs another.
It’s not rude to put a reasonable question about a piece of software and how it exists in the ecosystem to a group that knows a lot about that software. It isn’t a sacred holy cult object of worship. It’s just a program.
Gimp isn’t perfect. But neither is Photoshop. In fact Lightroom users grizzle that Photoshop is so much harder to use than Lightroom. It’s a different animal.
I use Pinta or Paint.Net when I want a quick edit. But Gimp has the tools for serious editing. More tools, more hard to use.
Some Gimp things, yes! should be improved. And other things are being improved as we speak. And some things can be done on a photo much easier in Inkscape.
I hope the whiners donated to Gimp development? No? Then just please step back, and think for a bit. If thinking is too hard, then just take a deep breath.
Donating to GIMP will not likely make it user-friendly enough to make me use it unless absolutely forced to. I would much rather donate to Pinta or Paint.NET or something where development would actually benefit me.
Coming from Paint.NET, I first tried Photoshop and I felt its controls to be non-intuitive, so I reverted to Paint.NET.
Later, I started using GIMP and coming from someone with no experience in either of them, GIMP and Photoshop are equally non-intuitive, so whenever someone complaining about GIMP, feels like they are coming from Photoshop, I just discount their rating.
Inkscape is a vector graphics editor, which is different from GIMP.
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/
Krita is really good for digital drawing and painting, but photoshop does cover a lot of other things, which krita can not do. In that sense Krita is more of a Corel PaintShop Pro alternative. While GIMP is the best, but still very bad, alternative to photoshop.
Wow! I have been looking for gimp alternatives or specific ways of doing things on gimp, compared to photoshop and most answers have been very honest and helpful!
Even gimp development team are open for suggestions but won’t consider them before releasing version 3 that should release ‘very soon’
To be fair, you can’t exactly ask for a GIMP replacement on r/GIMP and not expect that reaction
Sure you can.
