16 ms·

GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

179 points by jjuhl 9y ago

Ainak 9y ago
nice
yoz-y 9y ago
GIMP was the first advanced image editor I have used. I grew quite fond of it and its tools. Nowadays I have moved away from it because it does not play well with macOS, but still return to it when I am on a Linux box. For me, GIMP has always excelled in making simple actions simple. Even today I am quite surprised that other software has not taken some of the ideas for interface that gimp has. Mainly: - The selection tool is just miles ahead any of the software I have used. It makes the crop tool obsolete and every time I have to switch modes just to resize my previous rectangular selection I long for it. - Resizing and clipping layers is dead simple. Other programs I have used have no "clip to selection" on layers and I have never understood why. - Color to transparency is a single button - Masks are actually simple to use as one can draw on them using all tools, not just some arbitrary subset It has its dose of quirks and the interface is in dire need of a rework, however I must say that despite what many people say I find GIMP quite intuitive to use. I suppose that it is a force of habit. Edit: formatting
- athorax 9y ago
  Out of curiosity, what issues do you see on macOS? I use it fairly rarely for minor editing, but haven't hit any real issues with it
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    My main issue is actually very non-technical. After I have switched to macOS I've started to put more and more importance to the consistency of the interface. GIMP is very different as it is not rendered using native Cocoa widgets. Things like non-native open/save dialog, clipboard support and drag and drop. It also felt quite slow, compared to when I used it on Linux.
  - nitrogen 9y ago
    Dialog windows will sometimes appear behind the app window or other windows, and won't come to the foreground or accept input focus until another app is focused first. This also affects other OSes on which Gimp runs.
- skykooler 9y ago
  Color to alpha is something that I am consistently surprised that Photoshop lacks, every time I try to use it for something.
- vbezhenar 9y ago
  > - Color to transparency is a single button This is huge. I've used Pixelmator because I liked its UI, but even simplest tasks like this one were unnecessary hard. I kept Gimp just for this.
- cptskippy 9y ago
  I've always been frustrated by the GIMP interface. I started out using Corel PhotoPaint in the 1990s and used it through version 5 which was about the time it lost parity with Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop and GIMP's interfaces have always felt clunky and non-intuitive to me. I use Photoshop occasionally at work and GIMP at home and really don't enjoy or look forward to using either. I actually try to stay in Inkscape as much as possible with everything I do these days. That being said, GIMP is capable and it's fantastic for the price. I just don't like it.
- emidln 9y ago
  I'm another native GIMP user. GIMP was all I had (I couldn't afford Photoshop, not that it worked in Wine around 2000) and it let me do some interesting work in high school art and photography classes. GIMP's script-fu (Guile Scheme) was some of the first code I really understood and modified. I still use GIMP to this day, largely because I've never ran into limitations that a little scheme or python didn't solve. I've never had a reason to use something else. I still install GIMP as one of the first apps on Windows or Mac OS machines I need to use for any length of time.
- aorth 9y ago
  I'm not a heavy GIMP user, but I've found that the macOS builds from Partha's Place work better than those from GIMP's website. They are compiled from the development source every few months. https://www.partha.com/ https://www.partha.com/
- app4soft 9y ago
  > - The selection tool is just miles ahead any of the software I have used. It makes the crop tool obsolete and every time I have to switch modes just to resize my previous rectangular selection I long for it. Did you ever try mtPaint[0]? It has such selection feature too > - Resizing and clipping layers is dead simple. Other programs I have used have no "clip to selection" on layers and I have never understood why. In mtPaint just select rectangle and click "Delete" button ;-) [0] https://github.com/matyler/mtPaint https://github.com/matyler/mtPaint [1] http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/handbook/en_GB/chap_04.html http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/handbook/en_GB/chap_04.html
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    I haven't used that but according to the description in documentation it is not exactly the same. In gimp the selection has smart corners one can drag around, feathering and rounded corners. If I want to do something similar in Affinity Photo for example, I have to make the selection, go to quick mask mode, and then use the move tool. In Pixelmator it had similar issues. > In mtPaint just select rectangle and click "Delete" button ;-) That looks a bit unintuitive to me. I would expect that this would either fill the selection with white (or the set document background color, or with transparency).
- sigsergv 9y ago
  I've been using dev-builds from https://www.partha.com/ https://www.partha.com/ awhile and branch 2.9 is amazingly fast on macos. It has some minor issues but everything else is amazing.
extrememacaroni 9y ago
GIMP has helped me time and again, glad to see it getting such impressive changelogs. Layer group masks are especially interesting to me. Kudos to the dev team.
bhaavan 9y ago
So still no GTK3? I think when GTK4 is released in a few months, it would be a good time to move to GTK3 as they can still be outdated. I know I am being a bit bitter for an open source project with less funding, but GIMP was supposed to be a poster boy GTK application in the first place.
- upofadown 9y ago
  The "G" in GTK+ stands for "Gimp". If Gimp is using GTK+ ver 2 who are we to say different? Perhaps ver 2 is the version and the rest are just pointless forks... This is a serious question in general. There will always be s steady stream of significant upgrades/changes of any popular open source project as later developers add in things they consider important. At some point the decision has to be made to stop following those changes. This decision is usually made by default when it turns out that no one can be bothered to follow the changes of a project from another project.
- hisham_hm 9y ago
  It's the other way around: GTK was created by Gimp -- it was originally the "Gimp Tool Kit". Obviously, the project went separate ways since.
- damyyy 9y ago
  This is just a myth. You make it sound like there was some purposeful intention to gimp and gtk. There was not. Gimp was created by some kids at berkeley who created gtk because at the time qt and motif had untenable cost and or licensing, or sucked. When the gnome project started years later gtk was chosen due to licensing considerations since ironically qt was “too free” ie pure gpl which limited its use in closed source software without licensing. At the time this was considered a major problem in unseating windows (back in 1998 when there was actually real vested interest that could be a thing)—- visual studio cost a little bit of money (but it was cheap) and you didn’t have to license anything to make closed source windows apps. You could write a GUI app in assembly and not pay ms a dime if you wanted. The Unix side of things was not so good. Motif was thousands of dollars. Anyway, turns out maintaining a professional image editing program is a lot of work. While it is true many fanboys named gimp as some kind of foss and gtk showcase its not like most of them were actively contributing to either gtk or gimp. There was never any longterm large scale commercial investment in gimp similar to how redhat threw massive resources into gnome and gtk.
userbinator 9y ago
A new Dashboard dock helps with monitoring GIMP’s resource usage to keep things in check, allowing you to make more educated decisions about various configuration options. That looks so ridiculous and out-of-place in an image editing program. If it weren't for the left side, you'd think it was Visual Studio! https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/MSDNBlogsFS/prod.evol.blogs.msdn.com/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/00/00/00/45/92/metablogapi/6204.635659102497602738_059EE082.png https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/MSDNBlogsFS/p...
- TheCoreh 9y ago
  That might not be useful for most users, but could be useful for people in resource-constrained environments. I have a friend with a 2010 MacBook Pro, who is constantly monitoring resource usage as he edits photos etc, and has to close apps, delete files to make space for more Photoshop swap, otherwise the computer just dies.
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  You did and will keep getting downvoted (like my comment below about GIMP's usability will), but you're absolutely right. This is another case where developers decide what's cool, and of course pick features that are cool to them, not their users. Not once in my life would I ever think I'm missing that feature in GIMP.
  - avian 9y ago
    Did you stop to think that perhaps GIMP's developers are in fact its users? I'm an engineer and I draw as a hobby. I don't mind developer-oriented features in my drawing program. If I wanted Photoshop, I would be using that.
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      That’s all well and good, but if GIMP is targeting devs first who are also artists, Linux remains an OS without an image editor targeted at artists first. IMO that’s an important hole in the software library that prevents wider adoption.
anthonybennis 9y ago
I use GIMP regularly, and always impressed at the quality of the tool and the amount of features it has. Looking forward to the v2.10 release. Anyone know where I can download a Windows build of the release candidate? Can't seem to find a link on the website.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Joeboy 9y ago
  In theory https://www.gimp.org/downloads/devel/ https://www.gimp.org/downloads/devel/ , but it currently says "Note: the currently available package provides GIMP 2.9.8 and has not yet updated to the lastet version, GIMP 2.10.0-RC1. We're working on that, please check back later."
nkkollaw 9y ago
Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to any other software I've used. It's such a pity because undoubtedly there is so much work behind it, and the effects are absolutely perfect. I really don't understand why they don't try to make it usable instead of showing a performance meter.
- davidy123 9y ago
  I agree with you, and it's disappointing people are downvoting you. I ended up having beers with several core GIMP developers a few years ago, and they outright stated that improving usability was not a goal for them, in fact they would rather not have the burden of users who expected it to be easier to use. Speaking for myself, I've found other graphics programs were very intuitive and helped me be very creative, yet I've tried to stick with GIMP over the years and have never felt comfortable with it. I think it's a shame it has been promoted as the go-to graphics package for the free software world (it's the one that's always mentioned). There are now better alternatives that should be promoted.
  - Joeboy 9y ago
    When was this? I remember getting a similar impression like a decade or so ago but I think now GIMP definitely has devs that are interested in usability. And usability has certainly improved in the last few years, although it still has some serious annoyances (for my workflow / taste).
    - davidy123 9y ago
      Close to a decade ago. But I haven't noticed any usability improvements. I feel like the time spent with GIMP was time wasted compared to other software where I could easily get what I needed done yet progressively gained aptitude for productivity and creativity. vim for example supports this. This is not to completely slam GIMP, it can be fine for software to demand users learn it deeply before doing simple things (draw a filled shape, draw over layers, consistently remove backgrounds, all typical things a user wants to do that are far from straightforward in GIMP), and to be appreciated by some people for its scripting ability and filters, but it's not a good go-to graphics software and more user friendly software should be promoted. Its name should be the first clue to this status.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
staticelf 9y ago
Not really about GIMP but for people who look for an alternative to Photoshop, I can really recommend Affinity Photo. It's actually on a sale right now on Windows Store at least. Unfortunately it doesn't support Linux like GIMP does but it's a really viable alternative to Photoshop for Mac/Windows users. I used to pay for Photoshop, but it's so darn expensive and I even had to pay to get out of my subscription plan. Affinity Photo cost like one or two months of Photoshop and isn't a subscription service.
- gilrain 9y ago
  Affinity is a fantastic alternative to Photoshop, GIMP, or any other raster manipulation program focused on photos. I'd like to back up this recommendation: for the (one-time) price, it's amazing. I don't miss anything from Photoshop, and the UI is incredibly effective and consistent. I guess the people in this thread are only interested in open source alternatives, because I can't imagine anyone objecting to it on its merits!
  - prokoudine 9y ago
    I don't get why you are being downvoted. Affinity Photo is fantastic software.
  - torstenvl 9y ago
    Maybe the problem exists between the keyboard and the chair, but I've found Affinity very clunky to use and can't figure out how to do even simple things in it.
    - gilrain 9y ago
      They have a really great series of free, official videos on Vimeo which go over individual features and workflows. They got me up, running, and comfortable faster than any other graphical tool so far. It's similar to learning Blender through really good YouTube tutorials, except official and more comprehensive, so you spend less time searching.
Joeboy 9y ago
Is this the development-hell branch that has exciting stuff like 16 bit colour and GEGL everywhere? If so then a release candidate is quite exciting. Hopefully getting this out of the door will make the roadmap a bit simpler and ease future development.
heldrida 9y ago
Side note: GIMP user here that has recently moved to a new image editor called Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, that is super cheap and I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good quality Photoshop and Illustrator alternative, with new ideas and concepts; They are doing an amazing job!
- andrewshadura 9y ago
  I presume it's not free software. It's a deal breaker for many, including myself.
  - besasam 9y ago
    It's a bit of a dilemma, isn't it. I would love an alternative to Photoshop or Affinity that actually offers the same features and has a nice UI (let's be real, it's something most free applications really lack... and the look and feel of the software I'm using has high priority for me) but those who actually want these things aren't the ones developing, and the ones developing apparently don't place a lot of importance on it. We really need more interdisciplinary developers and free software enthusiasts. I know I'm already working on it as an artist-turned-coder :D
    - bkor 9y ago
      > It's a bit of a dilemma, isn't it. I like free software. It doesn't have to be free as in price. Various small free software developers are supported by its users, e.g. Liberapay / Patreon / Tipeee. Various things were contributed by ZeMarmot. This project is supported by its users using above methods. > We really need more interdisciplinary developers and free software enthusiasts. It seems just having people contribute by paying a small amount per week/month is also pretty good method. This allows the existing developers to dedicate more of their time to the project.
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        Isn't that just the subscription model that everyone here decries? That's what JetBrains went to, and people here were calling for their heads.
laurent123456 9y ago
I've tried to use GIMP over several years but never got used to it. Things like resizing and transforming layers, applying filters, etc. are too cumbersome. Many tools also don't have a live preview, which means there's many attempts before getting the needed result. Now I'm back to Photoshop CS3 from 11 years ago, yet many years ahead of today's GIMP. It has smart objects and filters, layer effects, live previews and the very good UI means I can get things done much faster.
- zzzcpan 9y ago
  Well, Gimp was never a replacement for photoshop.
  - Joeboy 9y ago
    I googled "Photoshop alternative" and GIMP was suggested in the first five hits (I stopped checking after that). There's this annoying FLOSS motte-and-bailey conversation that you see over and over again that starts with "X is a Free replacement for Y!" and ends with "Why don't you fix it yourself then?", via "Nobody ever said X was a replacement for Y".
    - pavs 9y ago
      An alternative option for PS is not same as being feature parity replacement of PS. PS is a commercial image editor owned by a company with billions of dollars and many years worth of commercial development and improvements - it is used by a very specific group of users with specific needs and specific skills. And they don't mind paying a hefty fee for it. GIMP (and other similar OS projects) is for everyone else, who wants to do light image editing in an amateur setting without having to pay a large amount for it. Having said that - GIMP has some very powerful features that are as good as PS, but not a feature parity replacement of it. Nor do I think GIMP has the funding or the development mind-share to achieve that.
      - dagw 9y ago
        GIMP (and other similar OS projects) is for everyone else, who wants to do light image editing in an amateur setting without having to pay a large amount for it Except that isn't really true either. If you want to do "light image editing in an amateur setting" GIMP is massive overkill, and there are plenty of easier to use tools. GIMP lives in a strange limbo between not 'light' enough for light work and not heavy enough for 'heavy' work.
app4soft 9y ago
I use AppImage[0] builds[1] for testing development builds without install. Here[2] is latest nightly build from GIMP 2.10.x branch. [0] http://appimage.github.io/apps http://appimage.github.io/apps [1] https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/tag/continuous https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/tag/c... [2] https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/download/continuous/gimp-2.10.0-20180327_0913.glibc2.15-x86_64.AppImage https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/downl...

179 points by jjuhl 9y ago

nice

GIMP was the first advanced image editor I have used. I grew quite fond of it and its tools. Nowadays I have moved away from it because it does not play well with macOS, but still return to it when I am on a Linux box. For me, GIMP has always excelled in making simple actions simple. Even today I am quite surprised that other software has not taken some of the ideas for interface that gimp has. Mainly: - The selection tool is just miles ahead any of the software I have used. It makes the crop tool obsolete and every time I have to switch modes just to resize my previous rectangular selection I long for it. - Resizing and clipping layers is dead simple. Other programs I have used have no "clip to selection" on layers and I have never understood why. - Color to transparency is a single button - Masks are actually simple to use as one can draw on them using all tools, not just some arbitrary subset It has its dose of quirks and the interface is in dire need of a rework, however I must say that despite what many people say I find GIMP quite intuitive to use. I suppose that it is a force of habit. Edit: formatting

athorax 9y ago
Out of curiosity, what issues do you see on macOS? I use it fairly rarely for minor editing, but haven't hit any real issues with it
- yoz-y 9y ago
  My main issue is actually very non-technical. After I have switched to macOS I've started to put more and more importance to the consistency of the interface. GIMP is very different as it is not rendered using native Cocoa widgets. Things like non-native open/save dialog, clipboard support and drag and drop. It also felt quite slow, compared to when I used it on Linux.
- nitrogen 9y ago
  Dialog windows will sometimes appear behind the app window or other windows, and won't come to the foreground or accept input focus until another app is focused first. This also affects other OSes on which Gimp runs.
skykooler 9y ago
Color to alpha is something that I am consistently surprised that Photoshop lacks, every time I try to use it for something.
vbezhenar 9y ago
> - Color to transparency is a single button This is huge. I've used Pixelmator because I liked its UI, but even simplest tasks like this one were unnecessary hard. I kept Gimp just for this.
cptskippy 9y ago
I've always been frustrated by the GIMP interface. I started out using Corel PhotoPaint in the 1990s and used it through version 5 which was about the time it lost parity with Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop and GIMP's interfaces have always felt clunky and non-intuitive to me. I use Photoshop occasionally at work and GIMP at home and really don't enjoy or look forward to using either. I actually try to stay in Inkscape as much as possible with everything I do these days. That being said, GIMP is capable and it's fantastic for the price. I just don't like it.
emidln 9y ago
I'm another native GIMP user. GIMP was all I had (I couldn't afford Photoshop, not that it worked in Wine around 2000) and it let me do some interesting work in high school art and photography classes. GIMP's script-fu (Guile Scheme) was some of the first code I really understood and modified. I still use GIMP to this day, largely because I've never ran into limitations that a little scheme or python didn't solve. I've never had a reason to use something else. I still install GIMP as one of the first apps on Windows or Mac OS machines I need to use for any length of time.
aorth 9y ago
I'm not a heavy GIMP user, but I've found that the macOS builds from Partha's Place work better than those from GIMP's website. They are compiled from the development source every few months. https://www.partha.com/ https://www.partha.com/
app4soft 9y ago
> - The selection tool is just miles ahead any of the software I have used. It makes the crop tool obsolete and every time I have to switch modes just to resize my previous rectangular selection I long for it. Did you ever try mtPaint[0]? It has such selection feature too > - Resizing and clipping layers is dead simple. Other programs I have used have no "clip to selection" on layers and I have never understood why. In mtPaint just select rectangle and click "Delete" button ;-) [0] https://github.com/matyler/mtPaint https://github.com/matyler/mtPaint [1] http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/handbook/en_GB/chap_04.html http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/handbook/en_GB/chap_04.html
- yoz-y 9y ago
  I haven't used that but according to the description in documentation it is not exactly the same. In gimp the selection has smart corners one can drag around, feathering and rounded corners. If I want to do something similar in Affinity Photo for example, I have to make the selection, go to quick mask mode, and then use the move tool. In Pixelmator it had similar issues. > In mtPaint just select rectangle and click "Delete" button ;-) That looks a bit unintuitive to me. I would expect that this would either fill the selection with white (or the set document background color, or with transparency).
sigsergv 9y ago
I've been using dev-builds from https://www.partha.com/ https://www.partha.com/ awhile and branch 2.9 is amazingly fast on macos. It has some minor issues but everything else is amazing.

extrememacaroni 9y ago

GIMP has helped me time and again, glad to see it getting such impressive changelogs. Layer group masks are especially interesting to me. Kudos to the dev team.

bhaavan 9y ago

So still no GTK3? I think when GTK4 is released in a few months, it would be a good time to move to GTK3 as they can still be outdated. I know I am being a bit bitter for an open source project with less funding, but GIMP was supposed to be a poster boy GTK application in the first place.

upofadown 9y ago
The "G" in GTK+ stands for "Gimp". If Gimp is using GTK+ ver 2 who are we to say different? Perhaps ver 2 is the version and the rest are just pointless forks... This is a serious question in general. There will always be s steady stream of significant upgrades/changes of any popular open source project as later developers add in things they consider important. At some point the decision has to be made to stop following those changes. This decision is usually made by default when it turns out that no one can be bothered to follow the changes of a project from another project.
hisham_hm 9y ago
It's the other way around: GTK was created by Gimp -- it was originally the "Gimp Tool Kit". Obviously, the project went separate ways since.
damyyy 9y ago
This is just a myth. You make it sound like there was some purposeful intention to gimp and gtk. There was not. Gimp was created by some kids at berkeley who created gtk because at the time qt and motif had untenable cost and or licensing, or sucked. When the gnome project started years later gtk was chosen due to licensing considerations since ironically qt was “too free” ie pure gpl which limited its use in closed source software without licensing. At the time this was considered a major problem in unseating windows (back in 1998 when there was actually real vested interest that could be a thing)—- visual studio cost a little bit of money (but it was cheap) and you didn’t have to license anything to make closed source windows apps. You could write a GUI app in assembly and not pay ms a dime if you wanted. The Unix side of things was not so good. Motif was thousands of dollars. Anyway, turns out maintaining a professional image editing program is a lot of work. While it is true many fanboys named gimp as some kind of foss and gtk showcase its not like most of them were actively contributing to either gtk or gimp. There was never any longterm large scale commercial investment in gimp similar to how redhat threw massive resources into gnome and gtk.

userbinator 9y ago

A new Dashboard dock helps with monitoring GIMP’s resource usage to keep things in check, allowing you to make more educated decisions about various configuration options. That looks so ridiculous and out-of-place in an image editing program. If it weren't for the left side, you'd think it was Visual Studio! https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/MSDNBlogsFS/prod.evol.blogs.msdn.com/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/00/00/00/45/92/metablogapi/6204.635659102497602738_059EE082.png https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/MSDNBlogsFS/p...

TheCoreh 9y ago
That might not be useful for most users, but could be useful for people in resource-constrained environments. I have a friend with a 2010 MacBook Pro, who is constantly monitoring resource usage as he edits photos etc, and has to close apps, delete files to make space for more Photoshop swap, otherwise the computer just dies.
nkkollaw 9y ago
You did and will keep getting downvoted (like my comment below about GIMP's usability will), but you're absolutely right. This is another case where developers decide what's cool, and of course pick features that are cool to them, not their users. Not once in my life would I ever think I'm missing that feature in GIMP.
- avian 9y ago
  Did you stop to think that perhaps GIMP's developers are in fact its users? I'm an engineer and I draw as a hobby. I don't mind developer-oriented features in my drawing program. If I wanted Photoshop, I would be using that.
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    That’s all well and good, but if GIMP is targeting devs first who are also artists, Linux remains an OS without an image editor targeted at artists first. IMO that’s an important hole in the software library that prevents wider adoption.

anthonybennis 9y ago

I use GIMP regularly, and always impressed at the quality of the tool and the amount of features it has. Looking forward to the v2.10 release. Anyone know where I can download a Windows build of the release candidate? Can't seem to find a link on the website.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Joeboy 9y ago
In theory https://www.gimp.org/downloads/devel/ https://www.gimp.org/downloads/devel/ , but it currently says "Note: the currently available package provides GIMP 2.9.8 and has not yet updated to the lastet version, GIMP 2.10.0-RC1. We're working on that, please check back later."

nkkollaw 9y ago

Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to any other software I've used. It's such a pity because undoubtedly there is so much work behind it, and the effects are absolutely perfect. I really don't understand why they don't try to make it usable instead of showing a performance meter.

davidy123 9y ago
I agree with you, and it's disappointing people are downvoting you. I ended up having beers with several core GIMP developers a few years ago, and they outright stated that improving usability was not a goal for them, in fact they would rather not have the burden of users who expected it to be easier to use. Speaking for myself, I've found other graphics programs were very intuitive and helped me be very creative, yet I've tried to stick with GIMP over the years and have never felt comfortable with it. I think it's a shame it has been promoted as the go-to graphics package for the free software world (it's the one that's always mentioned). There are now better alternatives that should be promoted.
- Joeboy 9y ago
  When was this? I remember getting a similar impression like a decade or so ago but I think now GIMP definitely has devs that are interested in usability. And usability has certainly improved in the last few years, although it still has some serious annoyances (for my workflow / taste).
  - davidy123 9y ago
    Close to a decade ago. But I haven't noticed any usability improvements. I feel like the time spent with GIMP was time wasted compared to other software where I could easily get what I needed done yet progressively gained aptitude for productivity and creativity. vim for example supports this. This is not to completely slam GIMP, it can be fine for software to demand users learn it deeply before doing simple things (draw a filled shape, draw over layers, consistently remove backgrounds, all typical things a user wants to do that are far from straightforward in GIMP), and to be appreciated by some people for its scripting ability and filters, but it's not a good go-to graphics software and more user friendly software should be promoted. Its name should be the first clue to this status.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

staticelf 9y ago

Not really about GIMP but for people who look for an alternative to Photoshop, I can really recommend Affinity Photo. It's actually on a sale right now on Windows Store at least. Unfortunately it doesn't support Linux like GIMP does but it's a really viable alternative to Photoshop for Mac/Windows users. I used to pay for Photoshop, but it's so darn expensive and I even had to pay to get out of my subscription plan. Affinity Photo cost like one or two months of Photoshop and isn't a subscription service.

gilrain 9y ago
Affinity is a fantastic alternative to Photoshop, GIMP, or any other raster manipulation program focused on photos. I'd like to back up this recommendation: for the (one-time) price, it's amazing. I don't miss anything from Photoshop, and the UI is incredibly effective and consistent. I guess the people in this thread are only interested in open source alternatives, because I can't imagine anyone objecting to it on its merits!
- prokoudine 9y ago
  I don't get why you are being downvoted. Affinity Photo is fantastic software.
- torstenvl 9y ago
  Maybe the problem exists between the keyboard and the chair, but I've found Affinity very clunky to use and can't figure out how to do even simple things in it.
  - gilrain 9y ago
    They have a really great series of free, official videos on Vimeo which go over individual features and workflows. They got me up, running, and comfortable faster than any other graphical tool so far. It's similar to learning Blender through really good YouTube tutorials, except official and more comprehensive, so you spend less time searching.

Joeboy 9y ago

Is this the development-hell branch that has exciting stuff like 16 bit colour and GEGL everywhere? If so then a release candidate is quite exciting. Hopefully getting this out of the door will make the roadmap a bit simpler and ease future development.

heldrida 9y ago

Side note: GIMP user here that has recently moved to a new image editor called Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, that is super cheap and I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good quality Photoshop and Illustrator alternative, with new ideas and concepts; They are doing an amazing job!

andrewshadura 9y ago
I presume it's not free software. It's a deal breaker for many, including myself.
- besasam 9y ago
  It's a bit of a dilemma, isn't it. I would love an alternative to Photoshop or Affinity that actually offers the same features and has a nice UI (let's be real, it's something most free applications really lack... and the look and feel of the software I'm using has high priority for me) but those who actually want these things aren't the ones developing, and the ones developing apparently don't place a lot of importance on it. We really need more interdisciplinary developers and free software enthusiasts. I know I'm already working on it as an artist-turned-coder :D
  - bkor 9y ago
    > It's a bit of a dilemma, isn't it. I like free software. It doesn't have to be free as in price. Various small free software developers are supported by its users, e.g. Liberapay / Patreon / Tipeee. Various things were contributed by ZeMarmot. This project is supported by its users using above methods. > We really need more interdisciplinary developers and free software enthusiasts. It seems just having people contribute by paying a small amount per week/month is also pretty good method. This allows the existing developers to dedicate more of their time to the project.
    - s73v3r_ 9y ago
      Isn't that just the subscription model that everyone here decries? That's what JetBrains went to, and people here were calling for their heads.

laurent123456 9y ago

I've tried to use GIMP over several years but never got used to it. Things like resizing and transforming layers, applying filters, etc. are too cumbersome. Many tools also don't have a live preview, which means there's many attempts before getting the needed result. Now I'm back to Photoshop CS3 from 11 years ago, yet many years ahead of today's GIMP. It has smart objects and filters, layer effects, live previews and the very good UI means I can get things done much faster.

zzzcpan 9y ago
Well, Gimp was never a replacement for photoshop.
- Joeboy 9y ago
  I googled "Photoshop alternative" and GIMP was suggested in the first five hits (I stopped checking after that). There's this annoying FLOSS motte-and-bailey conversation that you see over and over again that starts with "X is a Free replacement for Y!" and ends with "Why don't you fix it yourself then?", via "Nobody ever said X was a replacement for Y".
  - pavs 9y ago
    An alternative option for PS is not same as being feature parity replacement of PS. PS is a commercial image editor owned by a company with billions of dollars and many years worth of commercial development and improvements - it is used by a very specific group of users with specific needs and specific skills. And they don't mind paying a hefty fee for it. GIMP (and other similar OS projects) is for everyone else, who wants to do light image editing in an amateur setting without having to pay a large amount for it. Having said that - GIMP has some very powerful features that are as good as PS, but not a feature parity replacement of it. Nor do I think GIMP has the funding or the development mind-share to achieve that.
    - dagw 9y ago
      GIMP (and other similar OS projects) is for everyone else, who wants to do light image editing in an amateur setting without having to pay a large amount for it Except that isn't really true either. If you want to do "light image editing in an amateur setting" GIMP is massive overkill, and there are plenty of easier to use tools. GIMP lives in a strange limbo between not 'light' enough for light work and not heavy enough for 'heavy' work.

app4soft 9y ago

I use AppImage[0] builds[1] for testing development builds without install. Here[2] is latest nightly build from GIMP 2.10.x branch. [0] http://appimage.github.io/apps http://appimage.github.io/apps [1] https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/tag/continuous https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/tag/c... [2] https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/download/continuous/gimp-2.10.0-20180327_0913.glibc2.15-x86_64.AppImage https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-appimage/releases/downl...