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Gimp is a fantastic tool. I'm a developer who occasionally has to do some light graphics work and since I've started using it (~10 years ago?) have never missed

Gimp is a fantastic tool. I'm a developer who occasionally has to do some light graphics work and since I've started using it (~10 years ago?) have never missed Photoshop. It'd be interesting to hear from Photoshop power users, who've made the switch, what they miss and what Gimp does better. For those who didn't make it past the highlight list, here's the donation/support link: https://www.gimp.org/donating/ https://www.gimp.org/donating/ I just made a small donation and encourage others who use Gimp regularly to do the same.

H1Supreme 8y ago
I worked as a graphic designer for about 12 years. I've been using Gimp at work (as a programmer) for light graphics duties. Mostly cropping and adjusting levels on images. It's not been an easy transition, but I'm getting used to it. It's similar in function to Photoshop, but performing said functions is just different enough to make it challenging.
ptero 8y ago
Gimp is a fantastic tool for developers. It does well the tasks that can be automated or thought about in terms of algorithms (rotate all images, resize, stretch levels to 0-255, etc.). Great product! Kudos to its developers. It is, however, a lame duck to photographers (and I think many other artists) when compared with Photoshop. Those who want a visual interface to drag sliders around, instanly see how things would look and edit based on tight coupling with that visual perception still choose Photoshop. I have seen many, many artists try Gimp only to go back. Maybe Gimp does not need to be that tool for artists, but if it does its developer community needs to be more engaged with photography crowd. As a data point: current Adobe licensing model is almost universally hated. If there were a viable option many users would migrate. I would (and I am just a hobbyist). And it is not for lack of trying -- they do try Gimp (and Liminar, and Affinity and such). But the fact that they curse Adobe but still use Photoshop tells you a lot about the fact that Gimp just does not cut it for them. My 2c.
- Pizzaputer 8y ago
  I agree. I used to be a professional photographer and videographer. I switched jobs, but I still keep my gear around. One piece of virtual gear that I don't keep around is anything Adobe. Whereas before, I could buy an actual product and use it when I need it, now it would have to become a subscription I constantly turn on and off when I want to do a small, sometimes pro-bono, photo or video shoot. Affinity Photo is a pretty good alternative. Familiar interface and features, and a one-time affordable purchase. Not entirely sure what an equivalent might be for video.
  - alexcabrera 8y ago
    Final Cut
  - eropple 8y ago
    I still use Photoshop and Illustrator (because for my money there's nothing comparable, and I'll pay for them because of it) but for video I've moved almost entirely over to DaVinci Resolve. BlackMagic's free version is really complete and (possibly because it started life mostly as a color grading application) I find that the way it presents options and tools works better with the way I like to do things. The Studio version's pretty cheap, too, if you want to upgrade.
- ISL 8y ago
  As an anecdotal counterpoint, I'm a dedicated amateur photographer [1] who works entirely on a Debian stack (Darktable/GIMP). I've been occasionally curious about Lightroom/Photoshop's capabilities, but have never felt that I was lacking anything so grievous as to consider a switch. Furthermore, I'd have to run an entirely different OS from the one I've been using since 2002, and lash myself to a licensing model that would be both crippling and expensive. From my perspective, Adobe's tools do have remarkable capabilities and substantial support. The improved content-aware fill is remarkable, but I never need it. Adobe's close relationships with camera manufacturers (and large developer team) ensures that new cameras and lenses are supported almost at release. Lensfun and Darktable do a great job of keeping up with new hardware, but it often takes at least a few months for new cameras to be supported. I buy slightly-older hardware, and I check for Darktable compatibility before purchase/rental. (The GFX50R isn't yet on my radar screen in part for this reason[2], though support is clearly on the way[3].) [1] https://www.charliehagedorn.photography/ https://www.charliehagedorn.photography/ https://www.instagram.com/charliehagedorn/ https://www.instagram.com/charliehagedorn/ [2] https://www.darktable.org/resources/camera-support/ https://www.darktable.org/resources/camera-support/ [3] https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed/pull/161 https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed/pull/161
nickjj 8y ago
I do light graphics work too. Making blog post images and Youtube thumbnails mostly. I started using Gimp a few months ago after 10+ years of using Photoshop. My biggest complaint is the quality of scaling an image down. It's really really bad compared to Photoshop (even if you play with the low level details of picking the scale strategy). It always seems to come out blurry or fuzzy, to the point where I stopped using Gimp for that. Is there a better way to scale images? Also, I just wanted to throw in a comment of, if you're switching to Gimp, don't immediately discount it for not having features you're used to with Photoshop. For example, with Photoshop, if you copy an image to your clipboard outside of Photoshop, then you when you create a new image in Photoshop, the dimensions of the canvas will be set to the image in the clipboard. This way it's super easy to make a new image, paste the image from your clipboard and now you have a properly sized image. Gimp has this feature but it's not implemented in a way that's the same as Photoshop. Instead, with Gimp you can just press CTRL + Shift + V to paste the image from the clipboard into a new image and it's all set up and good to go. The menu item is "paste as... new image".
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Haven't noticed excessive blurriness with older cubic, or newer nohalo, but my needs are limited. convert -resize from ImageMagick is another option.
  - nickjj 8y ago
    It happens whenever I resize a layer (any type of image) or generally resize an image. It's always so much worse than Photoshop's quality. Very noticeable. The problem with using an external tool is I often want to resize layers on the fly to fit them into a final image I'm working on. So using a third party tool to do that goes from a 5 second operation to 5 minutes because I first have to resize it in Gimp to get the dimensions and then resize it "for real" with a different program and then place that into the Gimp image. It's gotten to the point now where I'm looking for an alternative to Gimp, or I'll just go back to using Photoshop full time (even though it's a huge waste of $ since I only edit about 2 images a week).
- YesProcrast 8y ago
wDcBKgt66V8WDs 8y ago
Can anyone speak to the UX difference as well? Not just feature comparisons but what it's like to be using GIMP vs Photoshop. I used Photoshop regularly for a few months in 2009 but that was a public school computer so I'm sure the version was one or two behind. My GIMP use is more frequent/recent but very irregular and for a variety of tasks that are never critical to my livelihood. Today I feel like GIMP is much nicer to use than when I started using it (~2006) but I still remember Photoshop being a nicer experience. I don't know if that's well shared or has changed.
titanix2 8y ago
It have a lot of functions but it is still very lacking on the UX side. I launched it today for small image correction and had to wait literally for minutes. Also, no native file picker, dialog boxes losing focus and becoming unclickable, no way to find how to move text object, all that frustrating things happen in the same 15 minutes of use.
- Crinus 8y ago
  I doubt it'll be GIMP, but i'd like to see a program that follows the UX of Paint Shop Pro (especially PSP7, the last good version IMO before they rewrote the UI and then sold it to Corel that gutted it out) which i always found much easier and more intuitive to use than both Photoshop and GIMP. For a little while i thought Krita would be it, but i quickly realized that they just copied Photoshop for the most part.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Was just thinking how great PSP was back in the days I still used Windows.

H1Supreme 8y ago

I worked as a graphic designer for about 12 years. I've been using Gimp at work (as a programmer) for light graphics duties. Mostly cropping and adjusting levels on images. It's not been an easy transition, but I'm getting used to it. It's similar in function to Photoshop, but performing said functions is just different enough to make it challenging.

ptero 8y ago

Gimp is a fantastic tool for developers. It does well the tasks that can be automated or thought about in terms of algorithms (rotate all images, resize, stretch levels to 0-255, etc.). Great product! Kudos to its developers. It is, however, a lame duck to photographers (and I think many other artists) when compared with Photoshop. Those who want a visual interface to drag sliders around, instanly see how things would look and edit based on tight coupling with that visual perception still choose Photoshop. I have seen many, many artists try Gimp only to go back. Maybe Gimp does not need to be that tool for artists, but if it does its developer community needs to be more engaged with photography crowd. As a data point: current Adobe licensing model is almost universally hated. If there were a viable option many users would migrate. I would (and I am just a hobbyist). And it is not for lack of trying -- they do try Gimp (and Liminar, and Affinity and such). But the fact that they curse Adobe but still use Photoshop tells you a lot about the fact that Gimp just does not cut it for them. My 2c.

Pizzaputer 8y ago
I agree. I used to be a professional photographer and videographer. I switched jobs, but I still keep my gear around. One piece of virtual gear that I don't keep around is anything Adobe. Whereas before, I could buy an actual product and use it when I need it, now it would have to become a subscription I constantly turn on and off when I want to do a small, sometimes pro-bono, photo or video shoot. Affinity Photo is a pretty good alternative. Familiar interface and features, and a one-time affordable purchase. Not entirely sure what an equivalent might be for video.
- alexcabrera 8y ago
  Final Cut
- eropple 8y ago
  I still use Photoshop and Illustrator (because for my money there's nothing comparable, and I'll pay for them because of it) but for video I've moved almost entirely over to DaVinci Resolve. BlackMagic's free version is really complete and (possibly because it started life mostly as a color grading application) I find that the way it presents options and tools works better with the way I like to do things. The Studio version's pretty cheap, too, if you want to upgrade.
ISL 8y ago
As an anecdotal counterpoint, I'm a dedicated amateur photographer [1] who works entirely on a Debian stack (Darktable/GIMP). I've been occasionally curious about Lightroom/Photoshop's capabilities, but have never felt that I was lacking anything so grievous as to consider a switch. Furthermore, I'd have to run an entirely different OS from the one I've been using since 2002, and lash myself to a licensing model that would be both crippling and expensive. From my perspective, Adobe's tools do have remarkable capabilities and substantial support. The improved content-aware fill is remarkable, but I never need it. Adobe's close relationships with camera manufacturers (and large developer team) ensures that new cameras and lenses are supported almost at release. Lensfun and Darktable do a great job of keeping up with new hardware, but it often takes at least a few months for new cameras to be supported. I buy slightly-older hardware, and I check for Darktable compatibility before purchase/rental. (The GFX50R isn't yet on my radar screen in part for this reason[2], though support is clearly on the way[3].) [1] https://www.charliehagedorn.photography/ https://www.charliehagedorn.photography/ https://www.instagram.com/charliehagedorn/ https://www.instagram.com/charliehagedorn/ [2] https://www.darktable.org/resources/camera-support/ https://www.darktable.org/resources/camera-support/ [3] https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed/pull/161 https://github.com/darktable-org/rawspeed/pull/161

nickjj 8y ago

I do light graphics work too. Making blog post images and Youtube thumbnails mostly. I started using Gimp a few months ago after 10+ years of using Photoshop. My biggest complaint is the quality of scaling an image down. It's really really bad compared to Photoshop (even if you play with the low level details of picking the scale strategy). It always seems to come out blurry or fuzzy, to the point where I stopped using Gimp for that. Is there a better way to scale images? Also, I just wanted to throw in a comment of, if you're switching to Gimp, don't immediately discount it for not having features you're used to with Photoshop. For example, with Photoshop, if you copy an image to your clipboard outside of Photoshop, then you when you create a new image in Photoshop, the dimensions of the canvas will be set to the image in the clipboard. This way it's super easy to make a new image, paste the image from your clipboard and now you have a properly sized image. Gimp has this feature but it's not implemented in a way that's the same as Photoshop. Instead, with Gimp you can just press CTRL + Shift + V to paste the image from the clipboard into a new image and it's all set up and good to go. The menu item is "paste as... new image".

mixmastamyk 8y ago
Haven't noticed excessive blurriness with older cubic, or newer nohalo, but my needs are limited. convert -resize from ImageMagick is another option.
- nickjj 8y ago
  It happens whenever I resize a layer (any type of image) or generally resize an image. It's always so much worse than Photoshop's quality. Very noticeable. The problem with using an external tool is I often want to resize layers on the fly to fit them into a final image I'm working on. So using a third party tool to do that goes from a 5 second operation to 5 minutes because I first have to resize it in Gimp to get the dimensions and then resize it "for real" with a different program and then place that into the Gimp image. It's gotten to the point now where I'm looking for an alternative to Gimp, or I'll just go back to using Photoshop full time (even though it's a huge waste of $ since I only edit about 2 images a week).
YesProcrast 8y ago

wDcBKgt66V8WDs 8y ago

Can anyone speak to the UX difference as well? Not just feature comparisons but what it's like to be using GIMP vs Photoshop. I used Photoshop regularly for a few months in 2009 but that was a public school computer so I'm sure the version was one or two behind. My GIMP use is more frequent/recent but very irregular and for a variety of tasks that are never critical to my livelihood. Today I feel like GIMP is much nicer to use than when I started using it (~2006) but I still remember Photoshop being a nicer experience. I don't know if that's well shared or has changed.

titanix2 8y ago

It have a lot of functions but it is still very lacking on the UX side. I launched it today for small image correction and had to wait literally for minutes. Also, no native file picker, dialog boxes losing focus and becoming unclickable, no way to find how to move text object, all that frustrating things happen in the same 15 minutes of use.

Crinus 8y ago
I doubt it'll be GIMP, but i'd like to see a program that follows the UX of Paint Shop Pro (especially PSP7, the last good version IMO before they rewrote the UI and then sold it to Corel that gutted it out) which i always found much easier and more intuitive to use than both Photoshop and GIMP. For a little while i thought Krita would be it, but i quickly realized that they just copied Photoshop for the most part.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Was just thinking how great PSP was back in the days I still used Windows.