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Happy GIMP user here. GIMP is probably the most apparent "something else". But talking to my friends who use Photoshop, apparently the learning curve of GIMP i

Happy GIMP user here. GIMP is probably the most apparent "something else". But talking to my friends who use Photoshop, apparently the learning curve of GIMP is too steep. It doesn't work the way Photoshop does, and so they don't use it. I find this odd.. they'd prefer to carry on paying hundreds of cash each year to use a buggy piece of software that they know, instead of using this awesome piece of software for free with the minimal investment of a few days learning. People are weird.

viraptor 7y ago
> It doesn't work the way Photoshop does, and so they don't use it. It's not just the way it works. It simply does not have a lot of features present in Photoshop, starting with non-destructive filter layers. It's not just different, it's objectively worse to work with, because you can't adjust filters retroactively, wasting time to undo to the right place, then reapply everything. If that works for you, great! But you're oversimplifying reasons it may not work for others.
dinkleberg 7y ago
I don't know what your friends professions are, but if photoshop is a regular part of it, then the productivity gains are worth the cost. It's the same reason I pay for JetBrains IDEs. I've got friends who say why in the world would you pay for an IDE when you can do everything for free with VS Code. But my productivity is so much higher with pycharm + webstorm, so I pay. And maybe I am weird, but I like to pay people for the work that they do that makes my life better.
yardie 7y ago
Yes, when it comes down to it if money is on the line a few days of downtime can lead to thousands of dollars in lost time and work. Your friends are probably well aware of GIMP, made the calculation dozens of times, and each time decided it wasn’t worth the risk. It’s not just the learning curve. It’s a whole different workflow. I learned photoshop in middle school. And if I resumed using it today not a lot would change. I’ve tried to learn Gimp for 2 decades. I still can’t figure out the GUI, CLI processing was easy, I get that.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  So why is the GUI so hard to learn? I mean, I'm not a huge fan of it, I still find it tricky to do the right thing sometimes. But is it that much harder than PS?
checktheorder 7y ago
>But talking to my friends who use Photoshop, apparently the learning curve of GIMP is too steep. I'm a huge FOSS fan, so I don't say this as some sort of Adobe fanboy. GIMP has a lot of issues beyond the interface. Chief among them is a lack of nondestructive adjustment layers. That means it's a non-starter right off the bat for any photographer doing nonlinear postprocessing.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  OK, I get that. But these aren't photographer friends. These are usually web designers doing some basic web layouts and graphic manipulation. I do this stuff in GIMP, and they refuse to.

viraptor 7y ago

> It doesn't work the way Photoshop does, and so they don't use it. It's not just the way it works. It simply does not have a lot of features present in Photoshop, starting with non-destructive filter layers. It's not just different, it's objectively worse to work with, because you can't adjust filters retroactively, wasting time to undo to the right place, then reapply everything. If that works for you, great! But you're oversimplifying reasons it may not work for others.

dinkleberg 7y ago

I don't know what your friends professions are, but if photoshop is a regular part of it, then the productivity gains are worth the cost. It's the same reason I pay for JetBrains IDEs. I've got friends who say why in the world would you pay for an IDE when you can do everything for free with VS Code. But my productivity is so much higher with pycharm + webstorm, so I pay. And maybe I am weird, but I like to pay people for the work that they do that makes my life better.

yardie 7y ago

Yes, when it comes down to it if money is on the line a few days of downtime can lead to thousands of dollars in lost time and work. Your friends are probably well aware of GIMP, made the calculation dozens of times, and each time decided it wasn’t worth the risk. It’s not just the learning curve. It’s a whole different workflow. I learned photoshop in middle school. And if I resumed using it today not a lot would change. I’ve tried to learn Gimp for 2 decades. I still can’t figure out the GUI, CLI processing was easy, I get that.

marcus_holmes 7y ago
So why is the GUI so hard to learn? I mean, I'm not a huge fan of it, I still find it tricky to do the right thing sometimes. But is it that much harder than PS?

checktheorder 7y ago

>But talking to my friends who use Photoshop, apparently the learning curve of GIMP is too steep. I'm a huge FOSS fan, so I don't say this as some sort of Adobe fanboy. GIMP has a lot of issues beyond the interface. Chief among them is a lack of nondestructive adjustment layers. That means it's a non-starter right off the bat for any photographer doing nonlinear postprocessing.

marcus_holmes 7y ago
OK, I get that. But these aren't photographer friends. These are usually web designers doing some basic web layouts and graphic manipulation. I do this stuff in GIMP, and they refuse to.