5 ms·

Inkscape is my go to image editor. The UI is reminiscent of the old Macromedia Fireworks, with a paradigm that feels much nicer (to me) than Photoshop et al. I

by pugio 7y ago

Inkscape is my go to image editor. The UI is reminiscent of the old Macromedia Fireworks, with a paradigm that feels much nicer (to me) than Photoshop et al. I downloaded the beta pessimistically thinking that they still wouldn't have native OSX Menu support (I've been using the non-updated 0.91+devel+osmenu fork/branch forever), but was pleasantly surprised to see full OSX integration in this beta. Great job guys!

killjoywashere 7y ago
Thanks for this comment. I will probably download for that reason alone. That said, my goto vector editor is InkPad on an iPad Pro. It's everything I need and nothing I don't.
Theizestooke 7y ago
I thought Inkscape was an alternative to Illustrator and other vector drawing programs, didn't know people were using it for photo editing.
- executesorder66 7y ago
  They said image editor, not photo editor. Vector images are still images.
  - Theizestooke 7y ago
    There's a comparison to photoshop.
    - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
      People use Photoshop where a vector graphics program would be more appropriate because they know and are familiar with Photoshop.
- jarek-foksa 7y ago
  If you just want to crop a photo and add some filters to it, most vector graphics editors can do that and are good enough.
- liziwizi 7y ago
  yeah, indeed, strange.. I always use Gimp in those situations. I'm fairly fluent in Inkscape and cropping images is not something I would use it for.
- ChrisArchitect 7y ago
  yeah, this is super weird, it's a vector graphics editor, come on people, use GIMP or photoshop for images.
  - m-p-3 7y ago
    The program is still able to handle it, and I know its features more than GIMP or Photoshop. To me, it's still an acceptable tool.
tmikaeld 7y ago
I'm used to Affinity Designer, unfortunately Inkscape is very slow for even just ~10 layers of medium complexity shapes on MacOS :-/ While on Affinity, I can have hundred layers without noticeable performance issues.
- mkl 7y ago
  Sounds like it's caching things? How does the memory usage compare?
- bildung 7y ago
  I'm not on MacOS but find Inkscape pretty snappy in general, even with big projects. Perhaps it's not the Layers but the effects? Blur in particular is pretty slow. Have you tried reducing the displayed filter quality? This doesn't effect the image itself, only the display in Inkscape. It's in the render tab in Inkscape preferences. At View -> Display Mode you can also toggle between full display, display without filters and only outlines. If Inkscape is significantly faster without displayed filters, setting down the display quality will definitely help.
  - tmikaeld 7y ago
    I'm using plain symbols and pen drawing when testing and CPU shoots up to 70% instantly, moving objects are sluggish and every move makes the CPU spike again. The more curves I have, the more sluggish it becomes.
    - bildung 7y ago
      Do you use MacOS, too?
  - ken 7y ago
    The very first item on Affinity Designer's feature list [1] is "Pan and zoom at 60fps". You don't generally accomplish this by accident. They apparently wrote the engine from scratch to use hardware acceleration, and be usable on an iPad with a very small amount of available RAM [2]. There's no reason blur, in particular, must necessarily be slow. Everybody (and their phone) has a GPU that's more than fast enough to do that in real-time. I wonder if the (cross-platform) interfaces that Inkscape are using on macOS aren't hardware accelerated. Or if it's using some syscall which is cheap on some platforms and expensive on others. I haven't done any testing but I agree that Inkscape feels much slower than Affinity Designer. [1]: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/full-feature-list/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/full-feature-list/ [2]: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/18079-what-vector-rendering-engine-does-designer-use/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/18079-what...
Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
If you liked Fireworks, try Sketch. It looks like Fireworks, but with those little annoying bits done right. I wish Inkscape copied these interface tricks.

by pugio 7y ago

killjoywashere 7y ago

Thanks for this comment. I will probably download for that reason alone. That said, my goto vector editor is InkPad on an iPad Pro. It's everything I need and nothing I don't.

Theizestooke 7y ago

I thought Inkscape was an alternative to Illustrator and other vector drawing programs, didn't know people were using it for photo editing.

executesorder66 7y ago
They said image editor, not photo editor. Vector images are still images.
- Theizestooke 7y ago
  There's a comparison to photoshop.
  - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
    People use Photoshop where a vector graphics program would be more appropriate because they know and are familiar with Photoshop.
jarek-foksa 7y ago
If you just want to crop a photo and add some filters to it, most vector graphics editors can do that and are good enough.
liziwizi 7y ago
yeah, indeed, strange.. I always use Gimp in those situations. I'm fairly fluent in Inkscape and cropping images is not something I would use it for.
ChrisArchitect 7y ago
yeah, this is super weird, it's a vector graphics editor, come on people, use GIMP or photoshop for images.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  The program is still able to handle it, and I know its features more than GIMP or Photoshop. To me, it's still an acceptable tool.

tmikaeld 7y ago

I'm used to Affinity Designer, unfortunately Inkscape is very slow for even just ~10 layers of medium complexity shapes on MacOS :-/ While on Affinity, I can have hundred layers without noticeable performance issues.

mkl 7y ago
Sounds like it's caching things? How does the memory usage compare?
bildung 7y ago
I'm not on MacOS but find Inkscape pretty snappy in general, even with big projects. Perhaps it's not the Layers but the effects? Blur in particular is pretty slow. Have you tried reducing the displayed filter quality? This doesn't effect the image itself, only the display in Inkscape. It's in the render tab in Inkscape preferences. At View -> Display Mode you can also toggle between full display, display without filters and only outlines. If Inkscape is significantly faster without displayed filters, setting down the display quality will definitely help.
- tmikaeld 7y ago
  I'm using plain symbols and pen drawing when testing and CPU shoots up to 70% instantly, moving objects are sluggish and every move makes the CPU spike again. The more curves I have, the more sluggish it becomes.
  - bildung 7y ago
    Do you use MacOS, too?
- ken 7y ago
  The very first item on Affinity Designer's feature list [1] is "Pan and zoom at 60fps". You don't generally accomplish this by accident. They apparently wrote the engine from scratch to use hardware acceleration, and be usable on an iPad with a very small amount of available RAM [2]. There's no reason blur, in particular, must necessarily be slow. Everybody (and their phone) has a GPU that's more than fast enough to do that in real-time. I wonder if the (cross-platform) interfaces that Inkscape are using on macOS aren't hardware accelerated. Or if it's using some syscall which is cheap on some platforms and expensive on others. I haven't done any testing but I agree that Inkscape feels much slower than Affinity Designer. [1]: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/full-feature-list/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/full-feature-list/ [2]: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/18079-what-vector-rendering-engine-does-designer-use/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/18079-what...

Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago

If you liked Fireworks, try Sketch. It looks like Fireworks, but with those little annoying bits done right. I wish Inkscape copied these interface tricks.