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https://www.gimp.org https://www.gimp.org https://krita.org/en https://krita.org/en If you donate anything near what you would have paid for Adobe, then these

https://www.gimp.org https://www.gimp.org https://krita.org/en https://krita.org/en If you donate anything near what you would have paid for Adobe, then these projects will be awash in resources.

jeffbee 6y ago
That's a really interesting assertion. I have a feeling you could throw arbitrary amount of money at GIMP and it will still be almost useless.
- hardwaresofton 6y ago
  > awash in resources
- Theodores 6y ago
  By 'almost useless' you mean 'almost useless to someone expecting an open source clone of the leading proprietary software'. We all too often look at open source software and think of it as a clone of an 'equivalent'. Journalists and others lead us to believe that the likes of the GIMP team are striving to create a clone of Photoshop, or that the Inkscape team are striving to create a version of Illustrator or that the OpenOffice team are playing catchup with Microsoft Office. If you are a developer with basic image manipulation needs and some specific needs such as being able to save files to a specific colour depth in a specific format, then GIMP is what you want. Admittedly you are not going to be able to do the things a designer does in Photoshop but that is not the point. Same with OpenOffice Calc, it is a spreadsheet program but not a clone of Excel. It has a different demographic of users, some of whom would consider Excel to be the wrong tool as it magically autocorrects and thinks it knows best, with an interface that obfuscates important (to the programmer) details file save options. Inkscape - the alleged open source clone of Illustrator is not that at all. It is an editor for SVG files and is a better tool than Illustrator for that specific task of creating optimised SVG files. You can do some design with it too, but it has technical applications and a user base that prefer it because it caters to their needs. Some people that are used to the market leading software come with preconceptions about what free and open source software is about and how the user interfaces should be improved. Meanwhile, long time users of the open source software, can be mightily relieved that their chosen software is different to what the majority thinks is better.
- stuaxo 6y ago
  They don't have many developers and they have been undertaking work to sort out the fundamental tech, to sort out age-old bugbears. In the meantime, the team from ZeMarmot have been making concrete changes in features and UI, with a funding level, that I certainly couldn't live off. It would be interesting to see what would happen if they were funded to the level of just one developers salary.
- bregma 6y ago
  You can lift the suspension and cut off the top but a Cadillac is never going to be a Jeep.
- stuaxo 6y ago
  They don't have many developers and they have been undertaking work to sort out the fundamental tech, to sort out age-old bugbears. In the meantime, the team from ZeMarmot have been making concrete changes in features and UI, with a funding level, that I certainly couldn't live off. It would be interesting to see what would happen if they were funded to the level of just one developers salary. Here's whats left before GIMP 3 can be released https://www.patreon.com/posts/40087754 https://www.patreon.com/posts/40087754 Getting the Gtk 3 version out should be a boost, there is way less between Gtk3 and the upcoming 4 too so the way ahead is good.
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  As a (former) long-time GIMP hater, they actually fixed a lot of my biggest complaints with it a year or two ago. Definitely still far short of Photoshop in terms of a lot of features, but the UI doesn't make me want to stab myself anymore
hardwaresofton 6y ago
Also just to put my money where my mouth is, I've donated to both of these just now. Nothing crazy or generous -- only $50/€50, but every little bit counts. How do you know I actually donated? Well Krita emailed me a donation # but I'm not sure if that's persionally identifying or not, but if you really care email me and I'll share that with you, or screenshots of my paypal statement bill or something. Oh also totally overlooked (can't edit now) Inkscape, which I personally know I've used in the last year, same amount: https://inkscape.org/support-us/donate/ https://inkscape.org/support-us/donate/ For those who don't have money to spare, donating time or speaking well of these programs and increasing their adoption are just fine as contributions (at least I think so, maybe others might disagree). [EDIT] - If you don't have money but you have time and expertise to contribute a translation/pull request/etc that's actually worth even more than the money you could give and it would pay off repeatedly, forever. I've actually done the bare minimum by giving money since I know contributing a code fix or feature implementation/etc would be way more valuable.
potemkinhr 6y ago
Also a stellar Photoshop alternative is Paint.NET https://www.getpaint.net/ https://www.getpaint.net/ I wasn't happy with GIMP's interface since way back but this one fulfills pretty much my every need, and I gather would for most other users too (excluding heavy professional users). Give this one also a spin

https://www.gimp.org https://www.gimp.org https://krita.org/en https://krita.org/en If you donate anything near what you would have paid for Adobe, then these projects will be awash in resources.

jeffbee 6y ago

That's a really interesting assertion. I have a feeling you could throw arbitrary amount of money at GIMP and it will still be almost useless.

hardwaresofton 6y ago
> awash in resources
Theodores 6y ago
By 'almost useless' you mean 'almost useless to someone expecting an open source clone of the leading proprietary software'. We all too often look at open source software and think of it as a clone of an 'equivalent'. Journalists and others lead us to believe that the likes of the GIMP team are striving to create a clone of Photoshop, or that the Inkscape team are striving to create a version of Illustrator or that the OpenOffice team are playing catchup with Microsoft Office. If you are a developer with basic image manipulation needs and some specific needs such as being able to save files to a specific colour depth in a specific format, then GIMP is what you want. Admittedly you are not going to be able to do the things a designer does in Photoshop but that is not the point. Same with OpenOffice Calc, it is a spreadsheet program but not a clone of Excel. It has a different demographic of users, some of whom would consider Excel to be the wrong tool as it magically autocorrects and thinks it knows best, with an interface that obfuscates important (to the programmer) details file save options. Inkscape - the alleged open source clone of Illustrator is not that at all. It is an editor for SVG files and is a better tool than Illustrator for that specific task of creating optimised SVG files. You can do some design with it too, but it has technical applications and a user base that prefer it because it caters to their needs. Some people that are used to the market leading software come with preconceptions about what free and open source software is about and how the user interfaces should be improved. Meanwhile, long time users of the open source software, can be mightily relieved that their chosen software is different to what the majority thinks is better.
stuaxo 6y ago
They don't have many developers and they have been undertaking work to sort out the fundamental tech, to sort out age-old bugbears. In the meantime, the team from ZeMarmot have been making concrete changes in features and UI, with a funding level, that I certainly couldn't live off. It would be interesting to see what would happen if they were funded to the level of just one developers salary.
bregma 6y ago
You can lift the suspension and cut off the top but a Cadillac is never going to be a Jeep.
stuaxo 6y ago
They don't have many developers and they have been undertaking work to sort out the fundamental tech, to sort out age-old bugbears. In the meantime, the team from ZeMarmot have been making concrete changes in features and UI, with a funding level, that I certainly couldn't live off. It would be interesting to see what would happen if they were funded to the level of just one developers salary. Here's whats left before GIMP 3 can be released https://www.patreon.com/posts/40087754 https://www.patreon.com/posts/40087754 Getting the Gtk 3 version out should be a boost, there is way less between Gtk3 and the upcoming 4 too so the way ahead is good.
HideousKojima 6y ago
As a (former) long-time GIMP hater, they actually fixed a lot of my biggest complaints with it a year or two ago. Definitely still far short of Photoshop in terms of a lot of features, but the UI doesn't make me want to stab myself anymore

hardwaresofton 6y ago

Also just to put my money where my mouth is, I've donated to both of these just now. Nothing crazy or generous -- only $50/€50, but every little bit counts. How do you know I actually donated? Well Krita emailed me a donation # but I'm not sure if that's persionally identifying or not, but if you really care email me and I'll share that with you, or screenshots of my paypal statement bill or something. Oh also totally overlooked (can't edit now) Inkscape, which I personally know I've used in the last year, same amount: https://inkscape.org/support-us/donate/ https://inkscape.org/support-us/donate/ For those who don't have money to spare, donating time or speaking well of these programs and increasing their adoption are just fine as contributions (at least I think so, maybe others might disagree). [EDIT] - If you don't have money but you have time and expertise to contribute a translation/pull request/etc that's actually worth even more than the money you could give and it would pay off repeatedly, forever. I've actually done the bare minimum by giving money since I know contributing a code fix or feature implementation/etc would be way more valuable.

potemkinhr 6y ago

Also a stellar Photoshop alternative is Paint.NET https://www.getpaint.net/ https://www.getpaint.net/ I wasn't happy with GIMP's interface since way back but this one fulfills pretty much my every need, and I gather would for most other users too (excluding heavy professional users). Give this one also a spin