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I still remember that time I tried selecting something and moving the pixels of my selection, rather than the whole layer in GIMP. I ended up having to google i

I still remember that time I tried selecting something and moving the pixels of my selection, rather than the whole layer in GIMP. I ended up having to google it and it was a 3-key combination shortcut. I don't remember how to do it in photoshop, but I'm pretty sure I didn't have to google "how to move a selection" that time I used it.

pja 6y ago
Fair. I think you’re expected to float the selection into a new layer and then move the layer, but this is such a common operation for people to want that it ought to be directly available from the Move tool.
- chmod775 6y ago
  This is how I've been doing it since forever and and at the very least didn't have to Google it. I did not know another way existed... which also just illustrates the point.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    It doesn't really, because you don't know how to do it in Photoshop either. I've been recently learning Photoshop for the first time after being a long term GIMP user, and I don't find it intuitive at all. If you didn't need google or books to use Photoshop, somebody should tell the enormous industry of websites and books sold to teach it.
  - kazinator 6y ago
    Your comment seems disingenuous, because the predominant user interface paradigm in all sorts of programs (file managers, vector editors, text editors, ...) on all sorts of platforms is that when you select something, you can click and drag that selected thing. This is a thing that is different in GIMP: that the selection specifies an area of the image which is affected by operations, rather than an object to manipulate. "I did not know another way existed" seems outlandish. I mean, launch any paint program developed for any platform in the last 40 years; chances are you can select a rectangle and just drag it. There is a rhyme and reason to the way GIMP does it, and you can learn it quickly, but it's going to cause complaints. It could be that 99% of the anti-GIMP ranting is caused by this one issue.
    - chmod775 6y ago
      >Your comment seems disingenuous Your comment seems like you missed what was being talked about. In fact you appear to think I was arguing a point antipodal to what I was actually saying. "I did not know another way existed" was referring to a second way to do it in GIMP.
kristopolous 6y ago
Audacity has this in spades. Every annoying thing has a bizarre undiscoverable keystroke to invoke a sensible not-broken alternative. Why they don't make the reasonable implementations the first class defaults is way beyond me... (I haven't read the mailing list/bug report threads enough to find out, if someone has insight I'd love to know. It's like they know something is what people don't want to do 99.9% of the time, they fix it, then they hide the fix; ie deleting some audio without shifting everything over - I have never wanted to shift things on delete. Not once, never. Not a single time. Why is that default?)
- throwanem 6y ago
  What's the Photoshop to Audacity's GIMP?
  - qwertox 6y ago
    Sound Forge
riidom 6y ago
Well moving the selection is the 3rd thing you can do, what you meant probably is moving the content of the selection. It's controlled by 3 buttons on top of the tools window, and this plus a few other things are worth spending a bit time to learn the basic concepts. Which is a good advice for PS as well, btw.
- asddubs 6y ago
  i do remember figuring out how to move my selection without moving what's in it. it felt a little bit like gimp was playing a prank on me
pessimizer 6y ago
In GIMP you can just cut it and paste it, and ctrl-x ctrl-v works, which are pretty much universal in every application. It creates a temporary layer for the selection, and when your cursor is over the selection you'll get the universal 4-axis pointer that means move, and when your cursor is not over it, it will turn into an anchor (whose meaning you can guess.)

pja 6y ago

Fair. I think you’re expected to float the selection into a new layer and then move the layer, but this is such a common operation for people to want that it ought to be directly available from the Move tool.

chmod775 6y ago
This is how I've been doing it since forever and and at the very least didn't have to Google it. I did not know another way existed... which also just illustrates the point.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  It doesn't really, because you don't know how to do it in Photoshop either. I've been recently learning Photoshop for the first time after being a long term GIMP user, and I don't find it intuitive at all. If you didn't need google or books to use Photoshop, somebody should tell the enormous industry of websites and books sold to teach it.
- kazinator 6y ago
  Your comment seems disingenuous, because the predominant user interface paradigm in all sorts of programs (file managers, vector editors, text editors, ...) on all sorts of platforms is that when you select something, you can click and drag that selected thing. This is a thing that is different in GIMP: that the selection specifies an area of the image which is affected by operations, rather than an object to manipulate. "I did not know another way existed" seems outlandish. I mean, launch any paint program developed for any platform in the last 40 years; chances are you can select a rectangle and just drag it. There is a rhyme and reason to the way GIMP does it, and you can learn it quickly, but it's going to cause complaints. It could be that 99% of the anti-GIMP ranting is caused by this one issue.
  - chmod775 6y ago
    >Your comment seems disingenuous Your comment seems like you missed what was being talked about. In fact you appear to think I was arguing a point antipodal to what I was actually saying. "I did not know another way existed" was referring to a second way to do it in GIMP.

kristopolous 6y ago

Audacity has this in spades. Every annoying thing has a bizarre undiscoverable keystroke to invoke a sensible not-broken alternative. Why they don't make the reasonable implementations the first class defaults is way beyond me... (I haven't read the mailing list/bug report threads enough to find out, if someone has insight I'd love to know. It's like they know something is what people don't want to do 99.9% of the time, they fix it, then they hide the fix; ie deleting some audio without shifting everything over - I have never wanted to shift things on delete. Not once, never. Not a single time. Why is that default?)

throwanem 6y ago
What's the Photoshop to Audacity's GIMP?
- qwertox 6y ago
  Sound Forge

riidom 6y ago

Well moving the selection is the 3rd thing you can do, what you meant probably is moving the content of the selection. It's controlled by 3 buttons on top of the tools window, and this plus a few other things are worth spending a bit time to learn the basic concepts. Which is a good advice for PS as well, btw.

asddubs 6y ago
i do remember figuring out how to move my selection without moving what's in it. it felt a little bit like gimp was playing a prank on me

pessimizer 6y ago

In GIMP you can just cut it and paste it, and ctrl-x ctrl-v works, which are pretty much universal in every application. It creates a temporary layer for the selection, and when your cursor is over the selection you'll get the universal 4-axis pointer that means move, and when your cursor is not over it, it will turn into an anchor (whose meaning you can guess.)