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GIMP needs a major user-interface overhaul like Edward Snowden said on Twitter: https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1416778909358731266?lang=en https://twitter.c

GIMP needs a major user-interface overhaul like Edward Snowden said on Twitter: https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1416778909358731266?lang=en https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1416778909358731266?lang=...

petee 5y ago
I don't see how Edward Snowden is relevant...if you don't like the UI, just say that.
benrbray 5y ago
Indeed. I really want to like GIMP, but it doesn't hold a candle to my old copy of Photoshop CS4 from ten years ago. From what I can recall, the GIMP UI has hardly changed since then too. I suppose they're probably constrained by what is possible with GTK? Basically it seems like Linux needs a better standard for user interfaces -- I can't think of a GTK app that doesn't have awkard position/spacing/layout issues.
- glandium 5y ago
  Pretty ironic, considering GTK was originally created for GIMP (that's even what the G stood for back then: the GIMP ToolKit).
  - daptaq 5y ago
    I always smile when thinking about the fact that GTK stands for "GNU is not Unix ... is not Unix Image Manimulation Program ToolKit"
- daptaq 5y ago
  > From what I can recall, the GIMP UI has hardly changed since then too. There have actually been changes, and even if they aren't major, someone like me who has never used anything but GIMP was annoyed/slightly confused by them. I don't know what the issue with GIMP is, besides tools that Photoshop appears to have or has better implementations for. My impressions is that it is mostly Photoshop users, that are expecting something else, or am I mistaken?
  - michaelt 5y ago
    > My impressions is that it is mostly Photoshop users, that are expecting something else, or am I mistaken? I use GIMP for my (modest) editing needs, and I like it. But some of the behaviour is.... weird. For example, if you've got a region selected and you use the flood fill tool, it will only fill pixels within that region. OK, that's logical enough, a tool only applies to selected pixels, right? But if you've got a region selected and you use the move tool, it'll move the entire layer. If you want to move only the pixels in the selected region, you gotta convert it to a floating selection. And after you've moved your floating selection, you want to select a different region to move, so you drag out a new selection. Not so fast, your floating region has now vanished. You gotta defloat the selection by selecting nothing. But you can't do that by choosing 'None' in the 'Select' menu, that's greyed out for some reason. I'm sure these behaviours all make sense to a developer or expert user - but nobody's going to be telling their friends that GIMP is easy to pick up :)
    - numpad0 5y ago
      I think I’ve seen GIMP’s “move tool moves the frame” behavior on somewhere else, perhaps in ancient versions of Photoshop. Back in the time GIMP UI was close enough to those, like in the legendary CS2 or v5.5 days.
- jcelerier 5y ago
  Did you try Krita ? https://krita.org/en/features/highlights/ https://krita.org/en/features/highlights/ (the doc is great too: https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/getting_started/navigation.html#interface https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/getting_started/naviga...)
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Krita has a different focus though. What photoshop is to Illustrator, is GIMP to Krita. I use both and I think GIMP is really usable and the UI isn't that bad. There were some changes though, so people should take a look at the latest version.
    - jcelerier 5y ago
      > Krita has a different focus though. What photoshop is to Illustrator, is GIMP to Krita. I mean, that's the theory, but I just find photo editing to be all around much more comfortable in Krita despite using GIMP for years. Also one of Photoshop's main domain is digital painting (https://www.google.com/search?q=making+digital+painting+with+photoshop https://www.google.com/search?q=making+digital+painting+with...) which is what Krita focuses on. You don't really draw with Illustrator.
      - raxxorrax 5y ago
        True, they have overlapping functionality. I meant Fresco instead of Illustrator, I forget the names of Adobe apps constantly.
MrDresden 5y ago
I'm guessing that Blender has more funding available to it and/or has retained more of its senior developers, compared to GIMP. Expecting that a piece of software undertakes an ambitious UI overhaul (which is no small feat) without one or both of those resources shows, to me, a lack of understanding.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  It should not be underestimated how much Blender is helped by the project management by Ton. As far as I know GIMP does not have a face for the press, does not organize conferences, has no one contacting businesses for funding. And it has an unfortunate joke name.
  - gurkendoktor 5y ago
    If it's any consolation, "Blender" is a actually negative word in German ("deceiver"; someone who blinds others).
    - lenkite 5y ago
      The name seems to be fitting for a 3d computer graphics toolset.
    - pantalaimon 5y ago
      The same is true for Poser (https://www.posersoftware.com https://www.posersoftware.com)
- npteljes 5y ago
  I agree. Two things come to mind regarding the interface of GIMP. One is what you wrote - that it needs a product manager and tons of manhours just to do what's essentially a refactor. Not to mention that GIMP devs said that many UI changes would imply backend changes too, because of limitations. And they are working on those limitations, among other things. Second part of the point is that Adobe must have like 50 people work on Photoshop, and I guess even more when you consider the overlaps with their other products. Compare this to the active contributor number to GIMP. The second point is that many people compare it to Photoshop like Photoshop is a gold standard of usability. It's just as a nightmare as GIMP if you're not used to it. So, it's not really GIMP's fault that people are used to something else.
glandium 5y ago
Almost not joking: I wonder if it wouldn't be better if Blender grew image editing features. After all, it now has video editing features, and I hear they're decent.
npteljes 5y ago
GIMP needs funding to do that. It's not easy to turn a ship around.
ghosty141 5y ago
I just noticed they don't even have screenshots on their website. That's horrible in my opinion. I'm not using a program where I have to actively search for 3rd party websites to find some pictures of the UI.
- prokoudine 5y ago
  Redoing the features and the home pages is on the todo list already :)
BaRRaKID 5y ago
This. This is the biggest reason why I don't use GIMP more often. The tooling is great, but the usability is atrocious. I would give them all the money for a UI overhaul.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rvz 5y ago
Or some would rather at best use Krita, if not continue to use Photoshop running in Wine.
pessimizer 5y ago
Photoshop and Illustrator's UIs are so illogical, arbitrary and tooltip-free they give skilled users Stockholm syndrome. GIMP's UI is logical and good, and you have 10x the odds of finding something you've never looked for before quickly than you do with Photoshop. The GIMP's weakness is color management.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  I've never used Photoshop so can't comment on that, but I've always found GIMP's UI to be simple and straightforward.. but maybe that's because I've used it for so long. I really don't have a problem with it. I'd rather GIMP focused on adding features that Photoshop and other competitors have.
mschuetz 5y ago
GIMP's use interface is the reason I switched to Krita. Nothing ever worked as expected in GIMP.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  A typical example is the need to use paths for what are basic geometric tooling in almost every other graphical application.

petee 5y ago

I don't see how Edward Snowden is relevant...if you don't like the UI, just say that.

benrbray 5y ago

Indeed. I really want to like GIMP, but it doesn't hold a candle to my old copy of Photoshop CS4 from ten years ago. From what I can recall, the GIMP UI has hardly changed since then too. I suppose they're probably constrained by what is possible with GTK? Basically it seems like Linux needs a better standard for user interfaces -- I can't think of a GTK app that doesn't have awkard position/spacing/layout issues.

glandium 5y ago
Pretty ironic, considering GTK was originally created for GIMP (that's even what the G stood for back then: the GIMP ToolKit).
- daptaq 5y ago
  I always smile when thinking about the fact that GTK stands for "GNU is not Unix ... is not Unix Image Manimulation Program ToolKit"
daptaq 5y ago
> From what I can recall, the GIMP UI has hardly changed since then too. There have actually been changes, and even if they aren't major, someone like me who has never used anything but GIMP was annoyed/slightly confused by them. I don't know what the issue with GIMP is, besides tools that Photoshop appears to have or has better implementations for. My impressions is that it is mostly Photoshop users, that are expecting something else, or am I mistaken?
- michaelt 5y ago
  > My impressions is that it is mostly Photoshop users, that are expecting something else, or am I mistaken? I use GIMP for my (modest) editing needs, and I like it. But some of the behaviour is.... weird. For example, if you've got a region selected and you use the flood fill tool, it will only fill pixels within that region. OK, that's logical enough, a tool only applies to selected pixels, right? But if you've got a region selected and you use the move tool, it'll move the entire layer. If you want to move only the pixels in the selected region, you gotta convert it to a floating selection. And after you've moved your floating selection, you want to select a different region to move, so you drag out a new selection. Not so fast, your floating region has now vanished. You gotta defloat the selection by selecting nothing. But you can't do that by choosing 'None' in the 'Select' menu, that's greyed out for some reason. I'm sure these behaviours all make sense to a developer or expert user - but nobody's going to be telling their friends that GIMP is easy to pick up :)
  - numpad0 5y ago
    I think I’ve seen GIMP’s “move tool moves the frame” behavior on somewhere else, perhaps in ancient versions of Photoshop. Back in the time GIMP UI was close enough to those, like in the legendary CS2 or v5.5 days.
jcelerier 5y ago
Did you try Krita ? https://krita.org/en/features/highlights/ https://krita.org/en/features/highlights/ (the doc is great too: https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/getting_started/navigation.html#interface https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/getting_started/naviga...)
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Krita has a different focus though. What photoshop is to Illustrator, is GIMP to Krita. I use both and I think GIMP is really usable and the UI isn't that bad. There were some changes though, so people should take a look at the latest version.
  - jcelerier 5y ago
    > Krita has a different focus though. What photoshop is to Illustrator, is GIMP to Krita. I mean, that's the theory, but I just find photo editing to be all around much more comfortable in Krita despite using GIMP for years. Also one of Photoshop's main domain is digital painting (https://www.google.com/search?q=making+digital+painting+with+photoshop https://www.google.com/search?q=making+digital+painting+with...) which is what Krita focuses on. You don't really draw with Illustrator.
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      True, they have overlapping functionality. I meant Fresco instead of Illustrator, I forget the names of Adobe apps constantly.

MrDresden 5y ago

I'm guessing that Blender has more funding available to it and/or has retained more of its senior developers, compared to GIMP. Expecting that a piece of software undertakes an ambitious UI overhaul (which is no small feat) without one or both of those resources shows, to me, a lack of understanding.

tinus_hn 5y ago
It should not be underestimated how much Blender is helped by the project management by Ton. As far as I know GIMP does not have a face for the press, does not organize conferences, has no one contacting businesses for funding. And it has an unfortunate joke name.
- gurkendoktor 5y ago
  If it's any consolation, "Blender" is a actually negative word in German ("deceiver"; someone who blinds others).
  - lenkite 5y ago
    The name seems to be fitting for a 3d computer graphics toolset.
  - pantalaimon 5y ago
    The same is true for Poser (https://www.posersoftware.com https://www.posersoftware.com)
npteljes 5y ago
I agree. Two things come to mind regarding the interface of GIMP. One is what you wrote - that it needs a product manager and tons of manhours just to do what's essentially a refactor. Not to mention that GIMP devs said that many UI changes would imply backend changes too, because of limitations. And they are working on those limitations, among other things. Second part of the point is that Adobe must have like 50 people work on Photoshop, and I guess even more when you consider the overlaps with their other products. Compare this to the active contributor number to GIMP. The second point is that many people compare it to Photoshop like Photoshop is a gold standard of usability. It's just as a nightmare as GIMP if you're not used to it. So, it's not really GIMP's fault that people are used to something else.

glandium 5y ago

Almost not joking: I wonder if it wouldn't be better if Blender grew image editing features. After all, it now has video editing features, and I hear they're decent.

npteljes 5y ago

GIMP needs funding to do that. It's not easy to turn a ship around.

ghosty141 5y ago

I just noticed they don't even have screenshots on their website. That's horrible in my opinion. I'm not using a program where I have to actively search for 3rd party websites to find some pictures of the UI.

prokoudine 5y ago
Redoing the features and the home pages is on the todo list already :)

BaRRaKID 5y ago

This. This is the biggest reason why I don't use GIMP more often. The tooling is great, but the usability is atrocious. I would give them all the money for a UI overhaul.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rvz 5y ago

Or some would rather at best use Krita, if not continue to use Photoshop running in Wine.

pessimizer 5y ago

Photoshop and Illustrator's UIs are so illogical, arbitrary and tooltip-free they give skilled users Stockholm syndrome. GIMP's UI is logical and good, and you have 10x the odds of finding something you've never looked for before quickly than you do with Photoshop. The GIMP's weakness is color management.

pmoriarty 5y ago
I've never used Photoshop so can't comment on that, but I've always found GIMP's UI to be simple and straightforward.. but maybe that's because I've used it for so long. I really don't have a problem with it. I'd rather GIMP focused on adding features that Photoshop and other competitors have.

mschuetz 5y ago

GIMP's use interface is the reason I switched to Krita. Nothing ever worked as expected in GIMP.

pjmlp 5y ago
A typical example is the need to use paths for what are basic geometric tooling in almost every other graphical application.