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I want to like Gimp but I just can't. It always gets in my way. If I create a selection, then copy and paste, why isn't the result a new layer? Why is it somet

I want to like Gimp but I just can't. It always gets in my way. If I create a selection, then copy and paste, why isn't the result a new layer? Why is it something floating? I don't get that. And why do all tool settings suddenly change when I start using my Wacom instead of my mouse? Of course there are probably good answers for the above but it is just not intuitive. It's a little sad because so much time and energy is put into Gimp. But every time I use it I start looking for alternatives. Krita for example. I have been a Blender user for over 15 years. While the UI had a learning curve it always made sense to me. With Gimp this is not the case. I sometimes wonder if the people who built it also use it.

shantnutiwari 4y ago
Agreed. I find Gimps UI not just bad, but actively user hostile. I bought Affinity Photo just so I wouldnt have to deal with Gimp-- something that took 7-8 steps in Gimp could be done in one. Affinity tools are great-- unlike Adobe, they are a one time purchase, and really polished and easy to use.
- throwaddzuzxd 4y ago
  As a beginner I really want to like Affinity, I even bought Photo and Designer, but it's just so hard to find tutorials with the same UI! For every single tutorial I follow I'm like "ok click here, click here and... wtf where is this button? Why doesn't it work?". Even the window to create a new project doesn't look the same between my version and what's in the tutorial, some options don't even seem to exist anymore The other day I was trying to apply a mask on a layer and in the tutorial they painted it with a black brush to hide some parts of the changes on the layer. I failed miserably because: 1. The toolbar has like 5 different tools with a brush icon, I had no idea which one to choose 2. I tried them all, and the result was always the same: I paint with the black paint, see the changes, release my click, and 1 second later the changes are cancelled for no apparent reason I feel like having a global command palette would help keep tutorials relevant for a longer period of time, because if I don't find an icon I could just global search it by name...
  - mkr-hn 4y ago
    Something like Reaper's action search. I can't find anything 99% of the time, but I don't have to since everything is one Shift+? away.
- virtualritz 4y ago
  I bought Affinity Photo and it's not a PS replacement for many common tasks in the latter. Particularly working with masks/alpha channels is sub par. The developers are aware but a fix has not been release in years. Users request about this regularly but nothing happens.[1] 1 https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/109734-feature-request-alpha-channels-again/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/109734-fea...
dash2 4y ago
One thing I notice from reading these updates is that there's a focus on new features, but very little on UX improvements. Gimp seems like a very powerful tool, but a lot of its power is incredibly hard to discover. As a casual user, I am regularly stumped in doing things that should be simple. I wonder if they should have a specific project to improve the UX.
- oblio 4y ago
  From the newer blog post linked in the comments (https://www.gimp.org/news/2022/02/25/gimp-2-99-10-released/ https://www.gimp.org/news/2022/02/25/gimp-2-99-10-released/): > In the below example, I am storing a semantic name for several layers featuring sleeping marmots My guess? Gimp is a design tool made by developers with some graphic design inclinations. That's why it's weird. I don't think you'll ever hear <<ANY>> actual, professional designer say "semantic name".
  - davbryn1 4y ago
    This is the issue! >. For the geekiest of us: by default, this uses simple text search, but in Preferences, tab “Interface”, you can also set the search entry to use the Glob or Regular Expression syntaxes! You don't find this kind of language in Photoshop documentation
- knighthack 4y ago
  Blender and Inkscape's UI/UX improvements have been wonderful.
heurisko 4y ago
Similar to your experience with Blender, Inkscape is a much younger project, but I think from the beginning its UI was better than Gimp. So it's extra frustrating, as creating an understandable UI is evidently possible.
cypress66 4y ago
Blender UI used to be awful, but nowadays it's better than the competition IMO (especially Maya)
- solarkraft 4y ago
  The Blender story is quite an impressive one of iterative development. Ton Rosensaal very explicitly doesn't want technology for its own sake and wants to "get it out of the door", but does it all while keeping an eye on it being usable for creatives (now more than before, but the ground work was laid long ago, see everything being animatable) Great interview with Blender Guru: https://youtu.be/qJEWOTZnFeg https://youtu.be/qJEWOTZnFeg
- archerx 4y ago
  I see Blender as the GIMP of 3D, I've used many different 3D programs and blender just sucks all the fun out because I feel like I'm fighting with the UI instead of doing what I want to do. People keep saying the UI is better but every time I download the latest version it makes me appreciate 3DS max very much. If I was to go back to making indie games or indie music videos I would rather pay autodesk $50 a month for a hobby/indie license than get grey hairs from using Blender. I would love to not give that money to autodesk and use blender instead but the UI pain threshold is still too high for me to bypass. I really hope progress continues and maybe in 5 years things will actually be better.
dagw 4y ago
I have been a Blender user for over 15 years. While the UI had a learning curve it always made sense to me. With Gimp this is not the case. I sometimes wonder if the people who built it also use it. Blender was designed from day 1 by and for working 3D artists that had to deliver real commercial projects. Gimp started as a university student project meant as a platform for playing with different image processing algorithms. Those roots clearly shine through for both projects even today.
- resoluteteeth 4y ago
  Gimp is basically originally a clone of Photoshop 3/4 without most of the subsequent ui improvements. I can't confirm it but I wouldn't be surprised if the floating selection thing was also Photoshop behavior at the time. So the difference isn't really how gimp started, it's just that development was mostly dead for 20 years and nobody put the work into improving the UI. Blender also used to have a bad UI but people worked really hard to change that.
- hitekker 4y ago
  It's not just their roots that are different. Blender also once had some weird deficiencies in its UI/UX. As I recall, the developers swallowed their pride and started working alongside with designers and HCI experts. Blender matured from being a cool kid's programming club, into a professional OSS organization. Whereas GIMP seems to shun designers and HCI experts, losing out on the valuable insights that those folks could share.
- taneq 4y ago
  The moment Blender's basic navigation and UI clicked for me was when I realised it was vi for polygons. Gimp's interface is a bit janky but after the initial frustration it's always made sense to me... then again I started using it as a replacement for my own image editor which I made as a university student project, so maybe there's a reason for that. :P
tejohnso 4y ago
> If I create a selection, then copy and paste, why isn't the result a new layer? Why is it something floating? I don't get that. Without having been exposed to other paint programs, this seems reasonable to me. You said it yourself, you create a selection, then copy / paste. So why would the result be a new layer? You didn't copy a layer, you copied a selection. And this way you can either anchor it into the same layer (which I often do) or decide that it should be a new layer and get the result you're expecting.

shantnutiwari 4y ago

Agreed. I find Gimps UI not just bad, but actively user hostile. I bought Affinity Photo just so I wouldnt have to deal with Gimp-- something that took 7-8 steps in Gimp could be done in one. Affinity tools are great-- unlike Adobe, they are a one time purchase, and really polished and easy to use.

throwaddzuzxd 4y ago
As a beginner I really want to like Affinity, I even bought Photo and Designer, but it's just so hard to find tutorials with the same UI! For every single tutorial I follow I'm like "ok click here, click here and... wtf where is this button? Why doesn't it work?". Even the window to create a new project doesn't look the same between my version and what's in the tutorial, some options don't even seem to exist anymore The other day I was trying to apply a mask on a layer and in the tutorial they painted it with a black brush to hide some parts of the changes on the layer. I failed miserably because: 1. The toolbar has like 5 different tools with a brush icon, I had no idea which one to choose 2. I tried them all, and the result was always the same: I paint with the black paint, see the changes, release my click, and 1 second later the changes are cancelled for no apparent reason I feel like having a global command palette would help keep tutorials relevant for a longer period of time, because if I don't find an icon I could just global search it by name...
- mkr-hn 4y ago
  Something like Reaper's action search. I can't find anything 99% of the time, but I don't have to since everything is one Shift+? away.
virtualritz 4y ago
I bought Affinity Photo and it's not a PS replacement for many common tasks in the latter. Particularly working with masks/alpha channels is sub par. The developers are aware but a fix has not been release in years. Users request about this regularly but nothing happens.[1] 1 https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/109734-feature-request-alpha-channels-again/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/109734-fea...

dash2 4y ago

One thing I notice from reading these updates is that there's a focus on new features, but very little on UX improvements. Gimp seems like a very powerful tool, but a lot of its power is incredibly hard to discover. As a casual user, I am regularly stumped in doing things that should be simple. I wonder if they should have a specific project to improve the UX.

oblio 4y ago
From the newer blog post linked in the comments (https://www.gimp.org/news/2022/02/25/gimp-2-99-10-released/ https://www.gimp.org/news/2022/02/25/gimp-2-99-10-released/): > In the below example, I am storing a semantic name for several layers featuring sleeping marmots My guess? Gimp is a design tool made by developers with some graphic design inclinations. That's why it's weird. I don't think you'll ever hear <<ANY>> actual, professional designer say "semantic name".
- davbryn1 4y ago
  This is the issue! >. For the geekiest of us: by default, this uses simple text search, but in Preferences, tab “Interface”, you can also set the search entry to use the Glob or Regular Expression syntaxes! You don't find this kind of language in Photoshop documentation
knighthack 4y ago
Blender and Inkscape's UI/UX improvements have been wonderful.

heurisko 4y ago

Similar to your experience with Blender, Inkscape is a much younger project, but I think from the beginning its UI was better than Gimp. So it's extra frustrating, as creating an understandable UI is evidently possible.

cypress66 4y ago

Blender UI used to be awful, but nowadays it's better than the competition IMO (especially Maya)

solarkraft 4y ago
The Blender story is quite an impressive one of iterative development. Ton Rosensaal very explicitly doesn't want technology for its own sake and wants to "get it out of the door", but does it all while keeping an eye on it being usable for creatives (now more than before, but the ground work was laid long ago, see everything being animatable) Great interview with Blender Guru: https://youtu.be/qJEWOTZnFeg https://youtu.be/qJEWOTZnFeg
archerx 4y ago
I see Blender as the GIMP of 3D, I've used many different 3D programs and blender just sucks all the fun out because I feel like I'm fighting with the UI instead of doing what I want to do. People keep saying the UI is better but every time I download the latest version it makes me appreciate 3DS max very much. If I was to go back to making indie games or indie music videos I would rather pay autodesk $50 a month for a hobby/indie license than get grey hairs from using Blender. I would love to not give that money to autodesk and use blender instead but the UI pain threshold is still too high for me to bypass. I really hope progress continues and maybe in 5 years things will actually be better.

dagw 4y ago

I have been a Blender user for over 15 years. While the UI had a learning curve it always made sense to me. With Gimp this is not the case. I sometimes wonder if the people who built it also use it. Blender was designed from day 1 by and for working 3D artists that had to deliver real commercial projects. Gimp started as a university student project meant as a platform for playing with different image processing algorithms. Those roots clearly shine through for both projects even today.

resoluteteeth 4y ago
Gimp is basically originally a clone of Photoshop 3/4 without most of the subsequent ui improvements. I can't confirm it but I wouldn't be surprised if the floating selection thing was also Photoshop behavior at the time. So the difference isn't really how gimp started, it's just that development was mostly dead for 20 years and nobody put the work into improving the UI. Blender also used to have a bad UI but people worked really hard to change that.
hitekker 4y ago
It's not just their roots that are different. Blender also once had some weird deficiencies in its UI/UX. As I recall, the developers swallowed their pride and started working alongside with designers and HCI experts. Blender matured from being a cool kid's programming club, into a professional OSS organization. Whereas GIMP seems to shun designers and HCI experts, losing out on the valuable insights that those folks could share.
taneq 4y ago
The moment Blender's basic navigation and UI clicked for me was when I realised it was vi for polygons. Gimp's interface is a bit janky but after the initial frustration it's always made sense to me... then again I started using it as a replacement for my own image editor which I made as a university student project, so maybe there's a reason for that. :P

tejohnso 4y ago

> If I create a selection, then copy and paste, why isn't the result a new layer? Why is it something floating? I don't get that. Without having been exposed to other paint programs, this seems reasonable to me. You said it yourself, you create a selection, then copy / paste. So why would the result be a new layer? You didn't copy a layer, you copied a selection. And this way you can either anchor it into the same layer (which I often do) or decide that it should be a new layer and get the result you're expecting.