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If it were only that - there are features that will never be implemented if certain utterances by core devs are any indication. I am more a PSP than a PS guy a

If it were only that - there are features that will never be implemented if certain utterances by core devs are any indication. I am more a PSP than a PS guy and I really tried to use GIMP for my image editing needs on kubuntu. I even ran a pinned patched version of it fixing the save/export "bug" (Another boneheaded ideological dev decision). A few months back I wanted to add a few straight lines to an image. In PSP these would be vector object that can be adjusted in size, color and position. In GIMP not so much. It has only the pencil tool with an alt mode holding shift that does straight lines. However I needed to adjust the lines distance from each other slightly - What followed was a lot of cursing and repeated attempts, switching to the path tool followed by discarding that idea and switching to making a layer per line. After finishing I deleted what I had done and did the same by starting PSP 9 in WINE in about 30 seconds. I did some googling and found the reason why GIMP lacks any useable Vector functions is that vector functions belong in a Drawing program not a Manipulation program. And GIMP is the latter. This is a paraphrased from memory quote by a GIMP dev. That probably means that not putting any vector function in (even though stuff like the Text function really benefits from vector layers) was a decision long ago that passed into ideological canon by now and is probably a huge task to implement. So I am currently back to using a PSP version from 1998 for editing images on ubuntu. Even though its buggy as hell. Newer version after the Corel acquisition sadly come with a DRM service that balks at wine. I have licences for a few of those I would love to use.

formerly_proven 4y ago
Most of this is just down to GIMP being an almost entirely destructive editor, and destructive editing just never was any good at respecting the user's time and effort. The only reason to implement destructive editing in the past has been limited computer resources, not because it's actually a good paradigm in virtually any way.
- prokoudine 4y ago
  I don't think it was due to limited resources. GIMP development started in 1995. First version of Adobe Photoshop with adjustment layers was released a year later, in 1996. The notion just wasn't there.
  - gilrain 4y ago
    And the notion remained absent for close to 20 years and counting, huh?
    - prokoudine 4y ago
      I'm not sure what you are implying or how we got from "why it was originally designed that way" to "still not available". If you still want talking about notions and time, GEGL as the non-destructive backend for GIMP was started by Rhythm&Hues developers in early 2000. We could have a long conversation about priorities and availability of developers and refactoring and all the reasons resulting in non-destructive editing not yet available, if you like.
prokoudine 4y ago
Ye gods, where do I even begin with this... Vector layers was a 2006 Google Summer of Code project. It was too ambitious, it wasn't completed, whatever good bits were done got merged years later so that the code wouldn't be lost completely, and there is still no user interface for any of that. But the sole reason this project was assigned was because people behind GIMP were quite open to having better drawing tools in the program. They just lacked the time and the motivation to work on that. When your program is primarily intended for image manipulation and you have a crapton of requests from users to add image manipulation tools, filters, and whatnot, how else do you prioritize your work? Especially when you program's architecture turns out to be inadequate for complex features and you have to rearchitect and repurpose 800K LOC, not to mention updating it for the next generation of the UI toolkit that is a moving target of its own? For every user complaining about not having shape tools you'll get three complaining about the UI, another two or three complaining about not having non-destructive editing, another two demanding layer styles, then an assorted group of individuals wanting CMYK image mode, LAB image mode, more use of GPU, AI features, more filters, better HiDPI support, and the list goes on. All the while you have essentially one person doing 50% of all work and a small team of people all working on small items. All the while there are free/libre applications like Inkscape that have been providing better drawing tools for years. So I'll ask again: given all that, how else do you prioritize your work?
- giantrobot 4y ago
  This just backs up the point the great grand parent comment made: GIMP just barely has feature parity with Photoshop 3 and even then lacks features that were in PS3. As a project GIMP is impressive and the devs do good work. Unfortunately for many end users it's useless because it lacks particular features.
  - prokoudine 4y ago
    > This just backs up the point the great grand parent comment made: GIMP just barely has feature parity with Photoshop 3 and even then lacks features that were in PS3. CMYK image mode being pretty much the only missing feature from Photoshop 3.0? I think people tend to forget all the hoops they had to jump through years ago. Do you remember how you couldn't edit text layers until version 4.0 or 5.0? Or how most filters and some selection tools didn't work in 32-bit mode until fairly far in the CS release series?

formerly_proven 4y ago

Most of this is just down to GIMP being an almost entirely destructive editor, and destructive editing just never was any good at respecting the user's time and effort. The only reason to implement destructive editing in the past has been limited computer resources, not because it's actually a good paradigm in virtually any way.

prokoudine 4y ago
I don't think it was due to limited resources. GIMP development started in 1995. First version of Adobe Photoshop with adjustment layers was released a year later, in 1996. The notion just wasn't there.
- gilrain 4y ago
  And the notion remained absent for close to 20 years and counting, huh?
  - prokoudine 4y ago
    I'm not sure what you are implying or how we got from "why it was originally designed that way" to "still not available". If you still want talking about notions and time, GEGL as the non-destructive backend for GIMP was started by Rhythm&Hues developers in early 2000. We could have a long conversation about priorities and availability of developers and refactoring and all the reasons resulting in non-destructive editing not yet available, if you like.

prokoudine 4y ago

Ye gods, where do I even begin with this... Vector layers was a 2006 Google Summer of Code project. It was too ambitious, it wasn't completed, whatever good bits were done got merged years later so that the code wouldn't be lost completely, and there is still no user interface for any of that. But the sole reason this project was assigned was because people behind GIMP were quite open to having better drawing tools in the program. They just lacked the time and the motivation to work on that. When your program is primarily intended for image manipulation and you have a crapton of requests from users to add image manipulation tools, filters, and whatnot, how else do you prioritize your work? Especially when you program's architecture turns out to be inadequate for complex features and you have to rearchitect and repurpose 800K LOC, not to mention updating it for the next generation of the UI toolkit that is a moving target of its own? For every user complaining about not having shape tools you'll get three complaining about the UI, another two or three complaining about not having non-destructive editing, another two demanding layer styles, then an assorted group of individuals wanting CMYK image mode, LAB image mode, more use of GPU, AI features, more filters, better HiDPI support, and the list goes on. All the while you have essentially one person doing 50% of all work and a small team of people all working on small items. All the while there are free/libre applications like Inkscape that have been providing better drawing tools for years. So I'll ask again: given all that, how else do you prioritize your work?

giantrobot 4y ago
This just backs up the point the great grand parent comment made: GIMP just barely has feature parity with Photoshop 3 and even then lacks features that were in PS3. As a project GIMP is impressive and the devs do good work. Unfortunately for many end users it's useless because it lacks particular features.
- prokoudine 4y ago
  > This just backs up the point the great grand parent comment made: GIMP just barely has feature parity with Photoshop 3 and even then lacks features that were in PS3. CMYK image mode being pretty much the only missing feature from Photoshop 3.0? I think people tend to forget all the hoops they had to jump through years ago. Do you remember how you couldn't edit text layers until version 4.0 or 5.0? Or how most filters and some selection tools didn't work in 32-bit mode until fairly far in the CS release series?