20 ms·

GIMP Turns 27

346 points by neustradamus 4y ago

renewiltord 4y ago
I've used GIMP so much through my life. Krita is pretty good and better with the Wacom stuff, but I just reach for Gimp. Not for any good reason since last time it was unbearably slow on Apple Silicon.
perardi 4y ago
Still no adjustment layers, still no layer styles. It’s so easy to just critique away…but really? Really? Those are just absolutely essential image editing software features. What have they been prioritizing ahead of that?
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  And no macOS native gui ;_; It’s almost unusable in OSX because of that.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    To each their own, but if GIMP got a "Logic Pro"-style rewrite then I'd probably be looking for a new raster graphics editor.
    - dontbenebby 4y ago
      I’m not familiar with that program, what about the UI is especially bad/weird?
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        Everything, subjectively. Logic Pro is the epitome of Apple leaning fully into 'Form as an excuse for function' and it's one of the most hilariously useless pieces of paid software ever devised. Apple refuses to give it Pro Tools functionality because it's not a 'real DAW' and hobbles multiple features to Garageband-level functionality. I'd prefer to keep my ugly-but-capable GIMP on every platform rather than having a single half-decent MacOS version that bends over backwards to foreign HID.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- failedartifact 4y ago
  Its open source, so feel free to prioritise your own workload into making this feature.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Unless you are ideologically inclined, it would be a better use of your resources to just pay for photoshop. As much as it angers people on this website, the subscription model provides a constant stream of funding that has gone in to keeping the tool the best on the market and for anyone using it professionally, it delivers far more value than it's cost.
    - Ygg2 4y ago
      I don't think you have to be ideologically inclined. Photoshop is already turning on the milking machine. Subscription. Check. Paid add ons. Check. Paid color palette. Check and mark.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        "This guy couldn't find the scale tool in GIMP... charge him $9.99 each month until he learns his lesson."
      - nickthegreek 4y ago
        Agreed, luckily, Affinity exists and they are not only resisting subscriptions but also sell cross platform licenses.
        rnd0 4y ago
        Shit, I missed the boat on that one. What's ironic is that I bought Affinity but still continue to use GIMP shrugs One of these days I'll sit down with Affinity. One of these days...
        Ygg2 4y ago
        That assumes that Affinity doesn't get bought by Adobe, or their license model never changes. Which in today's world is a fools errand.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pengaru 4y ago
  > What have they been prioritizing ahead of that? There are very few active maintainers, what few there are have been scratching their own itches.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    That's evident. I've used the tool periodically and I can't think of anything that's improved in the last 10 years. I think it actually got worse when they made all the icons greyscale and hid some under others. You still have 3 different tools for moving, resizing, and rotating when every other program has them all in one.
    - pengaru 4y ago
      It's disappointed me as well over the past 5-10 years. The switch from save->export seemed arbitrary and pointless. And the last time I tried putting text into an image with their text editing tool, the widget was so buggy I gave up - and that was in a release that shipped in debian stable at the time. But it's just a bummer, not a source of anger/furor/vitriol for the project. I don't get why so many folks are talking shit like they didn't get their refund.
      - robinsonb5 4y ago
        Oh that particular change drives me crazy. It's not the switch per se, it's the lecture I receive when I slip up and use the muscle-memory procedure of File->Save As with a .tif extension, like I did for the first decade of using GIMP. The software has quite clearly identified what I'm trying to do, so refusing to comply and forcing me to jump through an arbitrary hoop is akin to jeering the words "You didn't say 'Simon Says'"! The new text widget has improved recently, and it's certainly an improvement on the original. It's still a great piece of software, and I'm very grateful that it exists, but when I use it, it's generally a version from the 2.4 series, because it suits my workflow better. (When there's no image open the older versions just have a small unobtrusive toolbox window open, which you can use as a drop target for files picked from a file browser; the newer versions have a large empty window which gets in the way.) [For those who say "fork it yourself", I have contributed to development in the distant past - dithered gradients were my addition, and I wrote a plugin (subsequently adopted by someone in Japan but long-since abandoned) for separating RGB images to CMYK layers, and saving them as a CMYK TIFF. But despite briefly maintaining a PPA with a patched version without the "no image open" window I quickly decided life was too short to spend my hobby time trying to hold back that particular tide.]
- kome 4y ago
  I am a simple person, I like GIMP; and I have no idea what "no adjustment layers, still no layer styles" is
  - diag 4y ago
    It's about non destructive editing, a very powerful tool for professional workflows especially for fine tuning changes and making things repeatable.
  - llanowarelves 4y ago
    Once you have worked with them, you won't want to work without them.
    - rnd0 4y ago
      and yet I've worked without them just fine for 15 years or more
  - azertykeys 4y ago
    For instance - in Photoshop, one can add an adjustment layer on a picture that alters the saturation and color balance of that image. One can then copy that layer for use later, or edit that layer on the fly if one decides it's not right. Or delete it entirely, much later in the editing process.
- wetpaws 4y ago
  Just use Krita.
- NoThisIsMe 4y ago
  They've been working on this for like a decade, in a sense. They're rewriting the core as a library, GEGL, which supports non-destructive editing as well as other long-requested features. My impression is GEGL is largely done; the remaining work is to port GIMP to it. Realizing these gains for non-destructive editing is planned for v3.2, which is probably years away still. The other major initiative since forever has been porting to GTK 3.
  - torginus 4y ago
    Sorry, come again? Porting to GTK 3? GTK 4 has been out for years.
    - robinsonb5 4y ago
      Yes, which means GTK3 is finally a stable target! ;) I'm fully aware that (a) I'm a dinosaur, and (b) not the target audience of the GTK project in its current form, but I still miss things like the tear-off menus, and the tab-completion and wildcard filtering in the file dialog (without the current keyboard focus complications) from GTK1.2!
    - asveikau 4y ago
      https://docs.gtk.org/gtk4/migrating-3to4.html https://docs.gtk.org/gtk4/migrating-3to4.html Does it really make sense for them to break so many things? Doesn't show a lot of respect for people who adopt the library.
- the-smug-one 4y ago
  "Øyvind Kolås raises funds for his work on GEGL, GIMP’s new sophisticated image processing core. This work is crucial to implement features such as non-destructive editing in GIMP, including features known as adjustment layers and layer effects in similar software. Øyvind is the GEGL maintainer and its primary developer who has been working on it since mid-2000s. "
  - jhoechtl 4y ago
    > Øyvind Kolås raises funds for his work on GEGL, GIMP’s new sophisticated image processing core GEGL aka duke nukem forever
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  At this point I don’t think it’s controversial to say that this project existing has harmed creative tools on Linux. If another project had become the de-facto we’d have all those basic features. Instead we’re stuck with something that almost provides the basics ok, because it exists people treat it like a solved problem, and it has such a history no one’s allowed to say it just frankly isn’t usable for it’s one job.
  - Nition 4y ago
    In some ways the de facto standard now is http://www.photopea.com http://www.photopea.com in a browser.
    - wankle 4y ago
      GIMP I've used for years and years, never heard of photopea, was the comment a SPAM Ad spot?
      - mardifoufs 4y ago
        No, photopea is pretty well known now. Mentionned a few times on HN too
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        Photopea is almost more well known than gimp these days.
        denkmoon 4y ago
        Who knows why you're being downvoted, and I'd say it's _more_ well known than GIMP. My sister has used Photopea. She's as far from a sophisticated computer user as you can get. Regular people can stumble across Photopea, they certainly don't know about GIMP.
        Agrue8u 4y ago
        Haven't used photoshop in 10 years. I have gimp, never use it. Paint.net is my basic image tool, along with IrfanView, for which I have a license circa 2004. I also use Scribus, FOSS version of InDesign. But never heard of Photopea until today...
- smallerfish 4y ago
  Adjustment layers are on the 3.2 roadmap. https://developer.gimp.org/core/roadmap/#gimp-32 https://developer.gimp.org/core/roadmap/#gimp-32 No idea what the timing of that version is.
  - kasabali 4y ago
    hopefully before the next decade
- josefx 4y ago
  > What have they been prioritizing ahead of that? Gnome integration and Wayland as far as I can tell from its roadmap. So basically staying functional under the ADHD driven development model that is the Linux desktop environment. A bit hilarious that Gimp now has a hard time staying up to date with Gnomes Gtk when Gtk was originally an UI lib for Gimp.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    > A bit hilarious that Gimp now has a hard time staying up to date with Gnomes Gtk when Gtk was originally an UI lib for Gimp. Yet not terribly surprising. GIMP provided a useful alternative widget framework because it helped them push boundaries. Now that's grown into its own thing, and the parent project lags since its core focus is elsewhere.
    - asveikau 4y ago
      Frankly I think gtk+ quality has been going down for a few releases.
- m00x 4y ago
  It's FOSS, so feel free to implement those yourself and send over a PR :)
- stonogo 4y ago
  No, those are absolutely essential Adobe Photoshop features. Having a different set of tools to accomplish a specific goal is fine because, bear with me, GIMP is not Photoshop. 90% of the complaining that always happens in these threads is Photoshop/Irfanview/whatever users, coming in and assuming that the purpose of GIMP is to reimplement your favorite image editing software for free. That is not the goal, and it never has been. As long as you keep pretending anyone intends GIMP to be a Photoshop clone, you'll keep being disappointed. After _three decades_ I can no longer blame anyone but the complainant.
- Adj_and_Styles 4y ago
  Those could had been implemented loooooooong ago. In a hacky way. The dictate was to be pure and wait for GEGL. So still nothing of that. We got layer trees at least. They could have been implemented by overloading the layer blending code, and recoded with GEGL once ready. But pure won over "we can do that too now, please do not look behind the curtain". It's really simple: adjustment is just a layer that only uses mask data and operates on the bottom layer pixels with already coded functions (levels, contrast, etc). Styles would be similar, applying plugins/scripts. If when proposed the reply is "we will not accept that kind of crude system", nobody wastes time coding a patch. That was not the only time GIMP project went the pure road. There was also drama with themes and paintbrush system. On the end, some of the old ideas managed to get there, like grey icon theme (now hated by some, the irony) or having a working paint system (I have not tested with a tablet, so no idea if any good). Even non coders were trying to help, for example contributing brushes and testing the system [0], yet they ran out of steam after some time of hitting walls. The few people involved now seem to be the ones that have been taking over after all the previous got seriously burnt (except Kolås). [0] https://www.ramonmiranda.com/gimp-paint-studio-su-pasado-presente-y-posible-futuro/ https://www.ramonmiranda.com/gimp-paint-studio-su-pasado-pre... (autotranslation work OKish)
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  Krita can do those things.. just saying. In a sense, Krita is not just better for painting. It's a better general purpose image editing program, specially in terms of UX
gryf 4y ago
I congratulate them but after 27 years I'm still using and paying for Photoshop.
- Daub 4y ago
  I recently made the move to Affinity Photo. The latest version gives me all I need. Muscle memory is still with Potatoshop, but I’m slowly transferring.
  - gryf 4y ago
    I have been contemplating this move as well and nearly bought the whole Serif package on sale but I am Adobe's bitch and getting too old not to just pay for the problem to go away.
    - filmgirlcw 4y ago
      I will say, the Affinity Suite (which just got a great 2.0 update) is excellent. I still use Creative Cloud because work pays for it, but I finally canceled my personal subscription and I just use Affinity or Acorn when I need to do something quick and dirty. An advantage I will say is that if you have more than two machines, Affinity doesn’t make you do the license login song and dance. Because I am frequently using at least 3 computers (and often it’s 5), I like that I don’t even have to have Creative Cloud installed on everything, because it’s just easier that way. For me, Adobe is still better in some ways/more familiar, but Affinity is getting so close that I’m very happy we have this sort of tool as an alternative.
  - Cyberdog 4y ago
    I recently dropped the expensive-as-hell Illustrator license for Affinity's vector drawing program, Affinity Designer, for when I need to slop together SVGs (which isn't that often), and I've been pretty happy with it so far. I've already got Acorn for my bitmap needs but I will definitely consider Photo if/when it's time to change. I would definitely suggest people fed up with Adobe's pricing schemes and awful UIs to give Affinity's products a look.
  - 4y ago
DIARRHEA_xd 4y ago
The biggest stain on FOSS, with the worst apologists, 27 years strong! Try drawing a circle, in the year 2022.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  > The biggest stain on FOSS Pretty sure that program that is useful and usable, but not as much as you want, does not qualify for this description.
  - Arainach 4y ago
    The GIMP project, while powerful, personifies all of the worst parts of OSS culture. A needlessly polarizing/antagonizing name that they've refused to change? Check. A user interface that no one but the developers could love or understand? Check. A focus on knobs for users to tweak and being far behind the rest of the industry in basic usability improvements such as "auto levels" that have been table stakes for many years? Check. Deflection of any criticism by saying "there's a plugin for that", when the plugin is probably locked in a filing cabinet in a basement closet with a sign saying "Beware of the Leopard" and another saying "only supported up to <6 versions ago>"? Check and check.
    - smegsicle 4y ago
      > there's a plugin for that pushing the python2 interface over guile was a masterstroke
- jraph 4y ago
  select with a circle shape -> draw selection. Not as straightforward as possible, but still quite easy.
  - danuker 4y ago
    Alternatively, if you want a circle and not a disk, after filling the circular selection, shrink it by whatever thickness, and then delete. But I have felt no need for drawing circles. Those should be done in Inkscape. I am not sure they should be in a photo processing app.
scohesc 4y ago
It's wonderful to see a piece of OSS add yet another year onto its life! More people should be aware of open source alternatives to mainstream/first-party software like Photoshop! I'd sure like more features and a UI that looks like it wasn't made 27 years ago though. Keeps me from using it for day to day image editing or really anything advanced.
323 4y ago
If they would just copy Photoshop... Even the 2000 version of Photoshop.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pulvinar 4y ago
  That would please me-- in Gimp I have to think carefully about every command. It seems like every choice for a default operation is the non-intuitive one.
- danuker 4y ago
  There is a fork called Glimpse. https://glimpse-editor.org/ https://glimpse-editor.org/
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    That's a useful tip. I note the Glimpse people also have the marketing skills to put multiple pictures of the software on the landing page. Sadly Glimpse is on a development hiatus, according to the FAQ.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      They try to hide this fact but the entire purpose of the Glimpse fork was the forker was upset about the name GIMP and wanted to rename it. No one cared and the years moved on so it's not surprising it's abandoned. See how they never mention GIMP by name and have a code of conduct as one of the nav bar links.
      - danuker 4y ago
        > No one cared That is strange, judging by the reactions on this HN story.
mongol 4y ago
There are some free software projects with bigger legacy then commonly realized. Gimp for sure is one of them, KHTML another.
iLoveOncall 4y ago
For it to have such a bad UX after 27 years is a feat in itself. I can't fathom that to this day people present it as an alternative to Photoshop where it's little more than an unusable Paint. I mean, photopea.com is free, developed by a single guy, and runs in the browser, and it's light years ahead of Gimp.
- MilStdJunkie 4y ago
  Running in the browser is a no-go for lots of organizations, and Gimp runs in portable mode for those that can't install anything on their workstation. Yeah, it's not amazing, but Gimp is light years from Paint. Just removing background on stuff, crap like that, 80% of the graphics stuff people ask me for at work. It's not PS, it's not even Blender-levels of OSS, but it works alright. Now, compositing and actual challenging graphical stuff, different story.
  - iLoveOncall 4y ago
    I said that as "it is way better despite having more limited resources". You can even download the files of photopea.com locally and use it offline but that wasn't my point.
    - MilStdJunkie 4y ago
      Yeah, I dig it. If they weren't all old people I'd tell 'em to use Krita, but that's even more scary than OPEN SOURCE.
- forgotpwd16 4y ago
  >and it's light years ahead of Gimp. Photopea makes millions. Maybe if people donated to support Gimp's development it wouldn't be that behind.
  - iLoveOncall 4y ago
    Lol this is an obvious lie. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_alternative_to_photoshop_that_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_... It was a serious Photoshop competitor before it made a single cent.
guntherhermann 4y ago
GIMP is legendary. One of the first FOSS projects I ever used. I pirated Photoshop soon after trying it. Krita (https://github.com/KDE/krita https://github.com/KDE/krita | https://krita.org/en/ https://krita.org/en/) is a more intuitive UX imo.
- wetpaws 4y ago
  Krita is better in any conceivable way.
  - t-writescode 4y ago
    running "Curves" on a photo?
    - zorgmonkey 4y ago
      Krita can do that though https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/filters/adjust.html#color-adjustment-curves https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/filters/adjust.ht...
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    Can’t I just choose any feature available in Gimp and not in Krita and disprove your point. Sorry if I’m missing obvious hyperbole.
    - karaterobot 4y ago
      Not if those features don't provide value. Just having a feature isn't necessarily a benefit if that feature doesn't work, or doesn't work well, or leaves the user frustrated.
      - bscphil 4y ago
        A feature that doesn't work well can still provide value.
t-writescode 4y ago
Congrats Gimp! I imagine your devs come over here to read sometimes. You've provided a solid picture editor for in-a-pinch and free-out-of-the-box usage; and, while I've since moved on to usually use paid tools like ProCreate and Affinity's software, you have facilitated by artistic work for decades! Thanks for your amazing work!
arunc 4y ago
GIMP was the birth place of GTK, which was later renamed to GTK+ after it was rewritten to be object oriented. GNOME desktop environment still uses GTK+
macrolime 4y ago
They used to sell Gimp on CDs back in the days to sponsor development. I think I still have one from the late 90s laying around somewhere.
bergenty 4y ago
Proves the value of managers breathing down everyone’s necks. It’s a good tool but hasn’t achieved all that much over 27 years.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  no - Adobe has GUI and process Software Patents by the boatload for Photoshop.
  - llanowarelves 4y ago
    How is Affinity able to do it?
    - mistrial9 4y ago
      ask them?
    - rnd0 4y ago
      idk but it probably involves paying adobe cash money that GIMP by definition doesn't have? /shrug
mixmastamyk 4y ago
So many gross comments in here. What is wrong with you people? :-P Gimp is fantastic image editor and the freedom and price are just right. Been using it since the late nineties when I gave up Paint Shop Pro (which was a better every-day image editor than even Photoshop). I use it a few times a week to edit/convert my photos, web images, and album covers and it works quite well. If you want something dedicated to your niche profession, go ahead and rent it and file negative entitled comments to /dev/null.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rnd0 4y ago
  >So many gross comments in here. What is wrong with you people? :-P Hear here! The comments are pretty gross tbh, even taking into account some legit gripes; the majority seem just gross and nearly vindictive. Fine, fine you pay out the wazoo and you're too good for free software yawn yawn yawn. (not "you" mixmastamyk; I mean generic editorial "you")
j-bos 4y ago
Congrats to GIMP! As someone who could never afford photoshop, and never learned alternative software sourcing, gimp was wonderful for school projects and one off paying gigs. To this day I still use gimp for personal photo projects. Hope to one day be free to contribute.
hirundo 4y ago
Dear Gimp developers, my walls are covered in photos printed with help from Gimp, making my home a little brighter wherever I look. Multiply that by half a bajillion users, and those lines of code you wrote have made a concrete difference to the world. Thank you for your service.
zulban 4y ago
GIMP is great, I use it all the time. I wish they would change their name so it could have more mainstream acceptance.
- HKH2 4y ago
  This gets dismissed every time it's brought up, but I agree with you that it probably has stunted its growth considerably.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    Would you say it gives it a limp?
- kasabali 4y ago
  This has been tried: https://www.theregister.com/2019/08/28/gimp_open_source_image_editor_forked_to_fix_problematic_name/ https://www.theregister.com/2019/08/28/gimp_open_source_imag...
- RadiozRadioz 4y ago
  I have never, and do not know anybody who has, avoided good software for something as stupidly trivial as its name. If the name were one of the more hardcore expletives I'd maybe think twice. As it stands, this one is fairly vanilla as far as problematic words go, is clearly typeset as an acronym, and is principally a reference to Pulp Fiction, therefore being at least one referential layer away from the original term. I would like to see statistics on who actually cares about this.
  - troad 4y ago
    When I’m sitting down and teaching my kid how to edit a photo or sketch a drawing, do you honestly see me sitting them down to a GIMP session? And when I’m not around, and they want to pull up their favourite drawing program, do you see them typing “gimp” into the search bar? Which - as of Windows 11 - now helpfully loads internet results and related ads? Or do I just start them on Krita, a much more powerful and user friendly open source program, with significantly less risk of accidentally encountering the GIMP’s namesakes? Or me getting a call from my kid’s school to ask why my kid is talking about gimps?
anigbrowl 4y ago
> To celebrate [...] this nice birthday illustration (fully drawn within GIMP [...] There's some sort of weird inferiority complex when your graphics software is 27 years old and you're still saying 'look we used it for one of our website assets.' It's like telling people at the birthday party that you dressed yourself. I find it equally strange that there are almost no screenshots on the website, outside of the docs and tutorial section, and those tend to be partial screenshots for highly specific exemplar purposes. There are good screenshots in the Release Notes, but that's not somewhere new users are likely to head to immediately. The landing page declares it's great for 'High Quality Photo Manipulation, Original Artwork Creation, Graphic Design Elements, Programming Algorithms' - but none of these categories lead to their own pages full of compelling examples. I get that GIMPists are very proud of how community-driven it is, but the quality is extremely variable to the point of weakening the project. Having good politics/aspirations is very important, but before you can turn people into contributors you need to turn them into enthusiastic users. GIMP could learn a bit from the commercial products it competes with about how to present itself to the rest of the world.
- capitainenemo 4y ago
  There's some nice GIMP tutorials here with good showcasing. https://pixls.us/articles https://pixls.us/articles I believe written by GIMP contributors.. including Pat David who did a ton of older and a bit less polished ones here: https://patdavid.net/getting-around-in-gimp/ https://patdavid.net/getting-around-in-gimp/ (for example this good one from 2012 https://patdavid.net/2012/08/getting-around-in-gimp-heal-selection/ https://patdavid.net/2012/08/getting-around-in-gimp-heal-sel... )
  - nailer 4y ago
    The point is that nobody will find that showcase from the gimp website. (It’s OK, personally since using gimp 20 years ago I now accept that gimp doesn’t want users)
- julianeon 4y ago
  Programming algorithms - really? What can you do programmitically w Gimp?
lastdong 4y ago
Gimp is great, just wished they could have the same support for improving UX as Blender and Krita for instance. But still amazing, remember how things were different 27 years ago.
ravenstine 4y ago
I get why people take issue with GIMP, but I'm glad that it exists and has existed. Back in the day I got a lot done with GIMP for both fun and school work, and it was great that it worked both on Windows and Linux. Better tools are around now, and GIMP has failed to live up to a lot of its promises, but I don't get why people need to shit all over it. No one is making you use GIMP. It's honestly amazing that people can even come close to making this kind of software as FOSS and keep it going for this long.
- TylerE 4y ago
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    GIMP is amazing, and diminishing what they've accomplished is gross.
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
    GIMP is not completely terrible. It was useful several times, and it at least works unlike some other graphics software.
- hackyhacky 4y ago
  > GIMP has failed to live up to a lot of its promises, Which failed promises are you referring to specifically?
  - lilgreenland 4y ago
    I have a 2 year old desktop apple computer and GIMP gets about 2 fps for simple tasks like using the pencil to draw. (maybe it's better on linux or PC)
    - JayDustheadz 4y ago
      It's, sadly, a LOT faster on a Windows machine. Performance (especially boot times) is horrid on even more powerful Macs (M1Pro f.ex).
nullpilot 4y ago
I've been using GIMP for over a decade for a good chunk of my image manipulation needs, from quickly cropping screenshots, creating the occasional image macro, prototyping logos before opening Inkscape and editing pictures to creating whacky abstract stuff[1]. Thank you to the creators and maintainers. [1] https://imgur.com/a/45mTATy https://imgur.com/a/45mTATy
- npteljes 4y ago
  I love the abstract stuff gallery! How do you go about creating one of these? I can't even imagine.
  - nullpilot 4y ago
    Thanks! In a way it's a mix of generative and manual art, I guess. It starts with gradients or noise. Afterwards it's layers upon layers of color mapping, filters, distortion, more noise, more gradients, etc. - Basically creating artifacts from lossy transforms/mappings/distorts/layer modes and then building those up again into an image. Rinse and repeat. Some examples of things I made use of: Colors > Levels. Mostly to get noise to go across the whole range from black to white, not just some in-between. Multiple iterations of reducing the output levels and then stretching those out to the full range again can create interesting artifacts. Colors > Curves. Same as above, and also final processing. I used a fixed set of gradients (UIGradients) and usually changed them up. Colors > Map > Gradient Map. Combining the above with gradient mapping, or combining it with noise can result in interesting artifacts as well. Colors > Desaturate > Color To Gray. Adds grain, texture and contrast around edges. Lots you can do with that, especially by distorting the result. Filters > Distorts > Kaleidoscope, Filters > Map > Panorama Projection, Filter > Map > Paper Tile. With the exception of the galaxy one, all the ones in the album are somehow the result of those. I did most of these in 2019 when I was deeply burned out, and clicking around for hours was all I was able to do. It really was kind of therapeutic. So yeah, I am really glad GIMP exists.
    - npteljes 4y ago
      Thank you very much for the pointers! I just tried a bunch randomly, and got this result in under 5 minutes: https://imgur.com/a/4Tb4uWC https://imgur.com/a/4Tb4uWC Fantastic stuff. I appreciate you typing it all out.
jeppester 4y ago
Congratulations! GIMP is great for what it is. As a dev I use it frequently to do minor adjustments to images and photographs; cropping, colors, brightness, resizing, rotation etc. Right after Inkscape, GIMP is probably my second favorite "I'm actually a bit of a designer myself"-tool. Both do more than enough - again and again - for me to not need outside help, they no doubt give me an edge! For those - probably designers - in need of more features, just go ahead and pay for it! There's no reason to mock GIMP for not matching the features of Photoshop.
- prox 4y ago
  Personally I have no gripes with GIMP, it IS great it’s there, but when I look at recent FOSS projects I enjoy like Blender, Godot, Kdenlive… I can’t help that GIMP could be a lot more successful in building an active ecosystem of sprawling development that inspires. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad people like it as it is. But I see a lot of missed opportunities. When I used GIMP and wanted to contribute back, there was a lot of derogatory attitudes I noticed (this is 10 years ago now or so, maybe it has changed) In a comment above, CMYK support has just been added. That’s pretty late for an image editor that exists for so long. I am just irked by what could have been under more open and inviting management.
beezlewax 4y ago
I've always thought this software would have attained much greater usage if they changed the name to something less ridiculous.
pc2g4d 4y ago
I find myself using GIMP all the time. Thanks for keeping it going!
helij 4y ago
I use Gimp daily when making screenshots and quickly cropping and resizing afterwards. I've been using it for years! Huge thank you to Gimp developers that keep it going and congrats on anniversary!
endofreach 4y ago
I was a heavy GIMP user back in the day. Just last week i downloaded again. I didn‘t understand anything. Maybe i just forgot it all, but it felt unusable to me. The UI seemed so cluttered and unnecessarily complex. Almost like they want to prove how powerful the tool is, by shoving it all in your face. I didn‘t like it. I think it might be time to reinvent. It would be a shame if GIMP joined the club of 27…
- intrepidhero 4y ago
  Has the UI even changed in 27 years? The fact that the I don't have to relearn it every time I update it has been my favorite feature.
  - endofreach 4y ago
    Then i might just have forgotten it (which i stated as a possibility). I haven‘t used it in at least 10-14 years (wow, i‘m still a noob in so many things after all this time in the matrix). Back then i might have been more fascinated with the „FOSS alternative“ and more eager to learn… but even back then it has never felt intuitive. Glad to hear people still enjoy & use GIMP.
  - sfuller808 4y ago
  - rnd0 4y ago
    By default, everything is all in one window instead of floating bars for the tools and images.
  - npteljes 4y ago
    The one window thing was a lifesaver change as far as I'm concerned, otherwise I don't think it changed much.
BaseballPhysics 4y ago
Man, who would've guessed I'd be tempted to flag a post about GIMP. The level of vitriol in these comments is truly impressive...
- pessimizer 4y ago
  There's an instinct for pre-emptive attacks on minority opinions from people who have gone with the crowd and experience some cognitive dissonance over it. There are a lot of people who think that they should be using the GIMP (for whatever reason), but of course found it easier to do what everyone else was doing, and have to justify that by attacking the software and the people who use it. The reason definitely isn't because Photoshop is a great piece of software with a logical UI, because it's damn near a random UI filled with aging cruft, advertisements, and bizarre flows for doing simple things. Any affection for Photoshop is Stockholm Syndrome from spending 8 hours a day in it and getting periodic dopamine hits from puzzling out a riddle of how to do something in it that seemed like it would be simple. If the GIMP had proper color management (and better non-destructive editing), I'd never touch Photoshop. That's the beauty of free software, though. Once that stuff is finalized and in, we'll have it forever. See, GIMP doesn't have the means to steal colors from work you've already done, and you don't have to rent it.
  - filmgirlcw 4y ago
    There’s also an instinct for preemptively defending and discarding any piece of criticism and attacking those with criticisms (no matter what it is) of being invalid. The reason definitely isn’t because GIMP is a great piece of software with a logical UI, near a random UI filled with aging cruft, tutorials from 2004, and bizarre flows for doing simple things. Any affection for the GIMP is Stockholm Syndrome from spending 8 hours a day in it and getting periodic dopamine hits from puzzling out a riddle of how to do something in it that seemed like it would be simple. -- Look, I respect and am appreciative of the work the GIMP team and community does. It's impressive and I've donated to them over the years, even though I have never enjoyed using the software. And Photoshop these days is often a mess, I'm not defending that. But it is possible to appreciate that the GIMP exists and also be critical of its abysmal usability and the fact that it pales in comparison to not just other proprietary (but extremely affordable tools like Pixelmator, Affinity Photo, Acorn), but also other FOSS tools like Krita, Blender, and Inkscape, to say nothing of near-OSS tools like the excellent Paint.net. Some of this is down to the fact that making good software is hard, especially free software. But a lot of it comes down to a lack of solid direction and and insistence from the crowd that GIMP is every bit as good as Photoshop. It isn't. It never will be. I'm glad the GIMP exists. You also couldn't pay me to use the GIMP.
shmerl 4y ago
Why isn't Gimp getting more backing like Blender? Pace of development for it is quite slow which I assume is due to lack of resources?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dau 4y ago
  Because it's hopelessly outdated down to the very core and that's kinda secretly the reason why throwing money or workforce on it wouldn't really get anywhere. It would need to be rewritten entirely and paying for improving something existing or financing the creation of a new "FOSS photoshop" are very different things.
senectus1 4y ago
GIMP is amazing, but it really needs to take some learnings from Krita/Blender to get a better market share.
kibwen 4y ago
Gimp is fantastic and one of the few tools I install on seemingly every workstation I use. My thanks to all the contributors!
resonious 4y ago
GIMP is great. I use it almost every day, albeit only for simple edits and markups. But I remember reading once that the lead maintainer of GIMP (not sure if still same guy) is not an artist and only actually uses the program once or twice a year to make postcards for his family. I bet his postcards are awesome, but it seems less-than-optimal that the people spearheading GIMP aren't actively using it. It's rude to say this, but that kind of explains some of the UX problems GIMP infamous for.
brlcad 4y ago
Happy Birthday to one of the most awesome but unfortunately named open source projects...
gcau 4y ago
GIMP is missing such basic, basic features and things, that I genuinely wonder what's going on with the development or how anyone uses it for anything other than basic editing. It's nice that it's free and open though I guess.
- flaviut 4y ago
  Which basic features are missing?
  - ngold 4y ago
    I to am wondering what features are missing?
    - alephaleph 4y ago
      most forms of nondestructive editing
    - nanna 4y ago
      CMYK colour profiles. Not saying this is technically basic, but it's a basic need for anyone doing print.
  - npteljes 4y ago
    Adjustment layers / nondestructive editing, text and shape effects are huge productivity boosters. It's a pain going back to a world where they don't exist - and many hours of paid labor for the employer, or taken out of your life. Missing CYMK made GIMP a non-starter for people working in print. A nice healing tool exists, but it's a pain to install as it is a plugin, even on Linux I had to hunt for dependencies from different repos. How "basic" are these is debatable though. They are very useful, and widely used, and multiple image tools support them, that's for sure.
treeman79 4y ago
I wanted photoshop to become a graphic artist around 22 years ago. Didn’t want to pirate it. Friend suggested gimp. Use Slackware as a distro. Spent a couple years recompiling X11 and tons of debugging of Linux issues. And that’s how I launched my career in developer / sysadmin. 20 years later in a “wait. What happened to my original career idea?” Moment, I finally took some art classes at a local college.
lizknope 4y ago
Now I feel old. I remember I was in college and excited when I heard about GIMP. I had been running Linux for a year and wanted a photo editor but GIMP was written for the Motif GUI toolkit which was shipped with commercial Unix systems (Sun, HP, DEC, SGI, IBM) but on Linux it cost extra. One of our campus sysadmins had the Linux Motif libraries and compiled GIMP and distributed static binaries to us. There was an effort by "The Hungry Programmers" to develop LessTif as an open source Motif clone. You can see a reference to it in these old GIMP site from November 1995. Motif 1.2 or above is required. (Ack! This restriction will be removed when LessTif becomes usable). https://www.cc.gatech.edu/data_files/public/doc/gimp/index.html https://www.cc.gatech.edu/data_files/public/doc/gimp/index.h... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessTif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessTif The developers got frustrated with Motif and decided to write their own GUI X Window toolkit which became GTK (GIMP Tool Kit) While I like and use GIMP quite often I think GTK has become more influential and important than GIMP.
p0nce 4y ago
I use a combination of GIMP and MSPaint for all my UI/graphics work.
phendrenad2 4y ago
Congrats! GIMP is great for people who can't afford a $100 software package to edit photos. It's been a long time since I was in that cohort, but I fondly remember using GIMP at that time.
- ofrzeta 4y ago
  If you own a Mac there's Pixelmator Pro, that is around 25 dollars. On Windows there is Paint.net.
kevinfiol 4y ago
For those used to PhotoShop who have a hard time transitioning, checkout PhotoGIMP [1]. No, it doesn't magically make GIMP as powerful as PhotoShop, but it rearranges the UI so that it's more familiar to users accustomed to PhotoShop. Frankly, I don't do very advanced image editing, so GIMP definitely has what I need, but I could never unlearn the tool placement of PhotoShop. [1] https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP
tiffanyh 4y ago
Photopea While I love open source, Photopea accomplishes everything I need in photo editing. And no install. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/
colordrops 4y ago
It seems for years in every thread about Gimp I've seen, people are shitting on it. I don't get it. I suppose that it's from people comparing it to Photoshop? I've never been a heavy Photoshop user though, and Gimp has been perfect for all my basic non-pro-level needs over the years. I'm sure this is true for many others as well. Just wanted to say thank you to the devs in case you are here.
- jhoechtl 4y ago
  > It seems for years in every thread about Gimp I've seen, people are shitting on it. What is hard to understand? Gimp promised since ages CMYK editing or non-destructive overlays, nothing materialized or as a shit-show (CMYK can be exported but not edited)
  - colordrops 4y ago
    It's FREE.
    - pwinnski 4y ago
      If no criticism of the product is allowed because "It's FREE," then why post anything about it? Why be proud of existing for 27 years if its best or only feature is "It's FREE?" "I don't understand why people don't like it." "It sucks in these specific ways." "It's FREE." Literal feces is free also, but most people aren't excited to receive it as a gift. GIMP is considerably better than literal feces, but there are alternatives to GIMP in both FOSS and no-cost web-based form that are objectively better and also free, and have taken less than 27 years to get where they are.
- piyush_soni 4y ago
  I having a masters in Computer Science could never make my way through GIMP, tried quite a few times. I have never seen a more complicated UI (while I was at least functional in Photoshop). Thankfully hundreds of online image editors arrived in last few years that did precisely what I wanted in a much easier way.
pjmlp 4y ago
And one still needs to use paths to draw basic geometric shapes....
inktype 4y ago
In a past life, I grokked the gimp. I joined IRC to humbly propose a feature. "Why would anyone want that?" Not copying anything useful from Photoshop was a point of pride. Congratulations on 27 years of existence. Congratulations on regular GSoC acceptance since 2006.
- wellanyway 4y ago
  > Not copying anything useful from Photoshop was a point of pride. Exactly. GIMP didn't have any actual improvements to offer, but they went out of their way to NOT make a PS clone, out of sheer pettiness and ego. Like, magic wand tool is called fuzzy selection or something? Why? Why introduce a point of possible confusion for no reason whatsoever?
JayDustheadz 4y ago
I want to love GIMP, I really do. But at the same time, I despise how slow it was/is on OS X/macOS (especially when compared to how it works on Windows). I mean, what modern program takes more than 15 seconds to start? How come this slow start is plaguing macOS GIMP for more than what, 8 years now?
blkhawk 4y ago
For me GIMP has been infuriatingly good - by that I mean its 95% amazing and 5% complete and utter horseshit. Sadly I run into those 5% often. GIMP has the signs of what I call "Brainworms" in a project. By that I mean conceptual-ideological stubbornness for certain things that harm the Workflow of most users. A minor example of this is the save / export thing where use of the XCF format is forced for some conceptual reason that just gets in the way for me every single time I use GIMP. I used the XCF format for one thing once last year for the first time so I guess I saved saved time there once. Can't say that about any other time i used GIMP tho. The other more major example I can give falls under the "missing non destructive editing functions" that I have seen other comments mention. As part of my image "manipulation" I need to add several simple geometric shapes of the right size to an image (I think it was 2 lines and a rectangle). This is super hard to do in GIMP because while there are ways to draw a line and to do a rectangle as soon as you let go of your mouse button those are converted to bitmap right away. So no adjusting the position angle or line width of the lines or the dimensions of the rectangle. This can be partially worked around by using layers to position the lines and redoing the lines with different widths until they match the width and angle you need. You can apply rotations but that has its own difficulties since the aliasing of the lines then isn't what it should be. The easiest Solution here is to not use GIMP. The apparent reason why GIMP has been missing these vector functions is that it was felt that vector functions would be "drawing" on not "manipulating" an image if a comment I read by a person involved with the project is to be believed. So GIDP not GIMP if you will. A great app becomes completely unable because of a single function.
aspyct 4y ago
I've been a big fan of GIMP for the past 20 years or so. Sure, it has its quirks, is a little slower than I'd like, but it's still a useful, reliable software. In fact, since they added support for 16 bit color, I can finally use it to do photo retouching. I mean, I was using it before, but it limited use-cases. Now I'm not losing color anymore, and that's awesome! I can see in the comments a lot of negativity towards this project, with a few valid reasons, but I think most of these people are trying to use GIMP like they would use Photoshop. But these are two different softwares with different capabilities. Stop fighting the tool and start working with it. Thank you to all GIMP contributors. Thanks to you I can complety avoid Adobe's bullsh*t and still clean up the dust in my images :) Keep up the good work! Oh, and if I may indulge in a request: a better foreground selection tool would be awesome. Faster, certainly, and maybe with some AI subject detection?
singularity2001 4y ago
Wasm support tracking issue: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/issues/6817 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/issues/6817
esparrohack 4y ago
I think that the free software model can’t produce the same quality of app that propietary does. Before anyone gets mad, I’ve been using Gimp for a while
ornel 4y ago
GIMP has been extremely useful over the years for all sorts of image processing tasks. Krita on the other hand, is the best for image composition (combining several layers) due to its non destructive filters. Imagemagick is great for scripted and complex workflows and large images. All my image needs are fulfilled by these three and it's great to have different tools

346 points by neustradamus 4y ago

I've used GIMP so much through my life. Krita is pretty good and better with the Wacom stuff, but I just reach for Gimp. Not for any good reason since last time it was unbearably slow on Apple Silicon.

perardi 4y ago

Still no adjustment layers, still no layer styles. It’s so easy to just critique away…but really? Really? Those are just absolutely essential image editing software features. What have they been prioritizing ahead of that?

dontbenebby 4y ago
And no macOS native gui ;_; It’s almost unusable in OSX because of that.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- smoldesu 4y ago
  To each their own, but if GIMP got a "Logic Pro"-style rewrite then I'd probably be looking for a new raster graphics editor.
  - dontbenebby 4y ago
    I’m not familiar with that program, what about the UI is especially bad/weird?
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      Everything, subjectively. Logic Pro is the epitome of Apple leaning fully into 'Form as an excuse for function' and it's one of the most hilariously useless pieces of paid software ever devised. Apple refuses to give it Pro Tools functionality because it's not a 'real DAW' and hobbles multiple features to Garageband-level functionality. I'd prefer to keep my ugly-but-capable GIMP on every platform rather than having a single half-decent MacOS version that bends over backwards to foreign HID.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
failedartifact 4y ago
Its open source, so feel free to prioritise your own workload into making this feature.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Unless you are ideologically inclined, it would be a better use of your resources to just pay for photoshop. As much as it angers people on this website, the subscription model provides a constant stream of funding that has gone in to keeping the tool the best on the market and for anyone using it professionally, it delivers far more value than it's cost.
  - Ygg2 4y ago
    I don't think you have to be ideologically inclined. Photoshop is already turning on the milking machine. Subscription. Check. Paid add ons. Check. Paid color palette. Check and mark.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      "This guy couldn't find the scale tool in GIMP... charge him $9.99 each month until he learns his lesson."
    - nickthegreek 4y ago
      Agreed, luckily, Affinity exists and they are not only resisting subscriptions but also sell cross platform licenses.
      - rnd0 4y ago
        Shit, I missed the boat on that one. What's ironic is that I bought Affinity but still continue to use GIMP shrugs One of these days I'll sit down with Affinity. One of these days...
      - Ygg2 4y ago
        That assumes that Affinity doesn't get bought by Adobe, or their license model never changes. Which in today's world is a fools errand.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pengaru 4y ago
> What have they been prioritizing ahead of that? There are very few active maintainers, what few there are have been scratching their own itches.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  That's evident. I've used the tool periodically and I can't think of anything that's improved in the last 10 years. I think it actually got worse when they made all the icons greyscale and hid some under others. You still have 3 different tools for moving, resizing, and rotating when every other program has them all in one.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    It's disappointed me as well over the past 5-10 years. The switch from save->export seemed arbitrary and pointless. And the last time I tried putting text into an image with their text editing tool, the widget was so buggy I gave up - and that was in a release that shipped in debian stable at the time. But it's just a bummer, not a source of anger/furor/vitriol for the project. I don't get why so many folks are talking shit like they didn't get their refund.
    - robinsonb5 4y ago
      Oh that particular change drives me crazy. It's not the switch per se, it's the lecture I receive when I slip up and use the muscle-memory procedure of File->Save As with a .tif extension, like I did for the first decade of using GIMP. The software has quite clearly identified what I'm trying to do, so refusing to comply and forcing me to jump through an arbitrary hoop is akin to jeering the words "You didn't say 'Simon Says'"! The new text widget has improved recently, and it's certainly an improvement on the original. It's still a great piece of software, and I'm very grateful that it exists, but when I use it, it's generally a version from the 2.4 series, because it suits my workflow better. (When there's no image open the older versions just have a small unobtrusive toolbox window open, which you can use as a drop target for files picked from a file browser; the newer versions have a large empty window which gets in the way.) [For those who say "fork it yourself", I have contributed to development in the distant past - dithered gradients were my addition, and I wrote a plugin (subsequently adopted by someone in Japan but long-since abandoned) for separating RGB images to CMYK layers, and saving them as a CMYK TIFF. But despite briefly maintaining a PPA with a patched version without the "no image open" window I quickly decided life was too short to spend my hobby time trying to hold back that particular tide.]
kome 4y ago
I am a simple person, I like GIMP; and I have no idea what "no adjustment layers, still no layer styles" is
- diag 4y ago
  It's about non destructive editing, a very powerful tool for professional workflows especially for fine tuning changes and making things repeatable.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  Once you have worked with them, you won't want to work without them.
  - rnd0 4y ago
    and yet I've worked without them just fine for 15 years or more
- azertykeys 4y ago
  For instance - in Photoshop, one can add an adjustment layer on a picture that alters the saturation and color balance of that image. One can then copy that layer for use later, or edit that layer on the fly if one decides it's not right. Or delete it entirely, much later in the editing process.
wetpaws 4y ago
Just use Krita.
NoThisIsMe 4y ago
They've been working on this for like a decade, in a sense. They're rewriting the core as a library, GEGL, which supports non-destructive editing as well as other long-requested features. My impression is GEGL is largely done; the remaining work is to port GIMP to it. Realizing these gains for non-destructive editing is planned for v3.2, which is probably years away still. The other major initiative since forever has been porting to GTK 3.
- torginus 4y ago
  Sorry, come again? Porting to GTK 3? GTK 4 has been out for years.
  - robinsonb5 4y ago
    Yes, which means GTK3 is finally a stable target! ;) I'm fully aware that (a) I'm a dinosaur, and (b) not the target audience of the GTK project in its current form, but I still miss things like the tear-off menus, and the tab-completion and wildcard filtering in the file dialog (without the current keyboard focus complications) from GTK1.2!
  - asveikau 4y ago
    https://docs.gtk.org/gtk4/migrating-3to4.html https://docs.gtk.org/gtk4/migrating-3to4.html Does it really make sense for them to break so many things? Doesn't show a lot of respect for people who adopt the library.
the-smug-one 4y ago
"Øyvind Kolås raises funds for his work on GEGL, GIMP’s new sophisticated image processing core. This work is crucial to implement features such as non-destructive editing in GIMP, including features known as adjustment layers and layer effects in similar software. Øyvind is the GEGL maintainer and its primary developer who has been working on it since mid-2000s. "
- jhoechtl 4y ago
  > Øyvind Kolås raises funds for his work on GEGL, GIMP’s new sophisticated image processing core GEGL aka duke nukem forever
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
At this point I don’t think it’s controversial to say that this project existing has harmed creative tools on Linux. If another project had become the de-facto we’d have all those basic features. Instead we’re stuck with something that almost provides the basics ok, because it exists people treat it like a solved problem, and it has such a history no one’s allowed to say it just frankly isn’t usable for it’s one job.
- Nition 4y ago
  In some ways the de facto standard now is http://www.photopea.com http://www.photopea.com in a browser.
  - wankle 4y ago
    GIMP I've used for years and years, never heard of photopea, was the comment a SPAM Ad spot?
    - mardifoufs 4y ago
      No, photopea is pretty well known now. Mentionned a few times on HN too
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Photopea is almost more well known than gimp these days.
      - denkmoon 4y ago
        Who knows why you're being downvoted, and I'd say it's _more_ well known than GIMP. My sister has used Photopea. She's as far from a sophisticated computer user as you can get. Regular people can stumble across Photopea, they certainly don't know about GIMP.
      - Agrue8u 4y ago
        Haven't used photoshop in 10 years. I have gimp, never use it. Paint.net is my basic image tool, along with IrfanView, for which I have a license circa 2004. I also use Scribus, FOSS version of InDesign. But never heard of Photopea until today...
smallerfish 4y ago
Adjustment layers are on the 3.2 roadmap. https://developer.gimp.org/core/roadmap/#gimp-32 https://developer.gimp.org/core/roadmap/#gimp-32 No idea what the timing of that version is.
- kasabali 4y ago
  hopefully before the next decade
josefx 4y ago
> What have they been prioritizing ahead of that? Gnome integration and Wayland as far as I can tell from its roadmap. So basically staying functional under the ADHD driven development model that is the Linux desktop environment. A bit hilarious that Gimp now has a hard time staying up to date with Gnomes Gtk when Gtk was originally an UI lib for Gimp.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  > A bit hilarious that Gimp now has a hard time staying up to date with Gnomes Gtk when Gtk was originally an UI lib for Gimp. Yet not terribly surprising. GIMP provided a useful alternative widget framework because it helped them push boundaries. Now that's grown into its own thing, and the parent project lags since its core focus is elsewhere.
  - asveikau 4y ago
    Frankly I think gtk+ quality has been going down for a few releases.
m00x 4y ago
It's FOSS, so feel free to implement those yourself and send over a PR :)
stonogo 4y ago
No, those are absolutely essential Adobe Photoshop features. Having a different set of tools to accomplish a specific goal is fine because, bear with me, GIMP is not Photoshop. 90% of the complaining that always happens in these threads is Photoshop/Irfanview/whatever users, coming in and assuming that the purpose of GIMP is to reimplement your favorite image editing software for free. That is not the goal, and it never has been. As long as you keep pretending anyone intends GIMP to be a Photoshop clone, you'll keep being disappointed. After _three decades_ I can no longer blame anyone but the complainant.
Adj_and_Styles 4y ago
Those could had been implemented loooooooong ago. In a hacky way. The dictate was to be pure and wait for GEGL. So still nothing of that. We got layer trees at least. They could have been implemented by overloading the layer blending code, and recoded with GEGL once ready. But pure won over "we can do that too now, please do not look behind the curtain". It's really simple: adjustment is just a layer that only uses mask data and operates on the bottom layer pixels with already coded functions (levels, contrast, etc). Styles would be similar, applying plugins/scripts. If when proposed the reply is "we will not accept that kind of crude system", nobody wastes time coding a patch. That was not the only time GIMP project went the pure road. There was also drama with themes and paintbrush system. On the end, some of the old ideas managed to get there, like grey icon theme (now hated by some, the irony) or having a working paint system (I have not tested with a tablet, so no idea if any good). Even non coders were trying to help, for example contributing brushes and testing the system [0], yet they ran out of steam after some time of hitting walls. The few people involved now seem to be the ones that have been taking over after all the previous got seriously burnt (except Kolås). [0] https://www.ramonmiranda.com/gimp-paint-studio-su-pasado-presente-y-posible-futuro/ https://www.ramonmiranda.com/gimp-paint-studio-su-pasado-pre... (autotranslation work OKish)
nextaccountic 4y ago
Krita can do those things.. just saying. In a sense, Krita is not just better for painting. It's a better general purpose image editing program, specially in terms of UX

gryf 4y ago

I congratulate them but after 27 years I'm still using and paying for Photoshop.

Daub 4y ago
I recently made the move to Affinity Photo. The latest version gives me all I need. Muscle memory is still with Potatoshop, but I’m slowly transferring.
- gryf 4y ago
  I have been contemplating this move as well and nearly bought the whole Serif package on sale but I am Adobe's bitch and getting too old not to just pay for the problem to go away.
  - filmgirlcw 4y ago
    I will say, the Affinity Suite (which just got a great 2.0 update) is excellent. I still use Creative Cloud because work pays for it, but I finally canceled my personal subscription and I just use Affinity or Acorn when I need to do something quick and dirty. An advantage I will say is that if you have more than two machines, Affinity doesn’t make you do the license login song and dance. Because I am frequently using at least 3 computers (and often it’s 5), I like that I don’t even have to have Creative Cloud installed on everything, because it’s just easier that way. For me, Adobe is still better in some ways/more familiar, but Affinity is getting so close that I’m very happy we have this sort of tool as an alternative.
- Cyberdog 4y ago
  I recently dropped the expensive-as-hell Illustrator license for Affinity's vector drawing program, Affinity Designer, for when I need to slop together SVGs (which isn't that often), and I've been pretty happy with it so far. I've already got Acorn for my bitmap needs but I will definitely consider Photo if/when it's time to change. I would definitely suggest people fed up with Adobe's pricing schemes and awful UIs to give Affinity's products a look.
- 4y ago

DIARRHEA_xd 4y ago

The biggest stain on FOSS, with the worst apologists, 27 years strong! Try drawing a circle, in the year 2022.

matkoniecz 4y ago
> The biggest stain on FOSS Pretty sure that program that is useful and usable, but not as much as you want, does not qualify for this description.
- Arainach 4y ago
  The GIMP project, while powerful, personifies all of the worst parts of OSS culture. A needlessly polarizing/antagonizing name that they've refused to change? Check. A user interface that no one but the developers could love or understand? Check. A focus on knobs for users to tweak and being far behind the rest of the industry in basic usability improvements such as "auto levels" that have been table stakes for many years? Check. Deflection of any criticism by saying "there's a plugin for that", when the plugin is probably locked in a filing cabinet in a basement closet with a sign saying "Beware of the Leopard" and another saying "only supported up to <6 versions ago>"? Check and check.
  - smegsicle 4y ago
    > there's a plugin for that pushing the python2 interface over guile was a masterstroke
jraph 4y ago
select with a circle shape -> draw selection. Not as straightforward as possible, but still quite easy.
- danuker 4y ago
  Alternatively, if you want a circle and not a disk, after filling the circular selection, shrink it by whatever thickness, and then delete. But I have felt no need for drawing circles. Those should be done in Inkscape. I am not sure they should be in a photo processing app.

scohesc 4y ago

It's wonderful to see a piece of OSS add yet another year onto its life! More people should be aware of open source alternatives to mainstream/first-party software like Photoshop! I'd sure like more features and a UI that looks like it wasn't made 27 years ago though. Keeps me from using it for day to day image editing or really anything advanced.

323 4y ago

If they would just copy Photoshop... Even the 2000 version of Photoshop.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pulvinar 4y ago
That would please me-- in Gimp I have to think carefully about every command. It seems like every choice for a default operation is the non-intuitive one.
danuker 4y ago
There is a fork called Glimpse. https://glimpse-editor.org/ https://glimpse-editor.org/
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  That's a useful tip. I note the Glimpse people also have the marketing skills to put multiple pictures of the software on the landing page. Sadly Glimpse is on a development hiatus, according to the FAQ.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    They try to hide this fact but the entire purpose of the Glimpse fork was the forker was upset about the name GIMP and wanted to rename it. No one cared and the years moved on so it's not surprising it's abandoned. See how they never mention GIMP by name and have a code of conduct as one of the nav bar links.
    - danuker 4y ago
      > No one cared That is strange, judging by the reactions on this HN story.

mongol 4y ago

There are some free software projects with bigger legacy then commonly realized. Gimp for sure is one of them, KHTML another.

iLoveOncall 4y ago

For it to have such a bad UX after 27 years is a feat in itself. I can't fathom that to this day people present it as an alternative to Photoshop where it's little more than an unusable Paint. I mean, photopea.com is free, developed by a single guy, and runs in the browser, and it's light years ahead of Gimp.

MilStdJunkie 4y ago
Running in the browser is a no-go for lots of organizations, and Gimp runs in portable mode for those that can't install anything on their workstation. Yeah, it's not amazing, but Gimp is light years from Paint. Just removing background on stuff, crap like that, 80% of the graphics stuff people ask me for at work. It's not PS, it's not even Blender-levels of OSS, but it works alright. Now, compositing and actual challenging graphical stuff, different story.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  I said that as "it is way better despite having more limited resources". You can even download the files of photopea.com locally and use it offline but that wasn't my point.
  - MilStdJunkie 4y ago
    Yeah, I dig it. If they weren't all old people I'd tell 'em to use Krita, but that's even more scary than OPEN SOURCE.
forgotpwd16 4y ago
>and it's light years ahead of Gimp. Photopea makes millions. Maybe if people donated to support Gimp's development it wouldn't be that behind.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  Lol this is an obvious lie. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_alternative_to_photoshop_that_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_... It was a serious Photoshop competitor before it made a single cent.

guntherhermann 4y ago

GIMP is legendary. One of the first FOSS projects I ever used. I pirated Photoshop soon after trying it. Krita (https://github.com/KDE/krita https://github.com/KDE/krita | https://krita.org/en/ https://krita.org/en/) is a more intuitive UX imo.

wetpaws 4y ago
Krita is better in any conceivable way.
- t-writescode 4y ago
  running "Curves" on a photo?
  - zorgmonkey 4y ago
    Krita can do that though https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/filters/adjust.html#color-adjustment-curves https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/filters/adjust.ht...
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  Can’t I just choose any feature available in Gimp and not in Krita and disprove your point. Sorry if I’m missing obvious hyperbole.
  - karaterobot 4y ago
    Not if those features don't provide value. Just having a feature isn't necessarily a benefit if that feature doesn't work, or doesn't work well, or leaves the user frustrated.
    - bscphil 4y ago
      A feature that doesn't work well can still provide value.

t-writescode 4y ago

Congrats Gimp! I imagine your devs come over here to read sometimes. You've provided a solid picture editor for in-a-pinch and free-out-of-the-box usage; and, while I've since moved on to usually use paid tools like ProCreate and Affinity's software, you have facilitated by artistic work for decades! Thanks for your amazing work!

arunc 4y ago

GIMP was the birth place of GTK, which was later renamed to GTK+ after it was rewritten to be object oriented. GNOME desktop environment still uses GTK+

macrolime 4y ago

They used to sell Gimp on CDs back in the days to sponsor development. I think I still have one from the late 90s laying around somewhere.

bergenty 4y ago

Proves the value of managers breathing down everyone’s necks. It’s a good tool but hasn’t achieved all that much over 27 years.

mistrial9 4y ago
no - Adobe has GUI and process Software Patents by the boatload for Photoshop.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  How is Affinity able to do it?
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    ask them?
  - rnd0 4y ago
    idk but it probably involves paying adobe cash money that GIMP by definition doesn't have? /shrug

mixmastamyk 4y ago

So many gross comments in here. What is wrong with you people? :-P Gimp is fantastic image editor and the freedom and price are just right. Been using it since the late nineties when I gave up Paint Shop Pro (which was a better every-day image editor than even Photoshop). I use it a few times a week to edit/convert my photos, web images, and album covers and it works quite well. If you want something dedicated to your niche profession, go ahead and rent it and file negative entitled comments to /dev/null.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rnd0 4y ago
>So many gross comments in here. What is wrong with you people? :-P Hear here! The comments are pretty gross tbh, even taking into account some legit gripes; the majority seem just gross and nearly vindictive. Fine, fine you pay out the wazoo and you're too good for free software yawn yawn yawn. (not "you" mixmastamyk; I mean generic editorial "you")

j-bos 4y ago

Congrats to GIMP! As someone who could never afford photoshop, and never learned alternative software sourcing, gimp was wonderful for school projects and one off paying gigs. To this day I still use gimp for personal photo projects. Hope to one day be free to contribute.

hirundo 4y ago

Dear Gimp developers, my walls are covered in photos printed with help from Gimp, making my home a little brighter wherever I look. Multiply that by half a bajillion users, and those lines of code you wrote have made a concrete difference to the world. Thank you for your service.

zulban 4y ago

GIMP is great, I use it all the time. I wish they would change their name so it could have more mainstream acceptance.

HKH2 4y ago
This gets dismissed every time it's brought up, but I agree with you that it probably has stunted its growth considerably.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Would you say it gives it a limp?
kasabali 4y ago
This has been tried: https://www.theregister.com/2019/08/28/gimp_open_source_image_editor_forked_to_fix_problematic_name/ https://www.theregister.com/2019/08/28/gimp_open_source_imag...
RadiozRadioz 4y ago
I have never, and do not know anybody who has, avoided good software for something as stupidly trivial as its name. If the name were one of the more hardcore expletives I'd maybe think twice. As it stands, this one is fairly vanilla as far as problematic words go, is clearly typeset as an acronym, and is principally a reference to Pulp Fiction, therefore being at least one referential layer away from the original term. I would like to see statistics on who actually cares about this.
- troad 4y ago
  When I’m sitting down and teaching my kid how to edit a photo or sketch a drawing, do you honestly see me sitting them down to a GIMP session? And when I’m not around, and they want to pull up their favourite drawing program, do you see them typing “gimp” into the search bar? Which - as of Windows 11 - now helpfully loads internet results and related ads? Or do I just start them on Krita, a much more powerful and user friendly open source program, with significantly less risk of accidentally encountering the GIMP’s namesakes? Or me getting a call from my kid’s school to ask why my kid is talking about gimps?

anigbrowl 4y ago

> To celebrate [...] this nice birthday illustration (fully drawn within GIMP [...] There's some sort of weird inferiority complex when your graphics software is 27 years old and you're still saying 'look we used it for one of our website assets.' It's like telling people at the birthday party that you dressed yourself. I find it equally strange that there are almost no screenshots on the website, outside of the docs and tutorial section, and those tend to be partial screenshots for highly specific exemplar purposes. There are good screenshots in the Release Notes, but that's not somewhere new users are likely to head to immediately. The landing page declares it's great for 'High Quality Photo Manipulation, Original Artwork Creation, Graphic Design Elements, Programming Algorithms' - but none of these categories lead to their own pages full of compelling examples. I get that GIMPists are very proud of how community-driven it is, but the quality is extremely variable to the point of weakening the project. Having good politics/aspirations is very important, but before you can turn people into contributors you need to turn them into enthusiastic users. GIMP could learn a bit from the commercial products it competes with about how to present itself to the rest of the world.

capitainenemo 4y ago
There's some nice GIMP tutorials here with good showcasing. https://pixls.us/articles https://pixls.us/articles I believe written by GIMP contributors.. including Pat David who did a ton of older and a bit less polished ones here: https://patdavid.net/getting-around-in-gimp/ https://patdavid.net/getting-around-in-gimp/ (for example this good one from 2012 https://patdavid.net/2012/08/getting-around-in-gimp-heal-selection/ https://patdavid.net/2012/08/getting-around-in-gimp-heal-sel... )
- nailer 4y ago
  The point is that nobody will find that showcase from the gimp website. (It’s OK, personally since using gimp 20 years ago I now accept that gimp doesn’t want users)
julianeon 4y ago
Programming algorithms - really? What can you do programmitically w Gimp?

lastdong 4y ago

Gimp is great, just wished they could have the same support for improving UX as Blender and Krita for instance. But still amazing, remember how things were different 27 years ago.

ravenstine 4y ago

I get why people take issue with GIMP, but I'm glad that it exists and has existed. Back in the day I got a lot done with GIMP for both fun and school work, and it was great that it worked both on Windows and Linux. Better tools are around now, and GIMP has failed to live up to a lot of its promises, but I don't get why people need to shit all over it. No one is making you use GIMP. It's honestly amazing that people can even come close to making this kind of software as FOSS and keep it going for this long.

TylerE 4y ago
- pessimizer 4y ago
  GIMP is amazing, and diminishing what they've accomplished is gross.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  GIMP is not completely terrible. It was useful several times, and it at least works unlike some other graphics software.
hackyhacky 4y ago
> GIMP has failed to live up to a lot of its promises, Which failed promises are you referring to specifically?
- lilgreenland 4y ago
  I have a 2 year old desktop apple computer and GIMP gets about 2 fps for simple tasks like using the pencil to draw. (maybe it's better on linux or PC)
  - JayDustheadz 4y ago
    It's, sadly, a LOT faster on a Windows machine. Performance (especially boot times) is horrid on even more powerful Macs (M1Pro f.ex).

nullpilot 4y ago

I've been using GIMP for over a decade for a good chunk of my image manipulation needs, from quickly cropping screenshots, creating the occasional image macro, prototyping logos before opening Inkscape and editing pictures to creating whacky abstract stuff[1]. Thank you to the creators and maintainers. [1] https://imgur.com/a/45mTATy https://imgur.com/a/45mTATy

npteljes 4y ago
I love the abstract stuff gallery! How do you go about creating one of these? I can't even imagine.
- nullpilot 4y ago
  Thanks! In a way it's a mix of generative and manual art, I guess. It starts with gradients or noise. Afterwards it's layers upon layers of color mapping, filters, distortion, more noise, more gradients, etc. - Basically creating artifacts from lossy transforms/mappings/distorts/layer modes and then building those up again into an image. Rinse and repeat. Some examples of things I made use of: Colors > Levels. Mostly to get noise to go across the whole range from black to white, not just some in-between. Multiple iterations of reducing the output levels and then stretching those out to the full range again can create interesting artifacts. Colors > Curves. Same as above, and also final processing. I used a fixed set of gradients (UIGradients) and usually changed them up. Colors > Map > Gradient Map. Combining the above with gradient mapping, or combining it with noise can result in interesting artifacts as well. Colors > Desaturate > Color To Gray. Adds grain, texture and contrast around edges. Lots you can do with that, especially by distorting the result. Filters > Distorts > Kaleidoscope, Filters > Map > Panorama Projection, Filter > Map > Paper Tile. With the exception of the galaxy one, all the ones in the album are somehow the result of those. I did most of these in 2019 when I was deeply burned out, and clicking around for hours was all I was able to do. It really was kind of therapeutic. So yeah, I am really glad GIMP exists.
  - npteljes 4y ago
    Thank you very much for the pointers! I just tried a bunch randomly, and got this result in under 5 minutes: https://imgur.com/a/4Tb4uWC https://imgur.com/a/4Tb4uWC Fantastic stuff. I appreciate you typing it all out.

jeppester 4y ago

Congratulations! GIMP is great for what it is. As a dev I use it frequently to do minor adjustments to images and photographs; cropping, colors, brightness, resizing, rotation etc. Right after Inkscape, GIMP is probably my second favorite "I'm actually a bit of a designer myself"-tool. Both do more than enough - again and again - for me to not need outside help, they no doubt give me an edge! For those - probably designers - in need of more features, just go ahead and pay for it! There's no reason to mock GIMP for not matching the features of Photoshop.

prox 4y ago
Personally I have no gripes with GIMP, it IS great it’s there, but when I look at recent FOSS projects I enjoy like Blender, Godot, Kdenlive… I can’t help that GIMP could be a lot more successful in building an active ecosystem of sprawling development that inspires. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad people like it as it is. But I see a lot of missed opportunities. When I used GIMP and wanted to contribute back, there was a lot of derogatory attitudes I noticed (this is 10 years ago now or so, maybe it has changed) In a comment above, CMYK support has just been added. That’s pretty late for an image editor that exists for so long. I am just irked by what could have been under more open and inviting management.

beezlewax 4y ago

I've always thought this software would have attained much greater usage if they changed the name to something less ridiculous.

pc2g4d 4y ago

I find myself using GIMP all the time. Thanks for keeping it going!

helij 4y ago

I use Gimp daily when making screenshots and quickly cropping and resizing afterwards. I've been using it for years! Huge thank you to Gimp developers that keep it going and congrats on anniversary!

endofreach 4y ago

I was a heavy GIMP user back in the day. Just last week i downloaded again. I didn‘t understand anything. Maybe i just forgot it all, but it felt unusable to me. The UI seemed so cluttered and unnecessarily complex. Almost like they want to prove how powerful the tool is, by shoving it all in your face. I didn‘t like it. I think it might be time to reinvent. It would be a shame if GIMP joined the club of 27…

intrepidhero 4y ago
Has the UI even changed in 27 years? The fact that the I don't have to relearn it every time I update it has been my favorite feature.
- endofreach 4y ago
  Then i might just have forgotten it (which i stated as a possibility). I haven‘t used it in at least 10-14 years (wow, i‘m still a noob in so many things after all this time in the matrix). Back then i might have been more fascinated with the „FOSS alternative“ and more eager to learn… but even back then it has never felt intuitive. Glad to hear people still enjoy & use GIMP.
- sfuller808 4y ago
- rnd0 4y ago
  By default, everything is all in one window instead of floating bars for the tools and images.
- npteljes 4y ago
  The one window thing was a lifesaver change as far as I'm concerned, otherwise I don't think it changed much.

BaseballPhysics 4y ago

Man, who would've guessed I'd be tempted to flag a post about GIMP. The level of vitriol in these comments is truly impressive...

pessimizer 4y ago
There's an instinct for pre-emptive attacks on minority opinions from people who have gone with the crowd and experience some cognitive dissonance over it. There are a lot of people who think that they should be using the GIMP (for whatever reason), but of course found it easier to do what everyone else was doing, and have to justify that by attacking the software and the people who use it. The reason definitely isn't because Photoshop is a great piece of software with a logical UI, because it's damn near a random UI filled with aging cruft, advertisements, and bizarre flows for doing simple things. Any affection for Photoshop is Stockholm Syndrome from spending 8 hours a day in it and getting periodic dopamine hits from puzzling out a riddle of how to do something in it that seemed like it would be simple. If the GIMP had proper color management (and better non-destructive editing), I'd never touch Photoshop. That's the beauty of free software, though. Once that stuff is finalized and in, we'll have it forever. See, GIMP doesn't have the means to steal colors from work you've already done, and you don't have to rent it.
- filmgirlcw 4y ago
  There’s also an instinct for preemptively defending and discarding any piece of criticism and attacking those with criticisms (no matter what it is) of being invalid. The reason definitely isn’t because GIMP is a great piece of software with a logical UI, near a random UI filled with aging cruft, tutorials from 2004, and bizarre flows for doing simple things. Any affection for the GIMP is Stockholm Syndrome from spending 8 hours a day in it and getting periodic dopamine hits from puzzling out a riddle of how to do something in it that seemed like it would be simple. -- Look, I respect and am appreciative of the work the GIMP team and community does. It's impressive and I've donated to them over the years, even though I have never enjoyed using the software. And Photoshop these days is often a mess, I'm not defending that. But it is possible to appreciate that the GIMP exists and also be critical of its abysmal usability and the fact that it pales in comparison to not just other proprietary (but extremely affordable tools like Pixelmator, Affinity Photo, Acorn), but also other FOSS tools like Krita, Blender, and Inkscape, to say nothing of near-OSS tools like the excellent Paint.net. Some of this is down to the fact that making good software is hard, especially free software. But a lot of it comes down to a lack of solid direction and and insistence from the crowd that GIMP is every bit as good as Photoshop. It isn't. It never will be. I'm glad the GIMP exists. You also couldn't pay me to use the GIMP.

shmerl 4y ago

Why isn't Gimp getting more backing like Blender? Pace of development for it is quite slow which I assume is due to lack of resources?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dau 4y ago
Because it's hopelessly outdated down to the very core and that's kinda secretly the reason why throwing money or workforce on it wouldn't really get anywhere. It would need to be rewritten entirely and paying for improving something existing or financing the creation of a new "FOSS photoshop" are very different things.

senectus1 4y ago

GIMP is amazing, but it really needs to take some learnings from Krita/Blender to get a better market share.

kibwen 4y ago

Gimp is fantastic and one of the few tools I install on seemingly every workstation I use. My thanks to all the contributors!

resonious 4y ago

GIMP is great. I use it almost every day, albeit only for simple edits and markups. But I remember reading once that the lead maintainer of GIMP (not sure if still same guy) is not an artist and only actually uses the program once or twice a year to make postcards for his family. I bet his postcards are awesome, but it seems less-than-optimal that the people spearheading GIMP aren't actively using it. It's rude to say this, but that kind of explains some of the UX problems GIMP infamous for.

brlcad 4y ago

Happy Birthday to one of the most awesome but unfortunately named open source projects...

gcau 4y ago

GIMP is missing such basic, basic features and things, that I genuinely wonder what's going on with the development or how anyone uses it for anything other than basic editing. It's nice that it's free and open though I guess.

flaviut 4y ago
Which basic features are missing?
- ngold 4y ago
  I to am wondering what features are missing?
  - alephaleph 4y ago
    most forms of nondestructive editing
  - nanna 4y ago
    CMYK colour profiles. Not saying this is technically basic, but it's a basic need for anyone doing print.
- npteljes 4y ago
  Adjustment layers / nondestructive editing, text and shape effects are huge productivity boosters. It's a pain going back to a world where they don't exist - and many hours of paid labor for the employer, or taken out of your life. Missing CYMK made GIMP a non-starter for people working in print. A nice healing tool exists, but it's a pain to install as it is a plugin, even on Linux I had to hunt for dependencies from different repos. How "basic" are these is debatable though. They are very useful, and widely used, and multiple image tools support them, that's for sure.

treeman79 4y ago

I wanted photoshop to become a graphic artist around 22 years ago. Didn’t want to pirate it. Friend suggested gimp. Use Slackware as a distro. Spent a couple years recompiling X11 and tons of debugging of Linux issues. And that’s how I launched my career in developer / sysadmin. 20 years later in a “wait. What happened to my original career idea?” Moment, I finally took some art classes at a local college.

lizknope 4y ago

Now I feel old. I remember I was in college and excited when I heard about GIMP. I had been running Linux for a year and wanted a photo editor but GIMP was written for the Motif GUI toolkit which was shipped with commercial Unix systems (Sun, HP, DEC, SGI, IBM) but on Linux it cost extra. One of our campus sysadmins had the Linux Motif libraries and compiled GIMP and distributed static binaries to us. There was an effort by "The Hungry Programmers" to develop LessTif as an open source Motif clone. You can see a reference to it in these old GIMP site from November 1995. Motif 1.2 or above is required. (Ack! This restriction will be removed when LessTif becomes usable). https://www.cc.gatech.edu/data_files/public/doc/gimp/index.html https://www.cc.gatech.edu/data_files/public/doc/gimp/index.h... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessTif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessTif The developers got frustrated with Motif and decided to write their own GUI X Window toolkit which became GTK (GIMP Tool Kit) While I like and use GIMP quite often I think GTK has become more influential and important than GIMP.

p0nce 4y ago

I use a combination of GIMP and MSPaint for all my UI/graphics work.

phendrenad2 4y ago

Congrats! GIMP is great for people who can't afford a $100 software package to edit photos. It's been a long time since I was in that cohort, but I fondly remember using GIMP at that time.

ofrzeta 4y ago
If you own a Mac there's Pixelmator Pro, that is around 25 dollars. On Windows there is Paint.net.

kevinfiol 4y ago

For those used to PhotoShop who have a hard time transitioning, checkout PhotoGIMP [1]. No, it doesn't magically make GIMP as powerful as PhotoShop, but it rearranges the UI so that it's more familiar to users accustomed to PhotoShop. Frankly, I don't do very advanced image editing, so GIMP definitely has what I need, but I could never unlearn the tool placement of PhotoShop. [1] https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP

tiffanyh 4y ago

Photopea While I love open source, Photopea accomplishes everything I need in photo editing. And no install. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/

colordrops 4y ago

It seems for years in every thread about Gimp I've seen, people are shitting on it. I don't get it. I suppose that it's from people comparing it to Photoshop? I've never been a heavy Photoshop user though, and Gimp has been perfect for all my basic non-pro-level needs over the years. I'm sure this is true for many others as well. Just wanted to say thank you to the devs in case you are here.

jhoechtl 4y ago
> It seems for years in every thread about Gimp I've seen, people are shitting on it. What is hard to understand? Gimp promised since ages CMYK editing or non-destructive overlays, nothing materialized or as a shit-show (CMYK can be exported but not edited)
- colordrops 4y ago
  It's FREE.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    If no criticism of the product is allowed because "It's FREE," then why post anything about it? Why be proud of existing for 27 years if its best or only feature is "It's FREE?" "I don't understand why people don't like it." "It sucks in these specific ways." "It's FREE." Literal feces is free also, but most people aren't excited to receive it as a gift. GIMP is considerably better than literal feces, but there are alternatives to GIMP in both FOSS and no-cost web-based form that are objectively better and also free, and have taken less than 27 years to get where they are.
piyush_soni 4y ago
I having a masters in Computer Science could never make my way through GIMP, tried quite a few times. I have never seen a more complicated UI (while I was at least functional in Photoshop). Thankfully hundreds of online image editors arrived in last few years that did precisely what I wanted in a much easier way.

pjmlp 4y ago

And one still needs to use paths to draw basic geometric shapes....

inktype 4y ago

In a past life, I grokked the gimp. I joined IRC to humbly propose a feature. "Why would anyone want that?" Not copying anything useful from Photoshop was a point of pride. Congratulations on 27 years of existence. Congratulations on regular GSoC acceptance since 2006.

wellanyway 4y ago
> Not copying anything useful from Photoshop was a point of pride. Exactly. GIMP didn't have any actual improvements to offer, but they went out of their way to NOT make a PS clone, out of sheer pettiness and ego. Like, magic wand tool is called fuzzy selection or something? Why? Why introduce a point of possible confusion for no reason whatsoever?

JayDustheadz 4y ago

I want to love GIMP, I really do. But at the same time, I despise how slow it was/is on OS X/macOS (especially when compared to how it works on Windows). I mean, what modern program takes more than 15 seconds to start? How come this slow start is plaguing macOS GIMP for more than what, 8 years now?

blkhawk 4y ago

For me GIMP has been infuriatingly good - by that I mean its 95% amazing and 5% complete and utter horseshit. Sadly I run into those 5% often. GIMP has the signs of what I call "Brainworms" in a project. By that I mean conceptual-ideological stubbornness for certain things that harm the Workflow of most users. A minor example of this is the save / export thing where use of the XCF format is forced for some conceptual reason that just gets in the way for me every single time I use GIMP. I used the XCF format for one thing once last year for the first time so I guess I saved saved time there once. Can't say that about any other time i used GIMP tho. The other more major example I can give falls under the "missing non destructive editing functions" that I have seen other comments mention. As part of my image "manipulation" I need to add several simple geometric shapes of the right size to an image (I think it was 2 lines and a rectangle). This is super hard to do in GIMP because while there are ways to draw a line and to do a rectangle as soon as you let go of your mouse button those are converted to bitmap right away. So no adjusting the position angle or line width of the lines or the dimensions of the rectangle. This can be partially worked around by using layers to position the lines and redoing the lines with different widths until they match the width and angle you need. You can apply rotations but that has its own difficulties since the aliasing of the lines then isn't what it should be. The easiest Solution here is to not use GIMP. The apparent reason why GIMP has been missing these vector functions is that it was felt that vector functions would be "drawing" on not "manipulating" an image if a comment I read by a person involved with the project is to be believed. So GIDP not GIMP if you will. A great app becomes completely unable because of a single function.

aspyct 4y ago

I've been a big fan of GIMP for the past 20 years or so. Sure, it has its quirks, is a little slower than I'd like, but it's still a useful, reliable software. In fact, since they added support for 16 bit color, I can finally use it to do photo retouching. I mean, I was using it before, but it limited use-cases. Now I'm not losing color anymore, and that's awesome! I can see in the comments a lot of negativity towards this project, with a few valid reasons, but I think most of these people are trying to use GIMP like they would use Photoshop. But these are two different softwares with different capabilities. Stop fighting the tool and start working with it. Thank you to all GIMP contributors. Thanks to you I can complety avoid Adobe's bullsh*t and still clean up the dust in my images :) Keep up the good work! Oh, and if I may indulge in a request: a better foreground selection tool would be awesome. Faster, certainly, and maybe with some AI subject detection?

singularity2001 4y ago

Wasm support tracking issue: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/issues/6817 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/issues/6817

esparrohack 4y ago

I think that the free software model can’t produce the same quality of app that propietary does. Before anyone gets mad, I’ve been using Gimp for a while

ornel 4y ago

GIMP has been extremely useful over the years for all sorts of image processing tasks. Krita on the other hand, is the best for image composition (combining several layers) due to its non destructive filters. Imagemagick is great for scripted and complex workflows and large images. All my image needs are fulfilled by these three and it's great to have different tools