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I would love Gimp to succeed but Gimp is made by coders for coders (as you might expect from a open source program) and not by visual artists for visual artists

by prox 2y ago

I would love Gimp to succeed but Gimp is made by coders for coders (as you might expect from a open source program) and not by visual artists for visual artists. I don’t have a lot of hope. For years I have been using Affinity and it’s been really good, haven’t looked back. Unfortunately it’s not on linux.

homarp 2y ago
>for coders https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/01/27/gimp-team-zemarmot-fosdem-2025/ https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/01/27/gimp-team-zemarmot-fosd... Gimp is being used,and improved along the way, to make an animation movie. Jehan (scenarist, technical) of that movie is also a core maintainer.
- npteljes 2y ago
  Gimp is nearing 30 years old, and it has been used for at most a handful of animation movies. I think, regarding its usage, that this is more of an outlier, than a main purpose of the software. So I don't think that this example refutes OP's point.
  - homarp 2y ago
    and I think otherwise https://girinstud.io/news/2018/04/zemarmot-main-contributor-of-gimp-2-10-0-rc1/ https://girinstud.io/news/2018/04/zemarmot-main-contributor-...
    - npteljes 2y ago
      I do know about the movie, and having one (upcoming even) movie being made about GIMP doesn't say anything about its usage, or it not being made for coders. Being made for coders is a bad claim as well, at most, it's a jab at its user interface, which, I think, is no worse then Photoshop's by the way, it's just that people are familiar with one, and the not the other. A good refutal of the for-coders claim would be that it's one of the default image editor most commonly included with major Linux distributions. That's a much larger thing than it being just made for coders.
      - npteljes 2y ago
        s/about GIMP/with GIMP/
      - prmoustache 2y ago
        > I do know about the movie, and having one (upcoming even) movie being made about GIMP doesn't say anything about its usage, or it not being made for coders. Yes it does because ZeMarmot producers are the main contributors to Gimp's code.
        npteljes 2y ago
        GIMP's initial release was in June 2, 1998. ZeMarmot's announcement was in 05 February 2015. The GIMP was an at least 17 year old software project, when the animated movie was announced. Of the two main GIMP maintainers, one of them works on ZeMarmot. What this all says is that yes, there is an animation movie 10 years in the making, by some of the people who also work on the GIMP project. It says nothing about GIMP being made for any particular purpose, either or not for coders, and/or for animation or for visual creatives in particular.
Theizestooke 2y ago
They could start with a name change.
- amlib 2y ago
  Yes, I suggest they change it to... The Pimp
  - vednig 2y ago
    ^ when you use 100% of your brain
  - userbinator 2y ago
    Pixel Image Manipulation Program
- hulitu 2y ago
  > They could start with a name change. Yes. Peacock will be fine. It is a wonderful bird.
  - thomasfedb 2y ago
    Though Photopea is already an online Photoshop clone and sounds a bit similar? (It’s also pretty decent. My usual go to for stuff I can’t justify spinning up an Adobe VM for…)
xandrius 2y ago
Same here. Affinity is great, it has some quirk and some basic features are scattered around the UI without seemingly much thought. But every time I have to use Gimp is just a pain, feels like going back in time. For such a complex tool, UX is and will always remain king. That's why many people miss even something as simple as the Mac Preview tool, it does its job nicely and neatly. It doesn't do much but for basic stuff is quick and straightforward.
da_chicken 2y ago
The few people I know doing visual design still balk at a program that lacks native CMYK editing. Honestly I'm still skeptical about the significant improvements made for 3.0 due to the project's history. I remember CMYK being the most common complaint (after the UI) 20 years ago, too. And at the time the entire GIMP project insisted that you never needed it and RGB was good enough. By coders for coders, indeed.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  I don’t know. RGB was good enough. For every 1 person out there digitally processing art for a children’s book, which is the only piece of printed media I could think of whose lifecycle does not feature immediate disposal, there are 19 who would love their HDR iPhone photos to look right, so if anything, they should be worrying about P3.
- stuaxo 2y ago
  One of the big reasons for the rewrite, GEGL brings CMYK (and many other things).
- ravetcofx 2y ago
  Affinity seems like it works through Wine/Proton
- cmyk_student 2y ago
  For what it's worth, a full CMYK mode is on my personal to-do list after the final 3.0 release (though 3.0 RC has had CMYK import/export and soft-proofing for a long while). I made a prototype implementation earlier (https://twitter.com/CmykStudent/status/1618261982628704259 https://twitter.com/CmykStudent/status/1618261982628704259) and with all the color space improvements made since, it should be even easier to prototype now. Out of curiosity, what improvements in 3.0 RC are you skeptical of? If you're willing to share, it'd be helpful feedback for us. :)
- somat 2y ago
  This I feel is a fair complaint, I have seen it many times but I have to admit I am not a visual designer so I do not really understand it. Allow me to enumerate. rgb is a larger color space than cmyk, that is to say the colors that cmyk can represent are a subset of rgb. You are doing the work on an rgb monitor. what does having the illusion that you are working in cmyk get you? just use a cmyk color picker but most damning, industrial printers are not CMYK, they are spot color, that is, they will be filled with essentially random primary colors chosen to best fit the final print. When you do need very fine control over the final color, you don't want a cmyk aware system you want a spot color aware system. And even then, you will only get close, requiring many test prints to validate the final result.
jrm4 2y ago
As I've said exhaustively before, this is also reflected in the stupid stubbornness in not changing the name. I firmly believe they could have eaten Adobe's lunch decades ago, but I can't recommend something that may be an ableist slur, and definitely means something that is the opposite of "skilled." Childish and disappointing.
npteljes 2y ago
It's not made for coders, it's made for the benefit of whomever uses it, and many people use and bundle it as well. I do understand the issues that people are experiencing with it UX-wise, but the answer to that is not that it's being made for coders, it's that it's an open source project, and as such, it has other incentives, than giving the best UX possible. Also, since it's open source and not for-profit, it has other circumstances than proprietary projects do. For-profit projects live and die on profit, and for b2c profit, you have to have good UX (like Affinity), or for b2b, good connections (like Cerner, or Windows). What open source projects need is being able to hold their main contributor's attention and dedication to the project. Entirely different ballgame. And, yes, very different UX as well. I also stopped fiddling with GIMP - what I do I can do 10 times faster in f** Photopea of all software.
- cmyk_student 2y ago
  We actually set up a UX repo to better track issues with UI/UX, and to get feedback from designers and other members of the community. If anyone's interested in helping, feel free to post issues and discuss on https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues
  - npteljes 2y ago
    That is very nice, thanks for linking it!

by prox 2y ago

homarp 2y ago

>for coders https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/01/27/gimp-team-zemarmot-fosdem-2025/ https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/01/27/gimp-team-zemarmot-fosd... Gimp is being used,and improved along the way, to make an animation movie. Jehan (scenarist, technical) of that movie is also a core maintainer.

npteljes 2y ago
Gimp is nearing 30 years old, and it has been used for at most a handful of animation movies. I think, regarding its usage, that this is more of an outlier, than a main purpose of the software. So I don't think that this example refutes OP's point.
- homarp 2y ago
  and I think otherwise https://girinstud.io/news/2018/04/zemarmot-main-contributor-of-gimp-2-10-0-rc1/ https://girinstud.io/news/2018/04/zemarmot-main-contributor-...
  - npteljes 2y ago
    I do know about the movie, and having one (upcoming even) movie being made about GIMP doesn't say anything about its usage, or it not being made for coders. Being made for coders is a bad claim as well, at most, it's a jab at its user interface, which, I think, is no worse then Photoshop's by the way, it's just that people are familiar with one, and the not the other. A good refutal of the for-coders claim would be that it's one of the default image editor most commonly included with major Linux distributions. That's a much larger thing than it being just made for coders.
    - npteljes 2y ago
      s/about GIMP/with GIMP/
    - prmoustache 2y ago
      > I do know about the movie, and having one (upcoming even) movie being made about GIMP doesn't say anything about its usage, or it not being made for coders. Yes it does because ZeMarmot producers are the main contributors to Gimp's code.
      - npteljes 2y ago
        GIMP's initial release was in June 2, 1998. ZeMarmot's announcement was in 05 February 2015. The GIMP was an at least 17 year old software project, when the animated movie was announced. Of the two main GIMP maintainers, one of them works on ZeMarmot. What this all says is that yes, there is an animation movie 10 years in the making, by some of the people who also work on the GIMP project. It says nothing about GIMP being made for any particular purpose, either or not for coders, and/or for animation or for visual creatives in particular.

Theizestooke 2y ago

They could start with a name change.

amlib 2y ago
Yes, I suggest they change it to... The Pimp
- vednig 2y ago
  ^ when you use 100% of your brain
- userbinator 2y ago
  Pixel Image Manipulation Program
hulitu 2y ago
> They could start with a name change. Yes. Peacock will be fine. It is a wonderful bird.
- thomasfedb 2y ago
  Though Photopea is already an online Photoshop clone and sounds a bit similar? (It’s also pretty decent. My usual go to for stuff I can’t justify spinning up an Adobe VM for…)

xandrius 2y ago

Same here. Affinity is great, it has some quirk and some basic features are scattered around the UI without seemingly much thought. But every time I have to use Gimp is just a pain, feels like going back in time. For such a complex tool, UX is and will always remain king. That's why many people miss even something as simple as the Mac Preview tool, it does its job nicely and neatly. It doesn't do much but for basic stuff is quick and straightforward.

da_chicken 2y ago

The few people I know doing visual design still balk at a program that lacks native CMYK editing. Honestly I'm still skeptical about the significant improvements made for 3.0 due to the project's history. I remember CMYK being the most common complaint (after the UI) 20 years ago, too. And at the time the entire GIMP project insisted that you never needed it and RGB was good enough. By coders for coders, indeed.

doctorpangloss 2y ago
I don’t know. RGB was good enough. For every 1 person out there digitally processing art for a children’s book, which is the only piece of printed media I could think of whose lifecycle does not feature immediate disposal, there are 19 who would love their HDR iPhone photos to look right, so if anything, they should be worrying about P3.
stuaxo 2y ago
One of the big reasons for the rewrite, GEGL brings CMYK (and many other things).
ravetcofx 2y ago
Affinity seems like it works through Wine/Proton
cmyk_student 2y ago
For what it's worth, a full CMYK mode is on my personal to-do list after the final 3.0 release (though 3.0 RC has had CMYK import/export and soft-proofing for a long while). I made a prototype implementation earlier (https://twitter.com/CmykStudent/status/1618261982628704259 https://twitter.com/CmykStudent/status/1618261982628704259) and with all the color space improvements made since, it should be even easier to prototype now. Out of curiosity, what improvements in 3.0 RC are you skeptical of? If you're willing to share, it'd be helpful feedback for us. :)
somat 2y ago
This I feel is a fair complaint, I have seen it many times but I have to admit I am not a visual designer so I do not really understand it. Allow me to enumerate. rgb is a larger color space than cmyk, that is to say the colors that cmyk can represent are a subset of rgb. You are doing the work on an rgb monitor. what does having the illusion that you are working in cmyk get you? just use a cmyk color picker but most damning, industrial printers are not CMYK, they are spot color, that is, they will be filled with essentially random primary colors chosen to best fit the final print. When you do need very fine control over the final color, you don't want a cmyk aware system you want a spot color aware system. And even then, you will only get close, requiring many test prints to validate the final result.

jrm4 2y ago

As I've said exhaustively before, this is also reflected in the stupid stubbornness in not changing the name. I firmly believe they could have eaten Adobe's lunch decades ago, but I can't recommend something that may be an ableist slur, and definitely means something that is the opposite of "skilled." Childish and disappointing.

npteljes 2y ago

It's not made for coders, it's made for the benefit of whomever uses it, and many people use and bundle it as well. I do understand the issues that people are experiencing with it UX-wise, but the answer to that is not that it's being made for coders, it's that it's an open source project, and as such, it has other incentives, than giving the best UX possible. Also, since it's open source and not for-profit, it has other circumstances than proprietary projects do. For-profit projects live and die on profit, and for b2c profit, you have to have good UX (like Affinity), or for b2b, good connections (like Cerner, or Windows). What open source projects need is being able to hold their main contributor's attention and dedication to the project. Entirely different ballgame. And, yes, very different UX as well. I also stopped fiddling with GIMP - what I do I can do 10 times faster in f** Photopea of all software.

cmyk_student 2y ago
We actually set up a UX repo to better track issues with UI/UX, and to get feedback from designers and other members of the community. If anyone's interested in helping, feel free to post issues and discuss on https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues
- npteljes 2y ago
  That is very nice, thanks for linking it!