5 ms·

My guess: Casual users who don't think the interface is too hard and people liking free software. I seem to fall into both groups. But more generally - a lot o

My guess: Casual users who don't think the interface is too hard and people liking free software. I seem to fall into both groups. But more generally - a lot of people I know which are starting out with game programming work with The Gimp. Also pretty much anyone who wants to learn serious image manipulation, but not willing to either make illegal copies or spend hundreds of dollars on such an application (don't know, maybe that's not much money for you, but for most people it is a lot). And certainly people on Linux where PS simply isn't available.

onli 14y ago
No. Gimp recently - or by now some time ago - defined their target group and work with a HCI-expert to get the software in shape for them. The target users are pretty much professional users (or "for intense use", like they put it), see http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/User_Scenarios http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/User_Scenarios and http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Vision_briefing http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Vision_briefing. Casual users are no longer the target.
- bwanab 14y ago
  Target or not, that's what I am and I've been using Gimp for all my photo work for over 10 years.
- coffeeaddicted 14y ago
  Thanks, I had not heard about that before. Although a little sad, as I know a lot of casual users using it right now (even including some young kids). But I guess at least the "Creating Original Art" can be seen as targeting people like game developers.
  - bitwize 14y ago
    Casual users (including kids) have been creating art with Photoshop for some time now. At any rate, there are multiple free software packages that can do the "creating art" job at least as acceptably as GIMP. Consider MyPaint or Krita.
    - wollw 14y ago
      MyPaint and Krita are actually both great programs for digital painting. David Revoy is an artist who uses both (and also created one of the brush sets for MyPaint) and his work is worth looking at: http://www.davidrevoy.com/2-portfolio.html http://www.davidrevoy.com/2-portfolio.html He has a number of tutorials available on his site too: http://www.davidrevoy.com/4-tutorials.html http://www.davidrevoy.com/4-tutorials.html I believe he also uses Gimp with the Gimp Paint Studio presets for some things: http://code.google.com/p/gps-gimp-paint-studio/ http://code.google.com/p/gps-gimp-paint-studio/
- dirkk0 14y ago
  This might be true, but my daughter (13) uses Gimp to draw. But then again, she might be an expert because she is recording a 'Lets draw Mangas' thread on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhMwfWFG5GI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhMwfWFG5GI
  - onli 14y ago
    She might very well be. Using Gimp for content creation for some time could make her an expert (especially a fast learning and seemingly quite intelligent kid). Though painting itself isn't the main usecase gimp seems to want to support. Though like so often: Only because a software wants to support a specific target doesn't mean it will be completely unusable for doing everything else.
  - wazoox 14y ago
    Funny, my daughter's 13 too and constantly drawing manga characters with Gimp (http://julieflorac78.deviantart.com/gallery/ http://julieflorac78.deviantart.com/gallery/). I've just bought her a wacom tablet, that's much easier.
    - dirkk0 14y ago
      funny^2 - she just got a wacom tablet for christmas :-). did you get the wheel to work with gimp?
      - wazoox 14y ago
        No, but AFAIK it doesn't work yet with Linux. The other buttons work out of the box, though.
        dirkk0 14y ago
        Ah ok - she is on win7. doesn't work either, though.
  - aw3c2 14y ago
    let her try mypaint! it is made for drawing and rocks.
Taylorious 14y ago
I would like to point out that the Gimp now has a single window mode that is available under the windows menu. This makes the interface magnitudes better, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. The Gimp definitely doesn't meet the needs of a professional, but it is still very powerful. If you have some reasonable knowledge of how to use it or Photoshop you can do some amazing things. I think it does a very good job of meeting the graphics needs of the opensource community and people who need the power of an editor like Photoshop, but don't need all of the new advanced features of Photoshop and don't want to be a pirate. Personally I love the Gimp now that I am used to it. Even when I had Photoshop (acquired through my school) I found myself using the gimp instead. I just wish it was more polished, the fact that brushes are still so clumsily implemented is really frustrating. Oh well, if I really want to paint something I will use MyPaint, which is an amazing project that has developed a million times faster than the Gimp.
- curiousdannii 14y ago
  Thank you! How had I not noticed that? In Windows GIMP refuses to show up in front of other windows. I must minimise everything else until it shows up. Single window mode works perfectly.
Groxx 14y ago
This matches me and my wife. Most other free image editors fall short in some useful way or another, and Photoshop is obscenely expensive for amateur uses. It's worth spending a bit of time learning the pieces you want to use to avoid the endless frustration in other tools - the rest can basically be ignored, unless you really want to learn the 'gestalt' of the whole thing. It also helps motivate us that the vast majority of free image editors on OSX are infinitely inferior to e.g. Paint.NET.
- cstejerean 14y ago
  For amateur uses on OS X I've used Acorn and Pixelmator, until I finally switched to Adobe's Creative Cloud.

onli 14y ago

No. Gimp recently - or by now some time ago - defined their target group and work with a HCI-expert to get the software in shape for them. The target users are pretty much professional users (or "for intense use", like they put it), see http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/User_Scenarios http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/User_Scenarios and http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Vision_briefing http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Vision_briefing. Casual users are no longer the target.

bwanab 14y ago
Target or not, that's what I am and I've been using Gimp for all my photo work for over 10 years.
coffeeaddicted 14y ago
Thanks, I had not heard about that before. Although a little sad, as I know a lot of casual users using it right now (even including some young kids). But I guess at least the "Creating Original Art" can be seen as targeting people like game developers.
- bitwize 14y ago
  Casual users (including kids) have been creating art with Photoshop for some time now. At any rate, there are multiple free software packages that can do the "creating art" job at least as acceptably as GIMP. Consider MyPaint or Krita.
  - wollw 14y ago
    MyPaint and Krita are actually both great programs for digital painting. David Revoy is an artist who uses both (and also created one of the brush sets for MyPaint) and his work is worth looking at: http://www.davidrevoy.com/2-portfolio.html http://www.davidrevoy.com/2-portfolio.html He has a number of tutorials available on his site too: http://www.davidrevoy.com/4-tutorials.html http://www.davidrevoy.com/4-tutorials.html I believe he also uses Gimp with the Gimp Paint Studio presets for some things: http://code.google.com/p/gps-gimp-paint-studio/ http://code.google.com/p/gps-gimp-paint-studio/
dirkk0 14y ago
This might be true, but my daughter (13) uses Gimp to draw. But then again, she might be an expert because she is recording a 'Lets draw Mangas' thread on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhMwfWFG5GI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhMwfWFG5GI
- onli 14y ago
  She might very well be. Using Gimp for content creation for some time could make her an expert (especially a fast learning and seemingly quite intelligent kid). Though painting itself isn't the main usecase gimp seems to want to support. Though like so often: Only because a software wants to support a specific target doesn't mean it will be completely unusable for doing everything else.
- wazoox 14y ago
  Funny, my daughter's 13 too and constantly drawing manga characters with Gimp (http://julieflorac78.deviantart.com/gallery/ http://julieflorac78.deviantart.com/gallery/). I've just bought her a wacom tablet, that's much easier.
  - dirkk0 14y ago
    funny^2 - she just got a wacom tablet for christmas :-). did you get the wheel to work with gimp?
    - wazoox 14y ago
      No, but AFAIK it doesn't work yet with Linux. The other buttons work out of the box, though.
      - dirkk0 14y ago
        Ah ok - she is on win7. doesn't work either, though.
- aw3c2 14y ago
  let her try mypaint! it is made for drawing and rocks.

Taylorious 14y ago

I would like to point out that the Gimp now has a single window mode that is available under the windows menu. This makes the interface magnitudes better, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. The Gimp definitely doesn't meet the needs of a professional, but it is still very powerful. If you have some reasonable knowledge of how to use it or Photoshop you can do some amazing things. I think it does a very good job of meeting the graphics needs of the opensource community and people who need the power of an editor like Photoshop, but don't need all of the new advanced features of Photoshop and don't want to be a pirate. Personally I love the Gimp now that I am used to it. Even when I had Photoshop (acquired through my school) I found myself using the gimp instead. I just wish it was more polished, the fact that brushes are still so clumsily implemented is really frustrating. Oh well, if I really want to paint something I will use MyPaint, which is an amazing project that has developed a million times faster than the Gimp.

curiousdannii 14y ago
Thank you! How had I not noticed that? In Windows GIMP refuses to show up in front of other windows. I must minimise everything else until it shows up. Single window mode works perfectly.

Groxx 14y ago

This matches me and my wife. Most other free image editors fall short in some useful way or another, and Photoshop is obscenely expensive for amateur uses. It's worth spending a bit of time learning the pieces you want to use to avoid the endless frustration in other tools - the rest can basically be ignored, unless you really want to learn the 'gestalt' of the whole thing. It also helps motivate us that the vast majority of free image editors on OSX are infinitely inferior to e.g. Paint.NET.

cstejerean 14y ago
For amateur uses on OS X I've used Acorn and Pixelmator, until I finally switched to Adobe's Creative Cloud.