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Ex-Gimp User here. The article does point out that most photographer workflows are in their raw editors. You get Non Destructive Editing with tools like Darktab

Ex-Gimp User here. The article does point out that most photographer workflows are in their raw editors. You get Non Destructive Editing with tools like Darktable in Linux. Non destructive editing helps to improve your productivity. It's similar to making code changes knowing you have a revision system behind and to when you don't. That being said non destructive doesn't make you a better retoucher, it's there to save your ass, which happens less often for the seasoned professional. Professionals were productive long before non destructive editing. Gimp is used professionally, even though we hear little about that. Krita and Blender have all been used on big budget movies as well. Gimps biggest problem IMHO ( and strictly from my experience) is usability. This post isn't going to turn into a typical gimp ui rant even though gimp does makes my head hurt; a lot but I don't think I'll be going back to gimp unless I really have to. I have used since it since 2001 and seeing it lag behind other open source editors makes me sometimes wonder why usability is an after thought.

yaur 13y ago
Another huge problem is that if I'm working with a "real" designer its exceedingly unlikely that they are going to have GIMP or be willing to learn it, and without pixel perfect rendering of PSDs (which it doesn't have) if I need to make buttons, etc I have to use Photoshop.
pekk 13y ago
"Usability" never seems to mean anything specific, but rather whatever the speaker has in mind as a personal taste. In this case, my best guess is that you mean "UI works exactly like Photoshop"
- nitrogen 13y ago
  I use Gimp professionally for UI and web work, and it does have some UI difficulties. The biggest for me is the haphazard arrangement of tool icons. It sometimes takes me ages to find the right icon because they aren't categorized and don't have a coherent style.
  - jzzskijj 13y ago
    In Windows: Edit -> Preferences -> Toolbox -> Tools Configuration Order the icons as you like. Hide the ones you don't need. And also learn key shortcuts.
    - nitrogen 13y ago
      It's not just the default ordering that's the issue, it's the lack of grouping. And as a Vim user, I'm no stranger to keyboard accelerators. Unfortunately I don't use GIMP frequently enough for all of the keyboard shortcuts to stick (were some of them assigned from nouns in a language other than English?). Thanks for the reordering tip, though.

yaur 13y ago

Another huge problem is that if I'm working with a "real" designer its exceedingly unlikely that they are going to have GIMP or be willing to learn it, and without pixel perfect rendering of PSDs (which it doesn't have) if I need to make buttons, etc I have to use Photoshop.

pekk 13y ago

"Usability" never seems to mean anything specific, but rather whatever the speaker has in mind as a personal taste. In this case, my best guess is that you mean "UI works exactly like Photoshop"

nitrogen 13y ago
I use Gimp professionally for UI and web work, and it does have some UI difficulties. The biggest for me is the haphazard arrangement of tool icons. It sometimes takes me ages to find the right icon because they aren't categorized and don't have a coherent style.
- jzzskijj 13y ago
  In Windows: Edit -> Preferences -> Toolbox -> Tools Configuration Order the icons as you like. Hide the ones you don't need. And also learn key shortcuts.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    It's not just the default ordering that's the issue, it's the lack of grouping. And as a Vim user, I'm no stranger to keyboard accelerators. Unfortunately I don't use GIMP frequently enough for all of the keyboard shortcuts to stick (were some of them assigned from nouns in a language other than English?). Thanks for the reordering tip, though.