Under the hood I actually really like GIMP. I’m also not too bothered by there being no circle tool. My problem with GIMP is that if there were a circle tool in it, its a little too difficult to find it if it does exist.
If they had some front end re-write eventually where they just moved some stuff around and better organized the front end of the application, I think a lot more people would use it. UX/UI is really important, and I’m sure the contributors of GIMP know this as they seem to have done well to try to make the interface feel straightforward by putting stuff under menu’s and whatnot, but the location of things just seems unintuitive/non-standard compared to what every other application does.
The other issue I have with GIMP is just that its development cycle takes forever compared to most every other open source application I have seen.
Not to say there is a great answer to any of this, image manipulation/animation software is not an easy thing to program by any means so I understand why it can take forever, but I just wish there was a real answer.
In the mean time, I’ve just been trying to get by with krita, though krita really seems geared toward digital painting specifically.
Don’t even get us started on Blender’s UX/UI design.
USB-C…
We have ISO standards. Fuck every single company that ignores those (Microsoft, Apple, …).
Vendor lock in is the reason I went to a fully open source workflow like fifteen years ago. When you rely on these companies for tools, they own your work. They can jack up prices, change TOS whenever they want, paywall features, train AIs on your work, and jerk you around on a chain at their whim. I don’t mind a little jank or having to do some workarounds for a certain result to keep my freedom. And also, when a new release comes out that fixes an issue ive been having, I feel grateful! In the closed ecosystem you feel entitled and resentful and powerless. It’s not worth it.
I’m most of the way there except jet brains… I just don’t have it in me to spend the years it’ll take to become as familiar with a different tool.
BUT I CAN
Cool design.
Is it possible to learn this power??
Stick a pin in your mouse cable and whizz it round like a compass. Easy.
Yeeh gimme a bit
This applies across the industry
MySQL, VMware…
Click brush, move mouse in a circle
Hey, I was a GIMP convert even during the long dark ages of GIMP where you couldn’t do any kind of bulk layer selection or moving or lots of maddening things… and you know what I kept fucking using it because it was always there for me, ready to help me make a shitty meme.
GIMP has recently gotten MUCH better though, it is a straight up beast now.
I agree.
Just recently, I used GIMP 3.0 to create what will become a sticker on the side of a dozen hockey helmets.
It was a small project but it probably went back and forth a dozen times as each version delivered sparked new ideas or new questions on what was possible. Layers, filters, alpha channel, Smart Selection, and working with text and font outlines were all essential.
I don’t do all this stuff all the time. There is no way I would ever pay for Photoshop. Yet, my standard Linux install had everything I needed to get it done. And it was not that hard.
Truly amazing when you think about it. We are all so entitled.
We are all so entitled.
That’s exactly my issue with GIMP. We are all so entitled, even GIMP devs.
You don’t want to include a feature to draw an editable circle/square/polygon? Fine, but then don’t get superdefensive nor “counterattack” when people ask you about this feature. All in all, pretty much every other image manipulation program has it, so it’s understandable people wonder why GIMP doesn’t have it. I for one still can’t wrap my head around why this is a no-no for some people. It doesn’t make any sense.
When I was majoring as graphic designer I used to use GIMP for a bunch of stuff, even played with python-fu and saved me some time I never would have saved with Photoshop or some shit like that, but even back then they always answered to everything some variation of “we are short on resources”. Well at that time Krita (which was even called Kpaint) had even less resources than GIMP and look at them now.
Industry standard or monopoly.
Wait they took the ellipse tool?
What?
I was contemplating switching from Cinema4d to Blender for a long time, but the UX of C4d was so nice and Blender’s frankly sucked. Then 2.8 came out with a UI overhaul that changed all that and now I’d never dream of switching to another 3d package when Blender is so easy to use, extensible with Python, and has a huge community around it. Blender’s popularity soared after the UX changes. Sometimes, a UI overhaul can make all the difference.
Even where Blender falls short, there’s usually an addon that fills the gap, often paid, but still open source, which is 1000x better than competing options that almost always involve a subscription.
The benefit of a community of open source software around it also can’t be overstated. For instance, MakeHuman kicks ass, Auto-Rig Pro makes it usable for mocap and character animation, etc. Blender Studio’s projects like Flamenco render farm and automated Blender Studio pipeline built around the also open source Kitsu that I self-host are also amazing. Collectively, it all blows Autodesk out of the water and should be a shining example to all other open source projects.
To give a specific example of how powerful Blender is, in geology there are very very very very expensive 3d modelling programs and then there is like… Sketchup which I guess Google hasn’t abandoned? idk… even the basic GIS software for geologic mapping from ESRI is expensive AF, especially if you want to do any fancy 3d rendering or map making.
Enter this guy
You already know this guy is cool as fuck just from that photo, but let me tell you how exactly how lowkey cool Marcus Schwander is.
(btw I have zero connection to this guy, I know next to nothing about him, I literally just found his videos from searching “Blender Geology” on youtube randomly)
His video series shows quite clearly and exhaustively how to do extremely complicated geologic mapping of complex fold belts with lots of faults using Blender. What I can’t stress enough is that the workflow he is detailing in the proprietary software world would be EXTREMELY niche, require exhaustive licensing and setting up payment and getting software keys… blah blah blah and ultimately it would be a very expensive workflow, possibly requiring software licenses that cost thousands of dollars or more (I am not kidding). On top of the prohibitive cost, any kind of documentation, additional plugin development, or content creators who make tutorials about how to use the tools is an order of magnitude rarer for those tools because access to the tools in the first place is so prohibitive (and is usually only along narrow circumstances, not the kind of situation someone would organically decide to make a youtube tutorial channel about a software that costs $30,000 a license necessarily). In contrast, try searching for “Blender tutorial” in youtube and just take a cursory glance and the absurdly exhaustive amount of resources out there about learning Blender.
I have been teaching myself Blender because I want to make similar tutorial videos because it is ridiculous to me idea that in 2025 geologists don’t have an open format to visualize geologic structures and map them in a natural 3d environment that can be then shared with other geologists, in a established non-proprietary format that a geologist can ensure that any other geologist can open and view the model/data themselves, because again if you have a computer you can get Blender…
I am firmly of the belief that Blender should be taught as a basic part of a Geology curriculum along with a GIS class, not a primary focus or anything, but the tool is so general and so broadly useful that I think we owe it to future scientists to teach everybody we can how to use Blender.
As a last point, I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting using Blender to make cool fancy cinematic visualizations of Geology because it looks cool, or suggesting trying to do lots of complex modelling and computation in Blender instead of a GIS software, those are both awesome uses of Blender but what I am suggesting is that by simply teaching the next generation of Geologists how to use a 3d modelling software just for the simple purposes of giving them a tool to sketch out ideas or explore a geologic map from a 3d perspective (which can be useful ESPECIALLY when talking to other people about specific geologic structures that are difficult to explain without a 3d perspective to point to) Blender is going to forever change how Geologists use computers to do Geology.
It is a cool moment because on the flip side… there is a LOT of money in Geology and I think the Blender community could and will absolutely find serious, sustainable long term funding from Geology companies and academia associated entities that could massively bolster development capability and funding security.
No everything in Linux has to be used through the terminal, how else will I feel elite. If there has to be a gui let’s make sure it looks like it was designed in 1995, so everyone hates it and just uses the terminal instead
Just use the terminal to send keyboard and mouse events, you hopeless noob!
wtype -M shift "A" -m shift wtype -k enter swaymsg seat seat0 cursor set_position 100 200 ydotool mousemove -100 50 ydotool click 0`In fact it’s even more efficient!
The power of Linux, in the palm of my hand
Yall just use Krita if you want a photoshop replacement on Linux and then stop complaining about gimp please. Krita draws circles exactly like photoshop please just use Krita and leave the gimp people alone
I use both.
Krita is for drawing. GIMP is for making memes.
Downplaying the importance of UX is one of the reasons the year of the Linux desktop still has not arrived.
If by importance of UX you mean “your program should look and behave exactly like this other program made by a corpo, because I’ve learned that one already”.
In reality The Year Of The Linux might never arrive, it doesn’t have a multibillion corporation spending multi billions in order to make Linux a default software on every computer you buy. (to pedants: Android doesn’t count)no, we want the tried and tested workflow that works well for pros to use.
take it as someone who used photoshop professionally in the past.
That’s what I mean. You used photoshop professionally, you are used to its interface, you want everything to have the same interface so you don’t have to learn a new one. It’s normal, we all are like that. The problems start when you try to hide it behind words like “intuitive”, “industry standart”, and “good for everyone”
Yep. I use Gimp, digiKam and Darktable for literally decades now. I am utterly lost on Adobe software.
say what you will about adobe and you might be right, but photoshop was perfected over years for an efficient pro workflow, and the industry coalesced around how similar software works.
to the point GIMP is not an effective tool. I would excuse them for trying to make it actually “intuitive”, but as it stands, its neither “industry standard”, nor “good for everyone”.
this is my point. wanna come up with something better? please do, but its not close.
No. Importance of UX simply means advance users can customize their workflow while making it easy to use for casual users.
Kinda like Krita or Blender. Both are not perfect, but the dev are working on it, together with the community.
Even GIMP dev also working on that, they have GIMP UX issue tracker here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/
“your program should look and behave exactly like this other program made by a corpo, because I’ve learned that one already”
Oftentimes established workflow is already simple. There’s no need to reinvent this from scratch. Example: Npainter and AzPainter are heavily inspired by PaintToolSAI. Inochi Creator is a clone (with unique feature) of Live2D Cubism.
Oftentimes established workflow is already simple
Not in the example we’re talking about though. Photoshop isn’t simple, nothing in it is. And for the software that is, it doesn’t mean you can’t come up with the better UX. We shouldn’t discourage people from trying to invent something better just because it isn’t what we already have.
I believe when majority of people saying “Photoshop has this, we should do this as well” are not actually saying GIMP should create a total carbon-copy.
People loves easy to use interface, not carbon copy of Photoshop, even if they don’t say that. They just don’t know how to articulate their frustration better.
When Affinity Photo emerges as actual Photoshop alternative, no one complains regarding “not being Photoshop clone” because the interface is actually easier than Photoshop, while still being advanced software.
New GIMP user complaining about interface “not being Photoshop clone” is indicator that GIMP interface is not easy to use and intuitive enough.
I think the difference is with their software you can play around the UI and figure out things by intuition and trial and error
The same thing is not enough in FOSS in many cases. Like for ex, drawing solid shapes in GIMP
For three years I worked teaching computers to adults, and for four years I was a system administrator/helpdesk for a big office.
I can absolutely assure you, from my experience, there is nothing inheritly easier or harder to figure out in close source software vs foss, in windows vs linux, in gui vs console, in Photoshop vs Gimp.
The only difference is, what did a person encountered before. The idea that you can give a person photoshop and they will draw you a sold shape, but you give the same person gimp and they will not be able to never stood up to my experience with probably thousands of people.There are definitely a lot of little things in gimp that make it hard. The lack of a shapetool is one(yes yes it’s not a drawing app but a basic edition helps) and other things like adding text with a black outline or shadow. After literally decades they finally added in a way to make it easier to image macro text in. The old way involved several submenus and I know I couldnt figure it out on my own without a guide.
I know sometimes people come into an opensource ecosystem and complain that everything is worse because they arent used to it, but at the same time there are a lot of open source programs that are very rough around the edges and the developer cant see it because they know the program inside and out so of course it’s intuitive that this feature is burried in here and this feature way in there.
deleted by creator
I for one have never used Photoshop but I used to use Gimp occasionally for some semi-technical markup and annotation. I remember being baffled by how to make a hollow circle, as opposed to a solid one. I kept forgetting the process so I had to look it up every time. Nowadays I just use canva since I don’t want to analyse menus and tool options every time. I don’t have to use Photoshop to say that Gimp’s UI can be better. Anyway, I also use Audacity extensively and although it’s not as outstanding of a case as Gimp, the older versions were a pain, nowadays it’s much better but still plenty to improve (I have not used other audio editing softwares)
Then again I learn software by intuition and exploring menus (rarely I go to read the manual, as do majority of the people I imagine), if I was taught how to use it by someone like you, maybe things would be different, but I doubt that’s how most people interact with software.
The year of of the Linux happened long ago. However we fail to recognize it, because wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. Most super computer is TOP500 as well as servers and majority of portable devices in the world are powered by the Linux kernel.
If the definition of Year of Linux was based on having astonishing UX then, this is probably something that will never happen.
We’re talking about home computers, regular users running their personal OS.
Valve sells all of its computers with Linux on it, no?
They don’t sell all-purpose computers, they sell gaming systems that run Linux underneath. The regular user never has to interact with the OS
They also don’t sell that many of them.
Some quick googling says that Valve has sold nearly 4 million decks, which is pretty good.
Lenovo sold ~62 million computers last year alone. And they only make up ~1/4 of global market share
I guess all valve has to do is release steam machines again and then what? Suddenly the year of the Linux desktop isn’t here?
We’re talking about regular users having Linux as their operation system, not what happens under the hood of specialised machines. Steam machine user doesn’t run Linux, they run Steam.
Ah you’re right, it just cannot happen with a steam machine.
Nonesense. There is no easier to use and more functional desktop with great user experience than Linux. Been that way a long time. People are just used to poor UX and want more of it.
Edit: I would love to hear from the downvoters how windows, with its constantly changing interface, ads, poor file manager and poorly thought out workflow design is somehow better than linux. And stick with win 11 as that is the standard now.
As for Mac, talk about confusing. Where are your files? What is happening at full screen, what menu is doing what? I will say macs are great when you get used it, especially if you use keyboard shortcuts.
There is no easier to use and more functional desktop with great user experience than Linux.
Ignoring the fact that you make it sound like Linux has a single unified desktop experience…
I’d love to hear your reason for thinking that. I’m a Linux fanboy and even I’m smelling the bullshit.
True. But each of them are more or less polished enough for any user.
Naaah, it’s just companies like Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft shitting on Linux users each time they can.
Lol
Circle select + Shift-PaintBucket
People really love making storms out of water glasses.
For anyone thinking this is the solution, it’s not. This technique produces a rasterized circle in a destructive editing workflow. What people that are complaining actually want, is a non-destructive tool, like the planned shape tool that will let everyone easily make vector shapes, like circles. It is part of the ongoing plan to add non-destructive workflows to GIMP, it’s a game changer and the gimp team is doing great progress, so kudos to them.
Agreed. They have a lot of the required plumbing now. There are some non-destructive editing workflows in GIMP.
I think holding back 3.0 for so long was a mistake. It no longer matters though. It is out now and it can be improved dramatically without such a long break between the dev version and stable.
We will see what the next couple of years brings.
Not an actual shape tools, as shape created should be editable (usually as vector layer).
That method resulting an rasterized circle.
…and GIMP dev actually planning to add shape tool.
and GIMP dev actually planning to add shape tool.
Gimp’s first version released in 1998. Do you find it surprising that people aren’t impressed by plans to add basic tools after nearly 30 years when the competition has stuff like content-aware filling and automatic layer separation?
There are many valid arguments against using Adobe products, or for using open source editing software. Productivity and ease of use are not one of them.
It’s a free open source project, which means you’ve had just as long implement shapes.
Don’t like it then don’t use it, but you can hardly complain about something which is free.
Again with this tired excuse. “It’s free therefore everybody should just accept subpar software”.
You know what else is free? Gonorrhea. Doesn’t mean it’s something I should want, nor is anyone who isn’t an STI researcher barred from saying it blows.
Just to be clear, I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone uses to do their editing. Suit yourself. Just don’t expect others to follow suit and sing the praises of a thing just because it’s FOSS.
I would agree with this, but the whining about a missing feature and how long it’s been missing helps no one.
Either implement it yourself or move along ffs.
Who is whining though?
This is another one of those echo chamber memes complaining about “those people” where “those people” don’t really exist in reality.
Remember that one posted in this very community a week or so ago complaining about “Microsoft evangelists” as if that’s even a thing? I do.
content-aware filling
For what it’s worth, GIMP has had the resynthesizer plugin since the mid or late 2000’s, and at the time it was significantly ahead of Adobe’s Content Aware Fill.
Regarding Shape Tool: this feature is dependant on Vector Layer. The earliest attempt to implement this is back in 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20061219233008/http://lunarcrisis.pooq.com/wiki/Gimp/SoC2006Log
I recommend to check the discussion for Shape tool and Better vector Tool here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/issues/11190
If you check Gitlab repository of GIMP, they’re actually rewriting some old-codebase to be more future-proof. And that works really takes time. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/commits/master
A lot of major design software are actually doing this. For example:
- Manga Studio -> Clip Studio Paint. CSP is now “de-facto” software standard of comic industry, including webtoon. Hugely popular in Asia.
- Serif PhotoPlus -> Affinity Photo. It was regarding as the best Photoshop alternative with arguably easier interface and better performance.
You cannot just slap new feature continuously. The software will end bloated and slow like Photoshop.
All of that is irrelevant to an end user. They have the choice between tool A which is free but developing very slowly, or tool B which is paid but has all of the stuff they need.
99.99% will choose tool B and rightfully so.
Case in point: Serif isn’t currently rewriting their old stuff, they already did 10 years ago. Affinity photo/designer/etc have been out for a decade.
My point is that if you want a future-proof software, you need a solid code base. Affinity already fix that. Clip Studio Paint done that. GIMP dev is currently working on it.
Basic tools? Drawing in a photo editing tool? That doesn’t make any sense to me. Use krita and draw all you want.
Gimp works great for editing images. Krita works great for drawing on them.
Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools to get your job done. You can further enhance your productivity with GIMP thanks to many customization options and 3rd party plugins.
Right off their front page.
Yeah illustrator is a huge stretch there, you are right.
And as a graphic designer, I am shaking my head.
That really is never the way I looked at gimp since the beginning.
With this logic, why have a rectangular selection tool, when the grid and freehand selection achieve the same result?
Keycloak is a industry standard and is very much not vendor locked. Same with Auth0. As far as oauth goes.
Yeah I feel like “industry standard” and “vendor locked” are kinda opposites?
Not really. “Industry standard” just means it’s commonly used in the industry. “Open specification” is the opposite of “vendor locked”, e.g. OAuth for authentication.
Industry standard is generally an open standard. Proprietary is what you and meme/op are thinking.
No, sorry, you’re just wrong. An “industry standard” can be anything that’s normal in an industry, e.g. a particular tool. Photoshop for example is an industry standard, but it’s not an open standard in any way.
