
Gimp 2.10.20 - Santosh83
https://www.gimp.org/news/2020/06/11/gimp-2-10-20-released/
======
maddyboo
Before I got into programming as a teenager, GIMP was one of the first
"advanced" pieces of software I really dove into. I learned so much just
messing around, creating wallpapers, editing screenshots from games, making
photo-manipulation "art", logos for imaginary companies (and later even a few
real ones). I am so grateful such a wonderful, free, open source piece of
software existed for me to play with, I think it's part of what sparked my
interest in computing.

~~~
jhoechtl
Gimp has fallen far behind of what is an advanced software. The GUI is
atrocious and it's still using GTK2 which is blurry on my scaled screen. And
as it seems there is no way out anytime soon.

It was advanded - 10 years ago.

~~~
jimmaswell
The GUI is perfectly fine. I use it all the time and it does everything I
need. Sometimes I have to look up how to do something but that's true of any
program. What exactly is it missing?

~~~
murermader
I think his point was more about the GUI technology, instead of the GUI
layout. The GUI does not behave very well on HiDPI screens with scaling.

~~~
enriquto
I do not really understand the problem here. Why do you need to scale instead
of using a larger font?

~~~
philtar
"Why do you need to X?"

This is what I sounded like when I was trying to convince my non-nerd friends
that they should use Linux on their laptops. People have different
requirements. If a modern interface that isn't blurry on modern screens is one
of those requirements, then so be it. Convincing them that their requirement
is wrong isn't going to fix GIMP

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gmfawcett
I found that my GIMP skills increased _significantly_ after browsing through
the great tutorial collection, "Meet the GIMP!". I'm not an artist by any
stretch, but even just learning how to use layers and layer masks properly
made a huge difference.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/MeetGIMP](https://www.youtube.com/user/MeetGIMP)

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themodelplumber
These are really great changes. I haven't 100% adapted to the latest with Gimp
but hope to get more time in for play. The broad changes in 2.10 were driving
me crazy on a recent, more serious comic art project, so I reverted to 2.8.

Since that time though, I'm getting used to the changes, and the non-
destructive techniques are really appreciated, especially compared to the old
contingency methods I was using like saving backup layers.

Gimp is, to me anyway, almost a completely different app now.

~~~
natch
A previous version of 2.10 broke so many things for me on macOS it was
unusable. I also went back to 2.8, 2.8.22 specifically. The things that broke
were tiny little trivial sounding behaviors that would be hard to document in
a ticket, or subtle to describe, yet with huge workflow impact. I feel little
hope anyone working on the project noticed what they had broken, or will
understand what was lost, or would think that any of the tickets, if reported,
would merit prioritization, but together they added up to quite a setback. I'm
thinking it will take a few rounds of major updates to make it worthwhile for
me to try again.

------
_eht
I’ve been using Gimp non-professionally for almost eight years now and the
latest releases this last couple years have made it such a pleasure to use.
Great job team.

~~~
pkulak
Okay, I was just going to comment on how much I enjoy using Gimp, and the
stories I've been hearing over the years about bad usability baffle me. I've
really only started using it recently, and it's been an absolute joy to use.

~~~
asutekku
I think Gimp has the same problem a lot of FOSS seems to have. They are
extremely powerful on the right hands but because open source community
doesn’t have that much of an UX designers, they are really unoptimal to use
and the learning curve is so steep most people won’t bother

~~~
pessimizer
I think that a lot of people were trained on photoshop, and interpret all
deviations from the photoshop interface as suboptimal and not intuitive -
because for someone who has exclusively used photoshop, they are suboptimal
and not intuitive.

For people moving in the other direction, it's photoshop that's not intuitive.
I don't want a single-window interface.

~~~
mcv
I have tried and failed at using both. I guess the topic of advanced image
manipulation itself is too complex to allow for a simple, intuitive interface.

I wouldn't mind an entry-level image manipulation system that starts by giving
me only a few obvious functions, and lets me grow into more advanced functions
as I learn more, but that's probably too much to expect.

On the other hand, serious image manipulation is no doubt a serious skill that
requires training that I simply lack. Someone with no programming training
failing to grasp Python or Java doesn't mean there's anything wrong with
Python or Java.

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ogre_codes
Before I switched to MacOS, Gimp was my goto photo editor and I still have
much love for this most excellent piece of software. Even though the interface
was a bit clunky in some ways, it was one of the early/ best great apps for
desktop Linux.

A lot of people forget that the G in GTK stands for Gimp, it is arguably the
foundation of much of modern Linux GUI.

This makes me want to take a swing at desktop Linux again.

~~~
akandiah
> A lot of people forget that the G in GTK stands for Gimp

Source? It's always stood for Gnome Toolkit. You must be confusing this with
the GDK (GIMP Drawing Kit) that's between the library layer and the display
server. The GDK is part of the toolkit.

~~~
homarp
GTK was originally designed and used in the GNU Image Manipulation Program
(GIMP) as a replacement of the Motif toolkit;

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTK)

~~~
homarp
[https://web.archive.org/web/19990417052141/http://www.linuxw...](https://web.archive.org/web/19990417052141/http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-01/lw-01-gimp.html)

"GTk (GIMP Toolkit), the windowing toolkit that now lies at the core of the
Gnome desktop, was originally written as part of GIMP."

------
siraben
GIMP is also extensible with Python, Perl or even Scheme[0].

[0]
[https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Basic_Scheme/](https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Basic_Scheme/)

------
benbristow
Nice work!

Still think Affinity Photo for £23.99 one-time is a better option if you're on
Windows/Mac though. I've easily switched from Photoshop which I've never been
able to do with GIMP.

~~~
mythz
Never heard of them, thanks for the reference looks like a great high quality
app, just bought it on iPad (was only $9.99 atm).

On macOS I use Pixelmator which is one of the best quality Apps I have on
macOS, was also only a small 1 time purchase.

Edit:

Spent the last 1hr playing with it on Windows, gorgeous iOS & Mac App of the
year quality Apps like this never exist on Windows, at USD $25 it's a steal
(50% off until June 20). Finally a Photoshop replacement quality App for my
hobby design tasks that I don't need to maintain a subscription for.

~~~
jorvi
You shouldn’t trust Pixelmator. They basically took every single complaint
about Pixelmator, sat on those for years, and instead of improving Pixelmator
they pretty much abandoned it and suddenly released Pixelmator Pro with all
those features and fixes instead

It’s the same as Flexibits updating Fantastical, switching to a subscription
model (the app used to be €6 but now is €50/y) and both putting old features
behind paywalls and ‘unlock this with premium’ buttons everywhere that you
can’t hide

I just can’t & won’t trust companies that pull switcharoos like that

Affinity are good folks as far as I can see, and haven’t pulled stunts like
that yet

Edit: well I guess HN loves everything moving to a subscription world. What
the hell..

~~~
mythz
I've yet to pay twice for Pixelmator which I've used for years & they've never
nagged me once, will gladly pay again in a heartbeat.

It's great they offer a different & improved SKU as I don't see how they could
develop such a quality App for a low 1 time payment & was concerned for their
sustainability, happy to hear they offer a quality upgrade that I can upgrade
to support continued development of their quality app.

~~~
jorvi
The biggest example is single window mode. This was the most requested and
most upvoted request for years. It was quite obvious that behind the scenes
they decided/realized ‘hey, if this feature is _that_ important to people
let’s purposely hold it back until we can use it to force people to upgrade.
Genius!’

I understand that there is a limited support window and I understand that
sustainable software development requires version upgrades, but the way
Pixelmator did it left a foul taste in many many users their mouth.

~~~
andrekandre
just a single data point to be sure...

but for me, i didnt like the ui of pixelmator pro, and am glad they left the
older one alone, and made the totaly redesigned one a separate app, as i would
have just abandoned it for afinity or something else (not saying pixelmator
has a perfect ui by any stretch tho)

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fimdomeio
Am I the only one that looks at the gimp ui screenshot and feels there's
something terrible wrong with the ui. It looks like the whole interface was
diseigned for a different text size and now all the proper spacing between
elements is gone.

~~~
de_watcher
Looks like the goal was to cram as much as it can fit, so no fancy spacing.

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Tomte
Funny, I always just assumed that "gimp" is the English word for German
"Gimpel". Turns out, it's not. In English it's a bullfinch.

BTW that's my main use for Wikipedia, more than actually looking an article
up: find the German Wikipedia page and switch to English or Swedish or
whatever to find the appropriate translation of the thing or concept.
Especially when a dictionary would give you dozens of translations in
different fields, Wikipedia's disambiguation pages are close to perfect.

~~~
sudosysgen
Indeed, Wikipedia is an absolutely amazing context-aware translation tool.

------
kenforthewin
Love gimp and happy to see new releases. I wish they would change the name.

~~~
CharlesW
> _I wish they would change the name._

It's time to pick a name that's not offensive. Far more than the UI, this has
hurt the project more than its contributors can imagine. I've given up
evangelizing it because of responses I've gotten to the name.

Like, call it "Imp". Short, cute, and the icon/mascot practically draws
itself. It's not rocket surgery.

~~~
slazaro
There's a recent project called Glimpse that is a fork of GIMP, with some
additional objectives beside the name change.

[https://glimpse-editor.github.io/](https://glimpse-editor.github.io/)

~~~
CharlesW
That changes everything, thank you! _< bow>_

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jarrell_mark
I wonder if Glimpse will be updated to this version

~~~
daitangio
What is Glimpse?

~~~
Tomte
A hostile fork, because some people found the name offensive.

~~~
whywhywhywhy
I thought the name was funny and cool when I first dabbled with Linux as a
teenager in the early 00s, sorta added to linux feeling rebellious and more
hackery.

But nowadays where it has to be used across so many schools because its the
only application they can afford I do think it was inappropriate and should
have been changed.

Then again I think a better future is possible for image editing, cloning
Photoshop poorly isn't the only solution to the problem.

~~~
sudosysgen
I personally really don't think that some US schools anecdotally not using
GIMP because of it's name is worth ruining decades of tutorials and
documentation for the entire rest of the world.

FWIW, GIMP has been installed on every single educational computer I've
interacted with from pre-elementary school to college, in both French (Québec,
France, Morocco), Arabic (Morocco) and English (Québec) schooling systems.

~~~
jansan
I take comfort in knowing that people with common sense are still the majority
on this planet, even if social media is suggesting the opposite.

~~~
harry8
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”

― Albert Einstein

~~~
sudosysgen
That wasn't really common sense in that definition of the term, rather it was
thinking of advantages versus disadvantages. I don't think that considering
the reality of people outside of your own group is "prejudice", yet it is
common sense.

~~~
harry8
Forget "common sense." Make the argument that something makes "good sense" and
support that argument with logical reasoning and evidence.

"It's just common sense" is simply an excuse to stop thinking, be it about the
characteristics of the natural world, (which is, I think, what Einstein was
getting at), or about human behaviour and characteristics. Things called
"common sense" may even make good sense. So think about them and make the
relevant case. Things called "common sense" are also often really just plain
nonsense when dragged out into the light of proper critical analysis based on
solid evidence.

~~~
sudosysgen
Sure, I already made that argument. Renaming it is only a benefit for a small
subset of the global population and only because of their own biases, as such
it shouldn't happen.

Common sense is also the good sense that should be expected of the common man.

------
brokenmachine
I was all ready to move away from Photoshop and try Gimp.

I needed to add some arrows to some screenshots for some documentation and
thought, "this should be easy, now's the right time to try it out".

After installing Gimp and googling for 10 minutes, I gave up because all the
solutions seemed ridiculously overcomplicated for something so basic as a line
with an arrow end.

There's no simple way to do something even this basic in Gimp. So it's back to
Photoshop or even Paint.net for me.

Please somebody tell me I was mistaken.

~~~
boojums
I had a similar experience. Since I use GIMP a fair amount for work (just
programmer art for documentation), I thought it would be simple. After some
comments here on HN, I tried Inkscape which worked excellently.

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ktzar
I just wish it got features that were in Photoshop in the early 00s.
Adjustment layers, basic effects as part of the layers ...

~~~
whywhywhywhy
I really wish that people would see there are possibilities beyond that dated
system.

Feel like we're doomed to the ideas of the Photoshop team from 20 years ago.

~~~
MrLeap
Right? Data structure wise, layers are a stack. We've got fancier things we
could use to generate images.

What about a digraph? A node graph editor for compositing would be pretty
cool. It'd get you kind of what you have in blender / unreal / unity's vfx
graph / shader graph.

I like the push for everything to be non destructive, but it'd be cool if I
could, in a reduced input "live" kind of way, see before/after choices -- so I
can make adjustments like an optometrist.

I make a lot of texture masks for interactive 3d stuff, the digraph approach
would be nice if it let me bitpack things in a more complicated way into color
channels than what's possible now.

Maybe what I'm actually asking for is more photoshop-y like tools in blender?

~~~
FreakyT
I think if you go too far down this path you end up with a tool that’s utterly
incomprehensible to the majority of your user base. Layers may be simplistic,
but they’re relatively easy to understand.

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dvirsky
A Bloom Filter? Is that a pun or is it a known industry term for such an image
filter?

~~~
ronjouch
Worlds colliding :) . It's referring to image-manipulation technique
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_(shader_effect)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_\(shader_effect\))
, not CS concept
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter)

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axegon_
Good job! Haven't opened gimp or photoshop in years but looking at it, it
seems to resemble photoshop _A_LOT_ as far as UI is concerned and that's
probably a good thing: photoshop folks would feel more at home. Specifically
what really impresses me is how visually similar it looks(to me anyway),
knowing that GTK is powering it. Very impressive!

~~~
andrewla
Of note is that the origin of GTK is that it was the UI toolkit for Gimp --
the "Gimp ToolKit" evolved into the standalone "Gnome ToolKit".

------
ris
Gotta say I'm really confused about their branches and version numbers these
days. New features in a point release seems to be normal for them now.

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xvilka
GIMP is the only program in my Fedora 32 installation that still requires
python2. I hope they will get rid of both GTK 2 and Python 2 soon.

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mkchoi212
Ah what awesome new features/changes! Can’t wait to try these out :)

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vmchale
Lovely! Thank you to all contributors. I use your software.

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jonnypotty
Thanks Gimp. New UI is a massive improvement

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teknopurge
love Gimp. top-notch OSS project, and has been for 20 years. that is all.

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modzu
props to the team! but having learned on photoshop i could just never get used
to gimp. and me most used functions being smart select and smart fill -- does
gimp do that yet? in any case i dropped both for photopea. i still can't get
my head around how nicely it works in a browser tab

~~~
chadly
I've used pixlr in the past but I think photopea is my new favorite.

I also find it frustrating using gimp after using photoshop for so many years.
But I don't want to go back to my windows box _just_ for photoshop.

