
GIMP development - What’s the point? - unwind
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-developer-list/2016-September/msg00019.html
======
pmoriarty
People whining about GIMP not being as good as PS don't appreciate what life
was like on Linux before GIMP existed, or how primitive GIMP was when it first
came out.

GIMP has advanced leaps and bound over what it once was.

I remember for ages PS fans were complaining about how GIMP had a multiple
window layout, and how unnecessarily complex that was, and they wanted a
single window layout. So the _volunteers_ who work on GIMP eventually came out
with a single window layout.

I'm not a PS user, but I heard that around that time PS changed to a multi-
window layout. Whether that's true or not, now I hear complaints from some
users that GIMP is not any good because it doesn't have a multi-window layout
(not realizing that changing it to multi-window layout is as simple as
unchecking "Single-window mode" under the "Windows" menu). Give me a break!

Some people will never be satisfied and will never appreciate the hundreds or
thousands of man hours of _free_ work that GIMP developers have poured in to
this product.

Could it be improved? Of course! Anything can. Should they strive to make it
better? Yes. Feature requests and help are great. But indignant insults coming
from people who didn't pay for the development of the product, who don't
contribute any of their own time to make it better, and who clearly don't
appreciate the massive achievement that GIMP is just take the cake. GIMP
developers must have skins of steel to put up with this crap year in and year
out.

~~~
tomtomtom777
For professional use, how _does_ modern GIMP compare to modern PS?

~~~
aikah
It can't. If you work in the industry you'll be expected to use a specific
format (.psd). I'm pretty sure you can't open a file created with the latest
version of Photoshop in Gimp. The graphic design industry is one of these
industries that have been completely monopolized by a single vendor.

I liked Macromedia approach with Fireworks, which didn't require the software
in order to preview what a project looked like since it used PNG format. All
Macromedia tools have since then been flushed down the toilets by Adobe. There
is something Macromedia achieve with the notion of "community" that Adobe was
never able to do.

~~~
lucb1e
> I'm pretty sure you can't open a file created with the latest version of
> Photoshop in Gimp.

I'm pretty sure you can, and you can see all the layers and stuff. Editing
though, if I remember correctly, is either extremely limited or non-existent.

Still, when someone gave me a psd I had little hope of opening it at all, yet
GIMP displayed it perfectly. That exceeded expectations already, just too bad
that I couldn't edit. But then again, it's better than buying an expensive
product line just to view a file.

> The graphic design industry is one of these industries that have been
> completely monopolized by a single vendor.

Exactly, which is one which is one of the reasons I'm a big fan of GIMP and
Paint.NET for when people simply don't need photoshop. They often don't, but
ask for it anyway, get used to it and then want to keep using it. This is
about adults as well as teens who are still in high school and who might later
go on to work as designers, and then can only work with photoshop.

------
WhitneyLand
Sorry to say I don't think GIMP is the best example of a great FLOSS project.

Many other projects are very competitive (or better) than commercial options
but GIMP is not even close.

They just released support for 16bit/32bit/c color last year which is needed
for so many scenarios.

The unified transform tool mentioned as a highlight is really a pretty simple
thing to code.

They are 5-10 years behind what you get in PS for $10/month. It's a killer for
any professional have tools that far behind their peers.

The UX has always been poor and unnecessarily complicated. I resent the
implication it's the user's fault for not taking time to learn. There are many
examples of complex professional systems that prove a decent UX is still
possible.

~~~
6DM
Edit: [Deleted]

I'm sorry, but I don't find the tool intuitive. I ran into issues using it. I
installed fresh copy and tried steps commenters suggested and it worked well.
However this was not my experience a mere two days ago.

~~~
pmoriarty
Cropping is a "HUGE pain"? Are you kidding me?

1\. Rectangle select.

2\. Image -> Crop to selection.

How much simpler can you get?

~~~
MildlySerious
Exactly. I found myself using GIMP for exactly those "quick" scenarios because
PS, especially before CS6, was just bulky and overcomplicated.

GIMP: Roughly select something, zoom in to make it pixel-perfect, see the size
of the selection in the bottom left, and just drag until it fits your need.

PS? Roughly select something. Figure out the size of the selection. Zoom in.
Dig into the menu.. Transform selection? Adjust. What's the size now? .. Nope,
thanks. I am done 5 times over in GIMP by the time I did that.

I get that GIMP is not perfect, but some people treat like the PHP of graphics
software.

~~~
reitanqild
Complaining about php is like complaining about an axe:

Yes, it might hurt incompetent people but the people who master it have a
truly nifty tool at their disposal.

~~~
FatalBaboon
Complaining about PHP is sanity of someone who learned more than one language.

~~~
reitanqild
As someone who has coded in c, java, javascript (before it was cool), perl,
python, visual basic I still see a clear niche for php even though I don't use
it anymore.

~~~
rbanffy
Indeed. It's just that it's not a good language (like Visual Basic).

------
newscracker
Before reading that email, I had a different thought about the title "GIMP
development, what's the point?" In a time before touchscreen mobile devices
and apps came into the picture, people who were somewhat serious about image
editing would use GIMP or a pirated copy of Photoshop. There were also a few
other applications, free and paid, with a much more limited set of features
(but have improved over time).

With touchscreen devices and apps, image editing, or rather, photo editing,
has become more about using different apps for different specific use cases,
and using filters and other "preset" tweaks along with additional adjustments
if at all necessary. This is nowhere close to the power that GIMP offers for
someone who knows how to use it and what can be done with it. But it is
adequate for most people and is easy to use. In this respect, the title
question could become more widespread as people hear less about GIMP.

After reading the mail and the comments here, another thing that occurred to
me about the title is that projects like GIMP, LibreOffice, etc., (and even
Linux, GNOME, KDE, etc.) show themselves as phenomenal highlights of what
truly free and open source software can be and serve as a great inspiration
for others to embark on such really complex and multi-decade work in other
areas. _A GIMP developer is contributing to much more than GIMP alone if you
look at side effects. It 's a world that couldn't have been imagined several
decades ago._

I believe the developers who have contributed to these projects and continue
to do so should be extremely proud of their commitment to FLOSS and the amount
of work they have put in. Yes, some FLOSS applications may have deficiencies
in features, stability, performance and other areas (which many commercial
applications do too). But questioning the dedication of developers or asking
for the justification of efforts spent by developers who're working with the
FLOSS principles is completely missing the point in the overall scheme of
things, and worse, missing the benefits enjoyed by and made available to
humankind as a whole.

------
finchisko
I use GIMP exclusively. Last time it allowed me to turn SVG animation into
GIF. It literally took few seconds to complete. Many people bitch about GIMP,
but like in arcticle, they just trying to hide their laziness to learn new
things. I've nothing against them, but one thing, most of them in my circles
are using pirate copy of Photoshop instead free GIMP. Some of them arguing
about RBG/CMYK missing in GIMP, but most of them does not even know that.

~~~
louhike
Gimp is great if you're not a designer or exclusively a web designer.
Otherwise, CMYK is a huge deal as it is the only way to go if you want to
print something at a professional printer (not sure about the term).

~~~
the_af
Is there a way to add decent CMYK support to GIMP? Is it technically
unfeasible, or is it something the main devs are simply uninterested in?

~~~
dagw
[http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-do-a-lot-of-
desktop-...](http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-do-a-lot-of-desktop-
publishing-related-work-will-you-ever-support-cmyk)

there is however some cmyk support currently if you need it:
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GIMP/CMYK_support](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GIMP/CMYK_support)

~~~
enobrev
Thanks for this. I was very happy to read that they're making non-destructive
editing a priority.

> Things like non-destructive editing are required by pretty much all users —
> photographers, designers, desktop publishing engineers, and even scientists.
> At the same time, CMYK is required only by a small subset of our user base.
> We prioritize our work accordingly.

------
hitekker
Stories about an eloquent, suave believer enlightening a misguided, clearly-
in-the-wrong naysayer may sometimes be true, but never very convincing.

> In this case, I opted to give the fireworks/show. My weapons of choice this
> time included the unified transform tool, the handle-transform tool, and the
> warp transform tool

Which prompts the leering, misinformed troglodyte to consider the error of his
ways, to "imagine the possibilities". Ahh, man.

Having used GIMP and Photoshop, the practical point of GIMP development, in my
view, is to provide a baseline for other graphic editing software: i.e., your
product's quality cannot drop below what GIMP offers.

~~~
sjellis
> Having used GIMP and Photoshop, the practical point of GIMP development, in
> my view, is to provide a baseline for other graphic editing software: i.e.
> your product's quality cannot drop below what GIMP offers.

I think that this is one of the important things that Open Source software
does, generally - it provides a steadily rising baseline of functionality that
is freely available to everyone.

LibreOffice is another product that's often considered not as good as the
leading proprietary product, but as long as it exists and gets better with
every release, it will benefit everybody, including Microsoft Office users.

~~~
Nihilartikel
I like that perspective. They're the 'Public Option' that keeps the commercial
offerings on their toes :)

------
enobrev
I appreciate GIMP for what it is, and use it on the occasion that I can't
quickly do what i need with ImageMagick or pixlr. But I'd gladly pay for
Photoshop and other Adobe tools if they compiled natively on linux.

One problem with the characterization implied in [a,b] is that it ignores the
impossibility of opening a file correctly and completely that was originally
compiled in a tool that's been the industry standard for well beyond my own
years (I got started on Photoshop 4 in 1996 - the first Windows release, and
before then, Paint Shop Pro).

Literally not a single designer I've worked with in the last 15 years as a
professional has ever even considered using GIMP (most don't know it exists).
So if they want to send me their "source", it's in a PSD. And said source is
going to be huge with layer effects / cropping / transitions, and all sorts of
advanced Photoshop-specific things applied.

And I'll open that file in GIMP - I try at least once a year - and it will
show maybe 5-10% of the layers and will look nothing like the original. And
then I'll fire up Windows in a VM and actually get work done.

As for starting my own projects in GIMP, I fall squarely into group "a", and I
feel no shame for it.

    
    
        a) User has tried GIMP, but didn't take time to learn enough to get past things that aren't obvious.
    
        b) User has heard that GIMP is hard to use, and is not an adequate tool for professionals.

~~~
davexunit
You blame GIMP for not opening PSDs correctly, but note that it's _not_ an
open format and it's not a standard. GIMP developers can do nothing but try to
reverse engineer support for it.

~~~
yoklov
You can go through a convoluted process to get the documentation for the
standard from Adobe (Someone where I used to work did this so we could add
support for PSD to a game engine). I'll concede that that's unpalatable, and
that it's probably something you need to do regularly as PSD does get updates.

I'll also concede that its considerably easier to open a pdf for display vs
for editing, and maybe all the info for the latter isn't there in the docs.
Its also not a fun format to work with as its grown organically over many,
many years.

All that said, GIMP usually bungs up the colors which makes it pretty
unsuitable even for opening a psd for view. This shouldn't be acceptable at
all.

(Sorry, I haven't had enough coffee yet to make this into a coherent point
instead of a few random thoughts...)

~~~
Someone
_" You can go through a convoluted process to get the documentation for the
standard from Adobe"_

I doesn't look complete to me (there's lots of things just marked 'obsolete'
that, I guess, one will encounter in the wild, and things like "Macintosh
printer record" that I fear you'll have to dig up tech notes from the '80s
for), but it seems that has improved a bit, as there is information available
for free at adobe.com now, whereas you needed to sign an NDA to get the SDK
before: [https://www.adobe.com/devnet-
apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml...](https://www.adobe.com/devnet-
apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/) (via
[http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop.html](http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop.html))

------
C-Rogers
Hey, I'm C.Rogers, the original poster of this thankyou note that's got
everyone bashing GIMP against Photoshop... which entirely misses the point of
it. People seem hell-bent on comparing GIMP to Photoshop, saying they don't
compare. Well, it's easy to say that isn't it? I came from 13+ years of
Photoshop experience, with about 7 of those used in the professional world.
I've since packed on another near decade using GIMP (at first in conjunction
with Photoshop), I have since replaced Photoshop entirely in my professional
work, and I use it every day. The biggest thing stopping professionals from
using GIMP is the erroneous notion that it can't be used for the same
professional tasks as Photoshop. I'm half tempted to start a YouTube channel
called GIMP SUCKS, and fill it with screencaptures of my graphics work done
entirely in GIMP. That's not just magazine adverts, that's billboards, that's
convention booths, it's over 100 new products of my own design, and nearly
20,000 product photos. So please, if you have something specific to complain
about, go post a bug report, or a wishlist item like a decent human being.
Repeating over and over that GIMP can't replace Photoshop for professional
work doesn't make it any more true. Here's some eye-candy for the nay-sayers:
[https://goo.gl/UwxEGp](https://goo.gl/UwxEGp)

------
qwertyuiop924
What's the point?

It's a helpful question for narrowing your focus, but at the end of the day,
there isn't always one, and it needn't be a lofty philosophical goal.

Did the MDL team need a point to develop Zork? Did Thompson need a business
reason to write UNIX? Did the AI lab ever justify extending TECO far beyond
its original intent, into the first version of EMACS?

Sometimes, although not all the time, "because I can" is reason enough.

~~~
the_af
"Because I can" is of course a valid reason, but having a better goal is more
motivating, especially if it's a team instead of a single person.

I believe GIMP does have a better goal than "just because", and in my mind it
is achieving it. I'm not a graphics designer and therefore I have the luxury
of not being locked-in with Photoshop's advanced features; therefore all my
image manipulations are done using GIMP, Krita and/or Inkscape. I congratulate
all those teams on a job well done.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
Oh, of course. It's just that I don't think that "what's the point?" is as
significant a question as many believe it is.

------
pjc50
Surely the 'point' of GIMP development is that the market leading tool
(Photoshop) is closed source, not available on Linux, and relies on its
dominant market share to make people pay monthly for it?

------
sontek
I _LOVE_ GIMP!

GIMP is a great competitor to photoshop. It misses a lot of the shortcuts that
photoshop has introduced to make editing easier/quicker but I've always been
able to do everything I needed to do even if it takes more steps.

What the opensource community is missing is a sketch alternative. Application
developers have moved to it for rapid design and photoshop has taken the
backseat.

GIMP is not comparable to sketch. Sketch has changed the way the design world
thinks / works.

------
bobajeff
Gimp is wonderful software. It's really amazing all of the work that's been
done with it.

I fully respect all of the work developers have put into open source art
creation tools/libraries. Blender, Gimp, InkScape, Krita, G'MIC etc. are
incredible pieces of software and if more people spent time to explore,
celebrate and contribute to these efforts there is no way any commercial
product could keep up.

------
omouse
There's an excellent book published by No Starch Press that's full of ways to
use GIMP. It's excellent because it is as comprehensive as the older Adobe
Photoshop books that people used to buy.

~~~
clishem
Here's a link for convenience:

[https://www.nostarch.com/gimp](https://www.nostarch.com/gimp)

------
typetypetype
There is a great lesson in this. The temptation to upgrade, improve, add, and
tweak is very strong, but putting those things through the "what's the point"
test could really help focus on what's important.

------
ravenstine
GIMP is wonderful and I've gotten away without using Photoshop because of it
for over 10 years. Sure, I'm not a graphics designer, but GIMP really isn't
made for professional graphic designers. I just wish that the plugin community
around GIMP didn't slow down so much, and that GEGL would eventually be 100%
implemented(meaning actual CMYK, non-destructive filters, etc). I know that
GEGL is kinda there, but it's not fully there still after over 6 years. What
may give GIMP a huge edge over Photoshop one day is if it can be ported to the
browser with Emscripten.

------
hiphopyo
I prefer Photoshop for the UI, but boy are those Elsamuko plugins something.

------
weerd
A big thanks to the GIMP devs for providing us with a powerful image editor!
It's one of my favorite tools on Linux. I'm currently using it for gradient
generation and texture editing for a game. Obviously PS is king in this
domain, but the "point" is that many people don't need the full corporate lab
when the garage workshop will do.

------
billconan
I would like to give another try of GIMP later today.

I remember the first time I tried GIMP. The user experience wasn't good. After
knowing you had to double click a button to toggle it, I immediately dropped
GIMP.

I also had bad experience with gdk as a developer. I remember it didn't have
an installer on windows, and it needed so many dependencies. Getting all the
required dlls was a huge pain. Whereas Qt is always nice and easy with good
documents.

gdk didn't seem to have a native mac backend. It needs XQuartz, which I don't
like. I don't want to install X windows on mac, doesn't make sense. The fact
that gimp is under gnome worried me.

Doing image processing software is difficult, but making the ui of it should
be relatively easier. GIMP might be strong at processing images, but its ui
was really messed up I think.

But I will try again to see if there is any improvement.

------
unixhero
I am a Krita fan. It's taken the throne of all my graphics creation and
modification needs. [https://krita.org/en/download/krita-
desktop/](https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/)

------
Annatar
Long time GIMP user here. I use GIMP because my Solaris 10 install came with
it, and for no other reason (I also used it on IRIX). Some software is just so
bad, that it cannot even be given away for free; GIMP is one such example, as
the interface is horrible.

------
nadezhda18
I am surprised nobody talked about Text tool and action recording.

I also use Photoshop CS2 (which Abobe started giving away about 3-4 years
ago), and oh boy is its Text tool much more advanced. CS2 was released in 2005
and the latest version of Gimp (2.8.10) still cannot compare :( From my point
of view, working with text is a pain in Gimp :(

Also, action recording - I think it is a highly valuable feature for anyone
who processes at least 1 photo a week. It seems now so inefficient to repeat
the same 4-5 steps again and again and again.

------
equivocates
the point of developing gimp is to eventually change its name.

------
hyperion2010
I've used gimp for years and only recently did I discover that Script-Fu is
actually an embedded Scheme. Happy day for automation.

~~~
Grue3
Yeah, people blab about how Photoshop is better, but can it be programmed in
Lisp? Yeah, didn't think so.

------
jasonkostempski
"because I know such comments usually come from one of two places"

I would expect such comments to usually come from c) User feels the industry
uses Adobe and, even if GIMP matched up feature for feature, it's pointless to
learn it. I don't like to think that way myself but I've certainly felt that
way at times.

~~~
throwanem
Or possibly from d) User has actually attempted to use GIMP in a professional
context and found it severely lacking. But that's not something a just-so
story can easily answer, so I'm not surprised to see it excluded here.

------
gilrain
To be honest, the name is really embarrassing and immature. I've always felt
weird when I used it, and I don't like mentioning it in conversation as a
result. Krita has momentum and many other advantages, not least of which is an
appealing name.

------
nnain
Lot of very fancy photographers use GIMP exclusively. It's more about the
workflow (and marketing). If you're used to GIMP, you won't find Photoshop all
that easy and vice versa.

------
MicroBerto
Not sure what he's talking about (Warp stuff) since I'm a GIMP amateur, but he
should make a YouTube video of his finest 3-minute GIMP presentation then.

------
jkot
Gimp source code is pretty old. Adding stuff like 16/32 bit support is not
easy.

On other side Krita is newer, uses QT, is developing faster etc..

------
noja
I'd like to see these features demonstrated too, without meeting a gimp
developer. Maybe they could do a better job of that.

~~~
pmoriarty
These are brand new features of the new, unstable, development version of
GIMP. There hasn't been a lot of time to make tutorials on them yet. I still
found a video tutorial one warp transform tool[1], but it's in German. It
looks simple enough not to even need a tutorial, though.

The GIMP team could always use some help in developing tutorials. So if you
want to volunteer, I'm sure your help would be appreciated.

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHWft62sj44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHWft62sj44)

------
llvihearsevil
GIMP does suffer from a Pied Piper issue. The developer shouldn't have to
teach a user how to use his program.

------
mixmastamyk
gimp has handled all my image processing needs for a two? decade(s) and done
it easily, thanks.

------
bitwize
The GIMP team doesn't seem interested in working with professional designers,
and professional designers are too content with Photoshop to work with the
GIMP team.

Just use Photoshop. Cowboy up and buy the fucking software.

------
_pmf_
> In such cases I have to push down my annoyance with the tone

Don't. This would have deserved a rude answer.

------
CletusTSJY
Maybe if he could sit down with every potential user of GIMP I could
sympathize. But the truth is when I sit down to do anything in GIMP, my
frustration grows and grows. I've spent dozens of hours using it and it still
leaves me in agony every time.

------
imaginenore
After all these years GIMP still sucks. They waste time on developing features
of low importance, while critical ones are still not solved.

Prime case: opening RAW files. The current suggested workflow is to use a 3rd
party plugin UFRaw. Would you like to see the process of installing it on
Windows?

[http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Install.html](http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Install.html)

(Ctlr+F for "MS-Windows for geeks")

And then I see arrogant posts like that, claiming that GIMP is perfectly
capable. It absolutely is not. GIMP will become popular when GIMP developers
start thinking about the modern photographer's workflow. Till then people will
keep pirating Photoshop.

~~~
vidarh
What is critical to you is not to me, and vice versa. E.g. I have never in my
life needed to work with RAW files. I have also never in my life needed to
manipulate graphics on Windows.

I understand that is frustrating, but this is one of the challenges of open
source - the contributors can make choices without caring about attracting
customers.

~~~
pwinnski
Which is absolutely their right--but then they don't get to post smug messages
about how people are just too dumb to understand how great their project is.

I see a lot of messages justifying _why_ GIMP meets the needs of so very few,
but none of that changes the fact that GIMP seems to meet the needs of very
few.

------
CyberDildonics
I haven't used a direct image editor in a very long time and I don't think I'm
missing anything.

Digital Fusion is free. Houdini Indie is $200. Nuke is available for linux.
These are all node based work flows that don't destroy anything. You don't
have to undo because you create a graph of operations without changing your
source directly. They aren't useful for painting directly with a tablet, but
anything else they do very well at.

~~~
technomalogical
Did you mean Design Fusion, from Blackmagic?

~~~
CyberDildonics
It used to be Digital Fusion before Blackmagic bought it.

