
Krita in 2018 and 2019 - emilsedgh
https://krita.org/en/item/krita-in-2018-and-2019/
======
natex
From 2004 to 2009, Krita was strongly focusing on being a generic image
manipulation/painting application in the style of Photoshop or GIMP. Since
2009, the focus is squarely on painting: the Krita community aims to make
Krita the best painting application for cartoonists, illustrators, and concept
artists. \--
[https://krita.org/en/about/history/](https://krita.org/en/about/history/)

I was a user when the Krita team focused on painting. I admit that I was among
those disappointing at that time because I naively wanted Krita to become open
source Photoshop. I thought they were making a mistake in the direction they
took. I'm happy I was wrong about that.

~~~
beetwenty
In practice I never went away from GIMP for most Photoshop-like tasks. Which
isn't a signal that GIMP is great, but that I grew used to its deficiencies
many years ago. And it has gradually improved: It has single-window UI now,
after all.

For the two very most common bitmap editing tasks(color remapping and
selection-based edits) it's OK and it even boasts some fancy features these
days. For drawing, it has a workable set of brushes and fills, though I think
Krita is the better app here now. For graphic design things(typography,
layout, layers of procedural effects) too many things still involve a slow,
indirect workflow, but there are signs of this problem being chipped away at.

(The single best tip I have for GIMP is: get in the habit of using the "/" key
quick search instead of using the dropdown menus)

~~~
dpg23
Do you have tips for text manipulation? Whenever I make dumb memes it's a pain
to move around text on GIMP.

~~~
themodelplumber
Experiment with the move tool setting that moves the active layer rather than
moving the layer you select with the move tool. This can be really helpful
with text.

This one is more obvious maybe: I also found learning the keyboard shortcuts
really useful when working on a web comic.

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fermuch
It might be a little off topic, but I'd like to share a project which its
intent is of growing krita reach and community: Pepper and Carrot, a cutesy
comic 100% open (libre) made 100% with krita.

[https://www.peppercarrot.com/](https://www.peppercarrot.com/)

Even translations are community driven :)

Disclosure: I'm just a reader of P&C, who found the comic not so long ago and
fell in love with it!

~~~
Topgamer7
Pepper and Carrot is created by David Revoy. He works pretty much exclusively
with free and open source. He has done a number of projects with Blender as
well. He's quite the exceptional artist, and his videos are lovely.

~~~
AJ007
He has great time lapse videos using Krita on his Youtube channel --
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr7OPBxh5_o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr7OPBxh5_o)

------
zafiro17
I really liked this update for a couple of reasons not related to my opinion
of the software itself: 1) it seems focused on informing, not propaganda. They
report the good and the bad, and those are the facts; too many announcements
sound like press releases. 2) they're making a commitment to regular reporting
and communication of this nature - I really like this in software
companies/projects. 3) it's not really dumbed down. They discuss features but
they also discuss how the software works behind the scene, and what they would
like to change. It feels honest, and that makes them a more believable
project. We're subconsciously taught to emphasize the good and deemphasize the
bad, and that leads us down the path of half-truths and corporate speak. This
project makes me want to back it, because they seem to be willing to be
forthright in their communication with me.

------
keerthiko
Wow how have I never heard of this tool before? As a hobby digital artist I
have even looked for something like Krita but never heard of it before seeing
this post top of HN with no comments.

Does anyone who has been involved or kept track since earlier days have any
insight into why this isn't more well known among the pantheon of digital
illustration tools prescribed to budding artists? From the about page they've
been around for a _long_ time! I'd love to understand the market forces that
were in play here.

~~~
chupasaurus
It was born as a part of KDE Office Suite which hadn't wide usage. After
community of Krita users grew rapidly (for an FOSS piece without marketing) it
was separated from the bundle. Also a good boost was a publishing at Steam in
the first month of their Software Store.

~~~
fyfy18
The Steam version is a nice way to sell open source software. It has an
additional interface designed for tablets, which is open source, but the free
builds from krita.org don't include it.

~~~
raghukamath
The current steam version is same as the free version, with steam version you
get automatic update, The tablet version is Krita Gemini, i think it is the
older version, i don't know if it is still on steam, as recently steam version
was updated

------
TheCoreh
Tried Krita for the first time recently and was really pleasantly surprised!

It's very stable and very polished, and really intuitive to use. Out of all
the open source graphics/image editing tools, it is definitely my favourite
now. It rivals or even surpasses its proprietary competitors in both features
_and_ usability, which is no small feat.

~~~
spoiler
I use Krita "full time" (as in, quite often, it's not my job) for painting. It
really is amazing for digital painting (with a graphic tablet), I definitely
prefer it to Photoshop (and others) for painting.

However in other areas it's a bit lacking (vector graphics, and anything
beyond simple-ish image manipulation).

A huge thanks to David Revoy who releases his "source files" and brush kits,
they are tremendously helpful in terms of studying techniques he uses, and the
brushes are simply and increase productivity a lot.

(edit: formatting/typos)

------
mstade
Lots of good stuff in this release, but the one thing that gets me real
excited is HDR support. It really is a world of difference both authoring and
experiencing HDR content, and sadly a lot of HDR content is quite bad
conversions from SDR. What's even more exciting is this nugget of gold:

> We want to make sure that the support for HDR visuals becomes part of Qt
> itself, so other applications can follow.

I love it!

------
duiker101
I'm really glad that they are doing great and I'm really happy to find a
payment gateway that seems great! I had never heard of Mollie[1] and I look
forward to using it! I noticed that it's a bit of a struggle to find the right
one.

[1] [https://www.mollie.com/en/](https://www.mollie.com/en/)

~~~
stackola
How did you get from drawing software to payment gateways?

~~~
mkl
It seems like Krita uses that one: [https://krita.org/en/donation-
analytics/](https://krita.org/en/donation-analytics/)

It's not mentioned on the Donate page itself though, so I'm not sure how they
found that out in the first place.

~~~
gpvos
Use the source, Luke!

------
xvilka
Hopefully GIMP 3 on GTK+ 3 next year too.

------
kumarvvr
I wish there was an iPad version for this.

~~~
ognarb
Not sure an ipad version could be possible, because of how the apple store and
the gpl are incompatible.

~~~
LeoPanthera
End users can compile iOS apps from source and install them without paying the
developer fee. It could be distributed as source.

~~~
lern_too_spel
They would have to rebuild (re-sign) and reinstall weekly. The opposite of
Just Works.

