
Gimp 2.9.4 Released - macco
http://www.gimp.org/news/2016/07/13/gimp-2-9-4-released/
======
neuromute
I've been using Gimp for many years now, and it serves me well. I learnt
Photoshop at university, on a Multimedia Tech course. Whilst Photoshop is a
fine piece of software, it is overkill for most users. Gimp might be hard to
get to grips with for long-time Photoshop users, but it isn't _hard_ , it just
takes some muscle-memory adjustment. For users who have never used either,
Gimp is a great piece of software to use from the get-go.

I've also used Krita of late, and that too is a very good piece of software
worth checking out if you want to do photo-editing and digital painting.

~~~
jfaucett
here's the problem. Photoshop blows gimp out of the water in every way that is
important to designers. GIMP is quite adept at simpler tasks/flows i.e. the
stuff most people might want to do to an image, crop, put some text, etc.
really no major diff here between it and ps. and this is why i teach it to
relatives/friends who want to edit their images on a budget.

But it is very difficult to make professional grade designs/templates/mockups
with gimp (i would venture impossible but im sure someone could do it given
enough discipline just as someone could build a httpserver in pure x86 if they
really wanted to)

source: long time Gimp and Photoshop user, have worked professionally as a
UX/UI/Graphic designer and software developer, and have really tried to get on
board with gimp bc its open source, saves $50 monthly, and is hackable all
unlike ps, it even has a lisp scripting language! I couldnt do it even with
that much goodwill so i honestly cant see any less motivated designer using
it.

EDIT: of course designers or a ps alternative might not be gimps market at
all, and instead just normal end users, in which case gimp should definitely
not be criticized. I think people (unjustly perhaps) want gimp to be a ps
alternative for designers, its not. plain and simple.

~~~
beefsack
Parent commenter mentioned "most users," designers are the power users in this
vertical and wouldn't constitute the majority.

~~~
xsmasher
It's fine for most computer users, but not most Photoshop users.

~~~
jshevek
Most designers might be photoshop users, but its not true that most photoshop
users are designers.

------
slimsag
This is huge! Gimp is awesome, and the fact that they added support for
MyPaint brushes is huge -- it means artists don't have to switch back and
forth between the two constantly.

Also, this update puts it in a great stance against Photoshop in general. Now
it has a more similar user interface -- something I see people complain about
a lot ("Gimp can do everything but I just don't understand the UI like I do
with Photoshop"), awesome support for brushes and symmetry (Photoshop was
always a bit better with these from what my artist friends told me a few years
back), etc.

It is a bit of a shame that the official builds lag behind this update,
though. I'm on OS X and I'd love to try this out now, but building from source
sounds a bit too tedious for me to play around with it for just ~10 minutes.

~~~
HoopleHead
Does 2,9 (or the forthcoming 2,10) have non-destructive editing yet?

It not, they can make all the other improvements they want, but Gimp will
still be lagging a decade behind Photoshop.

~~~
the_af
Out of curiosity, what is non-destructive editing of a digital image? I'm not
familiar with the concept. Is it like some sort of infinite undo or what?

~~~
HoopleHead
As the OP, what I meant by "Non Destructive Editing' is the ability to go back
and adjust mask/filters etc independently of each other and without
permanently altering the original image. Photoshop does this with 'Adjustment
Layers' which sit on top of the original image and apply things such as masks,
colour adjustments, filters, etc to it.

Over-cooked one of your previous tweaks? Just open the corresponding
adjustment layer and change the settings.

Wish you hadn't applied that filter 10 operations ago? Just switch off or
delete that adjustment layer

Removed a bit of someone's ear while deleting the background? Just paint it
back in on the mask layer

And if you really want to start over again, just delete all the adjustment
layers and you're back to square one. The original image is untouched.

Someone disdainfully said I'd picked an "arbitrary feature" to complain about.
For a professional designer [which I am] NDE is not just a "nice to have"
feature, it's an essential one. Hence why Gimp will never be taken seriously
by design professionals —no matter how many pointless icon themes it comes
with.

~~~
the_af
Thanks for the in-depth response! Yes, it seems like a very useful feature to
me. I don't see why GIMP can't have it, eventually.

------
lucb1e
Many comments here mention things like "Gimp should do this!" or "I'm waiting
for years for feature X that _< insert popular commercial product from Adobe>_
has had since forever!"

Well, people, this is open source: contrary to commercial products from Adobe,
you can do it yourself and get all the features you want! Also, nobody is
asking you to use GIMP; you're just welcome to make use of other people's hard
work here.

~~~
Hydraulix989
Linux Airlines

When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a
copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very
comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem,
the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other
airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, "You had to do WHAT
with the seat?"

~~~
jonloldrup
Do you truly and honestly sense software quality as a hallmark of Linux? To
me, Linux feels like a bucket of papercuts glued together with ... I don't
know - something glueish.. I have tried loving Linux for the past 17 years,
but I just can't muster the idealism anymore. I have gone back to Windows 7,
which is rock stable.

~~~
zeveb
> Do you truly and honestly sense software quality as a hallmark of Linux?

Yes, but that reflects my experience. I use emacs, st, zsh, SBCL, Python, Go,
Debian: the flakiest software I run is Firefox.

Others have a different experience. They use gedit, gnome-terminal, bash,
Ubuntu: the most stable software they run is Firefox.

Windows, OTOH, is so bad that it tries to download OS updates as monolithic,
multi-GB blobs instead of small package updates. This can be bad when one has
insufficient hard drive space for the monolithic blob but plenty of space to
install a few packages and update them.

Windows advertises to one. Debian doesn't. Windows tracks one's input. Debian
doesn't. Windows is slow on old hardware. Debian isn't. Windows has a fairly
crappy interface. Debian doesn't (whether default, or using one of the
available replacement DEs/WMs).

~~~
groovy2shoes
> Windows has a fairly crappy interface. Debian doesn't (whether default, or
> using one of the available replacement DEs/WMs).

You clearly haven't tried using AfterStep ;)

~~~
anonbanker
Or FVWM2. or IceWM. or MacOS 9, or Windows XP PlayskoolOS.

But let's keep the comparisons to desktop environments made this decade.
Enlightenment 0.17 GNOME3, KDE Plasma 5, etc. if you're using Mint's Debian
Edition (and new converts should if they're too scared to try Calculate
Linux), you're likely to boot into something relatively pretty the first time.

~~~
groovy2shoes
I didn't take "crappy interface" to mean "aesthetically unpleasing" (not to
say that such isn't a valid interpretation or belief).

FVWM and IceWM, for example, might be ugly (though only by default -- I've
seen pretty configurations of both), but I've always found them quite usable.
AfterStep, though... * _shiver_ *.

------
allendoerfer
I have to open a .psd three times a year and do not like to pay for PS for
this or even install it, since I use Linux, so it would be great if the .psd
handling would be further improved.

I really have no other wishes for Gimp aside from stability and performance:

\- I learned the Gimp hotkeys first

\- I know the menu structure around filters and so on is weird compared to PS,
but I know it

\- I like selecting, zooming and scrolling better in Gimp, somehow I have the
feeling of more control and find it easier to make something pixel-perfect
while getting sent non pixel-perfect .psds

\- I like the old multi-window interface, even though it took me some time in
the beginning to grasp it

\- the text tool is fixed now

Maybe the only thing, which sounds interesting to me are the advanced and non-
destructive layer options and transformations (or whatever these features are
called in PS), but then again: I know my way around Gimp and if the PS layers
were fully supported it would already be fine for me.

Edit: Have seen another comment about non-destructive editing and found out,
that it is on the roadmap for 3.2 after GTK3 in 3.0. So my hopes are that this
way the PS counterparts will be supported, too.

~~~
unicornporn
As a photographer, Lightroom changed everything for me. The need for Photoshop
was suddenly close to nil. Now I try to fire up Affinity Photo whenever I
would have fired up PS.

As an open source alternative to LR I can really recommend Darktable. In many
ways it is even more powerful than LR, but the usability and raw conversion
engine sometimes lacks. Noise reduction and color handling is not quite up to
par with LR.

~~~
madshiva
Real photographer, old shool photographer, don't edit the picture after, if
you need to edit it it's was not a good picture :-)

~~~
dagw
Tell that to Ansel Adams. Or is he not old school enough for you?

~~~
Finnucane
Yeah, Ansel was actually kind of famous for the way he would produce different
versions of famous images over the years.

Then, of course, there were guys like Jerry Uelsmann, doing 'photoshop'
effects in a darkroom equipped with 14 enlargers.

------
spv
Adobe's new subscription model for Photoshop, makes it expensive for non-
professionals. GIMP looks more attractive now for occasional photo editing.

For Inkscape and GIMP to be a good alternative for Adobe's apps, I think they
need to improve on UI a lot. I wonder if there is any umbrella organization
which can look after FOSS Design apps like GIMP, Inkscape, Krita etc.

~~~
namaemuta
Maybe they can start a kickstarter campaign to get funds for it. I'm pretty
sure that a better UI would attract a lot of users that now hesitate between
using Photoshop or GIMP.

~~~
spv
For preexisting OSS, I think it is difficult to get a successful Kickstarter
campaign because they cannot really sell something for pledges. Have there
been any successful Kickstarter FOSS projects ?

I think Bountysource is better here but for mega issues like UI redesign or
GTK3 port etc a campaign may be the right way to go.

~~~
boudewijnrempt
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-2016-lets-m...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-2016-lets-
make-text-and-vector-art-awesome)

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-free-
paint-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-free-paint-app-
lets-make-it-faster-than-phot?ref=user_menu)

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-open-
source...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-open-source-
digital-painting-accelerate-deve?ref=user_menu)

Though the reasons it worked for us don't really apply to the Gimp situation.

------
ravenstine
Funny how people who prefer Photoshop always have to show up and take a dump
on GIMP just because it doesn't meet their expectations. I don't particularly
like Photoshop and haven't used it in nearly a decade, but that doesn't
necessarily mean that I think it's bad software.(though I'm not a fan of
Adobe's practices)

If GIMP is ever going to support the desires of professional designers, it's
going to have to be _developed_ by designers. Maybe I'm wrong, but I am
willing to bet that the people who actively use and develop GIMP are people
with programming experience who are doing some digital imaging on the side
that doesn't require things like CMYK or high bit depth. GEGL and GIMP have
been in development for a long time now, but have advanced in areas that the
user base cares about, but not necessarily in areas that professionals care
about. Simple as that.

If you really hate Photoshop, learn Scheme and contribute to GIMP and GEGL.

I do want to comment on the non-destructive editing feature; I feel like
that's also a serious designer convenience, but it's never been something that
I have personally desired. In fact, I wouldn't really want it, I think. In
other software packages that have similar non-destructive capabilities, like
Maya, the "history" of an object becomes more and more cumbersome over time.
Maybe this doesn't happen in Photoshop, IDK. To be honest, I'm perfectly fine
duplicating layers are "backups" before deciding on the right look.

~~~
mdip
I'm certainly not a professional designer but I worked doing quite a bit of
graphics work in a previous life and relied heavily on Photoshop to the point
that I've, personally, purchased several licenses since version 3.0, though my
most recent is CS. I no longer even have it installed anywhere. You're
probably right. Most of the developers of GIMP are developers first and
probably don't have a perfect understanding or hold the requirements of the
design world as highly as a professional designer would, but many of the
people who use Photoshop also don't fall within these stringent categories yet
most of them will similarly "take a dump on GIMP."

The last several times I've had to do graphics work I've used GIMP and taken
the time to learn how to do the (now much more limited) things I needed to do
using its workflow. I'm perfectly happy with it and relatively convinced that
if I had to be doing serious image editing work, I'd be able to do so in GIMP.

So when people talk about how they prefer Photoshop, I believe there are a few
reasons and all of them have little to do with GIMP being inferior as a
product and much more to do with pure preference (emacs vs vi, style):

1\. A large number of people are very well trained in every corner of
Photoshop's workflow. The frustration factor is _much_ higher for these folks
because they're not having to learn something new, they're not expecting it to
take a while to do things, they're expecting to be able to be as capable in
GIMP as they are in Photoshop having never learned how GIMP works. My first
experience with this was moving a selection while I was still making it --
something I do constantly -- hold space in PS and drag. That doesn't work that
way in GIMP.

The closest analogue I can think of to learning Photoshop was when I broke
down and decided to learn Vim - I remember being overwhelmed at how much
information I had to keep in mind just to do basic tasks - command
permutations, keys that didn't seem similar to any other product and the like.
Photoshop is _hellishly_ complex[0] in this manner. Being a GUI product for
image editing, I think this surprises people when they dive in. Needless
complex? Perhaps in some places, but much of the complexity is necessary.

2\. There's seventy tutorials for every kind of manipulation you might want to
do in Photoshop. There's sometimes not even one in GIMP. Many people have
grown used to finding quick answers for how to do common things in Photoshop
due to the wealth of resources available and get frustrated when they can't
find the equivalent in GIMP. This adds to the perception that GIMP is inferior
- " _Everyone_ uses Photoshop, see all the tutorials?"

Between versions 3 and 4, I had purchased several $100+ books, subscribed to
print magazines at $99.00/yr and spent countless hours learning how to be
productive in the tool. The variety of tutorials out there serve to make
learning the product a little harder since you can follow a handful of steps
to get the desired effect without understanding enough about it to produce a
similar effect using the tools from the walk-through.

[0] Try explaining how to use the Pen tool to someone who's never encountered
it or something similar. You start by describing its purpose, the variety of
ways it can be used, showing examples, then explaining how to manipulate each
of the points using a variety of CTRL+ALT clicks. Oops, you dragged the point
when you meant to change the orientation of the curve. Wrong key.

------
luchs
Nice to know that they're working on better HiDPI support. GTK 3 for some
reason has two separate HiDPI settings, but one of them only supports integer
scaling factors. Additionally, there is no way to specify different factors
for each monitor. If you have two monitors with different densities, a GTK
window will always have the wrong scaling on one of them.

Qt 5 gets this right. The only frustrating thing there is how many
applications still use Qt 4… (same applies to GTK 2, I guess)

~~~
djsumdog
Yea I hate that about GTK. IntelliJ just uses the DPI setting you set in
xrandr for the display. That way I can run IntelliJ remotely over ssh and it
still shows up with the right DPI on both a 4k and non-4k monitor without
needing to change the settings.

------
jrapdx3
Looking forward to Gimp 2.9.4 on Windows. I've been using development (2.9.3)
versions lately on Win10 and working pretty well. The recent changes will be
be quite useful assuming everything works as advertised. UI improvements will
be welcome particularly if making Gimp integrate better with Win10 overall.

One of the issues I've had with Gimp on Windows is pen support, though the
Wacom pen on the Surface Pro 2 has been iffy anyway. Pen use is worse though
with Gimp, Inkscape vs. MS apps, but with some luck the new Gimp version will
do better.

------
vanderZwan
> _On Linux, GIMP is now capable of using darktable for pre-processing raw
> images from DSLRs (Canon CR2, Nikon NEF etc.)._

Since Darktable is also workflow tool, I'm pretty curious about how well these
two are integrated. For example, if I prepare a whole batch of photos in DT
without exporting them, is GIMP smart enough to import the files with those
settings automatically?

------
voycey
I really wish I could get into using GIMP but after a lifetime of Photoshop
usage I just find the interface and shortcuts really clunky! There used to be
Gimpshop to change the keybindings to match photoshop's - is there anything
like that anymore?

~~~
voycey
To answer my own question - I found this:
[http://www.webupd8.org/2014/02/gimp-get-photoshop-like-
keybo...](http://www.webupd8.org/2014/02/gimp-get-photoshop-like-
keyboard.html)

------
insulanian
I'm using Paint.NET on Windows and I really like it - It satisfies all my
needs.

When I switched to Mac, I was searching for something similar, but in the end
decided to use Gimp. However, the thing is just incredibly slow. I have MBP 13
Retina and it takes 6 seconds to apply simple "bucket fill" on an image
3000x4500. Is this normal?

~~~
pfranz
I haven't used any of these heavily, but they come up often. Over the past few
years I've heard a lot of good things about Krita[1] as an alternative to
Gimp. I've found both Pixelmator[2] and Acorn[3] to have enough of the
features to replace Photoshop for basic needs.

[1] [https://krita.org/en/download/krita-
desktop/](https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/) [2]
[http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/](http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/) [3]
[http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/](http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/)

~~~
timlyo
Krita is a great program, but it's designed for digital painting rather than
image manipulation.

------
aorth
Great to see a new release on the 2.9.x branch. I've been using the unofficial
McGimp builds[0] for a year or so and I can highly recommend them (if only
because there are no official Mac OS X builds from the GIMP team).

[0] [http://www.partha.com/](http://www.partha.com/)

~~~
r0muald
For those on Linux there have been xdg-app/flatpak nightlies available for a
while: [http://flatpak.org/apps.html](http://flatpak.org/apps.html) including
the GTK+3 version.

They're highly usable but of course care must be taken with changes in the
native format.

Edit: typos.

------
tmaly
I have used Gimp for many years now. I ditched Photoshop a long time ago.

The one feature I am looking forward to for editing in this release is the
Select remove holes feature.

Having to expand, contract, and feather selections to remove the small holes
caused by a color select with a threshold value was a real pain.

------
doiwin
Ever since I switched from Photoshop to Gimp, I have desperately waiting for
non-destrutive editing aka adjustment-layers / filter-layers. It has been
years now...

So I was excited to see a new version. Checked the features and ... nope.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

~~~
dagw
non-destructive editing is officially planned for 3.2 at the moment, so you
can take a break from looking at new versions and crossing your fingers.

~~~
coldtea
But don't hold your breath either...

------
boterock
Although I'm happy with all the fuzz that this gimp release brings, I feel sad
because Krita (another excellent graphics software, also available and better
supported in windows than gimp IMO) didn't have this much attention. Still I
feel happy that a lot of open source projects are becoming powerful enough to
replace its commercial counterparts. I hope that more people start using it
and the developers get better funding and can support these software better.

------
mark_l_watson
Good to see. I am on Linux all the time now. The one pain point I have from
moving away from OSX is photo editing. I used the Preview program for really
fast photo cropping, color correction, etc. it took me close to zero time to
edit a photo.

On Linux, it feels like I am running through mud when I use Gimp. I need to
invest the time to simplify my workflow, obviously.

------
garaetjjte
They still have that terrible multi-window mode set as default, or they
finally changed it to usable single-window?

~~~
bildung
Thankfully, multi-window mode still exists (dito for Inkscape). I have no idea
why one could find single-window more usable? The only reason I can imagine
would be using Gimp on a single small display (e.g. subnotebook class).

~~~
ronjouch
I do subjectively find single-window apps more usable, and think they are
objectively more approachable. Talk from yesterday on a thread about the Skype
UI:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12086898](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12086898)

~~~
Grue3
Completely different usecase. In GIMP you often need to have several images
open. Side by side. With separate windows you can position them in any way you
want. With a single window you need to have them opened in separate tabs and
switch back and forth? Pointless.

What's "objectively more approachable" for one application, makes zero sense
for another.

~~~
ronjouch
For your use case, I have no doubt :) . For my casual editing needs, though,
I'm happy with a simple(r) single-window mode. Nowhere to get lost, everything
in one place.

------
timwaagh
from gimp i would really love to see a great in-app-tutorial to get new users
up to speed. it would make it much more competitive with its illustrious
closed source rival if people knew how to do things.

------
huuu
Note this is a developer edition.

I just went to the download page to find out this is not a stable version.

But, as the page says: _" GIMP 2.9.4 is quite reliable for production work,
but there are still loose ends to tie"_

------
diminish
Great news, I've been using GIMP/Inkscape for a long time. Could someone list
open source, (and especially Linux) alternatives and how they compare to GIMP,
Inkscape as of 2016 July?

~~~
Svip
I suppose Krita[0] might be one of the most interesting alternatives. But
Krita is more optimised for drawing with a tablet than anything else. Someone
who uses Krita a lot has pointed out to me that Krita isn't as good at text
handling as GIMP is, for instance.

[0] [https://krita.org/en/](https://krita.org/en/)

~~~
Joeboy
> Krita isn't as good at text handling as GIMP is

It must be very, very bad at text handling then.

~~~
boterock
I believe text handling is one target of this years kickstarter campaign

------
stesch
> A build for Mac OS X is not available at this time.

------
jeena
I really love the part "Statistics on Our Awesome Contributors" in this
article, I wish to see that more on oper source releases.

------
fahrradflucht
I think such a big revamp of the app would have been an ideal moment to
finally change the name to something less disabled hostile.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I see you're getting downvoted, but I agree with you. The name does hold it
back IMO. When I read the name the first thought is gimp in the BDSM sense.
Does have an effect on how much I promote it.

~~~
aoloe
For the 87% of the world population that is not native English speaking, Gimp
just means nothing, except a fine image manipulation program...

(and we had to Google for BDSM. It does not seem to be a BSD Unix variant...
and now that I think about it: it might be the reason why FreeBSD is not so
popular!)

Not only I'm pretty sure that there is an Indic / Chinese language spoken by
hundreds of milions people, where Inkscape is a bad word...

Also -- even if in my eyes it's a bit childish from the Gimp team to stick to
what seems to be perceived as a bad name -- i perceive as even more childish
that people keep on complaining that an acronym means something "bad" in their
language.

Next time you come to the south of Switzerland, I'll invite you for a joyful
train ride from Locarno to Domodossola:
[http://www.centovalli.ch/?lang=EN](http://www.centovalli.ch/?lang=EN)

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "i perceive as even more childish that people keep on complaining that an
> acronym means something "bad" in their language"

I don't usually complain about it, I'm just being honest about it having an
effect on how much I promote it. In other words, I talk about it less because
of its name. I also doubt I'm the only one. You can paint this as irrational
if you want, but if the idea is to promote a free alternative to Photoshop
(which makes Gimp a very useful project for the open-source community) it
seems a little off to reduce its popularity over something as simple to change
as the name.

~~~
prokoudine
> but if the idea is to promote a free alternative to Photoshop

For the GIMP team it isn't.

~~~
aoloe
On top of the commitment to free software, the Gimp website says:

"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."

Their goal seems to be a good tool, not an alternative to any other software.

And it works well for me! Thanks Gimp.

~~~
prokoudine
> Their goal seems to be a good tool, not an alternative to any other
> software.

Precisely :)

~~~
ZenoArrow
Yes, of course it stands up on its own merits, but in practice what makes it
useful to the broader open-source movement is as a tool that fills the same
gap that Photoshop does.

It's just like LibreOffice/OpenOffice, of course these tools stand on their
own merits too, but again the reason they're important to the open source
movement, i.e. what makes them useful in promoting open-source, is that they
fill the same gap in the market as Microsoft Office.

Speaking generally, the approach to pushing open-source in practical way is to
build open-source tools that cover the key functionality that commercial
software offers (as well as functionality that commercial software doesn't yet
offer) in order to provide people with less of a reason not to switch.

In other words, Gimp is an "alternative to Photoshop" when framing it as part
of the open-source movement (which is what I had implied with my earlier
comment). This is not the only framing that can be applied.

------
pritambarhate
This is great news. I have used GIMP on and off for more than 10 years now.
The new UI changes seem to be exciting. As the other comment noted it seems
that official build for OS X is not out yet. Last time I had checked GIMP on
OS X, there were lots of UX issues. Hopefully this new release has improved
the things.

On a slightly unrelated note, as a front-end developer only 2 things have
stopped me from using Linux full time.

1\. Lack of Photoshop on Linux

I know Adobe tried a few years ago and didn't have enough sales for the Linux
version to justify the development and maintenance costs.

I have used GIMP 2.8 on Linux. The filters and effects and the UX in general
didn't justify using it as the only tool in production. Also it seems that
GIMP development has happened at a very slow pace for past 5-6 years. In fact,
off the top of my head, I can't seem to remember a new exiting feature to it
for a long time.

There are a few other Mac only low end alternatives like, Acorn, PixelImator
and Affinity Photo. Last time I tried Acron. Wasn't impressed. Planning to
give Affinity Photo a shot this year. Sketch seems to be picking up as the UX
tool of choice but it is also Mac only. I think most of the product makers in
this category seem to think, if you are a professional you can get yourself a
Mac. However, Apple likes to charge a lot of premium for its products, which
puts its products out of range for lots of junior developers and smaller
companies in developing economies like India.

2\. Lack of MS office on Linux (This is not really that critical these days,
just a good to have.)

This not really needed for development. But lots of non-technical people use
MS Office for documents and specifications. So as a professional it's just
easier to get a MS license. And now on subscription model it's quite
affordable.

I still wish google will release Google Docs as a fully offline product.
Something like Google Docs packed as Electron based app will make it more
usable for people in India, where always on connectivity is still an issue in
major parts of the Country.

I haven't used Windows as my main machine for 8 years now. I use a Mac mainly
because it gives a stable Unix-like OS with good enough UX. Have waited for
Desktop Linux to happen for 16 years now. It has been in "quite close but not
there yet" status for past 4-5 years now. But don't know how long this phase
is going to last for Linux Desktop.

~~~
JonoBB
What do you need from an office suite that LibreOffice doesn't give you? Not
being snarky, genuine question.

~~~
creshal
LibreOffice is still poor at interoperability with MS Office – if everyone
you're working with is using MS Office and you have to edit their documents
without breaking formatting, or want to use their templates, your only safe
bet is using MS Office. Ideally in the same version and on the same OS,
there's also breakage when moving files between the OSX and Windows builds of
the same MS Office version.

Then there's macros. Yeah, yeah, people shouldn't use them, but they do, and
when LibreOffice crashes on particularly weird ones while MSO Just Works™…
well. (Yesterday I came across a particularly fun example: 100kb data wrapped
into _30 megabytes_ worth of macros that all did exactly nothing, but were
part of the client's default template, and so in every file they send out.
LibreOffice hangs when trying to parse them, even when disabled, Excel works.)

Edit: Why the downvotes? I answered the question. Disagreeing with facts
doesn't make them disappear.

~~~
Ciantic
Excel spreadheet file format (as well as other Office file formats) is
horrible, especially slightly older ones. I wouldn't expect the LibreOffice
ever to really master those. One blog post to about the file formats:
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html)

~~~
creshal
I don't care whether it's Microsoft's or LibreOffice's fault. It doesn't
change the fact that I'm forced to use Microsoft Office.

------
arvinsim
I looking into getting around basic photography editing. Is Gimp good enough
or should I spring on Pixelmator/Affinity Photo(can't afford Adobe CC)?

------
zouhair
Oh man it's already been 16 years since Grokking the GIMP[0]

[0] [http://gimp-
savvy.com/BOOK/index.html?Grokking_the_GIMP.html](http://gimp-
savvy.com/BOOK/index.html?Grokking_the_GIMP.html)

------
greenspot
Does Gimp has support for display with high pixel density?

------
cocotino
Wow, they now have a new GTK+ builtin theme! This will sure crush Photoshop.

------
pepijndevos
Besides non-destructive editing, decent CMYK support is still missing. But as
others have said, they do seem to move in that direction. Maybe Gimp 3 will be
usable for real work.

------
the100rabh
Remove Holes from selections

I dont know about other but this is going to be a big leap forward for sure

------
tambourine_man
I really wish there was an open alternative to Photoshop. Unfortunately, Gimp
isn't.

I fell like printing will be irrelevant/obsolete before Gimp offers proper
CMYK support

~~~
mattkevan
Ctrl-F'd the thread to find this.

Gimp, no matter its merits, will never be taken seriously as a Photoshop
alternative by designers until it has rock-solid CMYK support. Even though
most designers I know, myself included, are desperate to get out from Adobe's
grip.

As an aside, I recently led the switch in our studio from Photoshop to Sketch:
the designers were literally bouncing in their chairs for joy as they realised
how much better it was.

~~~
boudewijnrempt
But sketch also doesn't support CMYK, does it? Otherwise people wouldn't need
tricks like [https://medium.com/sketch-app-sources/creating-resume-in-
ske...](https://medium.com/sketch-app-sources/creating-resume-in-
sketch-d6a77c013fa3#.2ereobpb6)

