
Why GIMP is Inadequate - rkwz
http://troy-sobotka.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-gimp-is-inadequate.html
======
samdk
The 8-bit color limitation issue is well-known and has been for a long time.
The solution is GEGL (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEGL>), which has been
under development for a (very) long time now and is partially implemented in
GIMP 2.6, the latest stable version. It _is_ a problem, but it's important to
put it into perspective: almost all monitors display 32-bit color (EDIT: or
less) anyway, so if you're doing work targeted at a computer screen, it
probably doesn't matter anyway. If you need to do work at color depths higher
than 8 bits per pixel (that is, if you're doing serious print work) then yes,
you need to be aware of these limitations. If you're almost everyone else it's
probably not an issue. (I don't mean to imply that it's not a problem at all,
but I think it's important to keep it in perspective.)

For the people here asking whether GIMP is good enough for what you're doing:
Ars Technica did an excellent review of GIMP 2.6 about a year ago (EDIT: 2
years, but it's still the same major version). It's long, but well-worth
reading and will answer your questions. It's written from the perspective of a
professional who uses Photoshop, but does an excellent job of remaining
balanced. This quote summarizes the review (and also my opinion) pretty
nicely, I think:

    
    
        I may seem to skew negative since I talk so much about what's missing, but
        it's hard to dwell on what a program does well and not sound like a fawning
        idiot. Most people who sit down to get image editing work done with GIMP 
        will not be disappointed. There is a ton of room for advanced work here.
    

It can be found here: [http://arstechnica.com/open-
source/reviews/2009/01/gimp-2-6-...](http://arstechnica.com/open-
source/reviews/2009/01/gimp-2-6-review.ars)

While I don't follow it closely enough to really discuss GIMP's current
development status, development does seem to have slowed significantly (purely
from a user's perspective) in recent years. This is a real shame, since I
think that for the most part it's an excellent program and in general I much
prefer to work in GIMP over Photoshop. For all of its many flaws, I think it's
a fantastic piece of software.

~~~
julian37
> so if you're doing work targeted at a computer screen, it probably doesn't
> matter anyway

Actually, it matters regardless of output device. With higher bit depths, less
rounding errors accumulate over time as the image is processed, for example
when effects are applied, yielding higher overall output quality.

Here is an example, although after many iterations quality loss can be much
more dramatic than visible in that picture:
[http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/16-bit/page-3....](http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/16-bit/page-3.php)

~~~
DrStalker
> With higher bit depths, less rounding errors accumulate > over time as the
> image is processed,

This could also be solved by another photoshop feature, adjustment layers.
Basically instead of applying a filter like levels to an image you make a
levels layer that applies the levels affect to everything underneath it. The
original data is untouched, and you can tweak the levels at any time.

I'm strictly a hobby user for photos I take, but without support either 16 bit
colour or adjustment layers GIMP is not good enough for me. My solution is to
use an older student version of photoshop I picked up cheaply; I don't need
all features in the latest version.

~~~
jerf
No, that doesn't actually do anything to solve the underlying problem.
Stacking five adjustment layers has the same accuracy problems as doing the
same five operations sequentially. It may let you tweak them without
roundtripping through further loss but the loss is already significant by that
point.

~~~
andrewvc
Technically yes, but not at all in practice. Once you run 3 adjustments you
generally want to tweak the first. Without adjustment layers you usually just
run a fourth transformation.

~~~
jerf
Ye gods, can't you read until my third sentence between smashing the reply
button and "correcting" me?

------
joakin
I expected this to be a rant or flame, but in fact he has described
wonderfully what needs to be said.

Besides from all this pro features that GIMP lacks, in my opinion its biggest
flaw its the UI. Its poor and raw, and makes sense if you are a programmer...
Mainly this is what keeps it far from the regular users I know.

Hope It doesnt die, its a very good open source multiplatform editing tool...

~~~
damncabbage
I, hand on my heart, swear that, as a programmer, I don't think GIMP's UI
makes a jot of sense.

A week away from GIMP to mess with Photoshop had me converted after the first
couple of days, sadly. Photoshop is both a blessing and a curse for OSS.

(A blessing that it's a nice shiny target. A curse in that the target is half-
way to the moon.)

~~~
masklinn
There are numerous closer targets to shoot for, which are not photoshop but
are still pretty darn nice (Acorn or Pixelmator for instance on OSX).

OSX also has SeaShore, which I believe is built upon GIMP's tech but with a
Cocoa frontend. It is fairly nice.

~~~
eli
I bought Pixelmator years ago and it's great for what it is, but it's not
really in the same class as Photoshop (or really even GIMP). The UI is clean
and functional, but even as an occasional user I run into missing features.

Seashore looks interesting.

------
iwwr
This is valuable feedback from an artist who actually bothered to try to use
the software. Ultimately, for a highly-paid artist, learning a new interface
is itself costly.

~~~
iwwr
I don't quite understand the downvotes, anyone care to comment?

I just meant that time is a valuable commodity which artists can rarely
afford, unless they have a really good reason to. I applaud this reviewer for
having the time.

~~~
kprobst
I don't think his main problem is with the interface.

------
billhasmail
"Important progress towards high bit-depth and non-destructive editing in GIMP
has been made. Most color operations in GIMP are now ported to the powerful
graph based image processing framework GEGL, meaning that the internal
processing is being done in 32bit floating point linear light RGBA. By default
the legacy 8bit code paths are still used, but a curious user can turn on the
use of GEGL for the color operations with Colors / Use GEGL."
<http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.6.html>

Clearly this artist was not a curious user.

~~~
froydnj
I think you're illustrating the point of the author: such an option should be
the default. The user shouldn't have to go looking for it.

------
cookiecaper
There are several good alternatives to GIMP depending on what you're doing.
GIMP is probably the best for traditional photo editing, but there seems to be
more programs oriented toward illustration. In particular, I like Krita.

I don't really know what the deal is with the low development interest in
GIMP. I think maybe it's that Photoshop's professional niche generally isn't
comprised of big fan of computers in the first place, so they are more like
the Office crowd and just want to use what they're used to; they're hostile to
any change from the start.

I also think that the extremely long development cycle of GEGL, which was
necessary for the most commonly requested features like increased bit depth,
CMYK, etc., may have turned developers off.

I'm merely guessing here, though. I definitely agree that GIMP has a lot of
potential, and a few dedicated developers could really take it places.

~~~
dkersten
_I don't really know what the deal is with the low development interest in
GIMP. I think maybe it's that Photoshop's professional niche... ...use what
they're used to; they're hostile to any change from the start._

I don't know about the developers and why more people aren't interested in
helping out (though I suspect for a lot of people its a mixture of the
difficulties of getting established in a large codebase and the beurocracy
involved in a large project), but from a user point-of-view I think GIMP has a
few problems.

I've used GIMP exclusively for many years (but I'm not a graphic designer, so
my use of image editing software was never terribly heavy) and I used
photoshop for the first time last summer. My transition to photoshop was a
very pleasant one as, IMHO, photoshop has a much simpler and more productive
interface (buttons are easy to access, convenient keyboard shortcuts,
interface is not too cluttered); it has a larger range of (more advanced,
generally) filters and tools; and it seems a lot faster to me too (definitely
when applying filters to a large image. This can be, in my experience, quite
slow in GIMP, but in photoshop most filters are almost instantaneus for me).

I can only assume that many other people feel the same and I imagine this may
make it less desirable for people to work on GIMP, especially if there is
(perceived) resistance from the GIMP developer community for GIMP to move in
the direction that newcomers feel it should (eg, does GIMP still have that
horrible multi-window interface? Most people dislike it (though since I
started using a tiling window manager on windows it actually becomes much more
usable!)).

Having said all that, from a user point of view, unless you make a reaosnable
amount of money with your photo-editing, it is still hard to justify
photoshops high price tag. GIMP being free is definitely a big plus point for
it for casual use.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"I don't know about the developers and why more people aren't interested in
> helping out"_

This probably doesn't help GIMP any, but I suspect it's because very few
people want to hop on such a clearly troubled project. Only two core devs
left? A long history of neglect and moving in the wrong direction?

I can bet if, say, Pixelmator went OSS right now, there'd be a sea of devs
fighting to add features to it.

Most devs don't want to walk into a major, legacy project just to pick up the
pieces, most of us would rather join something that has a solid base where the
maintainers have a decent idea of what the product needs.

------
coffeeaddicted
Having only 2 principal developers left which have little time sounds to me
like the biggest problem. That's not enough manpower to compete with Photoshop
in the long run. One reason for that might be that Gimp already does the stuff
most coders need from an image manipulation tool, so maybe there's not enough
itches to scratch left to get more talent interested in developing for it.

------
ominous_prime
To everyone who is replying to the 8bit issue by mentioning GEGL - Have you
actually used it in a professional capacity?

As a (now part-time) professional photographer, I _have_ evaluated GIMP; and
as a FOSS advocate I really wanted it to work. The performance issues the
article mentions are with reasonable sized images at only 8 bits, but editing
a 16bit, 25MP image wasn't just slow, it was unusable. Photoshop however, runs
in near real time at these image sizes. Even automating a GEGL filter to run
on a series of a few hundred images would take long enough that I couldn't
maintain a usable workflow.

------
rythie
Surely the underlying problem is that GIMP is and has been underfunded for
years. Where as Photoshop costs $100s, GIMP presumably has very little revenue
if it can only pay for two developers.

Firefox is able to develop quickly due to the deal with Google, maybe GIMP
needs something like that, e.g. a app-store for plugins or a kickstarter
funding drive.

------
cageface
This article brings my experience with OSS full circle. It was the Gimp and
GTK that first drew my attention to OSS in about 1997. At the time it was
tempting to believe that OSS was inherently a better development model but
after almost fifteen years it's clear that it's been wildly successful in some
domains but a washout in others.

------
retube
Another missing feature for me is lack of a CYMK color palette. Vital for
sending images to the printers.

~~~
wazoox
There's a plugin for that, not perfect but does the job.

~~~
jamesteow
The fact that you need to download a plugin for something as essential as that
is a big drawback.

------
healthyhippo
I don't know much about photo editing, but I've used Gimp for a little while
along with Inkscape for editing. I use it for simple stuff- drop shadows,
minor logo work, etc. Is there a noticeable difference vs. photoshop on that
level?

~~~
webuiarchitect
Yes, the noticeable difference is Gimp sucks!!

Hats off to the Gimp development team for pulling off so many features and
above all having an open-source product out there. But the problem is
PhotoShop has set the expectations way too high. And I'm afraid, a non-
commercial product will never be able reach that level.

~~~
sgift
Are there any arguments why a non-commercial product (not necessarily Gimp)
will never be able to reach "that level"? This looks suspiciously like "open
source software is always worse than closed source!!!!!" which has been
refuted more than once.

~~~
arethuza
I don't think anyone doubts that for things like OS kernels, database engines,
web frameworks, browsers, libraries, editors etc. FOSS software easily wins.

But for end-user applications where you pay for the competition and where the
typical end-users are _not_ developers, or similar, (e.g. MS Office,
PaintShop, most games) then FOSS versions seem rather poor by comparison.

~~~
atesting
Have you ever tried MyPaint?

IMO a good example of a software which does its tasks very well (I'm no
(digital) painter, but I've heard about graphic artists seriously thinking
about switching to it... if it only had a Mac version...).

------
sfphotoarts
For anyone serious about image production the cost of the software, like the
cost of the camera and lenses is insignificant. For most photographers bit
depth is only something they give much thought to when a client dictates (like
a stock agency requiring a 16bit tiff, for example). For the vast majority of
people just making images, 8 bit depth is perfectly fine. Most sensors in
digital cameras are not anywhere near 16 bit anyway, more likely 12 or
sometimes 14.

The photoshopessentails links below will obviously illustrate a difference
(but not one that is very striking considering the destructive editing
applied) - its a classic dynamic range compress/expand to show the benefits of
higher quantization levels. Obviously that will degrade an image. Nobody, I
suspect, is willing to show a side by side comparison of an image showing
ordinary editing with rounding errors that make the slightest different to the
image.

Most output is computer screens anyway where there is so much more impacting
the image than rounding errors in editing stage. When you print an image that
also introduces its own set of transforms, some have the benefit of making
much that is visible on the screen (like moderate chroma noise) largely go
away.

I dislike GIMP because it lacks the polish and sophistication of Photoshop but
good photographs are good photographs, regardless of rounding errors in
adjustment layers. When you look back at the last century of images, how many
of those photos do you say would be improved had they more resolution, or less
banding or whatever technical nonsense metric you want to apply.

------
NIL8
What shocks me is the lack of competition in this field in the year 2011. Why
are we still talking about choosing between GIMP or Photoshop? I know there
are other programs out there that some people will claim they prefer over GIMP
or PS, but for most of the planet it's GIMP or PS.

Is the lack of competition due to the magnitude of such a programming endeavor
or is it something else like patents? Any idea?

~~~
samlevine
I've been using Pixelmator for a few months now (GIMP works great in Linux but
I've found it's performance in OS X to be rather poor). It's still closed
source software like PS (even if it does use open source libraries), but it's
fast enough and gets the job done (my needs are really meager).

The reason why GIMP doesn't have more developers is easy: Programmers don't
have any itch to scratch at this point and there isn't currently a big market
for prosumer image tools (most folks use PS one way or the other, paid or
pirated).

If Adobe managed to somehow magically make piracy of their software impossible
I think it's likely that you'd see a number of free and non-free products in
strong competition with Photoshop Elements.

~~~
NIL8
Interesting point about piracy. Without a need, there's no reason to innovate.

------
pistacchio
Gimp is one of the main reasons why I left Linux. After years of Windows I
finally gave Linux a chance and immediately fell in love with it. Being a
programmer it gave an incredible boost to my productivity and creativity.
Having a proper shell, for example, or a real ssh client (not some half baked
solution like putty).

As I also work with media (graphics and music), I find the lack of any semi-
professional software for producing music (nothing to be compared with Cubase,
Ableton Live or even Fruity loops) nor programs to make graphics (Inkscape is
not close to Illustrator and then Gimp...).

So I had to constantly keep a virtual machine for those (read: running in a
virtual machine the most resource expensive programs) or another partition for
dual boot and I ended up having two PCs.

I sold them both and bought a Mac where I can have Photoshop in a window and a
terminal with a proper unix machine on the other.

------
waterside81
It's a shame that GIMP isn't supported by more devs/money. Writing script-fus
for GIMP makes it so much more useful for a developer than Photoshop. I've
saved myself so much time using python-fu with GIMP to automate opening,
manipulating, saving of files.

------
code_duck
Yes, Gimp isn't competition to Photoshop for professionals. For people who
want to do a variety of tasks where professional quality isn't critical,
however, it's great. Gimp falls somewhere in between Photoshop Elements,
PaintShopPro and Photoshop.

The UI is a huge problem. Whomever thought it was a good idea to make the tool
window always on top with no way to minimize it, and no menus, needs to step
away from working on UIs.

------
city41
GIMP has no support for the Pantone color system either. Another reason
professionals tend to avoid it. Not the GIMP's fault, as Pantone is
proprietary. But regardless, it's used heavily in the design industry.

------
gsivil
I would be curious to see similar posts for Octave and OpenOffice. I am really
happy that they exist but "inadequate" would be a fair word to describe both.
Comparing of course with Matlab and MS Office .

~~~
eru
Yes, though you can also compare MS Office to something like TeX, and find
that either option is inadequate, depending on where your focus lies.

------
jlouis
Can you represent each channel as a double? Or will that take up too much
memory in the long run?

------
njharman
as far as gimps usefulness to profesionals the movie version fork cinepaint,
is good enough for making Harry Potter and other movies I question authors
knowledge of / authority to speak for artistic professionals.

~~~
tzs
Uhm, Cinepaint is a point in favor of the author's conclusions about GIMP. One
of the reasons for Cinepaint is to fix the color depth problem the author
wrote about.

------
bitwize
The problem is that the intersection of fosstards and serious print designers
is vanishingly small. If you're doing pro press work, you're going to buy the
tool that everybody else uses and that print shops have standardized upon.
That tool is Photoshop.

------
npaquin
The problem that I've always had with GIMP is that it (menus, macros, general
UI, etc.) doesn't mimic Photoshop. If you want to go after a well established
product why not mimic these things to achieve a higher adoption rate (due to
instant familiarity)?

------
hackermom
It's funny how the writer mentions a handful of technically unimportant flaws
with GIMP, blowing them out of proportion, but fails to mention the one big
thing where GIMP falls flat on its ass: the clunky, unstructured mess of a UI.

~~~
mgedmin
That was footnote #1 in the article.

