
GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released - jjuhl
https://www.gimp.org/news/2018/03/26/gimp-2-10-0-rc1-released/
======
yoz-y
GIMP was the first advanced image editor I have used. I grew quite fond of it
and its tools. Nowadays I have moved away from it because it does not play
well with macOS, but still return to it when I am on a Linux box.

For me, GIMP has always excelled in making simple actions simple. Even today I
am quite surprised that other software has not taken some of the ideas for
interface that gimp has.

Mainly:

\- The selection tool is just miles ahead any of the software I have used. It
makes the crop tool obsolete and every time I have to switch modes just to
resize my previous rectangular selection I long for it.

\- Resizing and clipping layers is dead simple. Other programs I have used
have no "clip to selection" on layers and I have never understood why.

\- Color to transparency is a single button

\- Masks are actually simple to use as one can draw on them using all tools,
not just some arbitrary subset

It has its dose of quirks and the interface is in dire need of a rework,
however I must say that despite what many people say I find GIMP quite
intuitive to use. I suppose that it is a force of habit.

Edit: formatting

~~~
athorax
Out of curiosity, what issues do you see on macOS? I use it fairly rarely for
minor editing, but haven't hit any real issues with it

~~~
yoz-y
My main issue is actually very non-technical. After I have switched to macOS
I've started to put more and more importance to the consistency of the
interface. GIMP is very different as it is not rendered using native Cocoa
widgets. Things like non-native open/save dialog, clipboard support and drag
and drop. It also felt quite slow, compared to when I used it on Linux.

------
extrememacaroni
GIMP has helped me time and again, glad to see it getting such impressive
changelogs. Layer group masks are especially interesting to me.

Kudos to the dev team.

------
userbinator
_A new Dashboard dock helps with monitoring GIMP’s resource usage to keep
things in check, allowing you to make more educated decisions about various
configuration options._

That looks so ridiculous and out-of-place in an image editing program. If it
weren't for the left side, you'd think it was Visual Studio!

[https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/MSDNBlogsFS/p...](https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/MSDNBlogsFS/prod.evol.blogs.msdn.com/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/00/00/00/45/92/metablogapi/6204.635659102497602738_059EE082.png)

~~~
nkkollaw
You did and will keep getting downvoted (like my comment below about GIMP's
usability will), but you're absolutely right.

This is another case where developers decide what's cool, and of course pick
features that are cool to them, not their users.

Not once in my life would I ever think I'm missing that feature in GIMP.

~~~
avian
Did you stop to think that perhaps GIMP's developers are in fact its users?
I'm an engineer and I draw as a hobby. I don't mind developer-oriented
features in my drawing program. If I wanted Photoshop, I would be using that.

~~~
Karunamon
That’s all well and good, but if GIMP is targeting devs first who are also
artists, Linux remains an OS without an image editor targeted at artists
first. IMO that’s an important hole in the software library that prevents
wider adoption.

~~~
callahad
Krita ([https://krita.org](https://krita.org)) is 12 years old, and just
released version 4.0 last week. HN comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16647445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16647445)

~~~
gilrain
And if you complain that Krita lacks photo manipulation features, you're told
"Of course, because Krita is only targeted at illustrators!" The open source
evangelists always have a dodge.

~~~
lovelearning
What's with the entitlement here? These are people sacrificing their time and
going largely unpaid (AFAIK) for their efforts. I for one am happy and
grateful that these "dodgy" open source evangelists exist and offer us all a
choice for free. If I have a subjective usability problem with their software,
far more constructive to take the effort to try and fix it myself than
complain like a diva.

~~~
s73v3r_
What's with the entitlement in thinking that something being open source means
its above criticism?

Further, people have tried to get usability fixes into GIMP, and been shot
down, as "that's not what the project wants to do."

~~~
lovelearning
The entitlement I was referring to was based on the tone of the criticism. "I
wish Krita had image editing features" wouldn't have got any reply from me.
But adding "the open source evangelists always have a dodge" sounds to me like
a personal attack on those devs. Do they owe something to the artist
community? Or have they breached the terms of some work-for-hire contract from
the graphics industry to code an all-in-one tool? Nope.

What is the "dodging" in limiting functional scope of a tool? Each and every
software project I know of places some limits on what it will and won't
implement. Even Adobe has a _suite_ of tools where one tool like Photoshop can
do things Illustrator can't and vice versa. It's not Adobe being "dodgy" about
their tools, and nor are open source projects.

Nothing stops people from forking GIMP, implementing whatever fixes they want,
distributing, and even selling it. Refusing pull requests is not a crime.

~~~
s73v3r_
"Nothing stops people from forking GIMP, implementing whatever fixes they
want, distributing, and even selling it. Refusing pull requests is not a
crime."

To put that up as the solution is to be fully divorced from reality.

------
Joeboy
Is this the development-hell branch that has exciting stuff like 16 bit colour
and GEGL everywhere? If so then a release candidate is quite exciting.
Hopefully getting this out of the door will make the roadmap a bit simpler and
ease future development.

------
app4soft
I use AppImage[0] builds[1] for testing development builds without install.
Here[2] is latest nightly build from GIMP 2.10.x branch.

[0] [http://appimage.github.io/apps](http://appimage.github.io/apps)

[1] [https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-
appimage/releases/tag/c...](https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-
appimage/releases/tag/continuous)

[2] [https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-
appimage/releases/downl...](https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-
appimage/releases/download/continuous/gimp-2.10.0-20180327_0913.glibc2.15-x86_64.AppImage)

------
anthonybennis
I use GIMP regularly, and always impressed at the quality of the tool and the
amount of features it has. Looking forward to the v2.10 release. Anyone know
where I can download a Windows build of the release candidate? Can't seem to
find a link on the website.

~~~
Joeboy
In theory
[https://www.gimp.org/downloads/devel/](https://www.gimp.org/downloads/devel/)
, but it currently says "Note: the currently available package provides GIMP
2.9.8 and has not yet updated to the lastet version, GIMP 2.10.0-RC1. We're
working on that, please check back later."

------
laurent123456
I've tried to use GIMP over several years but never got used to it. Things
like resizing and transforming layers, applying filters, etc. are too
cumbersome. Many tools also don't have a live preview, which means there's
many attempts before getting the needed result.

Now I'm back to Photoshop CS3 from 11 years ago, yet many years ahead of
today's GIMP. It has smart objects and filters, layer effects, live previews
and the very good UI means I can get things done much faster.

~~~
zzzcpan
Well, Gimp was never a replacement for photoshop.

~~~
Joeboy
I googled "Photoshop alternative" and GIMP was suggested in the first five
hits (I stopped checking after that).

There's this annoying FLOSS motte-and-bailey conversation that you see over
and over again that starts with "X is a Free replacement for Y!" and ends with
"Why don't you fix it yourself then?", via "Nobody ever said X was a
replacement for Y".

~~~
pavs
An alternative option for PS is not same as being feature parity replacement
of PS.

PS is a commercial image editor owned by a company with billions of dollars
and many years worth of commercial development and improvements - it is used
by a very specific group of users with specific needs and specific skills. And
they don't mind paying a hefty fee for it.

GIMP (and other similar OS projects) is for everyone else, who wants to do
light image editing in an amateur setting without having to pay a large amount
for it.

Having said that - GIMP has some very powerful features that are as good as
PS, but not a feature parity replacement of it. Nor do I think GIMP has the
funding or the development mind-share to achieve that.

~~~
dagw
_GIMP (and other similar OS projects) is for everyone else, who wants to do
light image editing in an amateur setting without having to pay a large amount
for it_

Except that isn't really true either. If you want to do "light image editing
in an amateur setting" GIMP is massive overkill, and there are plenty of
easier to use tools. GIMP lives in a strange limbo between not 'light' enough
for light work and not heavy enough for 'heavy' work.

~~~
pavs
Yes, there are a lot of lighter image editing options out there, and most of
them are even free. But at least my understanding is that GIMP is still
predominantly used by amateurs. I didn't say it's the only option, it's one of
the more powerful image editing options for amateurs.

------
bhaavan
So still no GTK3? I think when GTK4 is released in a few months, it would be a
good time to move to GTK3 as they can still be outdated.

I know I am being a bit bitter for an open source project with less funding,
but GIMP was supposed to be a poster boy GTK application in the first place.

~~~
damyyy
This is just a myth. You make it sound like there was some purposeful
intention to gimp and gtk. There was not. Gimp was created by some kids at
berkeley who created gtk because at the time qt and motif had untenable cost
and or licensing, or sucked. When the gnome project started years later gtk
was chosen due to licensing considerations since ironically qt was “too free”
ie pure gpl which limited its use in closed source software without licensing.
At the time this was considered a major problem in unseating windows (back in
1998 when there was actually real vested interest that could be a thing)—-
visual studio cost a little bit of money (but it was cheap) and you didn’t
have to license anything to make closed source windows apps. You could write a
GUI app in assembly and not pay ms a dime if you wanted. The Unix side of
things was not so good. Motif was thousands of dollars.

Anyway, turns out maintaining a professional image editing program is a lot of
work. While it is true many fanboys named gimp as some kind of foss and gtk
showcase its not like most of them were actively contributing to either gtk or
gimp.

There was never any longterm large scale commercial investment in gimp similar
to how redhat threw massive resources into gnome and gtk.

~~~
hisham_hm
> gtk was chosen due to licensing considerations since ironically qt was “too
> free” ie pure gpl which limited its use in closed source software without
> licensing

This is wrong. GNOME was already well underway when Qt switched to GPL. Before
that it used QPL and before that yet another license.

~~~
homarp
The GNOME desktop environment -
[https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedin...](https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/usenix98/freenix/icaza.pdf)

"Sadly, the KDE effort is based on the Qt user interface toolkit which is a
non-free library. The main problem is that modification of the toolkit is not
allowed. The ability to modify the interface toolkit is a requirement of free
software[6] and of the Open Source Software Guidelines[17]. Although Qt is
released in source form, permission to redistribute changes made to it is
denied."

------
heldrida
Side note: GIMP user here that has recently moved to a new image editor called
Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, that is super cheap and I highly
recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good quality Photoshop and
Illustrator alternative, with new ideas and concepts; They are doing an
amazing job!

~~~
andrewshadura
I presume it's not free software. It's a deal breaker for many, including
myself.

~~~
besasam
It's a bit of a dilemma, isn't it. I would love an alternative to Photoshop or
Affinity that actually offers the same features and has a nice UI (let's be
real, it's something most free applications really lack... and the look and
feel of the software I'm using has high priority for me) but those who
actually want these things aren't the ones developing, and the ones developing
apparently don't place a lot of importance on it.

We really need more interdisciplinary developers and free software
enthusiasts. I know I'm already working on it as an artist-turned-coder :D

~~~
bkor
> It's a bit of a dilemma, isn't it.

I like free software. It doesn't have to be free as in price. Various small
free software developers are supported by its users, e.g. Liberapay / Patreon
/ Tipeee. Various things were contributed by ZeMarmot. This project is
supported by its users using above methods.

> We really need more interdisciplinary developers and free software
> enthusiasts.

It seems just having people contribute by paying a small amount per week/month
is also pretty good method. This allows the existing developers to dedicate
more of their time to the project.

~~~
s73v3r_
Isn't that just the subscription model that everyone here decries? That's what
JetBrains went to, and people here were calling for their heads.

~~~
seba_dos1
Since it's voluntary, no, it's not.

------
staticelf
Not really about GIMP but for people who look for an alternative to Photoshop,
I can really recommend Affinity Photo. It's actually on a sale right now on
Windows Store at least. Unfortunately it doesn't support Linux like GIMP does
but it's a really viable alternative to Photoshop for Mac/Windows users.

I used to pay for Photoshop, but it's so darn expensive and I even had to pay
to get out of my subscription plan. Affinity Photo cost like one or two months
of Photoshop and isn't a subscription service.

~~~
gilrain
Affinity is a fantastic alternative to Photoshop, GIMP, or any other raster
manipulation program focused on photos. I'd like to back up this
recommendation: for the (one-time) price, it's amazing. I don't miss anything
from Photoshop, and the UI is incredibly effective and consistent.

I guess the people in this thread are only interested in open source
alternatives, because I can't imagine anyone objecting to it on its merits!

~~~
torstenvl
Maybe the problem exists between the keyboard and the chair, but I've found
Affinity very clunky to use and can't figure out how to do even simple things
in it.

~~~
gilrain
They have a really great series of free, official videos on Vimeo which go
over individual features and workflows. They got me up, running, and
comfortable faster than any other graphical tool so far. It's similar to
learning Blender through really good YouTube tutorials, except official and
more comprehensive, so you spend less time searching.

