> Very slow file dialogs: it used to happen when network devices were slow or unavailable, or pluggable devices disconnected, or even because of fake floppy drives configured in the BIOS. GLib was using an inappropriate Windows API to get some information about drives. This has been fixed!
Cool! I think that bug helped me get my wife to accept an Ubuntu install instead of trying to stick with Win7 last year; it had caused her enough pain to notice, apparently. She mentioned "it doesn't grovel when I swap flash cards" specifically after the switch.
Windows hates slow disks in general. When I've had a dying HDD just plugged in, even when that HDD is never accessed, Windows comes to a crawl. The same system booted into Ubuntu is smooth.
> What these donations through GNOME still cannot do is funding paid development, so if that’s what you want, please fund the developers directly as explained above. GIMP project obviously welcomes the 2 types of donation, for community needs through GNOME and for paid development through the 2 crowdfundings listed.
>On macOS side, the activity is still slow, if not non-existent.
> So if you want this to change, please join us!
I'd like to help, though I feel like I don't know enough C, and I've never used GTK. Is it possible to get a mentor, like you can for Linux kernel development, who can help me write my first few patches?
For those more familiar with GIMP, can you share what you love about it? I'm assuming most people think of it as a "open-source-but-less-good photoshop". Would like to hear from fans.
This was the issue for me even before the subscription model. I realized that any FOSS I learned could be taught and given to friends and family at no cost. Photoshop Elements can fill that niche too, though paying anything for software is becoming an uphill battle with some demographics.
I like that it inspired Krita. Those folks really seem to be listening to users; working hard to build highly demanded features without navel-gazing or bike-shedding.
I checked it out and could not wrap my head around Krita tbh. It feels very powerful but focused on solving many different problems, of which photo-manipulation is only one of them.
I need to take another look and give it another try, I don't think I'm done with Krita yet, but it's not a replacement for Gimp yet (as far as I'm concerned.) There's some beauty in having focus.
I tried gimp, and still use it sometimes, but switched to affinity photo mostly because the smart select tool was so much better, and the Ux was a lot smoother. Faster too. They are basically the same program in a lot of ways and if I’m on Linux (I dual boot) I do use gimp sometimes still. You will spend some time on YouTube trying to figure out how to do things but there are a lot of good short videos to get you moving
On a related note, I used kdenlive (video editing) the other day and it was a really good experience, smoother and faster than a paid editor I used to use
a clever friend once said it this way, while I was complaining about the GIMP interface. He said "Adobe spent years refining the small details of Photoshop, and GIMP must not copy PS, so therefore all the GIMP interface parts will feel terrible, by default"
of course this is humorous oversimplification, but I can't help but think of it every time I really, really need a general editor, open GIMP and immediately start cursing over ordinary thing.
source: I wrote the third color paint app for the Mac II thirty years ago while a contractor at Apple Inc.
There's no limit on copying from PS, but it wouldn't make sense to trash the current user base to try to acquire those used to PS. Then it would be the Gimp users who feel upset.
Something that others might not be aware of - Gimp could be a lot better by now, but Adobe actually has patents on features that cannot be included into Gimp, including certain UI elements. So there is a limit on what Gimp can do, not because of competency, but because of legality.
> Something that others might not be aware of - Gimp could be a lot better by now, but Adobe actually has patents on features that cannot be included into Gimp, including certain UI elements.
It's an urban legend :)
Improving UX means we need
1) UX architects/designers — got none
2) developers to implement what UX people design — got too few
Yeah I'm curious what exactly makes GIMP different. Photoshop and Pixelmator are bot pretty similar to use on a Mac. Is it just the layout of buttons? Or is there some "first principles" difference in the design of GIMP vs Photoshop? Is GIMP made for programmers and Photoshop for designers?
No, GIMP is for designers, too. I use Photoshop at work and GIMP at home. Both for very light work. Adding text to an image, putting a product into a mockup template, resizing, etc. Both programs are very similar - I don’t really notice much difference between them. And GIMP does some things better!
Like any program, there’s a learning curve. But there are lots of like-for-like features and layout choices between the two, so if you know one then the other is easy to adapt to.
Is it Stockhold syndrome? After years of GIMP I really disliked the Affinity interface, also it is unusably slow on a very recent computer here. I kinda like GIMP, the good parts.
Is that an egg-corn? ie an mishearing of a well-known phrase in a way that makes total sense? Stockhold syndrome - it's like Stockholm syndrome but you're cheerleading for companies with crappy products only because you own stock.
I haven't used Photoshop in about decade, but there isn't many reasons why I use it over Photoshop other than it works on Linux, I don't have to pay a subscription fee, it's not as bloated and resource heavy, and it just works. In fact, I'm much more familiar with GIMP than Photoshop. I'm not a designer/illustrator by any means, but the times I've had to edit photos for whatever reason or do bulk conversion, GIMP did the job well and there's a community providing support.
I've been using GIMP since at least middle school. I learned about color, layers, opacity, paths, etc all from GIMP. It has always been free, available, and it doesn't change too fast. I have used photoshop for advanced features (CMYK halftoning), but that never comes up for me often enough to subscribe.
Having learned on GIMP, its super easy to me. I have a hard time understanding what could be better just because I am so used to it.
Gimp was _usable_ before the same-window toggle (introduced about 2010?), but when they added that I stopped looking at competitors tbh. I wish certain things in Gimp weren't so kludgy (mainly basic stuff like dropdowns and dialogs), but Photoshop isn't perfect underneath its slick-looking UI either.
That said, I use and kinda adore Premiere, so I'm losing the Adobe "synergy" by not using Photoshop. I still can do everything I want or need to do in Gimp, and I admittedly don't do anything advanced.
Paint.NET sufficed for a little while but Gimp hits that great middle ground for me personally between too-simple and too-powerful.
Gimp moves so slowly that I personally can't wait for downstream forks like PhotoGIMP to pick up updates, so I've always tried to stick to the latest official stable release. I love reading new updates hit the front of HN, usually means a meaty release. :)
> That said, I use and kinda adore Premiere, so I'm losing the Adobe "synergy" by not using Photoshop.
GIMP and Krita getting better is what finally got me to dump the abusive relationship I had with Premiere Pro. Seriously, it has to be the most unpleasant software I've ever used. Like, it's good in theory, but then the most basic things just...don't work?? Dynamic link is cute in theory, but in practice there isn't much of a productivity loss with 1-click exports in both GIMP and Krita.
[I cut out like 2 paragraphs of Premiere rant here, but if anyone is curious I'm happy to paste it back. I'm glad if PrPro works for you, but I personally can't stand it anymore]
I would love to hear your problems with Premiere haha.
Definitely agreed on the lack of usefulness for dynamic linking.
The most I've put Premiere through its paces was a 23-minute short film. I learned a bit of After Effects for it, and that integration was nice.
Not sure if Krita is aiming to replace AE as well, and I imagine that's a much tougher job than just creating a nonlinear editor. I have a lot more problems with AE than Premiere, much of it comes down to Gimp-style UI kludginess.
I simply don't know or care if it is better or not than photoshop. I never used photoshop, I can't even compare. All I can say is that it has always been good enough for whatever I needed.
I use it mainly because I love FOSS. Looking at what sets it apart technologically, I really like two plugins: Liquid Rescale and Resynthesizer (Heal Selection), the very wide support of formats, including niches like the windows icon format, and the fact that I can use it everywhere legally.
I like GIMP. All its features are straightforward and accessible and make sense to me. For this reason, I like it more than Affinity Photo (can't wrap my head around showing or hiding different features based on what "persona" you have active).
There are rough edges. The name, for one. The save/export fiasco. One of the transform tools recently became completely broken. But anything I can imagine doing in image manipulation can usually be done in GIMP with a minimum of fuss.
I made a separate install of 2.8 for an image where I really needed it. Not the most common tool and not the end of the world, but I think it qualifies as a rough edge.
I find GIMPs rectangular selection tool amazing. The way it does double duty with crop tool is really well thought out.
I haven’t used the software for a long time, preferring Affinity, but I’ve tried all the major image editing programs and selection in none comes near the GIMP’s UX.
> You may have noticed that GIMP 2.10.24’s macOS DMG was released months late. Even this only happened because Jehan spent days to fix the build on the remote build server, bit by bit, without any local access to a macOS machine, nor any ways to run and test himself.
Anyone here want to pool some money and send this guy a Mac Mini off eBay or something?
Maybe send his address to Apple so they can send him a free machine. Or have Apple learn to have a system that we can build for without actually owning the physical hardware. It's not 1983 any more Apple. I am all for option (b)
Really cool to see the development going strong. Even though more time is focused on the 2.99 release versions it is nice to see a stable version every couple of months or so.
I have fond memories of the first time I used GIMP. I was 13 and had just bought RedHat Linux 5.2 from Waldenbooks and installed it on our home computer (it was called The GIMP then IIRC). I had no idea what I was doing and half of my hardware wasn't supported but I was quite comfortable poking around in The GIMP.
It's really amazing to see how far GIMP has come over the years while still retaining it's familiarity. I've used it on every Linux distro I've used and on Windows ever since I've learned of it's availability on the OS. I sincerely appreciate everyone who's been involved in this project over the years.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadCool! I think that bug helped me get my wife to accept an Ubuntu install instead of trying to stick with Win7 last year; it had caused her enough pain to notice, apparently. She mentioned "it doesn't grovel when I swap flash cards" specifically after the switch.
Well, that's confusing. It's unfortunate they were unable to work out an agreement with the GNOME foundation for donations. https://krita.org/en/support-us/donations/ or https://fund.krita.org/ looks way more straightforward.
> So if you want this to change, please join us!
I'd like to help, though I feel like I don't know enough C, and I've never used GTK. Is it possible to get a mentor, like you can for Linux kernel development, who can help me write my first few patches?
If you don't mind hanging around IRC in Europe afternoon/evening time, you can ask questions to the few devs that are there.
edit: reading this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25174686
Also curious about PhotoGIMP, focused on a better UI
For those who haven't seen it before, check https://krita.org/en/ out!
I need to take another look and give it another try, I don't think I'm done with Krita yet, but it's not a replacement for Gimp yet (as far as I'm concerned.) There's some beauty in having focus.
Here's our current vision statement: https://krita.org/en/item/kritas-updated-vision/
On a related note, I used kdenlive (video editing) the other day and it was a really good experience, smoother and faster than a paid editor I used to use
of course this is humorous oversimplification, but I can't help but think of it every time I really, really need a general editor, open GIMP and immediately start cursing over ordinary thing.
source: I wrote the third color paint app for the Mac II thirty years ago while a contractor at Apple Inc.
content aware stamp tool
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SELECTIVE SYNCHRONIZATION OF A DISPLAY LAYOUT
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GESTURE BASED COPYING OF ATTRIBUTES
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AN IMPROVED WORKFLOW FOR DIGITAL IMAGE EDITING
Construction of multimedia compositions
Methods and apparatus for selecting objects by state
Methods and apparatus for automatically grouping graphical constructs
Methods and apparatus for maintaining online preferences
Methods and apparatus for creating a quick canvas
System and method for identifying Bezier curves from a shape
Method and apparatus for applying locale behaviors to regions of a form
Preview window including a storage context view of one or more computer resources
Methods and apparatus for arranging graphical objects
Methods and apparatus to identify graphical elements
Methods and apparatus for three-dimensional isographic navigation
System for manipulating noise in digital images
Compound layers for composited image manipulation
Method of color selection for display and printing
It's an urban legend :)
Improving UX means we need
1) UX architects/designers — got none
2) developers to implement what UX people design — got too few
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SELECTIVE SYNCHRONIZATION OF A DISPLAY LAYOUT
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GESTURE BASED COPYING OF ATTRIBUTES
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AN IMPROVED WORKFLOW FOR DIGITAL IMAGE EDITING
Construction of multimedia compositions
Methods and apparatus for selecting objects by state
Methods and apparatus for automatically grouping graphical constructs
Methods and apparatus for maintaining online preferences
Methods and apparatus for creating a quick canvas
System and method for identifying Bezier curves from a shape
Method and apparatus for applying locale behaviors to regions of a form
Preview window including a storage context view of one or more computer resources
Methods and apparatus for arranging graphical objects
Methods and apparatus to identify graphical elements
Methods and apparatus for three-dimensional isographic navigation
System for manipulating noise in digital images
Compound layers for composited image manipulation
Method of color selection for display and printing
Like I said, urban legend.
I could easily complain about Photoshop or Illustrator’s UI just as much as GIMP or Inkscape.
Like any program, there’s a learning curve. But there are lots of like-for-like features and layout choices between the two, so if you know one then the other is easy to adapt to.
Having learned on GIMP, its super easy to me. I have a hard time understanding what could be better just because I am so used to it.
Gimp was _usable_ before the same-window toggle (introduced about 2010?), but when they added that I stopped looking at competitors tbh. I wish certain things in Gimp weren't so kludgy (mainly basic stuff like dropdowns and dialogs), but Photoshop isn't perfect underneath its slick-looking UI either.
That said, I use and kinda adore Premiere, so I'm losing the Adobe "synergy" by not using Photoshop. I still can do everything I want or need to do in Gimp, and I admittedly don't do anything advanced.
Paint.NET sufficed for a little while but Gimp hits that great middle ground for me personally between too-simple and too-powerful.
Gimp moves so slowly that I personally can't wait for downstream forks like PhotoGIMP to pick up updates, so I've always tried to stick to the latest official stable release. I love reading new updates hit the front of HN, usually means a meaty release. :)
GIMP and Krita getting better is what finally got me to dump the abusive relationship I had with Premiere Pro. Seriously, it has to be the most unpleasant software I've ever used. Like, it's good in theory, but then the most basic things just...don't work?? Dynamic link is cute in theory, but in practice there isn't much of a productivity loss with 1-click exports in both GIMP and Krita.
[I cut out like 2 paragraphs of Premiere rant here, but if anyone is curious I'm happy to paste it back. I'm glad if PrPro works for you, but I personally can't stand it anymore]
Definitely agreed on the lack of usefulness for dynamic linking.
The most I've put Premiere through its paces was a 23-minute short film. I learned a bit of After Effects for it, and that integration was nice.
Not sure if Krita is aiming to replace AE as well, and I imagine that's a much tougher job than just creating a nonlinear editor. I have a lot more problems with AE than Premiere, much of it comes down to Gimp-style UI kludginess.
(but Imagemagick is also great).
There are rough edges. The name, for one. The save/export fiasco. One of the transform tools recently became completely broken. But anything I can imagine doing in image manipulation can usually be done in GIMP with a minimum of fuss.
Any details much appreciated.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/issues/5267
I made a separate install of 2.8 for an image where I really needed it. Not the most common tool and not the end of the world, but I think it qualifies as a rough edge.
I haven’t used the software for a long time, preferring Affinity, but I’ve tried all the major image editing programs and selection in none comes near the GIMP’s UX.
Anyone here want to pool some money and send this guy a Mac Mini off eBay or something?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATnpEOo3GJA
2.99.x (upcoming 3.0) is based on GTK3.
It's really amazing to see how far GIMP has come over the years while still retaining it's familiarity. I've used it on every Linux distro I've used and on Windows ever since I've learned of it's availability on the OS. I sincerely appreciate everyone who's been involved in this project over the years.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25011401
Is there a plan to ever include them? I check in on GIMP every other year or so to see if it's there.
https://wiki.gimp.org/wiki/Roadmap
We are scheduling it for version 3.2, there's no ETA though.