Slashdot Mirror
The Gimp from the Eyes of a Photoshop User
Eugenia writes "Many in the F/OSS community are raving about the Gimp, however pros who have actually used Photoshop think differently: This Mac professional designer goes through the steps of getting Gimp 2.0 up and running on his Mac, only to get baffled by the chaotic interface in general and its non-standard UI compared to other Mac apps, its slowness to open large files and to apply filters, the unintuitive tools that accompany it and its very visible bad quality of text and lines/shapes. That designer even bought a 'supported' version of MacGimp by an OSS-Mac company, Archei, but he never heard back for his support requests (free Gimp for Macs here). I think that's one of the best-written articles I've ever read about the reality of most open-source geek-driven projects vs their equivelant professional/proprietary ones. Personally, before I get persuaded to use Gimp again for my photography projects, I would need --in addition to the author's peeves -- full 16-bit per channel support, high-quality scanning/printing drivers with integrated GUI (a'la SilverFast), and a 'crop and rotate' feature (as seen in PS/PSE). Besides, both Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop Elements cost bellow $100 (with PS Elements getting bundled with most scanners/printers/digital cameras, albeit without the much needed 16bit support either)."
On the matter of Text, use FreeType for the GIMP. It produces beautiful scaled, rotated, and angled text output.
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
Photoshop is great, but you CAN run it under Linux. It's a supported application of
Crossover Office.
I use it all the time under Linux with no problems.
And I almost forgot. The Obligatory link for the google impaired. :) Hinted, Kerned, and Anti-Aliased to your hearts content.. fully buzzword compliant!
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
Not the way you think...
FilmGimp a.k.a. CinePaint, is for a few specilized film editing applications, mostly to do with hand-rotoscoping, dust removal, and such. It is not a general purpose tool for video editing like Premiere or AfterEffects.
Gentoo Sucks
I personally find that Illustrator is even more candle repellent. In terms of Vector graphics manipulation, I think it is tops.
This is the company that invented PostScript after all.
A lot of people fire back about GIMP's interface with, "But think of how friendly to multiple monitors it is!"
Never mind that Photoshop works just fine with multiple monitors! It has as far back as I can remember. I've seen five-monitor Mac setups arranged in order of the artist's graphics processes, moving from one monitor to another, going from area to dialog to area and so forth.
I get WHY people justify GIMP's interface. I just don't agree whatsoever.
Thank goodness I have a mac. :)
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Isn't that sort of reaction kinda par for the "Mac user tries anything else" course?
You're a troll, but I'll bite. The author of the article is not just some Mac user, he's Joe Gillespie, an established pro in graphic design and typography. By "established", I mean for the past 20 years or so he's been doing this kind of thing. Link 1, link 2. Nothing a little trip to google won't clear up if you're looking for credentials.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
I think that it just depends on what you are used to using. A GIMP user with a lot of experience with the program, may have the same problems when migrating to Photoshop. I know I do. I'm not very familiar with anything but Photoshop basics, but I'm quite familiar with GIMP.
Many of problems that the author sites in the review are problems that are native to the Mac version. I agree that GIMP does need some help in many areas, but the program isn't ideal for Macs right now, without some work.
A) It requires an X11 server on top of the MacOS.
B) The filesystem issue is related to the fact that GIMP wasn't designed for OSX, even if it can be compiled for it.
C) The font issues are related to the fact that it is using a different font renderer than OSX. There is no sub-pixel hinting going on in his makeshift X-server, and it looks like it is using an inferior render.
Really, I don't disagree with the reviewer. They are legitimate points, but the majority of the problems are simply related to the Mac install.
In regards to other complaints...
Tools *ARE* organized; e.g. first row has selection tools, and fourth row has drawing tools.
I'm not sure what was up with his copy, but JPEG images (over 30 MB) open up within a fraction of a second for me.
The "reviewer" hasn't familiarized himself with how the drawing tools work to get them to function properly. I personally feel that this person is just looking for a Photoshop clone, which GIMP is not. It is similar to Photoshop in the sense that it performs most of the same functions, but it is not a clone by design. The UI seems practical to some of us; even novice users that I know. But hey... To each his own. Again, the GIMP does deserve criticism in some respects, but 3/4 of the problems that the reviewer sited were not the fault of GIMP or its design.
Optical kerning is, as I understand it, a new auto-kerning algorithm in InDesign 3. Rather than kerning based on metrics, it kerns based on actual letter-forms, producing much more pleasing results. I use optical kerning for all type above about 12 points, within reason. It is apparently quite CPU-intensive, because InDesign really slows to a crawl when you turn on optical kerning for an entire page of body type.
Between optical kerning for display type and optical margin alignment for justified body type, InDesign 3 just kicks typographic ass.
I write in my journal
Bob
Gimp 2.0 has a top menu to access features just like photoshop, in addition to the right click method.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
Optical kerning is, as I understand it, a new auto-kerning algorithm in InDesign 3. Rather than kerning based on metrics, it kerns based on actual letter-forms, producing much more pleasing results.
Optical kerning was around at least as of InDesign 2.0. In theory it is a very nice method for kerning; in practice it doesn't seem to make as big of a difference as you might think, at least with fairly typical serif and sans-serif fonts. In the print environment in which I worked, we used optical kerning for our newsprint, with our two dominant fonts being Calisto MT (serif) and Gill Sans (sans-serif); neither of those fonts suffer serious colisions with normal metric kerning, so optical kerning didn't make a night-and-day difference.
Also, optical kerning does add a modicum of additional spacing over the flow of a story or document, as in a 100 line story might end up 102-105 lines after being optically kerned (again, as of InDesign 2).
It's not that easy yet; they are making headway, but the GIMP is still straggling behind somewhat in this area. They have grand plans to move to GEGL (GEneric Graphics Library) http://www.gegl.org/ , which is a graphics processing library that will apparently (among other things) make it easier to use ICM profiles and work in CMYK.
I've heard that GIMP 2.0 has CMYK support, but I've also heard that it's not quite useful enough yet. ICM profiles have been in GIMP for a while though. As far as LAB colour and stuff... haven't seen anything like that yet.
All in good time... for my fairly modest stitching, retouching, and modifying needs, GIMP works great. I'm an RGB man.
Standing at the very edge of my imagination, I peered into the inky void and realised -- I couldn't think up a new sig.
Liquefy tools? Much better type handling? Much better color matching? New filters? Real vector layers? Soft proofing? Hello?
I'm not sure what you mean by "rendition". Do you mean how the colors render on your monitor? Do you mean your color profiles? In both cases the problem is you and not the software. Photoshop has about the best color management engine out there.
I have no ideas what you're talking about.
The fact that you teach design is clear to me, as you don't know the first thing about production. I have lost track of the die cuts I have made with Illustrator. You can make die cuts with fucking Quark if you need to. Man, I would hate to be one of your students.
Then it's a good thing millions and millions of designers choose Photoshop.
I don't know where you live, but here (NYC) good designers make $600+ a day and high level retouchers make $150/hr.
Back on the topic: although people seem to be concentrating on UI issues, GIMP is nowhere near feature-complete with respect to Photoshop.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Free does not mean much to a professional who needs to get things done. Would a pro photographer use a quikimart freebe camera to shoot promo material?
Also, Photoshop *does* have a complete API in the lastest CS version (Using a JavaScript implementation--no cludgy C). I'm pretty sure it can perform all the actions avail. from the GUI. Map generation would be pretty trivial if this is the case.
I do a lot of graphics work. I've also used a large number of the true graphics programs (3d, 2d, vector, etc... not MSPaint) out there at one point or another. In addition to this, I also do freelance development from time to time. It is the user interface alone that makes or breaks the program, in my opinion. Without a good interface, it doesn't matter what the rest of the code does.
Here are my remarks on a few of the ones I've used at one time or another:
Photoshop - Easy to use interface. Provides an easy introduction for those unfamiliar with the program and provides the power necessary for advanced users.
GraphicsConverter - Another easy to use interface. Though it lacks the power photoshop has, it makes up for it in the large number of image formats it can read and write.
Paint Shop Pro - I am not overly fond of this interface. For one, I think there are far too many icons used. Drowning out interface buttons and such with icons is very irritating for a novice user as they generally have to hover the mouse and wait for the tooltip to figure out what something is. Further, it has the "too much help" syndrome that seems a standard on windows. I much prefer that the help system be delegated to something else and not be built into the program.
Poser - This is definitely a unique interface, but it still provides simplicity for novice users and control for advanced users. The largest downside is that by not using default system-provided user interface widgets, some of the details you would expect are not there whereas they would be there if the system versions were used.
Bryce - Bryce is extremely easy to use. It was my first 3d program and is still one of my favorites due to its simplicity. I have yet to find another 3d program with an object placement system that I like more than bryce's.
Blender - Not a big fan. Though it is quite powerful, the learning curve is very steep. On Macs, the interface text is quite small in some places and hard to read. The interface is also a bit clunky. Sections are not as clearly divided as I would like.
Carrara - I have not used this one for some time (and as such, newer versions may be different than what I remember), but I found it quite user-friendly when I did. All tools were placed in a context-sensible place and it had the camera system that I liked from bryce.
The Gimp - I don't like it. The user interface is extremely clunky by my standards. Consolidating a number of the windows into one and reorganizing the tools would go a long way towards helping it. There is also the fact that I am used to my nice Aqua interface and it has the drab sharp bevels and general lack of detail that is natural to most x86 OS's under default configurations.
Illustrator - I do not use this program frequently, but being from adobe, it has a very similar interface to photoshop that makes it very easy to use.
Fireworks - I'm apathetic about this one. It provides no real functionality that I cannot get in a program whose interface I like better and has more stuff I can use.
Freehand - Pretty much the same as Fireworks. I've only mostly toyed with this one as I found Illustrator more appealing.
One other feature I like about photoshop is that it is extremely easy to do image versioning. When doing web designs, I will
Note, the above is based on experience using Gimp 1 on the OS X X11 some time ago.
So you're basing your opinion on software that is 3 years old running on a platform it was ported to, but not initially designed for. Now that's a useful evaluation. Try the latest version on a Linux desktop.