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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)."
(donning asbestos underwear)
FYI, I am a programmer and web app designer, not a graphics artist. That being said, I feel that any GUI application with a well-designed interface should be fairly intuitive and I should be able to get up to speed in a few minutes (I learn quickly).
I tried The Gimp on Linux. I tried The Gimp in Windows (the new native version). I still cannot get it. I try Photoshop and I can be halfway productive instantly. The result suck, remember I am not a graphics designer and I cannot even write legibly let alone draw with a pencil or a mouse, but I can get around the filters, tools, etc.
My experiences with other peoples' work proves that The Gimp is capable and powerful. My experiences with my own work proves that The Gimp has a steep learning curve mostly due to its odd interface.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Unfortunately, I have to agree with the author here. Most applications in the OS world are obvious in the sense that they are written by Developers (apps that I work on included). That is probably one of the biggest things missing in the OS world - UI people. People who understand how to ogranize all the options / bells&whisttles / etc into something meaningful and intuitive to the average 'joe' user. While there are definitely great strides towards creating more UI friendly apps, it is still one of the gravest detriments to our community as a whole.
Carl P. Corliss
One of the really cool things you can do with adjustment layers is work with an image you're turning into black and white and make it look like an honest-to-God black and white image (as opposed to merely a desaturated color image). In some ways, it's almost like taking an internal picture of your subject and adjusting the tones and hue on the fly, which can turn out some very nifty results. In GIMP, you just don't have that flexibility.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
But when it comes to working with images I still have to run Win4Lin to open a Win98 session and run Paint Shop Pro. The interface on The Gimp is just unusable to me. And maybe it has all the same features as Paint Shop Pro, but at least with PSP I can find them.
Gimp 1 had a terrible interface. No bones about it. Gimp 2 however, has a decent UI. It's not super amazing, but its good enough, above average.
The problem is that these Photoshop users are used to photoshop. Any other UI no matter how slick and perfect will be worse for them. They are trained on photoshop so well that using anything else kills their efficiency. Like driving stick for the first time after driving automatic your whole life.
I'm no graphic wizard, just a programmer. And I recently got gimp 2 for windows and linux. I couldn't do fancy things right away, but its not because I couldn't find the buttons or they were in bad or hidden places. It's because I don't know anything about making graphics. If graphics people start out on the gimp instead of photoshop they will be just as good on that.
So don't try to convert people to gimp. Just get new people who are about to pirate photoshop for the first time to use gimp instead.
That's about it...
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Adobe hasn't just made Photoshop well, but they also have quite a few professional tools that I don't think I could live without.
Illustrator, InDesign, AfterEffects, and Acrobat(files) are other leading softwares that are essential for me (as a graphic designer). And once you get used to the way Adobe feels and organizes tools, you get accustomed to it, so much so that it becomes a pain to try to use other non-Adobe programs. This familiarity comes in handy, however, when you think to yourself, "How would I do [x] in InDesign or AfterEffects?" and the first thing you think of, it's there.
Adobe has a monopoly on my graphics editing.
When I was primarily a Linux user, I used GIMP for many hours out of each day, tinkering with my photos, working on images for web sites, etc. It is a good tool, and it has a lot going for it. The new interface is nice, but... in so many regards, GIMP is no Photoshop. I quickly realized this after I got a Power Mac and Photoshop 7.
Even though I do not use Photoshop in any professional context, it is a phenomenal product even for my personal use. Here are the major things that keep me from using GIMP on the Mac beyond occasionally playing with it:
Don't get me wrong - GIMP is a nice program, and for the price it absolutely kicks ass. But just that handful of problems listed above will be enough to turn off serious photo/graphics folks. Hell, I'm a geek that has used Linuxy and UNIXy stuff for years, and I am seriously bothered by those issues I listed, among other nit-picky ones.
Adobe doesn't have much to worry about at the moment. But if an Aqua native version of GIMP came out and could offer similar performance on high-powered Macs, then they might have reason to start sweating.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
Alot of people have animosity towards Adobe, myself included over various issues, but there is one thing that Adobe has that nobody else can hold a candle to: Photoshop.
Also Illustrator, InDesign, and a little thing called the Adobe Type Library.
Photoshop is a wonder, yes, but it's not the only horse in Adobe's barn. Hell, in my opinion it's not even the best one. InDesign 3 takes that accolade. (Optical kerning: hellooooo, nurse.)
I write in my journal
I often find myself holding the space bar and trying to pan down a Web site or a list of files in Explorer, or trying to use Alt to grab a colour in Paint/Flash/whatever, or trying to use X to switch colours. :/
That's not to say that i don't have problems with Photoshop (and/or Adobe in general). One of my biggest problems with Photoshop (for Windows, at least) is that the program doesn't seem to save its settings in an INI file (or, if it does, it does it extremely poorly). So if i log out of Windows without specifically going into Photoshop and hitting the close button, or if Photoshop crashes for some reason (rare, but it has happened), or whatever -- if Photoshop isn't absolutely perfectly shut down the proper way, it resets all of its settings. It's extremely annoying.
The slow progress with Photoshop is getting a little ridiculous too. I definitely like CS, of course, and i can appreciate not adding every single little thing that comes along, but i think they could stand to add more useful features than ever-improving image browsers.
I also hate that gAMA bug Photoshop has with PNG. I know this isn't really Photoshop's fault, per se, but i wish there were a more graceful way of dealing with it within the program. Having to run pngcrush -rem gAMA in.png out.png every time i save a PNG in Photoshop is kind of annoying. :(
Also, maybe it's just the CS version, but ImageReady is a buggy piece of shit. It's usable, but i constantly have problems with it, like the screen not redrawing when i zoom in, or the options bar getting stuck in random places, or various windowing glitches. Also annoying is that fact that disabling anti-aliasing on the Magic Wand in ImageReady does not actually disable anti-aliasing. But maybe this is just my copy, heh.
but that article author is entirely correct.
... well, with a fuck load of effort I got separate windows to dock into the main toolbar. In other ways it was an improvement over Gimp 1 though, with brush preview and all that. Shame that this is all stuff that DPaint had in the 80's.
I used to use Gimp an awful lot before I found Photoshop. Photoshop was bliss compared to the Gimp's UI. I then heard that Gimp 2 would fix a lot of the UI issues. However I was very disappointed when I tried Gimp 2.
I had been led to believe that this version would fix all the UI issues with the previous one.
The new text tool was so deficient that I was longing for the old text tool back. The UI was meant to be dockable
The Gimp can't be fixed. It needs a whole new front-end designed in collaboration with the users. A few prettier icons doesn't fix it.
Indeed. Photoshop has gotten a lot of attention, and it's payed off.
And let me just say that, as a graphics editor, I find myself using GIMP more and more. I still, easily, use PS quite a bit more than the GIMP. However, GIMP continues to pile on desirable features, and at the very least, I am compelled to save all my final works using GIMP's superior compression for JPEG, and PNG (and probably more).
Even though I love my photoshop, I hope to one day see it replaced with GIMP or another Free Software (RMS' definition) solution.
considering The Gimp is free it's a GREAT DEAL!
Read that again. Once more. Think about what you are saying.
Consider the degree of difficulty necessary to achieve making something that is free a "great deal."
If we in the open source community are to satifsfy ourselves with having given value by creating something that doesn't have negative utlility, then its time for us to stop the madness entirely.
We must do great work with our energies, or spend the time doing something else. Imagine that Steve Jobs or the corporate slavedriver of your choice were constantly riding you to make "art rather than crap." Imagine that your livelihood depended on making it great, and that you were worthless if it weren't. Otherwise, don't bother.
Anything less, and you are a poser wannabe.
Sorry, I don't buy it. Nothing we do is a "great deal" because its free. It should be a great deal at any reasonable price, and an astonishing piece of wonder because it is free (both in terms of price and liberty).
And for the record, that reviewer paid for the software, and found it wanting at any price. It had negative utility for her, and frankly, that sucks -- notwithstanding the wonder and excellence of the effort.
Its ok to say, "hey, that's not for you, sorry it didn't work out for you." But to say, "hey, its free, what did you expect?" Sorry, it just ain't the hacker ethic.
In the early 1990's, Mac's ruled my university's computer labs. Though I used vector programs for my engineering studies, my roommate was Industrial Design major so he was always talking about the paint apps.
The hot "paint" program back then was something called "PixelPaint" and it seriously grabbed the Architecture and Industrial Design students of the day. Everyone wanted it because of it's large pallete size, gradiant fills, and razor-like precision.
One day, a program called PhotoShop showed up in the labs (legally installed by a student who forgot to delete it before s/he left). It was cool, but PixelPaint still out classed it. Every line you drew was "fuzzy". The pallete size was so big, that it was hard to select a particular color. And overall, things just seemed blurry even when printing or copy/pasting to another app.
The designer's names were in the about box and I actually saw the lead developer post to the comp.sys.mac.* usenet newsgroups so I wrote him some email to complain about this horrible little app in both it's interface and ability.
He actually responded to my critiques and spent some time explaining just how programs like "PixelPaint" could really only make good-looking "on-screen" graphics due to low colors and resolutions. His app "PhotoShop" was aiming at photographic images where razor-sharp lines looked fake. He even replied about my suggested interface improvements and told me what they had planned for the next version which was even better than what I suggested.
This really impressed me. I know that this type of interaction between commercial programmer and user doesn't exist anymore, but it was amazing the patience that he used to point out my misunderstandings (and I wasn't even a real customer at the time).
The interaction I've had with the GIMP community hasn't impressed me. I'm a little more technically savvy than some of the Mac users out there, but getting the GIMP installed and usable is a pain. The GIMP is capable of a lot of things, but its defaults really don't impress me. I feel like I really have to work to get it out of PixelPaint mode into Photoshop mode (and I'm not really knowledgeable enough to say that I get those changes right). The online communities just aren't as open or friendly to answer the questions that I've asked even if I've tried reading TFM and FAQ.
If I were tight for money, I think I'd pay my bucks for GraphicConverter (a Mac shareware app that has a similar PixelPaint feel) rather than waste the time on the GIMP.
I'm a big supporter of Open Source software, but I've thought for a while that a group of people really need to decouple the engine from the interface and produce a "better" photo manipulation software in the way that Camino (and later Firefox) successfully rebuilt alternative user experiences on the Mozilla web-browsing engine.
The thing that has me unable to switch to Photoshop is its hopelessly borked automation.
There is a scripting system for photoshop - but it is lame and incomplete.
For example layer objects in Photoshop have no size or position properties under the automation interface.
Corel by contrast has supported objects with usual properties under automation since 1995 - that's almost ten years before Photoshop and they still haven't caught up.
The argument that nobody uses scripting is lame - since it doesn't work - its a given that it won't be used - so nobody uses it - so it - the point is that its in there. Actions have been an important part of Photoshop for a lomng time - but actions are limited - they can't do referential manipulation (reduce resolution on n number of dissimilar images).
They can't be data driven.
and they support no logic whatsoever.
Pretty silly overall.
AIK
I don't post to slashdot saying "I would move to Windows if..."; why should you?
Because Linux is more than an OS. It is part of an ideology as well. Perhaps Open Source fits the poster's philosophy of life or maybe they just want to save some bucks. It's doubtful any of those things would apply to someone moving in the other direction (unless you're a programmer who sees Open Source as taking bread from their hungry children's mouths or something).
For me, the GIMP works well enough (I don't see anything wrong with it) and hey, it's $0 and I can see the source code. For that reason (the source code) it will ALWAYS be better than photoshop.
The key here is your first two words. Hey, if it works for you, great! I started with the GIMP and thought it was wonderful. Then I got ahold of a copy of Photoshop Elements 2.0 and all I could do was say "Wow". I was so impressed I bought a copy. I've since tried Photoshop 7.0 and been even more impressed. However I'm not impressed with the cost of entry. For that reason I'd love to have GIMP come up to speed. So, put me in the column with the parent (except that I already use Linux) in wanting certain things to work better than they do now.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
That's been pretty much my take on MDI for many years. MDI was, as far as I can tell, Microsofts attempt to imitate the Macintosh layout in a multiple-window environment. Just maximize an MDI window and, apart from the title bar at the top and the main window covering everything else, you pretty much have the Macintosh style.
Now, IMNSHO, perhaps one of the main reasons the Macintosh did things this way was to save screen real estate. The original Mac was 640x480 or less, on a tiny 12 or 13 inch screen. Keeping one menu for all your windows saved space. With large screens and higher resolutions being so common nowadays, I think this style of screen layout is less justified. It's a style and some people like it, yes. There's just less of a reason to do things that way. And, once again IMNSHO, the Microsoft Windows method of having one window covering everything is just plain ugly and clumsy.
Give me virtual desktops, lazy focus-follows-mouse, and multiple top-level windows please. That's the way I like to work. Then again, I am a long-time Linux geek and my name's (still) in The Gimp credits. I may be just a little biased :)
The reason to put the menu bar at the top of the screen hasn't changed. It's based on solid research, and a little principle called Fitt's Law.
And a hefty helping of Kudos to you for contributing your time and skills to freeasinbeerandfreedom software, but if you think good interface design is "...a style and some people like it, yes - then you're part of the problem. The user interface matters and too many programmers - Open Source and commercial - treat it as though it's just a matter of personal preference, or worse, as though it doesn't matter at all. And I'm not just talking about GUIs.