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The GIMP Gets Ready for 2.2
An anonymous contributor writes "As promised, this time it didn't take another 3 years for a new stable GIMP version to be released. 8 months after GIMP 2.0 hit the road, GIMP 2.2 is almost done. The GIMP developers released 2.2-pre2 today and unless any major problems show up, the GIMP 2.2.0 release is going to follow later this month. The GIMP Wiki has a comprehensive list of new features in GIMP 2.2 and here are some screenshots of the development version."
I wonder if the GIMP is slightly more useable on Windows in its next incarnation? I have been raving about the GIMP to anyone who will listen, for most people I know it's a very worthy replacement for Photoshop.
;)) and put the GIMP on XP for her. When she complained it was unusable, I didn't believe her - I've found it very intuitive under Linux. But after trying it on XP, it really does feel like a crippled version of the package I know and love - it's clunky, ugly and restrictive.
:/
However I recently set up a dual boot laptop for my gf (the only way she will boot into Linux though is to play FreeCiv
Now of course, she is using a commercial package derived from a bittorrent source, and my OSS evangelism has fallen flat on its face
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
Why is this is the "developer" section?
Erm.. I can't work out if you're trolling or not ;)
Clicky for Win32 goodness
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
The windows version is in the screen shots, note it says Gimp 2.2 on Windows XP.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
Gimp seems like a really good graphics package, but I still really struggle with the fact that it opens all these seperate boxes that I have to move around. I just want them snapped into a background.
I want the good old Photoshop/Illustrator/Dreamweaver layout, without having to shuffle 4 floating tool windows about that do different stuff. I'm sure that there is a really good reason to the layout, but I just can't get beyond this unusual interface, and just switch to windows graphics packages because of it.
Even if I make the image take up my whole screen, I don't like the fact that the tool window etc can wander around and aren't fixed - like every other graphics package that I've ever used. Why oh why does it have to be different?
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
Improved ability to copy and paste between GIMP and other applications, including OpenOffice and Abiword.
Yes! The number of times I've seen Linux newbies ask "Why can't I copy and paste from GIMP" is huge. Looks to be a great release
Just to add to this, it's a cinch to dock all of the toolbars together so you only have one window with all your tools lined up + open images.
Yeah, fine, nice features but I wonder why there is nearly no interest in supporting more than 8bits per color. There is a lot of digital cameras out there, I scan my photos in 48bit mode. It's pretty annoying to to the basic color adjustments in (unstable and ugly) cinepaint which I have to restart after each load/save to avoid a crash and then to continue editing the image in gimp2. If more features are added it will be even harder to make everything properly work in a greater color depth.
Another thing that I miss for a long time is 'macro recording' similar to MS Office or Photoshop actions. Why do I have to write some weird script-fu skeletons and look up for functions and their parameters? It would be much easier if I could record my actions and then to parametrize them some way...
I asked about this at mailing list but the replies were a bit vague about those topics (or even angry)...
With the advent of digital cameras and inexpensive film scanners, processing of digital photographs has become the single greatest use of any image manipulation program. As a Linux user, I am using the GIMP as the primary tool for making basic adjustments to my photos. My usual workflow is as follows:
1. remove dust etc. with clone tool
2. rotate (if neccessary)
3. crop
4. levels
5. color balance, contrast adjustment (if neccessary)
6. unsharp mask
The GIMP fails to provide the tools I require in cases 2, 4, 5 and 6.
I haven't found any way to preview the rotating so that I just can rotate the canvas until I see that a line that I want to be horizontal (such as the horizont) is really horizontal. It usually takes me several tries to get a line straight.
Levels and color balance suffer from lack of 16-bit color. After basic levels or white balance restoration, the result seems pixellated. The fine tonality that was present in the original is usually gone. This becomes more evident if the picture requires more color manipulation. This is the one thing I would most like to see improved in the GIMP!
Unsharp mask tool doesn't have a preview. This means that I have to use select tool first to select an area that I wish to preview, and then do USM-undo-adjust-USM-undo-adjust cycle until I have found the right parameters. This is very much a hassle, but I actually expect USM preview to be present in the GIMP 2.2.
My message to developers is: keep up the good work! Just do not add any more of the ridiculous plug-ins and artistic filters. Keep working on digital imaging support!
- Ismo
A lot of people like to be able to select individual windows from the taskbar. If you don't, then you can configure your taskbar to group all GIMP windows together. GIMP sets the same WM_CLASS property on all it's windows (even on plug-in windows) and it has done so since GIMP 1.2. That allows the window manager and your taskbar to easily identify GIMP windows and treat them as a group. You can then minimize/maximize all GIMP windows in a single operation, move the window group to a different desktop or whatever else you want to do...
Now what would be nice if there was an equivalent window manager hint available for Win32. Perhaps there is, and all that's missing is support from the Win32 GTK+ backend?
No... no, it really doesn't.
There is a need for GIMP as an application, sure, but my god there is a very long way to go, especially with the user interface, and look of the app, before Photoshop even begins to show signs of 'falling'.
I applaud all of the hard work done on the GIMP, by the many undoubtedly talented people who have given their time, but we are still four or five years away from a comfortable PS alternative, and allowing ourselves to think otherwise is totally counterproductive to actually achieving a Photoshop alternative.
This sig has been deprecated.
I paid nothing and get a high quality raster editot for non-print work, not nothing.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Besides Script-Fu and its successor Tiny-Fu, there's Perl, Python and Lua for you to choose from. There also used to be Java bindings and probably others but I am not sure if these have been updated for GIMP 2.x yet. Generally, all the functionality is available in a well-defined API and it is not a big deal to write a binding that allows you to write scripts/plug-ins in your favorite programming language.
Python scripting is in since 2.0 AFAIK.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Step 1: Find your mouse. Step 2: Put your hand on your mouse. Step 3: Move your mouse across your mouse pad or desk until the cursor on your screen to where you want the line to start. Step 4: Press down the left mouse button. Let go. Step 5: Hold your shift button for the next 2 steps. Step 5: Move your cursor on your screen to where you want the line to end. Step 6: Press down the left mouse button. Let go. Step 7: Let go of the shift button.
I like the new one better. In the onld one you had to either tab our mouse into the textbox, now you just press Ctrl+L. Not to forget the nice layout, bookmarks and simplyfied save dialog.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Actually there's an easier way to correct for a misrotated image and it's in GIMP since version 1.2. The transform tools have a Corrective mode (available from the tool options). In that mode you rotate the grid so it aligns with the horizontal/vertical lines in your image and the tool will rotate the image in the other direction so that these lines become horizontal/vertical.
GIMP 2.2 adds the often requested preview for transformations but actually Corrective mode is a lot more versatile and much easier to use especially when it comes to correcting perspective distortions.
The development version of GTK+ adds pretty nice keyboard navigation to the new file-chooser. GTK+-2.6 is supposed to be released soon so this will be on everyone's desktop soon. If you want to give it a try right now, you could use GTK+-2.5.5.
Anyone notice that the eyes on the GIMP icon move? That's the first time I noticed anything animated on slashdot other than the ads.
I like Gimp but I'm sorry, the name has got to go. If I'm proposing to my school to provide a piece of software on all campus computers it has to have a name that isn't this offensive.
Wow, I could make a living writing documentation.
Step 1: Put your hand on the mouse.
Step 2: Move your mouse across your desk relative to the "light" image next to the person's username. If you keep it "hovered" over it for a few seconds, it should say "Alter relationship".
Step 3: I'm going to introduce a new concept now. I call it "clicking". I won't go into depth on it, but you can probably check Wikipedia for a 5 page tutorial. Here it is simply: Apply pressure to the left mouse button. Release button.
Step 4: The screen should change to one with the title "Your Relationship with" and the person you want to add to your list's name. Read this page.
Step 5: "Click" on the circular box beside where it says "Friend" or "Foe". Here's a hint: "Friend" means you like them. "Foe" means you don't. You probably learned this concept in grade school. I ate paste most of the time and I still learned how to distinguish between the two.
Step 6: "Click" on the button that says "Yup, I'm positive". Our friends at Slashdot have kindly spelled this out in terms we can clearly understand.
Step 7: You're done. You are now given a nice list of who's in your list.
HTH.
I looked in the feature list but i couldnt find this feature, its been aching to be in there for years and its one of the only major reasons i dont use GIMP: Non-destructive filters, i.e being able to apply a filter and then later go back and edit the parameters of that filter or take it away, much like photoshops adjustment layers and effects panel. Theres no excuse for not putting this in because it could fit in the existing structure and filters. As my final year project im writing something similar to that idea but a kind of hybrid with connectable blocks. I really wish they would put this in, they could easily do it better than photoshop and make GIMP serious competition. If they already have someone let me know?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
This has been planned for a long while, GEGL is the library that is planned for this in GIMP, by introducing a new low level library for all the core image processing a smoother path towards higher bitdepths will also occur.
There is no opposition between a graph of operations / connectable blocks and a layer tree.
To do this the Gimp needs to become nicer to use for the gimp newbs, I've used photoshop for ages, before that, I used Paint Shop Pro, the change from one to the tother wasn't painless, but it was still easy enough (ie. intuitive) to find out what I wanted to do.
However, any time I've used the gimp I stop after hardly any time, almost nothing makes sense. Maybe that's an exagguration, but that's exactly how it feels.
Of course people who learnt with the Gimp find it natural, that makes sense, I'm sure if I perciviered, so would I , but it would take a lot longer that the PSP->PS switch, and what for? not much really. PS is superior to PSP in that it's industry standard, more powerful(it is, although i've not looked at psp for a while) etc etc. Where does the gimp stand? it's free, that's the only real advantage I can think of for the normal PS user. personally I think most people are better off paying out for the usability of PS.
I'm aware that the Gimp's getting better, but for real acceptance I think it needs:
To be easy to migrate to from PS/PSP.
Thats it really, at the moment, the Gimp is not. And to all the people saying you can fix the UI with a better window manager, that's useless to the masses(who you need). If you have to do something using a seperate program/utility to make the program you want to use better, it's not working like it should. Especially for a program not aimed at tech geeks. That's my 2p. Also, the name could be better.
If your company insists on using free software, then why are you running Windows?
> Why is this in the 'developer' section?
:)
Presumably so I can remind the developers to get their act together and add slicing functionality, like Fireworks and, later, Photoshop have done.
That's the big feature that's holding up efficient web dev with the GIMP. For an image tool to be practical, you need to be able to run off 10 or twenty adjacent (but arbitrarily arranged) sub-images in one step, from the one master file. It was the feature that originally gave Fireworks the jump on Photoshop for a year or so, and it's now a sheer necessity for web work.
You can use Python and Perl guillotining scripts based on guidelines, but for real web design with arbitrary shapes, there's just no substitute for slicing by transparent rectangular overlays.
It would probably only require a specialized layer type to be created, one which only holds rectangular objects, which can remember their individual 'save' settings and filenames.
That's a hint for developers, while we're here.
Press and prepress users need it, as do print designers and layout staff. Ad agencies may also need it, if they submit ads in PDF form to be embedded into the final layout as-is (and generally they do).
A designer needs to be able to see out of gamut colour (colour that can not print on their output device / colour space), so they can adjust their image not to change too much when printed in CMYK. You see, the CMYK and RGB colour spaces do not both contain the same set of colours, so some RGB colours cannot be reproduced in CMK and vice versa. Additionally, some output devices have even more restricted colour spaces, such as a litho press for newsprint.
Having someone's blue shirt come out purple in print is an unpleasant experience that's to be avoided. CMYK support and colour management both help avoid this. If the blue-now-purple shirt is a full page advertisment, you'll care about this when the advertiser comes a-knocking.
In general, most colour adjustment for print should be done in RGB (it's easier to control colour in RGB) but previewed in CMYK so you can get a better idea of how it'll print. In the GIMP as things stand, you can't really see how your work will print.
Calibrating your display is only half the story. If you don't have proper ICC profiles for your output device (printer / press), then it does you relatively little good. If you do have a properly calibrated display and suitable output device profiles, plus tools capable of previewing your work according to the output profile, then you may stand a chance of getting decent quality, accurate colour in print.
CMYK support is a pre-requisite for press colour management support. CMYK by its self is helpful, especially with an out-of-gamut warning, but only really comes into its own when combined with colour management.
I think you'll find, frankly, that the majority of people who know what CMYK _is_ will have a legitimate need for support for it. Most people neither know nor care.
Or I should say, it looks a whole lot better than before. A jump from Photoshop 4 to 5.
Especially the many preview screens will make a big difference to average users.
While I still have a Photoshop around (several years old) I won't go for the Gimp, there's no incentive, but it is slowly becoming a program you can actually reccommend to people on a budget...
Yeah yeah, that sounds blasé... but I do like PSD's text tools, multiple undo's, actions and well, just about everything. It grows on you. Someone just starting could now get used to the Gimp and maybe feel lost in Photoshop? It's possible.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Not that I don't agree with the point you are trying to make (I'd like to see more intelligent window management in Windows too), but by definition, how can "the world" have moved on if 95% of people (in "the world") are using an OS that hasn't?
As the parent poster said, this is the wrong mindset for an application. The OS dictates the interface to the application, not the other way around. It's very nice that The GIMP provides a flexible interface that advanced window managers can take advantage of. However, sometimes you have to acknowledge the constraints placed on you by your environment (i.e., Windows) and work within those constraints. Changing to an OS with better window managers is just not an option for some people (plus, if that were really the goal there would be no Windows port), and once you are limited to Windows, changing window managers is pretty much not an option either.
As some of the other posters have said, I don't want to see The GIMP get rid of the interface they have. But offering other interface variations (like MDI) via a preference could really improve the experience on other operating systems.
For real web development work, you should be using CSS and you can save http overhead by sending a single image and /slicing/ it with CSS,
as demonstrated here!
The only thing holding back 'efficient web dev' is the dominant browser:-(
* ugly user interface, no matter of WiW is the way to go or not, currently I have to dig around for my palette or brush dialogs far to many times they really MUST be dockable to the image window to make Gimp painless to use. People saying that the current way is 'right' are just bloody ignorant, this issue is really poping up every time gimp is mentioned somewhere, yet still the developers failed to address it properly in the last 5 years
* lack of a proper fullscreen mode, while its there is quite limited in they way that one can scroll, dialog boxes cover the drawing area so that one constantly has to move stuff around, again proper docking to the image borders might help a lot
* lack of advanced brushes, currently all of gimps brushes are quite primitive, just the bare basics and there is no way to write new-ones as plug-ins, making it hard to actually create new ones. That said it was been tried to implement new cool stuff, but it never made its way into the Gimp:
http://www.levien.com/gimp/wetdream.html
* lack of macro recorder, my 1996 version of Corel Photopaint had already a kick-ass macro recorder, making it a joy to create scripts, you just recorde a macro, do what you want, go into the script editor add a few parameters to it, add a GUI dialog and you have a nice script in basically no time, Gimp today is still stuck with only Script-Fu and friends which are both a pain to write and debug, no macrorecorder there at all
* lack of power in the scripting, plug-ins and PDB interface lacks functions, there are a bunch of functions that are available in the GUI, but not available in the scripting, so that one has to manually build-them, making scripting even more a pain than it already is. The GUI should ideally be just a 'container' that connects scripts with each other, everything in the GUI should be available in the scripting and each part of Gimp should be modifiable via scripting/plug-ins, brushes, gui, whatever.
* tablet support, while its there it is not really that good, double-clicking is almost impossible on the Gtk components, with a tablet the clicks end up at different positions, Gtk+ seems to lack the tolerance to still register it as doubleclick, might be a Gimp, Gtk+, Xfree86 issue or whatever, however its causing quite huge throuble in Gimp (if there is some fix/hack/patch for it I would like to know)
* load/save dialog, these are really just the standard Gtk+ ones with a single thumbnail, however for a graphic application it would be quite usefull to have full thumbnail view of all images, like you get in Nautilus or any fileviewer
* very bad suport indexed images, one doesn't need them all that often these days, but still sometimes one need them and then Gimp is just a pain in the ass, a decade old version of DeluxPaint was way better at handling them
* no quick&easy way to create brushes, ie. I would like to use a layer click a 'to-brush' button and then paint with it, however thats more or less impossible todo today, I have to save the image as brush, tweak some parameters, then select it from the brush dialog, etc. cost by far to much time for an operation that should really be 'single-click', beside from that brush handling itself is quite a arkward, some brushes are resizable, some others not, while idealy all should be modifiable and it even shouldn't be that difficult to implement
* developers seem to be quite hostile against any suggestions from the outside, both on IRC and on the mailing list, other people seem to have made similar experiences so its not just me, other OSS projects seem to be quite a bit more friendly to their users
There are probally a lot of more issues I have forgotten, but well, that should be the more important ones. Last not least, yeah I know, many people will now say that its OSS so I have no f*** right to critic it and if I would like the features I should implement them myself and beside Gimp is of course doing everything right and I am the one that is just using it wrong (wondering how that can happen after 6 years of gimp usage...), but well, go start flame me now...
You should update libexif then. The bug is there, not in the GIMP code.
you posted a workaround. The original problem still exists. I use 8 desktops and it is still a problem. Whether I use a desktop strictly for the Gimp, or I end up opening other applications (like my file browser to keep files handy for use in Gimp, like Composer to try out the file after editing, like other apps that get used at the same time as Gimp). Even if you use one desktop just for the Gimp, other windows of other apps often get opened and stay opened so you can work productively with the Gimp. And this problem gets magnified on screens smaller than 19".
/. story are jumping on the people posting problems about the app, instead of acknowledging that the poster may have a point. That's not how things get fixed.
Another problem is gimp tool windows opening up underneath other windows.
The top poster is bringing up a problem. That's how they get addresses. Most of the gimp defenders in this
I use gimp exclusively because I can't afford Photoshop and won't use windows. And yes, Gimp does things differently than Photoshop. Many gimp defenders are saying to take a month and learn how to use Gimp properly. Wrong. That's not how it works. Either it is intuitive, like Photoshop, or someone moves on to something else that works for them. Today, and many times in the past, I've seen gimp defenders post that Photoshop seems counter-intuitive, and Gimp seems intuitive to them. Maybe if they've been using FOSS, GNU/Linux since it was a multi-floppy download. But intuitive Gimp is not. I'm not a graphic artist, nor a graphic or artistic professional. I use the Gimp for hobby purposes such as touching up photos for amateur web sites, touching up photos for printing, creating banners, buttons, and am starting to use it for slightly more involved image creation. But I still find old versions of Photoshop (4.0, 5.0, 5.5) easier to use for many (not all) actions. I'm no expert, and haven't walked through every page of every manual and guide on Gimp, but I have quite a few downloaded, and have gone through some of the ones that are laid out like a photo-manual. A good basic one is on that site where the guy goes nuts on Microsoft every once in a while, Mozilla magazine, or something like that. But with Photoshop, I can draw a straight line, I can pick specific images out of a photo and transfer just the specific images (without adjoining images or background from the same photo) to other photos, etc. I still haven't figured out how to draw a straight line (I know its documented elsewhere), nor have I figured out how to isolate and move specific images from a photo to another photo, or crop everything else out of a photo except the specific image in the photo. In Photoshop, my brother, who doesn't know what version of windows he's using, doesn't know how to access the web on his dsl account without opening AOL (byos) and using AOL's interface, doesn't know how to upgrade an app like firefox to the newest version, doesn't know how to install and use spyware detection tools, doesn't know much at all about computers is still right at home in using Photoshop to manipulate images for posting on ebay. He can draw straight lines, isolate specific images in a photo and transfer it to another photo or crop everything else, and do other simple and not so simple things that I find difficult or impossible to do on gimp without reading manuals or taking a course. He didn't read any manuals to figure out what to do in Photoshop.
Am I slamming Gimp? No. I'm pointing out that there are usability problems in Gimp, and they won't get solved if we keep our heads in the sand about them. If the Gimp developers go on believing that there is nothing wrong with the Gimp, and the problem lies with the user, there will continue to be usability problems with the application.
I'm not a developer. I'm not a programmer. I am contributing in my own small way to a few other projects though, as an end user. I've actually paid for Free Software. I've submitted bugs with detailed ex
The thing that makes GIMP unusable for me is the fact that the tool windows even if set as utility windows, in Gtk, have to be focused separately, and even with focus follows mouse, the GIMP shortcuts ARE NOT ACTIVE when the canvas is not highlighted. So you have to click or hover over the project window and then use the shortcut. That is incredibly unusable for me.
CinePaint, formerly Film Gimp, "...is a free open source painting and image retouching program designed to work best with 35mm film and other high resolution high dynamic range images. It is the most popular open source tool in the motion picture industry -- used in 2 Fast 2 Furious, Scooby-Doo, Harry Potter, Stuart Little and other feature films. CinePaint is used for painting of background mattes and for frame-by-frame retouching of movies. It is being extended to do film restoration. CinePaint is available for Linux, Macintosh OS X, Windows, and other popular operating systems... CinePaint Features: ...
8/16/32-bits of color per channel (up to 128-bits RGBA)"
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Well if it wasn't for that 'cheap consumer crap', Windows users would probably retreat from the internet sooner or later because of all the viruses they get.
That said, you seem to forget that something like The Gimp has thousands of functions and options, with a great deal of flexibility as to what the user can do. (An anti-virus program does only one thing.)
You'd better compare the quality of the Gimp's interface to the one found in Photoshop or its veritable replacement, Jasc PaintShop Pro. That means, you should look at consistency, adherence to operating system standards, responsiveness, and user trails, i.e. the workload a user has (number of clicks and mouse-miles) in order to execute a certain manipulation of the document.
In terms of OS standards, for example, the Mac OS X GIMP is worlds behind Adobe Photoshop.
Do I still have to click on every single tool twice in order to activate it? (Once to activate the window, once for the tool). (A global focus-follows mouse setting for X11 would bring up UI issues with all other X11 programs I use.) Is the menu bar in the 'real' menu bar on top of the screen now? Does it use the OS standard keyboard shortcuts (Apple-S, Apple-C, Apple-W etc.?)
I'd really like to use The Gimp, but the interface has been putting me off all along.
...but actually Corrective mode is a lot more versatile and much easier to use especially when it comes to correcting perspective distortions.
You have no idea. This is (IMO) the one single, most useful feature of the GIMP.
Arbitrary inverse linear transformations.
That and quick editing of masks/alpha channels. I love being able to "paste down" grayscale right into the mask layer, or an arbitrary channel.
Mix that with the "compose images" feature...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
You mean to tell me that you're a Gimp developer, but you've never used Photoshop?!?!
There's your problem right there. No wonder Gimp is so hard to use.
No user interface designer or software developer should be afraid to use a competing product. It's your responsibility to know Photoshop cold before trying to write something that competes with it. Many of the users you're trying to win over certainly do.
No wonder you're having a hard time understanding why people think Gimp is clumsy and hard to use.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
"Dear GIMP Developers... This is your #1 useabilty issue. YOU may like it, but appearently everyone else HATES it."
:)
I prefer the GIMP's way. It's true that I'm more used to the GIMP now, but I used to use PhotoShop a fair amount (not professionally, but often enough to have an opinion), and the transition to the GIMP's style was a hitch, but a quick one. I soon preferred it, and still do. My Wacom tablet came with a copy of PhotoShop LE, and I was surprised when I tried it out to note how much I missed GIMP's click-anywhere-get-a-menu approach. (Also, the annoying install and license-code entry reminded of why I prefer Free software in general, but that's another story.)
Your mileage varies, but there are lots of people (judging from personal experience as well as other comments here) who like the GIMP's interface at least as well as PhotoShop's.
"Perhaps you might consider fixing it rather than telling us (how) to "deal with it".Dear GIMP Developers... This is your #1 useabilty issue. YOU may like it, but appearently everyone else HATES it. Perhaps you might consider fixing it rather than telling us (how) to "deal with it"."
a) But they *have* told you how to deal with it; if there's a way to make PhotoShop act more like the GIMP, I am unaware of it. (Which is a perfectly likely scenario.) However, I have a workaround: I use the one I like better. To "fix" the current way, IMO, would really mean breaking it, unless an interface change was introduced such that I got to keep the old way
Also, note that GIMP is forkable -- it's happened at least once, with CinePaint; the developers added features they needed, and the result is a product with its own strengths and weaknesses. Someone (you?) could take the code, and modify it as they like, or pay someone else to modify it to their specs, or convince enough other people to do one of these things that the same end is reached. However, the GIMP developers quite legitmately get to decide on their own priorities wrt to aesthetics and engineering.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5