Paint.NET: The Anti-GIMP?

Arno contributes a link to Paint.NET, a free-of-charge raster-graphics program for Windows XP machines. "Quote: 'Paint.NET is image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows XP. Paint.NET is jointly developed at Washington State University with additional help from Microsoft, and is meant to be a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with all Windows operating systems. The programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with GDI+ extensions.' It really seems like a nice tool. I definitely prefer its UI to GIMP's."

Comments

Here it comes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before we all do the obligatory "GIMP r0xx0rz, .NET sux", please try downloading this... after it's Slashdotted. Very nice product, it doesn't have the advanced image conversion GIMP does, but very useful indeed.

I wonder if they used P/Invoke so I can run this on Mono?

Re:Here it comes.

[elmegil]

has an interface that doesn't take hours of struggle to learn to the point that it can actually be useful?

Re:Here it comes.

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Why are we comparing a simple painting program to the GIMP? It's like comparing an apple to an orange tree...

This is just a simple painting program, it works great for simple quick tasks. The GIMP is designed for more complex graphical tasks...

Compare GIMP to Photoshop. That's a legit conversation.

Re:Here it comes.

[rynoski]

Comparing the GIMP to photoshop is like comparing an apple to an orange tree...

You are better off comparing the GIMP to PaintShop Pro.

Re:Here it comes.

[MrEntropy]

You're joking, right? Gimp's interface is a fast track to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. It is so despised at the Linux based VFX facility I work at (300-500 people depending on current project load) that people have taken to either bringing in their own laptops with Photoshop to paint with or they run Photoshop under Wine. Seriously, are people actually still trying to compare Gimp to Photoshop from a usability standpoint? The performance difference alone should be enough to convince anyone to Photoshop comes out ahead.

Re:Here it comes.

[shokk]

Any reason why I have to reboot after installing a friggin Paint program? This is an app and has nothing to do with the core of the OS. There should be no rebooting for something like this!!

Re:Here it comes.

[jtshaw]

Dump the native toolkit and build a native Win32 UI on it? What about those of us that don't use Win32? Gimp runs on unix flavors, bsd, linux, mac, and Windows. Why would we ever want to dump support for all those other OS's many of the gimp developers themselves use.

Better suggestion is to keep improving the toolkit and the GIMP interface.

I've been using Gimp and Photoshop interchangably for a long time now and find both to be very powerful tools. As has been stated before, many of the key bindings are the same. Sure, the mouse stuff is different... but that is obvious given my Mac mouse only has one button.

This Paint.Net looks to be a lot better quality then Paint was for sure. However, it lacks the support for many image types Gimp and Photoshop support, as well as a lot of the advanced tools.

I haven't been playing with it for long... but where the hell is the plugin interface?!?

Re:Here it comes.

[Spy der Mann]

Gimp runs on unix flavors, bsd, linux, mac, and Windows. Why would we ever want to dump support for all those other OS's many of the gimp developers themselves use.

Ever heard of MONO, the software that lets you run .NET apps for Linux? Anyway, what use is having a software that runs everywhere, if its clumsy interface reduces productivity to a mere 20 or 10%?

And if you like the GIMP so much, why not make a "photoshop-like UI plugin" for it?

A replacement for MS Paint

[Pacifix]

If it's meant to be a replacement for MS Paint as the blurb states, I don't think the Gimp should feel threatened. The chasm between Paint and Gimp is lightyears wide. It's unlikely this program could attract the OSS devotion necessary to become really big, especially what with its association with MS and the sometimes irrational dislike this inspires in some of us.

Re:A replacement for MS Paint

[letxa2000]

If I ran the The Gimp project, I'd be running down the e-halls screaming "fix the interface! fix the interface!" right now.

I really wish they would fix it. That Gimp's interface sucks is one of the few reasons I still need to open Win4Lin from time to time: To run Paint Shop Pro. PSP 4.3 used to run under Wine but it no longer ran on the version that came with RH9 so I have to run Win4Lin to get PSP to work.

Heck, I'd buy the latest version of PSP if it ran natively under Linux.

I'm sure Gimp has lots of nice features but the interface is a joke. And to those that tell me that I should just learn the interface, no thanks. All my other Linux applications make sense and have an interface that is easy to sit down and use. Gimp is a major exception even within the Linux application area. I really don't know what they were smoking when they came up with that interface but I wish they'd stop inhaling and get a more standardized interface in there so I could stop needing to go into Win4Lin to do graphical work.

Re:A replacement for MS Paint

[alarch]

what is wrong with the gimp interface? I really like it. The only thing I hate is it does not have CMYK - in those very rare cases I need it (prepress work), I have to use Photoshop, which has really bad interface. Moral: its onlu matter of the point of view. There is no interface that fits everybody.

sad to say, but GIMP does lack

[hsmith]

I do a bit of graphics stuff and i would never put my Photoshop to the side. it is by FAR the best graphics program out there. GIMP is nice for little things at work, but for personal use i would never use it.

A few questions about it..

[suso]

• Is it open source?
  
• Does it work on anything besides windows?
  
• How is this program different from the 100 other free paint programs for windows?
  
• Why is this on slashdot and why are they saying this is the anti-gimp?
  

Re:A few questions about it..

[suso]

4) See #3 and because all /. headlines have to have inflamitory and misleading headlines to attract attention for some reason.

Yes exactly, I think it would have been better and more helpful to have a headline like "Paint.NET, an open source alternative to MS-Paint". I suppose slashdot has fallen into the same pit that all other mainstream media is trapped in where it must scare its audience into submission.

Re:A few questions about it..

[agraupe]

It only sucks for those who use photoshop extensively before switching to the GIMP. I remained free of Photoshop long enough that now I am completely used to the GIMP's interface, and I don't see why it is any better/worse than Photoshop's. I agree, it doesn't have some of Photoshop's features, but we need to stop complaining about the UI. Just because it is different doesn't mean it is bad. As I see it, we shouldn't try to convert the professional full-time users of Photoshop, but rather the people who pirate it. Piracy is a bigger threat to Free Software than it is to entrenched industry standard software, IMO.

Re:Interesting

[a_karbon_devel_005]

You should care because one of the nicest features of GIMP, and indeed all cross platform OSS is that it DOES work on Windows. It's a major help to development to have that user base. If GIMP gets dropped for Paint.NET on windows ( which I'm not saying/seeing it will, but it DOES apparently have MS's interest ) then GIMP will lose "hands at the wheel" for development/testing and that will contribute to it losing a bit of steam, even if YOUR only concernt is linux. Ask not for who the bell tolls, sir, it tolls for thee.

Re:Free of charge is not open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that it IS open source, your post looks rather moronic. FYI, RTFM before putting virtual foot in mouth.

OSS

[fozzmeister]

"In the spirit of all this freedom, we welcome any suggestions, as well as provide the source code free of charge for anyone who wishes to tinker with it. Please explore this website, download the software and try out many of the things you would do on those expensive commercial applications."

and the license
" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
"

Well fuck me, MS is sponsoring not just free software but Free software, Very interesting! Oh and can we take this and shove it on Linux?

Re:Interesting

[roca]

The fact is that the GIMP UI sucks and the developers don't care. Therefore it's inevitable that GIMP will eventually be replaced by something whose UI doesn't suck. It might be some evolution of Inkscape, or it might be a port of Paint.NET, but it must happen, and the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.

See the trap?

[jmorris42]

I see several interesting things here. Note how they had to use a GDI+ 'extension'? And someone is reporting sluggishness anyway, even on hardware that is fairly new. Tells me .net suffers from Java's Disease along with any other emulated environment and that the move to add in native hooks is already well underway. And of course it is in Microsoft's interest to make sure that .NET is 'multiplatform' in the hype but Windows only in practice.

Let this be an object lesson for all you Mono fetishists, .net and all it's works are nothing but a trap for the unwary. And will never live up to the hype anymore than Java did, although there is now hope for Java to become useful by jetisoning the emulation and making it just another object oriented language that GCC will grind down to ELF executables.

Re:I have to clear this up!

[IdntUnknwn]

The UI is fine if you make an effort to learn to use it.

I believe thats exactly what everyone is complaining about. I'm sure the GUI is certainly usable once you learn it, the problem is that there is an enormously steep learning curve involved that turns the majority of potential users away.

If I replaced your car's steering wheel with joysticks, I'm sure that once you learn it you'll drive just fine. But you'll still curse me for forcing you to learn to drive that way. Most people will probably just give up. At the same time, I'm sure that there will be someone out there who will indeed be willing to learn it and say to everyone else "put some effort in, you whiny idiots."

Nothing irrational at all

[FreeUser]

especially what with its association with MS and the sometimes irrational dislike this inspires in some of us.

Based on Microsoft's behavior past and present, its effect on the industry and emergence of technology in general (quite negative), and their publicly stated intentions with respect to Linux, software freedon in general, and freedom to innovate vis-a-vis software patents and ligitagion in general (of which their funding of the SCO debacle is but a precursor), I'd say there is absolutely nothing whatsoever "irrational" about the dislike an association with Microsoft inspires in any of us.

Now, the expression of that dislike can sometimes take irrational forms, just as the expression of anger can on any subject, but that by no means belies the entirely rational, indeed very justified, anger and dislike being felt.

Finally, given Microsoft's long history and ongoing policy of customer lock-in, and their stated strategy of leveraging .net towards those ends, avoiding any .net project like the proverbial plague is not only wise, it is critical to the self-preservation of any software developer wishing to work in an environment free of Microsoft's coercive control, be it Apple OS X, FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, Palm OS, Solaris, or anything else.

I do agree that this program is no threat to the GIMP. Its licensing is more restrictive, it requires .NET, and, as you say, it addresses a different niche of users.

Re:here here

[phasm42]

Features are objective, what interfaces you like or don't like on the other hand seems to be very subjective.

There has been a lot written on this subject lately, and a strong case has been made that interface isn't as subjective as you think. Apple's design of the iPod is a common example. There is such a thing as a truely good interface. Paul Graham has written about it here and here.

"GIMP is also not meant to be like Photoshop"

[SimHacker]

Comparing GIMP to Photoshop is TABOO!

According to one of the GIMP developers, BigSven:

"GIMP is also not meant to be like Photoshop and we aren't trying to win PS users over. We are creating a tool that gets the job done. Some approaches of PS are worth to copy, others aren't. GIMP is not a Photoshop clone and it was never meant to be one." -BigSven

"Gimp was not written as a competitor to Photoshop." -mac[LAG]

Please do not compare GIMP with Photoshop, because that's a very sensitive point with GIMP fanatics, who go out of their way to ignore Photoshop, and wear their ignorance as a badge of pride.

-Don

Re:"GIMP is also not meant to be like Photoshop"

[IamTheRealMike]

I've not read such a load of bollocks in a very long time.

Do you really think the developers of the Gimp, who are in my experience universally reasonable and smart, have a "macho" attitude where they don't want the Gimp to be easy to use? You do? I guess you ignored all the usability improvements they made in each version released in the last few years then.

But it doesn't surprise me. I suspect you are not really a Gimp user, I suspect you are simply one of many Slashdotters who downloaded a Windows build, and went "eww no MDI" and then went back to using a warezd Photoshop copy you got from Kazaa.

Strangely, the Gimps interface works perfectly well on Linux which has decent window management.

There are hacks available to make the Gimp windows appear in one big container MDI-style on Windows, but they don't work very well. MDI itself doesn't work very well, actually, and GTK+ on Linux has never supported it and never will (because it's not needed).

I can tell you straight off that the reason the Gimp has the UI it does, is because this is the best UI for the job. It's developers are almost all Linux users, and the UI there is a good one. The reason they "reject" the standard crap that's thrown about in any story that mentions the Gimp is because it's just that - crap, which doesn't apply to the version of the Gimp they use, so why should they care? It's not like they get paid to take market share from Photoshop. I'd say that Gimp on Linux is for 90% of Photoshop users (I say users including all the random kiddies who downloaded it because they want to be "pros") an absolutely solid replacement. I know that in all the years I've used it for commercial web design, photo manipulation and UI development it has never yet left me wanting.

Re:"GIMP is also not meant to be like Photoshop"

[Ogerman]

I'd say that Gimp on Linux is for 90% of Photoshop users (I say users including all the random kiddies who downloaded it because they want to be "pros") an absolutely solid replacement. I know that in all the years I've used it for commercial web design, photo manipulation and UI development it has never yet left me wanting.

Exactly.. This is what most people seem to ignore.. Gimp is not Photoshop. But it does happen to meet the needs of probably 80-90% of Photoshop's target market. You would not believe how many wasteful copies of Photoshop are licensed in the corporate world because Joe Idiot says, "Hey, we need a photo editor.. go buy the best thing out there." And $699 later, there's the latest version of Photoshop. (And oops.. it's hard for newbies to use (just like Gimp), so go buy a copy of Photoshop for Dummies too) Sure, Photoshop is still the best thing out there (today at least), but most of the people using it would have been fine with PSP or Gimp.

And here's the real kicker: how fast would Gimp improve if those 80-90% that don't really need Photoshop contributed a few bucks each to the project? Granted that won't happen, but there are other ways to harvest this market. The Gimp folks need to take a look at how they can capitalize on what they've developed.