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GIMP 10th Anniversary Splash Contest Winner Announced
ghost_crab writes "Following up on this story, the winner for the 10th Anniversary GIMP Splash Contest has been announced. Concurrently, a birthday edition has been released to the mirrors. Many happy returns, Wilbur!"
"We are collecting images with tutorials... "
"Unfortunately the winning entry wasn't accompanied with a tutorial..."
The top lettering ruins the image, it looks like a homepage logo from 1998. I would remove the text at the top, crop the gauge tighter and overlay a more subtle version number in the bottom right. What does everyone else think?
Is it only me, or the gauge suggests how long the GIMP project will last? ;)
Always put off dealing with time-wasting morons. If you would like to know how... I'll get back to you
I think you are correct. A friend of mine who works in the industry (he is running a network for a big graphic place so he knows his stuff) says photoshop and gimp have been feature-parity for all intensive purposes since photoshop 5.0 and that dates back to 1999
:(
So a free program has been able to do what a program costing thousands in upgrades and purchases since 1999 but it is still not making solid inroads into the graphics business. Why is this? My friend says the first thing people laugh at is the name. It might be called GNU Image Manipulation Program but nobody calls it that, it even calls itself GIMP. I think it should be called Graphic Image Manupulation Program and renamed to not use the acronym gimp.
It has all the ability to take over the graphics design business and that's some of the most entrenched markets of adobe. If only the name weren't turning people off
Well here is the thing. If you don't already know background on graphic editors and you want to look for a program to edit graphics what would you pick?
ImageTool
GraphicEdit
PixelPerformer
PhotoEdit
SPASTIC
I think you might not pick the last one and you might not even get to the point of finding out it really stands for Superior Program And Scripts To Image Control
That is the same thing faced by people who could benefit from gimp but skip over it because of the dumb name. So who named gimp that anyway?
There's nothing wrong with the name GIMP, it's either a self-effacing or kinky acronym depending what part of the English speaking world you are in. The GIMP isn't marketed to middle-management and souless functionaries, that isn't how free software takes hold. Build the binaries yourself and rename everything with an appropriately bland name and let us all know how the effect of the name change on peoples acceptance of the app.
In my experience, the name is irrelevant and the (Windows) users eyes glaze over as soon as you mention any of the following; "GTK libs", "GPL", "GNU", "Free Software", "Manual". If someone doesn't understand the basics of image editing and file formats, you're wasting time introducing them to the GIMP.
I've always thought that the GIMP was the graphic tool of choice... for developers. I mean, think about it; it's open source! It runs on Linux! It does things comparable to Photoshop and has lots of cool-looking effects!
But then, when you actually try using it for something beyond simple trickery, you start seeing the problems involved. For one, even on Windows, it uses multiple windows for the same app. That doesn't make ANY sense from a UI perspective, and means that I often have to click more than four times in order to bring GIMP back up to focus when it's behind other Windows. Even when you get beyond the horrible UI design (GIMP developers: please, please put it in an MDI window; you have no idea how much this would help), there are major features missing that most people would want. Where's the one step photo fix? Colour balancing? How do I even draw a straight line? The interface certainly doesn't make this easy, and doesn't have any simple steps in order to do so. Admittedly these things are probably in the manual or a plugin somewhere, but they should be much easier to find if the GIMP wants to attract more users.
For me, it is nothing more than a curiosity at the moment that I cannot use for any real work, and that's kinda sad, as I'd love to have a good open source program for that sort of stuff.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I couldn't agree more.
These splash screen contests aren't doing anything to help the GIMP project. Aside from that fact that they're horribly designed (which doesn't help to win over designers), they lack professional branding. The GIMP identity is all over the map (which doesn't help to win over anyone... especially graphic designers).
No doubt, there are more important problems facing the GIMP then their stupid identity. Nevertheless, these guys need to HIRE (and by "hire" I mean "pay") a professional designer or firm to design a) a good user interface, and b) a good identity.
Look at Firefox. FireFox's interface and branding is not earth shattering, but it is fairly solid. Other OSS projects should be following that example.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
http://developer.gimp.org/ Sign up and volunteer! I want to see EVERY SINGLE NAME in here that posted with a flame about the Gimp on the development team and working their asses off to patch in all the improvements they've so generously suggested. I await the products of your labor.