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GIMP Not Enough for Linux Users?
nursegirl writes "Novell has been running a survey about apps that people need in order to convert their data centers or desktops to Linux. The online survey has been running since Jan 13, and Adobe Photoshop was at the top of the list as of February 1. Desktoplinux.com has an interesting article about why the existence of the GIMP isn't enough for many professionals."
As powerful as GIMP is, I find myself struggling to complete tasks that would be easier in Photoshop. More frustrating, however, is having to compile my own plugins. I still have not managed to compile one successfully (and I've been working with Linux since Red Hat 7.3).
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Why not have a nice tabbed interface?
Also the name sucks. At best its confusing, at worst its offensive.
Its pretty sad when its obvious to everyone what the problem is, yet its still the same thing after what, six years?
It's odd, isn't it.
Fact: Many users have experience with Photoshop and the GIMP.
Fact: Most of those users find Photoshop's UI to be vastly superior, or at least the GIMP's UI to be vastly inferior.
Fact: Those in charge of the GIMP dismiss such experienced users in the field as feeble-minded ignoramuses.
My $1,000,000,000 prediction: this comment will be just as applicable 3 years from now.
Don't Hate, Gestate
I'm a pretty advanced Photoshop user - I use it for both print and digital purposes and I've been doing so for over 10 years now. I like Linux and I'd really like to be able to switch to a Linux desktop completely one day. That said I'm giving GIMP a try every once in a while. People say it rocks once you clear the Photoshop mist and once you get familiar with the somewhat weird GUI you'll find it, well, awesome.
My conclusion so far is that while GIMP has a Photoshop resembling toolset it's really not a Photoshop competitor. Really. While Photoshop is overkill for John Doe, especially regarding the price (yeah, most people pirate it, I know), GIMP is quite sufficient. It's an awesome tool for removing red eyes in photos, fixing resolutions, brightness/contrast and stuff like that - but it's not competing with Photoshop. It's obviously not made for print due to the lack of CMYK-support, and for web production.. well, compare Photoshops "Save for web"-module vs GIMP's "Select a JPEG compression percentage please"-prompt.
I've seen work by one or two people who do some seriously impressing stuff with GIMP - and that's it. Those two people also seem to have been involved in the GIMP project since the dawn of mankind, might be a good indicator on how much time you need to spend before being able to use it fluently enough.
Some people who doesn't work with graphics professionally (or claim GIMPs awesomeness without even using it) will probably disagree with me and claim that I'm wrong. But hey, at least I've TRIED to use it. It's just completely pointless for me to even spend time with it when I have access to a (legal) Photoshop license. I don't think the GIMP project is useless though, as I said - it's good enough for the average guy, even though I think the UI could improve tremendeously.
www.freshpilot.com
The mailing lists don't just have the developers biting at each other, but some of the higher up gimp people biting at users and potential users. I dared to compare a feature of Photoshop's clone tool with one on GIMP, and wished for some of the photoshop-like functionality on the gimp, and gimp's resident defender Carol started on with the nasty emails. It was six repetitive emails abusing me, my relationships with women, abusing me for being a control freak and how, by insisting gimp wasn't good enough, I was calling all gimp users morons for using substandard software and she wouldn't stand for that. That's borderline stalking behaviour.
What happened 3 months later? My graphic designer gf got exactly the same treatment in email off list for asking how to do something in gimp that she could do in photoshop, except carol added in the accusation that she could only afford photoshop if she's sleeping with the boss so she didn't have time to speak to people like her. That didn't stop her sending another couple of abusive emails.
This is an open source software mailing list, not a vicious political shitfight where nobody's allowed to question or suggest the slightest thing is wrong with Gimp. Works more like the latter from my experience.
Krita, the painting and image editing application for KOffice is probably a better alternative to Adobe Photoshop on the Linux desktop. It is nicely integrated in KDE and its codebase is cleaner than that of GIMP, so it is easier to add features at a fast rate. In fact, even GNOME devs have been amazed by how fast it's growing.