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First Looks at The Gimp 2.5
desmondhaynes writes "The GIMP team announced today the first release from the 2.5 development series. It is true that this version is unstable, but a little bird told me to give it a try and see what's it capable of. First of all, let me tell you that its interface is quite redesigned and I think that some users will have problems adjusting with it, but that's just my two cents. On the other hand, version 2.5.0 of The GIMP includes some hot new features, like the integration of GEGL (Generic Graphics Library) which will finally get support for higher color depths, more colorspaces and eventually non-destructive editing."
I realize that marketing has nothing to do with the features or performance of a program. But it does have a factor in acceptance at work. There's no way I'm going in front of our Engineering Review Board for a product called "The Gimp", no matter how much money it's going to save.
...the very first item in the list of "noteworthy" improvements is a new splash screen. :'(
With the rate of advancement in The GIMP, eventually, Photoshop enthusiasts will have nothing bad to really say about it.
You're right. It's only been 12+ years that people have been asking for those things. Now GIMP actually has an engine capable of doing them (note that it doesn't actually do them yet). It'll only be another few years until the basics are covered!
One can tell that from his very first comment (on the splash screen): HOT new splash
But probably this is just a temporary one, as the final version will have a totally different splash! Really? You mean the splash screen is a HOT new feature? And you say it will "probably" change on the final version? Amazing!
Then it just goes downhill from there, ending with a description of what The Gimp is.
Thanks, I didn't know what it was before, now I have to read your crappy review once again so it makes sense.
At least there were no shortage of ads, which surprisingly got through my AdBlock Plus.
BAD ADBLOCK! BAD!
Forget changing the name. In the list of requests for 2.8, the number one request is a single window model.
This is likely the number one request for s number of years, yet we have to wait until 2.8 to even see if it will happen?
The Gimp is a nice tool, but it really should listen to it's users.
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But they aren't the same interface elements as Photshop! So they're terrible!!!
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Don't you think that you were trying to use the wrong tool for the job to begin with? Gimp is an "Image Manipulation Program" first and foremost. If you are trying to create a web comic, I'd think that a vector graphics program would be you first choice of tools.
Sure Paint.NET and Photoshop blur the lines a bit, but the better tool still, in the proprietary world, would be Adobe Illustrator, or something like Inkscape in the OSS world.
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This is why the GIMP will never be popular. Despite its lack of popularity and the overwhelming number of complaints about the user interface, the developers, and the few existing supporters, continuously rely on the excuse that users are merely familiar and conditioned to the Photoshop user interface.
Of course, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that the GIMP's user interface was haphazardly thrown together by programmers with absolutely no concern for HCI. Photoshop's interface couldn't possibly be better despite the thousands of hours of research and user interface testing that Adobe has put into it. Nope, absolutely none of that matters!
Keep blaming people's familiarity with Photoshop and you'll be sure to continue the GIMPs long standing tradition of complete and utter failure.
Yes, if you have a single desktop (because in your mind it's still 1992 or something)
Why would I want multiple desktops? So that I can be even less aware of applications that aren't running in the foreground?
Not everyone's brain works the same way. You may like virtual desktops. I like having three physical monitors with one desktop that spans them so I can see at a glance all of the applications I'm using for a given task.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Your argument would make sense if most other applications on Linux used the same archipelago-of-small-windows approach the Gimp does. It would be the standard way of working to set up multiple virtual desktops with one for each app. But practically no other graphical program is like that, even on Unix-like systems. Even if the Gimp's way is theoretically superior, what matters most of all is consistency and not having each app reinvent the wheel in its own peculiar way. So the Gimp needs to get a more conventional user interface style.
(Are multiple desktops set up by default in a typical Linux distribution these days?)
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If I could mod you up, I would.
I love the GIMP, and I've never actually had Photoshop. However, I will say that I frequently get lost in trying to figure out where things are. If, instead of saying, "Oh, it's not Photoshop, your complaint isn't legit!", they all said "Let's see what we can do to fix this," things would probably get better more quickly.
I understand they've been working on things, hence this release, but these complaints are very old.
I always found using multiple windows was a good idea -- it lets the window manager actually manage the windows. If it's annoying, in the ways you describe, maybe that says something about your window manager?
At least on OS X, that is how all programs work. Or at least, it is possible to click on an application to raise all of its windows, and command+tab (like alt+tab, but better) will actually raise all of those windows. Windows are actually naturally grouped by application -- I had a keystroke to cycle through open Terminals, and that actually worked really well, because Terminal is actually its own application.
Gimp was developed on Linux, where we've had a few sane windowing ideas that Windows has yet to pick up on, and OS X is only slowly starting to steal. Simple example: Virtual desktops. Put gimp on its own workspace, and you are literally one keystroke away from moving back to that image.
And then there are dual-monitor systems. This is where Photoshop really starts to be annoying, unless there is some way I don't know of to detach the tools (probably is) -- it's possible to put the image itself, completely maximized, on one monitor, and all of the tools on another monitor.
Most open source programs try to assume less about their user -- what if you didn't want that full set of editing tools to come up? What if you just want to look at the image, on as much screen area as possible, before you start editing? Why should it be the job of the individual application to work around crappy window managers?
All that said, there's always GimpShop -- haven't tried it myself, but it claims to make Gimp look photoshop-like.
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I understand where you're coming from. But I think the UI design does actually make a lot of sense in a Linux context. Some of the problems you describe may be a consequence of a flawed port to windows. But when you're working with virtual desktops those problems completely disappear.
In my case, I'm reading slashdot in my 'firefox' desktop. When I want to get back to editing a picture I hotkey over to the 'gimp' desktop where all the windows are laid out how I want them. When I need to check mail, I hop over to my mail desktop and so on. Nothing is ever minimized, and I never find myself alt-tabbing through a dozen unrelated windows, as would happen when all my apps are on the same desktop.
Given that 99% of my computer use is confined to 3 apps (browser, editor, mail), a six desktop layout is more than enough room for all, without becoming too complex to navigate. Now that MS supports multiple desktops as well, at least in Vista, people may start discovering that there are saner ways to arrange multiple windows than squeezing them all onto the toolbar of a single desktop.
yp.
I use only the Windows port of GIMP - I don't do much photo editing, but before the not much that I didn't do was not done in Photoshop. </Englishgrammar>
The Photoshop interface was clunky, but I blame that on the "We have 5 million features that you will probably never used, all cleverly hidden under buttons!
The GIMP interface, however, fails at basic Windows GUI principles. This is to be expected, of course, but come on - the interface is generally split up into 3 modeless dialog boxes. The one that has your tools on it is hidden if you maximize your editing window. Ditto for the layers box. They kinda got it right with some features like "transform" - the relevant dialog box pops up, in view, in the editing window, as you're editing.
The whole 3-separate-windows thing (editing, tools, layers) looks like a lazy hack, something I did when a project was due and I was too lazy (read: procrastinated on the deadline and was too time constrained) to write a proper interface.
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Except that the GIMP uses full-fledged windows for tool palettes, meaning that they could end up above (or behind) applications, despite the main document application being in front; Photoshop, in contrast, uses toolbars, which are 'always on top' when Photoshop is the active application, meaning you'll never lose your toolbars.
Also, this means that toolbars never show up in Expose or spaces, or in advanced task-switchers like Witch; GIMP's toolbars also, last I dealt with it, showed up in the GNOME panel, resulting in a half-dozen entries just to edit one image.
Toolbars are not windows. Seriously. I hope this is one of the fixes, or it's going to keep being treated like a half-baked toy.
It does just work, though.
Or are you one of those people that say that Linux is a failure because it's not just a free copy of Windows, with everything exactly the same?
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