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Krita 2.8 Released

Posted by samzenpus on from the check-it-out dept.

JDG1980 writes "Krita, an open-source graphics editor, has been around since 2005, but no stable version existed for Windows users — until today. With the release of Krita 2.8, full and stable support for Windows users is finally a reality, thanks to input from KO GmbH and Intel. Krita brings some things to the table that GIMP does not: 16 bit per channel color support, adjustment layers, and a name that won't set off red flags at HR, just to list a few. You can download the Windows version here. Might be worth looking into, if you're tired of the lack of progress on GIMP and don't want to pay monthly "cloud" fees to Adobe."

21 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Paint .NET by nemasu · · Score: 3, Funny

    pff, ascii art, nuff said.

    --
    I made an app! Shoutium
  2. Why so Anti-Gimp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Krita is not competing with Gimp. Gimp is an image manipulation program like Photoshop. Krita is an image creation software like Illustrator. They are slightly different categories of software. Has the author, JDG1980, even looked at Krita's website? Since the author clearly has not read the site, please read "What are Krita's Development Goals?" for yourself here.

    1. Re:Why so Anti-Gimp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, not Illustrator. More Corel Painter. Illustrator does vectors, Krita does raster and vectors.

  3. Best open source program for Digital Painting by fromhell091 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Krita is the best and most powerful open source program for digital painting. Period.It has a amazing brush engine. You can use other tool as your brush (for example, clone mode). In this version, the brushes were created by artist like Timothée Giet, Ramon Miranda, Wolthera or David Revoy. Also has handy tools for painters like rotate canvas, perspective tools, symetric and mirror modes, pseudo infinite canvas, stabilizer helpers, a lot of palette dokers, and now includes some tools for games developers like Clone Array or Wrap Around mode to create tiles. If you didn't give a try before to Krita, this is the moment. It's one of the best pieces of open source progams out there.

  4. tired of the lack of progress on GIMP by Chrisq · · Score: 2

    tired of the lack of progress on GIMP

    GIMP is very feature-rich already and to me seems to be in the stage where change is more incremental. Even so it seems steady. Looking at the Krita site I get the impression it is aimed more at anime/comic book artists than the general-purpose GIMP. Does anyone know how they compare?

    1. Re: tired of the lack of progress on GIMP by postglock · · Score: 5, Informative

      GIMP is very feature-rich already and to me seems to be in the stage where change is more incremental.

      The single feature that prevents my wife from moving from Mac/Photoshop to Linux/GIMP is the lack of adjustment layers. This is the ability to non-destructively modify brightness/contrast/colour/etc. In GIMP, if you edit the contrast, then edit in another way, there is no way to re-manipulate the contrast again without losing information. As per the summary, Krita does have this capability. Apperently it's in development for GIMP.

    2. Re: tired of the lack of progress on GIMP by twdorris · · Score: 4, Interesting

      GIMP is way over-promoted by FOSS zealots who usually can't accomplish much more than cropping a picture and applying a few filters to the entire image.

      This. I really, REALLY want to use GIMP; I do. And I've tried; several times. But I just can't. It's just too clunky and slow and not well thought out in any reasonable manner. Windows pop up in wrong places with wrong Z order, making them impossible to find sometimes. *Common* features (like adjustment layers) are simply missing or work in horrible, horrible ways (like drawing a @#$!@%$ line with an arrow point end).

      No, GIMP is not what some people make it out to be. I'd rather use an old Paintshop Pro 6 release than anything GIMP related. And I would except Corel does a better job at screwing up their own products than any other company I've seen in ages. I've actually bought and paid for several versions of Paintshop Pro in the past decade only to have my license mysteriously stop working. "Too many installations" they say. But this message comes up randomly when I haven't done any new installation in months. And then, suddenly, my workflow is halted in its tracks and I'm back to trying GIMP one more time.

      My requirements are not steep. I'm not a pro graphics artist by any means. But there doesn't seem to be any good open source graphics editors out there and Krita doesn't seem to fit the bill either. Bah.

    3. Re: tired of the lack of progress on GIMP by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Informative

      It gets worse. GIMP also has an atrocious, screen hogging interface that was clearly designed by someone who doesn't really understand the workflow of most professional users.

      I agree it has a strange interface, which seems to be different to almost any other app, but I would not say screen-hogging. In fact one of the advantages of the wirerd design is that you can have a full-screen image and float the various toolboxes in front as you need them.

      It's also slow. Very slow. For example, a 64 pixel Gaussian blur takes twice as long in GIMP to compute as it does Photoshop, the same for most other operations.

      I don't know how it compares with other apps but a 64 pixel Gaussian blur on a large image takes just under 3 seconds.

      The text tool is awful too.

      It's a fair cop - yes it is pretty awful - difficult to position text, size at anything apart from a point size, etc.

      GIMP is way over-promoted by FOSS zealots who usually can't accomplish much more than cropping a picture and applying a few filters to the entire image.

      There are some real artists using it.

    4. Re: tired of the lack of progress on GIMP by graphius · · Score: 2

      I too have tried to use GIMP over the years. GIMP can be good for some things, and can even be great for a subset of things, but the overall workflow is very convoluted and difficult. I seem to be trying to do things in spite of the program. I know there are some people who do great things with GIMP, and I have sung the praises of specific features (they had a resynthesize before Photoshop for example) but overall, Photoshop, with all its warts (and there are many) is just more cohesive. Back on topic, I have never really been able to get much out of Krita. I am a photographer and quite tech savvy, but I do not "get:" Krita. Maybe I will have to try again...

  5. GIMP has 16 and 32 bit editing support since 2.8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    So I don't know if the author entirely knows what he's writing about.

  6. Re:HR ? by invictusvoyd · · Score: 2

    Her Royal Majesty .. The queen ofcourse ..

  7. I realize it's not the same as Gimp, however... by wjcofkc · · Score: 2

    I realize this is not a replacement or even a competitor to the GIMP. The audience and goals of the two projects are completely different. However, I did notice that it supports importing GIMP native file format. If I can import GIMP files, then export in another file format and use CMYK, which it appears to support, then this is getting added to my workflow. Time to download and find out!

    --
    Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
  8. Krita is used for "digital painting". by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Informative

    From the top of the Krita documentation page: "The first thing to remember is that Krita is a 2D paint application. Photoshop, for example, is an image manipulation program. Krita has tools that are relevant to digital painting -- concept art, creation of comics and textures for rendering." [Edited for clarity.]

  9. Workflow Issues by Akratist · · Score: 2

    I spend a lot of time (too much time) creating and editing textures for meshes. I downloaded Krita and messed with it for a few minutes, to see how it compared to Gimp. One thing that immediately jumped out is the archaic (i.e. 1980's) method of drawing a straight line. In Gimp, this is super-easy...the last place you were drawing is where the origin of a straight line is. In Krita, it looks like you're stuck having to do it the old-fashioned way of dragging the line from one point to another (I moved to Gimp from Paint.NET for this reason, among others). It seems like it is a very feature-rich tool, but seems lacking in usability in some areas (based on 20 minutes of searching, it seems like others have found some "pain points" of their own with it). It does look like a good tool for doing illustrations, though, so it's worth a look for people who tend more toward that type of work, but for editing/creating textures, I'm not sold.

    1. Re:Workflow Issues by fromhell091 · · Score: 2

      If they could move it to Krita for texturing their game 'Super City'.. you can also do it! :)

    2. Re:Workflow Issues by Qzukk · · Score: 3, Informative

      One thing that immediately jumped out is the archaic (i.e. 1980's) method of drawing a straight line. In Gimp, this is super-easy...the last place you were drawing is where the origin of a straight line is. In Krita, it looks like you're stuck having to do it the old-fashioned way of dragging the line from one point to another

      I'm guessing this is what you're looking for? http://userbase.kde.org/Krita/...

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  10. Re:GIMP has 16 and 32 bit editing support since 2. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    No; 2.8 had the 16-bit GEGL engine, but the ability to import all the bits of a 16-bit TIFF and save in a 16-bit XCF is pending 2.10 - although you can check it out from git now.

  11. Full suite by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Informative

    GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, Darktable, Krita.

    Complete amateur/semi-professional graphics artist toolkit.

    Free of cost. Source code also available. Enjoy.

    1. Re:Full suite by sqorbit · · Score: 2

      Exactly. Those arguing above about GIMP vs Krita are arguing Illustrator vs Photoshop. Just as Adobe releases a full sweet of products with a lot of overlap there is going to be overlap between Krita and GIMP. They are still each useful in their own ways. A digital artist often uses multiple programs to handle different tasks.

      --
      Sent from my TARDIS
  12. Re:HR ? by Zimluura · · Score: 2

    i think HR might be more miffed about some of the definitions here:

    http://dictionary.reference.co...

    gimp3 [gimp] Show IPA Slang.
    noun
    1. a limp.
    2. Usually Disparaging and Offensive. a term used to refer to a person who limps or is lame.

  13. Re:Conflict of interest? "Volunteer and commercial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    More about Krita:

    Krita is is both a community project development by volunteers and a commercial project supported by KO GmbH. The Krita Foundation supports the non-commercial development of Krita. Commercial support is offered by KO GmbH.

    My experience has been that software that is both supported by volunteers and commercially supported suffers from conflict of interest. Limitations can be arranged that push people toward paying.

    Yeah, just like how the existence of paid versions of Linux ruined it for the rest of ... oh, wait...