It can do lots of magical things, but it seems like the developers tried to make it as different as possible just for the sake of being different.
I’m sure that if you bring up something to a developer of GIMP that “isn’t like Photoshop because it’s buried under 4 menus”, the only thing the developer will do to address the issue is release an update that then buries the feature under 5 menus.
They got their weird software with its weird name and they are PROUD of how weird it all is.
All I can suggest with it is to keep searching Google or YouTube on how to do things with it.
I’ve mostly used Affinity and GIMP over the years. Although my work just got me Photoshop so that I can explore some of its “smart” AI stuff to help with some things.
It might be more web design leading but my company’s designers have switched to Figma, which is web based and has allowed me to work with their files for dev on Linux.
Not exactly what I’m looking for, unfortunately. Thank you, though. For UI/UX, I prefer Lunacy as it’s native and pretty much the same thing as Figma. Penpot works good too, though it’s still very much in development.
Of all the design decisions in GIMP that seem to make it so weird or different to someone coming from Photoshop, Adobe has put in 2X the amount of design choices into their software simply to try to thwart piracy.
The amount of stupid libraries and processes it loads and “requires” to run is just crazy.
A lot of it became apparent when Apple dropped 64-bit support a few years back.
Developers had a decade to update everything to 64-bit. All the fancy (and expensive) Adobe apps were 64-bit, but all their licensing dependencies and anti-piracy libraries were strangely still 32-bit.
People with legit copies couldn’t run anything after upgrading macOS. Only those with cracked/pirated versions (that didn’t load the 32-bit libraries) could actually use the software.
I have no doubt that the mess of libraries and copy protection that Adobe “requires” would prevent their software from working under WINE.
There is a Photoshop CC installer for Linux hosted on Github. I’ve tried it - it works. It’s just not a great experience. Saving files is a pain, because the export option does not exist. You need to use Save As, and that only works with a hacky workaround.
The UI doesn’t update until you do something that forces it to re-draw (like zooming or panning), which is a real pain when transforming or moving layers - for example. Plus, the UI doesn’t scale. You need to use Photoshop in complete fullscreen otherwise parts of the UI will be missing.
AI filters do not exist, for obvious reasons. However, most other filters work fine.
And most obviously, performance has an extreme degradation. It’s really slow.
But yeah, would probably get a “Bronze” rating on WineHQ, which is better than not working at all - I suppose. It’s progress?
Oh wow, that doesn’t sound like a nice experience at all. I wonder if older versions of PS work better with Wine since it could be an option if you don’t need the latest features.
And there’s the issue of tablet pressure! As an amateur artist I was ok with most of the peculiarities of Ps on Wine (even the weird full-screen deal that you mentioned), but even after extensive tinkering it would only register my Wacom pen strokes as single spots or full-pressure lines. Apparently this bug is pretty old, and the underlying problem is way more difficult to solve than it first seems (esp to a linux noob like me). I’ve heard photoshop cs2 can avoid this bug (and it worked fine for me) but that version of Ps looks very different than what I’m used to, having been a longtime cs6 and cc user.
I ended up mainly using SAI on that system–which ran very well on Wine–but it has fewer bells and whistles and there are certain tools like liquify that don’t offer the same degree of control in Krita or GIMP (as far as I could tell). If my laptop hadn’t been struggling so much, I think I probably would’ve shifted more towards Krita but somehow it ran much worse on the linux system than the previous windows system, regardless of which version I tried. It’s a difficult problem to troubleshoot if you don’t know tech stuff very well - . -
Very cool. I’ve done similar layouts but not so far as creating my own highlighting and keywords. Tbh, I prefer pen and paper for my “real life” stuff as I don’t want to be so tied to the computer/phone. But for work, where I’ll be at the computer anyway, I might steal some of these ideas.
A long time ago, when I was broke and decided I couldn’t afford Photoshop, I decided to invest the time in learning GIMP.
Even though I’m a UX professional, and the barely okay UX does bother me, that has turned out to be a wise investment because no matter what, GIMP is always there for me. Always!
The price never goes up. It never gets paywalled by a subscription. It never has shady license changes. It changes slowly and deliberately. I never have to convince a new boss to pay for it. I never have to wonder if it will be available for a project.
That was like 20 years ago. I don’t how much value I’ve gotten out of that initial investment, but I bet it’s a LOT.
I work with a small nonprofit that years ago was donated Photoshop. Over the years as upgrades happened, the org received new donations in one way or another to keep it current enough that it was still helpful. Even with a legit corporate donation of the software the license for it was a pain to deal with. At one point when it needed to be reinstalled it was no longer possible and I told the org to just forget about it. Last time I talked with Adobe to try to get it working, which they refused to do, I ended up telling them I would never use an Adobe product willingly again. I personally learned Gimp at that point and while I only use it from time to time it does the job and as you say, it is always there, always works, has plenty of online help and does anything that I need it to do.
Just like beingoff corporate social media, I try to use FOSS as much as is reasonable because while it may have rougher edges at times, it can actually be more reliable. I manage some servers as part of my job and over the years the licensed stuff, Windows server, Exchange, VMWare at some point will bite you back with a dead end or major costs where as Debian...
For both my home server and desktop I use XFS for root and ZFS (in some variety of raid or mirror) for /home and data storage. Any time I’ve tried btrfs for root (such as default fedora), inevitably it poops the bed. At this point, I stay far away from btrfs.
Looking past your downvotes, this is another good example of why I find it difficult to learn GIMP. As far as I know, you need to use a box selection to draw a box? Like border that selection or something? In what way is that intuitive from any perspective? It feels more like a workaround, rather than a solution.
The process for a box is rectangle select tool>(right click)>edit>stroke selection.
If I remember correctly it used to be worse. It was Rectangle Tool, Edit, Selection to Path, Stroke Path
I love/hate gimp but I've used it for years because it's faster and easier than cracking photoshop on a new device.
You can draw a box with the paintbrush tool, though. That also fixes your thing about triangle. Or if you want the lines to be totally straight, use the Paths tool, then when you’re done marking the lines you want (with or without curves) you click “stroke path” and get a window to select how you want the stroke to be.
That’s either selecting the paintbrush and drawing directly (1 click and drawing) or selecting the paths tool, making the path, and choosing the line style (1 click + however many points needed + 1 click + selecting parameters (I just went for the default to test) + 1 click to confirm).
But then again; GIMP isn’t meant to be a drawing program, it’s Image Manipulation Program. Use the right tools for the right things.
That’s easy, I just tried it and I haven’t used GIMP that much in total and not at all in the previous year and a half.
You can draw a box with the paintbrush tool. Or if you want the lines to be totally straight, use the Paths tool, then when you’re done marking the lines you want (with or without curves) you click “stroke path” and get a window to select how you want the stroke to be. And I figured this out very quickly as a user not very well versed in GIMP.
As I also wrote in this comment; GIMP is meant to be an Image Manipulation Program, not a drawing program. You generally don’t use a screwdriver to drive nails into wood, you’ve got a hammer for that. Sure, you can use a screwdriver for it in a pinch, but it’s not going to do it well. Use the tools most appropriate for the thing you’re actually trying to do.
That’s clever. I’m not used to shell scripting yet, but I really like that it is easy to automate things in Linux. If you can run it in terminal, you can script it.
I don’t think a week is that long to wait for an open source project like this. I suspect as soon as they released 115 they got a deluge of bug reports that are probably keeping them occupied.
Granted, I’m not personally affected because <smug>I use Arch btw</smug>. But on a serious note, it makes sense to me that “bleeding edge” distros where users expect the latest versions quickly would package Thunderbird for their repos, whereas those on more stability-focused distros would wait the couple of weeks for the Flatpak.
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