why don’t people use krita? Gimp may be the most famous photoshop alternative, but I almost never hear anyone talk about others that may potentially be better.
I have used Gimp for years and I actually do not understand this meme. Like, do you not understand how image selection and/or layers work? What tf did you think would happen except for exactly what happens?
maybe its because of the thing where you select something and try moving it and it moves the whole layer? thats the only thing ive ever had a problem with in gimp
Well, in GIMP you need to do the “float selection” before you can manipulate what you’ve selected properly. In Clip Studio Paint, for example, you select, press ctrl, and just drag whatever you clicked on to move. Way more intuitive (until you do it expecting to interact with active layer and instead move something in the overlay or behind).
I do love how GIMP allows you to work with transparency though.
I know, its so hard to press F1 and change the keys to be whatever you want; even copying adobe’s keybindings. It takes a whole 15 minutes of setup, the horror.
It consistently uses Alt as a modifier to execute inverse operations. I to insert a keyframe, Alt+I to delete it. Ctrl+F to set a text filter/search, Alt+F to clear it. Ctrl+P to set parent, Alt+P to clear it. H to hide selected objects, Shift+H to hide unselected objects, Alt+H to unhide all. {G,R,S} to move/rotate/scale, Alt+{G,R,S} to reset transformations. It’s not exactly industry standard, but internally consistent that makes learning it easy.
I never knew about it until now and I’ve used GIMP often enough, but if I was going to assign a keyboard shortcut, that makes sense. Ctrl +A select all. Ctrl + Shift + A select none.
Shift is the oppositer (reverser?). Tab goes to next field, Shift + Tab goes in reverse order. Ctrl + T open new tab in browser, Ctrl + Shift + T reopen last closed tab - OK that’s not exactly opposite but close enough.
Customizable keyboard binding is a major and widely overlooked aspect of accessibility For example checkout this thread on mozilla forums about keybinding customization in firefox
Key bindings and a good GUI aren’t mutually exclusive.
Key bindings are great for people that use the app a lot and want to be more efficient at the tasks they do most often in it. But most people aren’t going to be learning keyboard shortcuts the first time they use an app. And if someone uses an app a few times and find it frustrating to use, they never use it enough to want to learn keyboard shortcuts to improve their efficiency with the app.
yeah, that’s the point of the joke. You’d think that the “default state” should be “select all” – I want to edit the entire layer, so I should select all of it. But no, “select all” has a bunch of weird obscure behaviour, “select none” is what you want most of the time, even though it gets the shortcut with more keys.
Selections are ways to restrict yourself from editing parts of the image. For example, if your select a rectangle, you will only be able to draw on that rectangle, nowhere else. “Select all” and “select none” both allow you to draw on the entire layer. The difference is how some tools such as as Scale, Rotate, Perspective Transform, etc. work.
So, for example, if you Select None, and then use the scale tool to make the layer twice as big, it will scale the pixels contained in the layer, and grow the layer boundaries to accommodate the new pixels. This is what you want most of the time.
If, on the other hand, you Select All, and then use the scale tool, it will cut out all of the pixels into a new Floating Selection, leaving the original layer empty and with the same size. This is a very confusing behavior. Actually, pretty much anything that involves Floating Selection is confusing.
These people who hate GIMP didn’t really practice with it all that much. I use for my day job, editing photos and making content for marketplaces. It works very well. The workflow may be different to PS, yes, but that does not make GIMP bad. Also, for those who hate the UI, two things. First, why don’t you help the dev team? And second, we’ll have GTK3 support soon (finally).
I assume “eclipse” is a typo of ellipse? Anyway, just use the ellipse select tool (keybind: e) to make a selection in the shape that you want, then fill it in with the bucket tool (b). Hold shift while using the bucket tool to fill in the entire selection, ignoring anything that’s drawn inside it. If you want to draw a ring rather than a completely filled circle, use the “border” command from the “select” dropdown menu to replace the ellipse/circle selection with its border.
how to resize selection by corner
I’m curious, what is your usecase for this? I’ve never had to do it myself. But if I had to, here’s how I would do it: first, convert the seleciton to a path. Make sure the path is visible from the “Paths” dialog (you have to explicitly show the paths dialog using the “window > dockable dialogs” option. From then on, you can use any of the usual transform tools (perspective, resize, roate, etc) on the path. You just have to select the path icon under "Transform: " in the “tool properties” dialog to make sure you’re transforming the path, not a pixel layer. Once you’ve transformed the path to your liking, you can turn it back to a selection, fill it with color, or stroke it with a brush by right-clicking on it in the “layers” dialog.
Also, bonus tip: never use the dropdown menus, it’s a huge waste of time. Just press / to pull up for the command palette and search for the tool you need.
EDIT: I love lovingly ranting about gimp, I can do it four hours on end. I’m not some sort of gimp guru, but I know a thing or two. If anyone has any more questions, feel free to reply to this comment and I’ll do my best to give advice.
Combination of both I guess? Like for the second one I found out that you can convert between selections and paths a long time ago just by stumbling upon the menu entry for it, but I had to look up how to apply transformations to paths
Not op, but if I’m trying to rectangle select something, I sometimes get it close on the first try but not exactly right, so instead of trying to redraw the selection or use additive/subtractive selections, it is more intuitive to me to try and resize the selection box.
I had to use PS for school recently and it’s nice that it supports this use case, although I did have to search for a guide to learn how to do it.
Maybe they dislike the filepicker because it doesn’t support icon view, only list view (just like the standard gtk filepicker)? I remember a while back lots of people were getting their panties in a twist over it, it was a huge meme in the gnome hater community.
Honestly filepickers are kinda cringe, no matter what display mode it uses. I just have a shortcut that basically does find ~ | dmenu | xargs dragon-drop (well, the script itself is a little more complicated, but that’s the gist of it) so I can just search for files and drop them into the filepicker directly. Hopefully once everything switches to xdg-portal, someone can make a “filepicker” implementation that just does something like that directly.
Gimp spolied me. Now every time I’m forced to use a GUI app with lots of dropdown menu items, I get irrationally angry that I can’t just hit / to search through them like I can in gimp lol.
Blender changed it to just start typing one or two minor versions ago. There’s certainly stuff I have no idea how to find in the menus because F3 is way more convenient than remembering things (just be aware that you still need to be in the right mode for stuff to show up).
I tried. I really tried to like GIMP. The main reason I don’t like it is because it’s trying so hard to be a professional picture editor and the UI.
Why can’t I deselect things? Why does something need to be selected at all times? Let me just click a button and remove the selection outline and deselect things.
No. I won’t help the dev team because I can’t code to save my ass. I turn wrenchs and fix things for a living.
I use other, simpler pic editors. Why should I learn to fly a Boeing 747 when a Cessna 172 will get me where I need to go? I’m making a shit post once every three months, not professional art.
When I was learning about GIMP key shortcuts I was like “Ctrl+A selects everything, Ctrl+Shift+A deselects everything. Makes sense.”
And then I went to most of the other apps. “Ctrl+D? Well it’s one less keypress, but… WHY?”
To be fair, I get it now, I’ve used plenty of image editors and I remember the keybinds wherever I am. Just that I sometimes find it annoying that The Other Software hasn’t adopted logical keybindings.
(I find it particularly annoying that a lot of image editors try to be fancy and sophisticated and Photoshop-compatible and think it’s at all appropriate to use Ctrl+NumpadPlus and Ctrl+NumpadMinus for zooming. Just use what GIMP uses! NumpadPlus and NumpadMinus. It’s not hard! What are you using the plain plus and minus for, anyway? Absolutely nothing! I just checked, I need to use Ctrl in Affinity Photo. Plain plus and minus are useless. I see you. …oh I can just rebind these. Done.)
I’m just glad they added non destructive editing in the latest version. I’ve tried to rotate/resize something in gimp before and it was a chore to keep quality acceptable.
GIMP is bad. If the problem was simply that it was “different to PS” then other apps like Krita and Affinity Photo would have the same reputation.
If a user goes looking for a tool or feature and it’s not in the first place they look, that’s a problem of “didn’t really practice that much”. If experienced people need to look up how to do basic operations and their reaction is “that’s fucking stupid”, then the software is bad.
To then say “well why don’t you help the Dev team then” is insane. I’m not spending hundreds of hours digging GIMP out of bad design decisions when I could just use better software and I haven’t seen any evidence that my PR would even be accepted.
Nobody needs excuses and apologism, they need Blender for image editing and GIMP just isn’t that.
I mean, I’ve been using GIMP as my primary photo editor for…over a decade. When I use other programs, nothing is where I expect it to be and I think “well, that’s fucking stupid”
So you open any other image editor, click the rectangle select button, draw a rectangle, then select a move button beside the rectangle select tool, then it moves the rectangle you just selected and you think “That’s fucking stupid, it should’ve moved the entire image, not the rectangle I just selected!”
Yes, really. If my move tool is set to layer move, dont change it just because I used the select tool for something completely unrelated. That is the typical dumbed down big colorful button approach that I hate in modern corporate software.
I feel like my tools should work together instead of having their parameters set individually. If I select something, it’s because I want to do stuff with it. Imagine hitting play on a video and then also having to hit play on the audio.
Look, that you’re used to the garbage UI doesn’t change that it’s garbage and in dire need of a fundamental revamp. If almost everyone here (and everywhere else) says that it sucks or is intransparent, then YOU may be the odd one out here ;)
Imagine hating usable software you don’t need a PhD for. It’s kinda pathetic to make this your point of pride.
No, but “fix it yourself” is apparently a completely acceptable response if someone criticizes GIMP.
Anyway, I don’t care how bad the tools you use are, but it’s time to stop acting shocked when industry professionals have no interest in GIMP and don’t take anyone who advocates it as a Photoshop alternative seriously.
Nobody is acting shocked. Least the people who learned to use GIMP.
The problem is people like you who are outraged, when asking for a free Photoshop alternative, that the next best thing is not to their likening.
And yes “consider fixing it yourself” is absolutely a valid response for GIMP issues because GIMP is made by volunteers For Photoshop it a bullshit response because it’s made by a billion dollar company which charges you for the development and use.
Nobody is acting shocked. Least the people who learned to use GIMP.
So the people who learn GIMP are fully aware why it gets zero industry use? Thanks, that was my point.
The problem is people like you who are outraged, when asking for a free Photoshop alternative, that the next best thing is not to their likening.
I’m not outraged in the slightest, nor am I asking for a free Photoshop alternative. But I’ve seen people claiming GIMP is a viable alternative to Photoshop for 20 years and for anything past the most basic use cases, it isn’t. You may as well be telling people to use Nano instead of Visual Studio and when they complain about the experience, tell them to code the features themselves.
GIMP has had literally decades of development and even with Photoshop in the worst state it’s ever been in, it isn’t competitive. There are clearly systemic issues with the project and I’m certain this “head in the sand” mentality is at least partly to blame.
It is the next best completely free alternative. Whether people like it or not.
GIMP has had literally decades of development and even with Photoshop in the worst state it’s ever been in, it isn’t competitive.
How is that an argument? How do you get the idea that GIMP is basically required to be competitive, just because it’s old? Completely disregarding the fact it’s made by volunteers vs a billion dollar company. And also completely disregarding the fact that Photoshop is even older than GIMP. By your own logic, just going by age, how can they be competitive when they are half a decade younger than PS?
Rewriting the whole thing would sure help. But not with the “I’m not going to help, fuck off” community.
And if that was how people actually presented it, I wouldn’t be objecting. Instead, people pretend it’s as good as Photoshop and anyone who disagrees is blamed for not programming it themselves and attacked for suggesting that commercial tools are far better.
How is that an argument? How do you get the idea that GIMP is basically required to be competitive, just because it’s old?
Looks like you’re more interested in defending Linux software than actually seeing my point.
So why isn’t it competitive? It’s not because it’s new and hasn’t had time to mature. It’s not because developers haven’t put time into it (despite the ridiculous “fix it yourself” bullshit that people keep pushing). It’s not because the problem it aimed to solve has been solved.
It’s because the people involved with GIMP have the usual Linux community resentment about what “good software” actually is. It’s fuck ugly, but they don’t think that should matter, so it doesn’t get addressed. It doesn’t follow patterns that similar software follows, because they’re used to it, so everyone else should be too.
It’s the same pervasive “good software is good code and nothing else” mentality the plagues the OSS community.
But who cares? Use your shit software. Defend it to your dying breath. It’s not going to fix systemic problems with the project nor fool anyone who actually tries it.
Because it’s made by volunteers, in their free time, who either don’t have the time or skill or goal to make it competitive. But I wrote that a couple of times already and you continue to ignore it. So much for ‘not seeing my point’.
It doesn’t follow patterns that similar software follows, because they’re used to it, so everyone else should be too.
If someone is not able or willing to learn their way around something new, that’s literally their problem. Why would it need to be similar? If you want Photoshop, well then use Photoshop. Sometimes doing something different might also end up being the better idea. Won’t know until you tried.
And yes, good software is good code. That’s just a fact. Because otherwise you inevitably end up stuck and need to refractor the whole thing, instead of adding new features. And then angry people start complaining how you’re not competitive, and oh my.
Because it’s made by volunteers, in their free time, who either don’t have the time or skill or goal to make it competitive
Didn’t stop Blender. Didn’t stop Firefox. Didn’t stop Linux itself.
If someone is not able or willing to learn their way around something new, that’s literally their problem
I’ve already covered in this comment chain. Krita and Affinity Photo do things differently and nobody complains because they can see actual value in the change. Being “different” isn’t the source of GIMPs reputation, being shit is.
Why would it need to be similar? If you want Photoshop, well then use Photoshop.
I moved to Affinity Photo over a year ago, despite it being different. I don’t even keep a token pirated version of Photoshop around for compatibility anymore.
Sometimes doing something different might also end up being the better idea. Won’t know until you tried.
I tried multiple times and it simply isn’t. That’s been their most common feedback for 20 years but people like you still refuse to acknowledge that people might have a point.
And yes, good software is good code. That’s just a fact.
Yet somehow, no matter how good the code might be, ugly software with shit UX just never seems to gain widespread popularity. Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s not because “good software” is holistic, it’s because the entire world is wrong about GIMP except for you.
I’ve been using GIMP since the very dawn, I use plenty of other image editors for variety of reasons (Affinity Photo, DxO PhotoLab, ArtRage, Clip Studio), and I have no problems with the UIs in any of them.
Yet every time I use Adobe software I’m like “why is it doing this? Why is it designed this way? Who thought that was a good idea? This is stupid.”
It’s a bit lunatic, but it’s arguably the only way forward. GIMP doesn’t have a multi billion dollar company behind - only volunteers.
Expecting the developers to have the capacity and skill to emulate the features and looks of Photoshop (and quickly, please) - in their free time - is even more lunatic.
That’s their prerogative. FLOSS is a communal effort of equals. Users are not customers; not entitled to anything as it’s donated freely. If you want to be bannied and not contribute, there’s proprietary software out there but they’ll exact a price (currently more than just financial).
I think what burns people the most is that after Photoshop 5 or so, GIMP stopped keeping up with all the improvements in the later Photoshop versions. People making the jump from 2024 Photoshop to 1996 Photoshop UI/UX are gonna have a bad time.
Edit: as a software developer I can say that I’ve never seen a user more frustrated, sometimes even irrationally so, when they are forced to re-learn muscle memory to perform a familiar task. I’ve also seen people practically riot at the mere suggestion that this will happen. If you wish to curry favor with your userbase, never ever, remove keyboard accelerators, move toolbars around, break workflow, etc.
I’m confused. Just tried the selection tool in GIMP and Krita on my PC and sketchbook on my tablet. Works the same way as far as I can tell. Just select, draw in there, copy/paste, ctrl-shift-a to unselect. Moving is more convenient in Krita and Sketchbook, true, but like that can’t be it right? I’m at a loss.
Inkscape is a vector art program, it is fundamentally different to any raster art program. Like just download it and try to make just about anything with it, if you never used a vector art program, you’ll be absolutely lost. If you know GIMP, Krita or Photoshop you at least have a basic understanding of the others.
I’ve played around with all four programs. I guess it just comes down to what you’re using the tool for. I can’t draw so I have no business in Krita. I’ve made logos in Inkscape and have used GIMP and Photoshop for different things. I’ll start most projects GIMP and move to a more specialized tool of I need it.
That’s because you know that “select none” is the correct tool to use in gimp most of the time. For lots of new users, “select all” seems like the more obvious option as opposed to “select none”. The reasoning is something like “I want to be able to edit the entire picture, so I should select all”. It doesn’t help that “select all” has the simpler keyboard shortcut of the two. So they press “select all”, then use a transformation tool like Scale or Rotate, and instead of simply transforming the layer like they would expect, it funnels them into the lovecraftian abomination of confusing UI design that is Floating Selection.
GIMP’s layer system is definitely unique, sadly it hasn’t much in common with the selection tool. In that sense, yes, it is unintuitive when migrating from other apps. I’d argue it’s not that complicated, as gimp even highlights the buttons you should be pressing like a mobile game, but it is a complete non sequitur so back on topic…
If you use “select all” in any program to cancel selections, I don’t know what to tell you. Like ok, GIMP is the jankiest of em all if you do that, no contest, but the rest doesn’t behave correctly either if your expectation is that it’ll work just like it did before you did any selecting. The flashing selection line around the whole page should be a pretty strong indicator of something being different.
Honestly, many GUI program, doesn’t even have to be a raster art program; vector art like illustrator, 3D modeling like maya, some music programs, our custom spreadsheet stuff at work, even many file explorers, as far as I remember they all have the ctrl-shift-a shortcut and all would behave quite differently if you used ctrl-a excepting the same result. I’m genuinely at a loss where you’d get the idea to use ctrl-a to cancel a selection. Like I understand the intuition you proposed, but at what point do you just forget everything else you ever did on your computer?
counterpoint, learn nondestructive editing and you can use any image tool you want that supports it. IMO this is a far nore useful skill than investing time into one app that can’t even do nondestructive🥲
Holy cow, it’s finally here. Not only that, I really like the way it looks in the layers panel. I thought they would just copy Krita filter layers, but this implementation seems smarter.
Gimp sucks. That’s why people on Linux rather use krita to edit photos and it wasn’t even built to do that.
Gimp is a horrible mistake that should literally be killed off and it should be put into a failure museum to serve as a warning and a reminder how Foss can take a wrong turn and many free development hours are spent towards building the wrong things and continue to disappoint any user that tries it.
Sometimes “intuitive UI/UX” leads to long “where is the fucking menu” confusion. Shitvendor of my phone shipped it with some garbage crApple-like launcher, where I couldn’t remove app from home screen without removing entire app. This lasted untill I installed Trebuchet.
While I understand your frustration, intuitive UI/UX is ‘real’ and not just a marketing gag. But you have to invest the money and the time to do proper user research.
If you’re not spending hours trying to figure out how to do the most basic shit then it’s not for you, pal. Ever heard the expression pressure turns coal into diamonds?
That’s right.
That’s because we’re not bitch ass pussies. Last night I spent five hours trying to merge some layers, and you know what? Worth it! I read the docu, had a back and forth with the developers and after they threatened to kill my family I got it. I’m now a proud member of the Gimp Club Tm (choker and gag ball not included).
Ya gotta give to get some, Shirley. Now move over, I need to block out the rest of the day so I can figure out how to export a PNG.
That’s fucking stupid. What are you even doing in this community? It seems like you’re completely against the idea of investing time. Gonna guess you are a fan of Windows
Issa joke pal. No need to cry crocodile tears about it. No, pal, I don’t like windows. Why even bring that up? I just don’t like the attitude you guys have whenever someone dares criticize your precious Gimp. No I haven’t used it in ten years because it was a nightmare to figure out the most basic functions
How stupid must you be that merging layers takes you hours? It is a single button press. Exporting PNGs is a matter of under 10 seconds. It is clearly labelled in the dropdown menu.
I want to be offended, but people that have seen me criticise Gimp have called me so many worse things, that with “pleb” I don’t feel anything anymore.
Try at least mentioning that I’m an Adobe abused demented slave or something of sorts.
Most users? You can’t just make statistical claims without actual data. It’s fine to dislike something, but you don’t have to force your opinions on others. Gimp has its flaws and lack features a lot of professionals need, but a lot of people happily use it daily for their tasks. I agree that we need more open source software in this field, but that doesn’t mean gimp can’t coexist.
Absolute you problem. GIMP is some of the best and most powerful FOSS ever made, and better than most proprietary applications. But this is probably just bait anyway.