I'm so tired of people saying that GIMP is a competent alternative to Photoshop
Posted by IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 232 comments
I'm not trying to be an Adobe shill or say that Windows or macOS is much better because of the Adobe apps. Nor am I in any Thissense a professional who makes money in the graphics business. I'm just trying to get people to understand this.
I started out image manipulation/designing using GIMP as I'm simply too poor (😭) to bother paying for Photoshop. I truly believed those people on the internet that said that GIMP can do 90% of what Photoshop does and that those 10% that GIMP couldn't do are just rare edge-case scenarios that only actual professionals might come across
I slowly learned how to use GIMP over a couple of years by poking around in the software and trying out what the different buttons do. Now this also means that my GIMP skills are nowhere complete and I might've missed a lot of stuff or simply not understand some things.
But I started using Photoshop when I got into photography school and immediately discovered how limited GIMP truly is.
One absolutely HUGE feature missing in GIMP is to be able to do color adjustment in layers. This means you can (for example) adjust contrast in one layer, and then brightness in another. If you decide later on that you don't want one of them, you can just delete the individual layer, and it will never actually modify the original image until you export.
Another one is the super limited selection tools in GIMP. Photoshop has a selection of super-powerful tools to intelligently select certain objects in a picture. GIMP kind of has some (namely scissors and fuzzy select), but they are extremely fuzzy and nowhere NEAR the level of what Photoshop can do.
I feel like both of these features are pretty basic and they are probably some of the tools you use the most in a photo editor. While the gap in powerful-ness might not be a problem for a lot of simpler edits, an if you are doing anything slightly more advanced the time required to perform edits get exponentially higher extremely quickly.
Like seriously, a task that takes 10 seconds in Photoshop can take multiple MINUTES to do in GIMP. I wouldn't say that GIMP is 90% of Photoshop, it's more barely 60%, and I feel that the person who originally said that haven't tried using Photoshop for anything more than making memes
Again, I learned GIMP to by playing around with it, not by reading a 200-page PDF, so might skills might be the problem. But even searching online I see people complaining over the same thing.
Just so I'm clear, I mostly use Linux as my primary OS, and I absolutely loathe using Windows (Mac I don't have a lot of experience with), and GIMP is a really impressive FOSS project, and also what got me interested in the graphic-photography topic.
But going forward when someone who wants move to Linux, and asks for a good Photoshop alternative that works on Linux, it's probably best to tell them that it's not really worth bothering, and that the best choice is probably to stick to what they are already using.
gen2brain@reddit
How much did you pay for Adobe Photoshop and how much for GIMP? Why not send 0.1% of that amount as a donation to GIMP?
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
GoSwampFoetusGo@reddit
youre comparing apples to oranges I think with no real argument - of course Adobe will be better because its had loads of developers AND YOURE PAYING FOR IT
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
My problem isn't that open source alternatives are worse in terms of capability, my problem is that a lot of people seem that GIMP is comparable to other more industry standard software, when in reality it is far worse in most workflows.
GoSwampFoetusGo@reddit
I think youre projecting your issues with Gimp onto "a lot of people" I guarantee you cannot even quantify "a lot". Youre welcome to not like Gimp but unless you can produce verifiable stats on people saying its comparable its just YOUR opinion
Past-Pollution@reddit
From what I've heard, the GIMP dev team isn't very interested in chasing after Photoshop (especially in terms of GIMP's workflow). The problem isn't just a lack of funding and developers to make GIMP better, it's also that due to the devs' vision, it'll probably never be the FOSS Photoshop alternative many people are looking for no matter how much development it gets.
Biszman@reddit
I've been using Photoshop for 20 minutes after using GIMP for many years and you're right on. PS is way more powerful than than Gimp.
But I've already noticed that Gimp is better than PS is in some ways. It's not going to make me quit using it and go back to Gimp. For examples, (1) I can't do stuff to the image when I have a function window open, (2) PS doesn't remember what .png I opened, I have to get the directory to do quick export. Minor UE/UI things
qualia-assurance@reddit
I agree with you. I don't want to throw shade at GIMP. It is fantastic for what it does. But I think it would be great if there was a straight up Photoshop clone for Linux. Not a "close enough clone" but a 1:1 feature project. Affinity Photo does a really good job in this respect but sadly that's paid software and not even available on Linux. :(
TheRealMasonMac@reddit
https://github.com/GraphiteEditor/Graphite aims for something competitive.
marcelar1e@reddit
This project looks amazing!
Barn07@reddit
having studied and worked in Computer Graphics, I can assure you that Photoshop contains lotsof state-of-the-art very scientific stuff. I have doubts the open source community could keep up with this. I believe the existence of GIMP as is is today underpins that.
abotelho-cbn@reddit
Blender does.
It's entirely possible. GIMP just isn't structured correctly for the type of project it is.
afiefh@reddit
I love Blender, and I use it for all my personal 3D work. But no.
Blender 4.0 is finally getting Light Linking, for contrast Light Linking was available in Maya back in 2011. When Blender 2.6 (I think) finally supported ngons it was a huge thing, but 3Ds Max had NGons all the way back to 3ds max 4 (which is the first version I used, no clue what came before).
The Blender community is also much more technical than the GIMP community. The main complaint about GIMP is that the GUI is not the same as Photoshop. On the other hand the Blender GUI is completely different from any other software, but very few people complain about it.
Blender is an amazing piece of software, and it's definitely closer to what users expect from it than GIMP, but let's not kid ourself and claim that it is state of the art.
IndianVideoTutorial@reddit
3D porn runs on Blender, so there.
agumonkey@reddit
wow, my old life
Audible_Whispering@reddit
It's not just structure that's the problem.
Blender became a state of the art 3D modelling suite when it started getting support from commercial interests with deep pockets and large dev teams. That worked because the organizations who wanted Blender to be good were mostly working in computer graphics themselves - Game studios, animation studios, industrial design teams.
They had the resources to understand what Blender needed and work on it. Furthermore, they could commit developers as well as money. It's much easier to persuade your boss to assign a few hours a week to FOSS work than pay another developers salary.
Most Photoshop users don't have a background in programming, let alone image manipulation. A lot of them aren't technically minded at all. They know what features they need, but not how to implement them. The only way they can contribute is by funding developers, but that's a tough sell - you need to persuade huge numbers of people to pay someones salary for months with the promise of eventually getting what they're already paying adobe for.
Fundamental industry differences make building a FOSS photoshop alternative much harder than a FOSS autodesk competitor.
betoelectrico@reddit
That's something that happens in my field (Electrical Engineer, but more like motor and power distribution stuff not software stuff), there is no good Free Software avaiable for us, and any community project would require developers receiving direction from people who don't really understand software development.
nokeldin42@reddit
Electrical engineers understand software development far better than artists/photographers. If there were an open source simulator, they could even contribute to it themselves.
The issue is probably different. There are much fewer freelance/hobbyist engineers who need that level of simulations. Companies can easily pay the big bucks, so there is no actual entity who wants an open source alternative.
betoelectrico@reddit
Probably you are right to some degree, is a mixture of both I think, I would have killed for a Power flow simulator during my student years and I would happily have have contributed, one point that I didn't tought during my previous comment is liability if the software make a bad calculation people can get hurt and companies don't want to save money if that translate to absorving that liability.
particlemanwavegirl@reddit
yeah i rolled my eyes pretty hard when OP said the tools in PS were just "basic features"
thekomoxile@reddit
Maybe a better word than "basic" would be "essential", at least in the context of modern expected features for image manipulation software?
Complex-Flight-3358@reddit
State of the art stuff aside, one word, workflow.
Same story with darktable as well. Can pretty much do almost anything lightroom does, yet it does it in a very convoluted way where even if you d master it, you'd still need a ton more time to do X tasks compared to lightroom.
These are clearly pasion projects by some highly skilled and knowledgeable teams, and they are impressive for what they are, but there is simply no comparison if you wanna use that stuff even semi-professionally...Which makes sense of course considering how much money and brainpower has been put into the adobe suite.
Complex-Flight-3358@reddit
State of the art stuff aside, one word, workflow.
Same story with darktable as well. Can pretty much do almost anything lightroom does, yet it does it in a very convoluted way where even if you d master it, you'd still need a ton more time to do X tasks compared to lightroom.
These are clearly pasion projects by some highly skilled and knowledgeable teams, and they are impressive for what they are, but there is simply no comparison if you wanna use that stuff even semi-professionally...Which makes sense of course considering how much money and brainpower has been put into the adobe suite.
qualia-assurance@reddit
I don't mean necessarily 1:1 in an add all the AI features that a billion dollar company can throw money at to implement. I just mean in workflow. That if a feature is added, it should be in a place that would be familiar for Photoshop users. Have all the tools work roughly the same with the same icons in a similar layout. Have the layers system work roughly the same, have the adjustments, etc all work roughly the same. Have the drop down menus have a similar layout to photoshop etc.
I respect that GIMP wants to be its own thing and grows in its own way. But for a lot of users who come from photoshop this is a whole bunch of relearning and unnecessary confusion.
And again. This isn't an attempt to throw shade at GIMP. These software packages grew independently of each other. There are GIMP users who would want things to stay the GIMP way because that's all they have used. But for people who have learned photoshop, use it at work, etc, and just want something similar for their home computer. Then GIMP is in this kind of frustrating.
diditforthevideocard@reddit
Someone showed me a forked gimp that has a Photoshop UI once but I can't find it
GCHodge@reddit
Photogimp: https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP
popetorak@reddit
that doent look like photoshop
Maiksu619@reddit
Thank you for posting. Saved the comment so I can check it out when I get home.
Glad to see some positive and constructive feedback instead of the negative posts that didn’t read and understand OP’s post.
papi-italiano@reddit
Photopea kinda does the job
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
I really hope that when they finally get GIMP 3.0 into a stable release they can finally focus on implementing new stuff and also polishing the kinda half-assed features.
Imo GIMP has a nicer UI with more consistent button placement and with buttons/labels that makes more sense. Not to mention the super annoying non-standard keyboard mappings Photoshop has by default.
It's just that it lacks certain very basic features of other paid software that offers. Which in turn makes using gimp just far more time-consuming.
qualia-assurance@reddit
I don't think GIMP is necessarily half-assed. It just grew as its own product with its own design philosophy. I just wanted to say that as somebody that used photoshop a bunch but can't justify the price for the little I use it. Then it would be great if there was a fork of GIMP that aimed to be a photoshop clone in terms of layout and functionality. I get that there are GIMP users out there that wouldn't want their software to change for the same reasons we aren't 100% onboard with GIMP. If GIMP became the same as photoshop as we want it. Then they'd feel the same workflow confusions that we do!
I wouldn't even mind paying for it. I've bought Affinity Photo before because it's reasonably priced. Sadly their linux support through WINE is temperamental.
slugphranch@reddit
I always get flamed to hell when I bring up the idea that the terrible name is a problem; but the terrible name is a problem.
Regardless of whatever one feels about e.g. ableism and political correctness and whatnot, the project limits itself by choosing to stick with such an unserious name. It simply wont be taken seriously by the world at large with a name like that.
I wish that the supporters and devs et al were smart or savvy enough to understand that e.g. Glimpse is a great alternative route to go, but they're not and thats sad.
iMakeMehPosts@reddit
The name GIMP isn't about being "gimped" or anything, it is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program.
GoSwampFoetusGo@reddit
its more important what its perceived as. If for example I created a program called Nominal Analysis Zone Integrator....Id have problems calling it Nazi. Gimp is perv weirdo from Pulp Fiction
iMakeMehPosts@reddit
I haven't even watched pulp fiction so? What? It's clearly not a reference to that? Also, think of this: Google is a silly name. It's a misspelling of googol. Adobe is literally a style of cooking chicken. As a programmer, we like silly names. That doesn't stop the people that matter most to GNU (FOSS programmers) to coming to the project. Hell, in a similar vein the os system Ubuntu (which is used by ~20-30% of websites) is a pretty silly name. SO....
DEVELOPERS LIKE SILLY NAMES!
GoSwampFoetusGo@reddit
yes but try selling the idea of using a piece of software with a silly name that has sexual pervert implications. Sorry its a crap name and they need to change it ...may as well call it Paedo Files or something
iMakeMehPosts@reddit
I have no fing idea wtf you are talking about with pervert shi. Pulp fiction is an ancient movie.
GoSwampFoetusGo@reddit
Living up to your username I see
iMakeMehPosts@reddit
Because I don't know a reference from a 30 year old film and don't see how it ties to the name of a 2d image editing software?
PlantCultivator@reddit
The name really doesn't matter.
GoSwampFoetusGo@reddit
it does. Try pitching it as an idea to a boss or team leader for utilisation
Ihateazuremountain@reddit
Well, you don't shop for photos with Photoshop. Interesting to see recent traffic here recently as well.
Aerothix@reddit
Sorry, but that's a bad analogy, because you do in fact workshop a photo in Photoshop, much like you would workshop a car in an auto shop.
Ihateazuremountain@reddit
Yeah? Well i don't wear GIMP suits when using Gimp...
YourFlakingFuture@reddit
Photoshop is in the same price range as netflix per month. I use the pack with lightroom as it was the cheapest. Give it a try maybe you dont realize its that cheap
GoSwampFoetusGo@reddit
its why prating exists -a lot of software is stupidly priced
sgunb@reddit
Probably the same people who claim libreoffice is an equal alternative to M$ office. It's not. Not even close. Still I appreciate FOSS and use it privately and think it is sufficient for private use. But it just cannot compete with the commercial alternative.
jdigi78@reddit
How does onlyoffice compare? They claim 100% compatibility
Ciachciarachciach139@reddit
Quick and dirty example of Excel vs Calc.
Removing duplicates:
Excel - select range, click remove duplicates, done. Calc - https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/ro/text/scalc/guide/remove_duplicates.html
Don't get me wrong, I hate m$ but LibreOffice isn't even close to usability of m$ office.
GoSwampFoetusGo@reddit
cherry picking. Calc is ok for most stuff. Most businesses when it comes to office software totally underutilise the software they have. I suspect most businesses could quite happily use the equivalent software from 20 years ago with no real problems. ASs an Ive worked with accountants who dont know the basics of Excel and those basics havent changed for decades. Its like buying a calculator with all those obscure scientific functions on it when most calculations you need are simple
jdigi78@reddit
Okay, what about onlyoffice?
Ciachciarachciach139@reddit
Not a clue as I've never used it. Discussion was Office VS LibreOffice.
FactoryOfShit@reddit
It's lightyears ahead of LibreOffice. I use OnlyOffice all the time, especially their spreadsheets. Way more features than something like Google Sheets.
Now, I'm sure there are some weird Microsoft-invented features that aren't there, but so far I've yet to stumble onto something I did in Excel that I cannot do here.
Synthetic451@reddit
In my experience, it has way better DOCX compatibility than LibreOffice.
sgunb@reddit
I don't know about this software. But on the first glance it appears to have more modern features like collaborative work, which libreoffice is missing entirely.
r______p@reddit
Not equal but good enough for things that should be done in office.
Google apps shows that you don't need all the features of M$ to meet 90% of office users needs, in fact for that 90% Google Apps is superior.
Whenever people have examples of what Google Apps or libre office can't do that excel can, it's always stuff that should be in a database anyway if you want any level of tractability and accountability.
Presentations & word, are only any better if you spend too long in them.
HephaestoSun@reddit
yep, i can make do with libreoffice or google apps for simple stuff with very little adjusting time, gimp on the other hand it's a completely different story.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
I found Google slides more stable than Microshit PowerPoint, but the UI is a bit more annoying to use + Google slides lack some of the goofy animations you can do in Microd**k PowerPoint
irasponsibly@reddit
Calc's implementation of conditional formatting is awful, and Excel wasn't setting a high bar. That alone made me ignore calc for even personal use.
TheFeshy@reddit
So much this. There are plenty of times I've hit the limits on what write and calc can do. But there's never been a time when I thought "I wish I had a slightly more capable word editor or spreadsheet" - it's always because it's time to move to something else. Maybe layout with LaTeX (or Typst!) or a real database and logic.
gokufire@reddit
On the commercial field, of available softwares for Linux (differently than Adobe Suites) we have SoftMaker Office and WPS Office. Interesting alternatives to the FOSS Libre Office in case of a need for full compatibility with MS Office.
e9tjqh@reddit
I think librewriter is fine compared to word, but calc and impress are way below excel and power point.
JonnyRocks@reddit
nothing on any platform compares to excel. i love tech history and excel is responsible for crearing brand new jobs in the finance industry
KnowZeroX@reddit
And completely messing up industries when people use excel to store stuff that clearly should be in a database. Like the million row issue that cause covid result losses in the UK
betoelectrico@reddit
But that isn't fault at Excel, it should be part of a job trainings to call someone who is trainned to do databases
dkech@reddit
My work laptop is a Mac, and I have to say that not even Excel for Mac (I have used 2011, 2016 & 2019 versions) compares to Excel!
ooonurse@reddit
I think one reason for this is that people interested in using open source software it contributing to it are also people who know other tools much more suitable for data storage and manipulation. Why build or ask for feature parity with software that's arguably dangerous to use for the things it's being used for?
From experience, major financial institutions have been trying to de-excel for years and are actively moving towards open source solutions. Python is becoming a required skill for analysts where excel used to be and there's a myriad of open source database solutions that are replacing big old excel files stored on-premises.
Excel has it's uses but by the time you get to doing things you can't do in libreoffice you should probably be using something else anyway.
sgunb@reddit
I disagree on this. Python and Excel have different applications. While Python might be the better choice for big data analysis, Excel is much more suitable for quick and dirty results. I don't even want to start coding in Python, when I can get what I need in 15 minutes done in Excel.
And seriously. Libreoffice calc is a nightmare in user friendliness compared to Excel. Sure you get it done. But it is way more time consuming. And I want to invest my energy on the evaluation, not on the software.
ooonurse@reddit
Python is great for quick and dirty too; Jupyter, IPython and the REPL make it super fast to do any of those calculations. Then it doesn't come with the risk that that spreadsheet which started as a quick and dirty calculation ends up underpinning millions of dollars of business, which is what happens consistently.
I say this as someone that has spent a decade in excel and written more VBA than I'd care to admit.
sgunb@reddit
For a trained programmer this is true, but not for the average engineer or physicist who also has to analyze a lot of data. They don't have the skill to make a quick and dirty python analysis. When they need more than Excel they use statistics software like e.g. Minitab.
priestoferis@reddit
Your average physicist student get taught python in their first year, because boy oh boy, do we not want to see them doing stuff in excel.
sgunb@reddit
Sure they get taught how to program. But what you learn in class is not enough routine to do this quick and dirty evaluation. At work in industry you are under time pressure. Nobody cares if you make a skilled program or a quick spreadsheet. You have to deliver results asap. If you waste an hour programming stuff you could have done in 5 minutes in Excel you can bet that the next thing is a personal talk with your manager.
particlemanwavegirl@reddit
you're just describing a toxic work environment. organizations and projects that foster people who take time to do things as correctly as possible don't just categorically fail, ime they actually attract much higher quality clients.
sgunb@reddit
Yes, it is. I agree on this.
priestoferis@reddit
Can you give me an example where you think it's easier to do something in excel than in python (genuine question, not trying to be cheeky)?
I rarely use excel, but most things I can conjure up that are 5 minutes in excel are probably also 5 minutes in python, just scalable and repeatable. By the time they finish a bachelor they probably did quite a few projects/labs/thesis in python, while not getting taught excel formally, so I'd say they are actually more experienced with python than excel. I personally think the only time it's worth doing stuff in excel, where you have to "present" it, you already got your data in excel, and there are no graphs involved. OR if you need to provide a "dashboard" for higher ups to change numbers.
sgunb@reddit
It's not so much about a certain task but more about intuition and easiness. For example you have a chart with 5 columns of experimental data, you filter or sort by some variables, delete some outlier data points or other nonsense which doesn't belong there, do search and replace, add data from another chart using vlookup and make a quick x-y graph. Then you draw your conclusion about it and move on. Sure the graphs are not pretty and not publication ready. But they deliver what you need to know fast. And even if I would require more, like for example statistics in Python, I still would do this preparatory work in excel first and only then load the clean data set in Python or another software.
For a pretty presentation of data I don't consider excel suited at all. For this task I would plot the date in another dedicated software like origin, qtiplot or something like this.
priestoferis@reddit
Hmm. I agree that Excel is intuitive to a certain point, but I'm positive, that vlookup is already way beyond that point (and any filter/calculation that is more then one or two very simple statements; above that it is completely unreadable). It also shows we're coming from different places: I didn't know vlookup in Uni. Also remembering back to Uni, I'd usually delete bad rows in the csv with a text editor after I found it with something that can be used with a lot of numbers. Probably because it was usually not a handful of hand measured stuff? I think for me (and how physicist are trained) is kind of like: if the data doesn't fit on a single screen, it's too much for Excel :D
Imho: I think the genius of Excel is for the corporate environment. It's on every computer, portable, compact, everybody learns it and it's easy to manage from IT perspective. So people who don't know python or R will still know excel, even if python would be better at the job (and I think this does underline: better for whom? If you know scraps of python and a lot of Excel, Excel is better for you if you want to work fast).
sgunb@reddit
It really depends on the single case. I'm not defending Excel. I think it has many limitations too and I believe that data analysis in Python is great. However, it really depends on what you have to do. Both softwares have their own applications and strengths. It's best to know both.
ooonurse@reddit
Have you used the python repl or Jupyter? I'm not talking about writing modular programs, I'm talking doing calculations on the command line or slightly more complex in Jupyter and pandas. If it's 5 minutes in excel I bet I can get the calculation and analysis done in pandas quicker than it takes to actually load excel lol.
sgunb@reddit
Yes, I know and used Jupyter, pandas and the like. And no. I don't think it's faster. As soon as you run into the first issues and you have to start looking things up you are already done in excel.
ooonurse@reddit
I was an engineer (chemical) I used industrial software built for the calculations I was doing and then python and Matlab almost exclusively. Learned excel when I moved into the finance industry.
priestoferis@reddit
I'd argue that if your quick and dirty jupyter notebook ends up as the underpinning, you're only marginally better off, than with an excel spreadsheet.
ooonurse@reddit
It generally won't though because they're much harder to embed into things. Excel does too many things adequately but badly and so it's easy for a production system to end up underpinned by an excel sheet just because anyone can do it.
There are production systems, particularly machine learning workflows, that can be underpinned by a Jupyter notebook hosted in Sagemaker, but that's a well established paradigm now.
priestoferis@reddit
Well established yes, I personally still don't like it. Version control of notebooks is usually only slightly better then your average final_v2.xlsx. Of course this is the python world's excel in the sense that it's easy to start working in, so "anyone" can do it so rarely gets done "properly".
KnowZeroX@reddit
That depends on what you are doing, for example I always have to get people to install LibreOffice Calc cause of issues Excel has copy and pasting unformatted data
JonnyRocks@reddit
i dont know what major financial institution but i have worked for wells, bofa, citi, anf a few others. ginacial analysts live and die with excel.
ooonurse@reddit
Yeah it's baked in from decades of use, but there's a big push to move out of Excel now. It helps that grads now are more proficient in python than excel generally. I've just had an intern that couldn't use Excel whatsoever, despite being fantastic at python, which was mildly frustrating at times since it is so fundamentally tied into old systems.
Quirky_Obligation_64@reddit
It is if you mean to use it to fill a simple document, casually, not for work. Impress presentation are not even portable (if one opens impress presentation on a machine with a different dpi of the monitor, all pictures which were "cropped" will display wrong). This bug has been present and unfixed for many years. https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=112538
AnythingAnthingAnthi@reddit
It might be worth reporting that in my experience Libre Office's ability to render Microsoft PowerPoint presentations has improved in several important respects over the last year or so - I used to have problems using Impress to display files created in PowerPoint, but now I do not.
That cropping problem does sound bad though.
Quirky_Obligation_64@reddit
Actually to go around the bug I posted above and make your presentation files "portable", you should save your presentations in MS pptx format. It does not thave "dpi-dependent rendering of cropped bitmaps".
My presentations have lots of formulas, which are all cropped from "full documents". So it is like 20 slides with 10-15 cropped images per slide. It is a lot of work to fix all these.
jimmyhoke@reddit
LibreOffice might not have quite as many features, but I use it in college and it does the job.
TotallyNotARuBot_ZOV@reddit
Yeah I used both PowerPoint and Libreoffice Impress, and oh boy. They're barely comparable anymore, it's so much easier to make good presentations in Powerpoint.
Fit_Fall_1969@reddit
As for me, it's a perfect free complement for Stable Diffusion.
rcava452@reddit
Granted. I agree GIMP has its limitation and is not PS. I used Photoshop in the 1990s in a graphics design business and it has only grown since then. Recently, however, the user agreement was brought to my attention. In using PS and Adobe cloud, the user surrenders copyright protection. As I understand, If you have a photograph you want to enhance and choose to use PS or LightRoom, you MUST fully agree with the user license.
Recently, I began shooting photographs with the intention of making them more professional looking. Knowing what I know, I went to the ADOBE site to read the user license for Photoshop and LightRoom. I could not find it anywhere. I did come across a discussion group where individuals complained about not seeing the ADOBE user license before they agreed to it. Later in the discussion was comments that the user license only appears AFTER you agree to it.
I am not a professional photographer and am frankly sick of User Licenses. Companies like ADOBE continually expand the license agreement. I got to a point that I simple just agreed to them so I could use the 'better' product. Reading 20 pages of legalese is not my forte. This is also why I have elected to dump WINDOWS for Linux Abunto.
At least the GIMP user license is brief and simple with the included statement that all photographs remain the property of the original photographer. I guess with age and orneriness I have resigned to hold onto the rights I have and not surrender them for something 'better'
dlbpeon@reddit
We use both for work. Often, we split projects up between the Photoshop techs and the FOSS (Gimp, Blender, Kdenlive) techs just for fun. Sometimes, we give them the same project and see what the end results will be. More often than we can count, the Adobe techs have the projects finished and have moved on to another job hours before the FOSS techs do. The last time we did this was with an animation project. That result was tragic. The Adobe team was done within an hour and a half, with the FOSS techs taking most of the day. We let the client decide which result was better, and they picked the Adobe creation hands down.
middl_fiddl@reddit
What kind of company A/Bs implementation by stack like this if the outcome is a forgone conclusion?
fidelsalazar@reddit
Adobe (Adobe Inc Bdr BVMF: ADBE34) is a company with lots of resources to add for product development. Nothing bad with Gimp getting a fraction of the Adobe Photoshop, very contrary, lots of proud reaching a position and being an alternative for some. What is shame is Adobe not supporting Linux OS, not every Linux user is looking open source alternatives but just wishing to be far from other OSs, especially Windows. Adobe should stop its marriage with Windows and make its products available to everybody in more OSs out of just Windows or Mac. If in the firsts day they were forced to this marriage to survive in the market it is understandable as this husband is tricky but current days have brought more freedom and it is a good time for a divorce.
snark567@reddit
Gimp is awful, I used to use it back in the day before I learned photoshop. As soon as I learned Photoshop everything became faster, more enjoyable and my art became higher quality. I game Gimp a try again like a year ago out of curiosity and it's like the software never evolved aside from getting a dark theme and being slightly more confusing to look at.
People who tell you that Gimp is a viable alternative to Photoshop, probably never used Photoshop before or only used it to crop an image, add some basic text or maybe tweak the colors slightly. Most people who know Photoshop won't bother giving Gimp a try and even if they do, they'll just quickly see that they don't like it and go back to something actually usable. Most people are not going to waste their time going on github and writing down the issues they have with the software.
Plus let's be real, most open source devs don't really care about user experience. Blender is like a unicorn.
dlarge6510@reddit
Well, I'm so tired of people telling me that proprietary software is an alternative to the GIMP.
I literally can't care if it's better or not than Photoshop.
Photoshop doesn't exist in my universe.
PlantCultivator@reddit
ImageMagick is better than Gimp.
SadClaps@reddit
I'm tired of shills flooding this forum with their money-grubbing proprietary crapware
No, I am never going to give Adobe a single cent of my hard-earned cash for their cancerous SaaS subscriptions
Noxian16@reddit
Then pirate it, problem solved.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
Xddd
slikrick_@reddit
Omg ur so cool you use purely open source software
Stupid_McFace@reddit
GIMP is still a poor alternative to MS Paint though.
Mouthtrap@reddit
I think that what users here have to remember is that GIMP, like almost all of the software created for Linux, is a free product, assembled, packaged and developed by volunteers who get paid absolutely nothing for their work. It wasn't ever meant to replace photoshop or anything else created by professionals who get paid shitloads for their skills.
Before you start knocking the software down, try doing the decent thing if you have any dev skills - you can actually MAKE plugins for GIMP, so if there's functionality you need, that isn't there, create it yourself. That's the point of Free Open Source Software - it's always being built on, and anyone can contribute to it.
PlantCultivator@reddit
Can't. The gimp devs reject contributions they don't like.
slikrick_@reddit
I hate the excuse that "you can't complain about open source because it's provided for free by volunteers" that doesn't make it immune from criticism.
Also in this instance the criticism is about zealots who PRETEND like it's an alternative to software it isn't. It's not about the software itself.
Wise-Professor-7905@reddit
People complain like they have been forced to use FOSS. In reality they want to use free stuff which should on par with paid stuff to become the highest paid stuff (themselves) (without paying anything).
I don't know whether it it is irony or contradictory persona.
The op is paying to learn to use a paid product (The training should have been free & provided by the adobe) but can't bother to read 200 pages documentation.
Ps: I have never used the either software.
abotelho-cbn@reddit
People complain a lot about stuff they get for nothing, despite having the possibility of contributing to its success.
ArgueLater@reddit
Gimp is kind of embarrassing tbh. The problem with OSS is that it's generally a "first to market" kind of issue where whoever starts the first project, that's all we get. It doesn't matter if there are tons of people who could have led this project better or could do better if starting from scratch, everyone just goes "why not work on that stanky old code base instead of making something new." It's like we're all supposed to rally around a thing, even if it's terrible.
ericinthel0ft@reddit
photopea.com works pretty good for most basic ps cases imo
MeiAihara06@reddit
photopea was great a while back. the owner fucked it up so hard that it's unusable nowadays yet they defend themselves by saying covering up fucking third of the screen with ads is not a big deal and necessary since the product is free. the thing is there are no server costs (asides from hosting the static software bundle) and all the processing is done in client (which is what makes it actually useful and great)
no huge features were added in a while yet the current experience has degraded significantly and the quality is worse as a result.
I know that maintaining software takes time and effort and not everything should be open source. but this is not in the same topic. IMO this is greed.
ericinthel0ft@reddit
Someone gives you a free tool and you think it's greed? Since when does this random person owe you anything? Seriously, read what you just said and think about it again.
MeiAihara06@reddit
Giving me a free tool by itself is not greed. Nor do I mean this person owes me anything.
But actively adding paywalls and destroying the user experience while not caring about privacy of users who trusted the service and then acting like nothing happened, is. Just look at their subreddit top posts and the owners response to see where I'm coming from.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
Photopea looks insanely cool but the main problems is that there is a big AD covering 25% of the screen unless you give them 8$ a month. And that it is a website where all of the toolwindows open inside the webpage (super annoying for multitasking).
If they could introduce an ad-free desktop port (maybe with something like Electron) and make it purchasable with a fair one-time fee it would totally be a killer.
krysztal@reddit
GIMP now would have been a half decent Photoshop replacement 20 years ago. And since I first seen GIMP in high school till now it has been nothing but stagnant while shills that never had use anything more than a damn bell pepper stamp brush touts it as the next jesus of image manipulation. FYI last Photoshop CS works well in wine nowadays and is league above what GIMP offers. You're welcome
thekomoxile@reddit
Thank you! I had no idea Photoshop works in wine these days! I was able to get Photoshop 2021 v22 working, with a few missing DLLs to gather, and it works seemingly well enough.
(d2d1.dll, libdynamic-napi.dll, act_tracing.dll and dynamic-torqnative.dll, were missing for me, specifically)
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
Stuff was just simpler back then. When the feature list of paid software was small, there wasn't hard to replicate most of them.
Nowadays when more complex graphics design is everywhere and the demand for image manipulation software has skyrisen Photoshop has really gotten a huge jump forward while GIMP has been left behind struggling to catch up to even the few-years old versions of Photoshop.
krysztal@reddit
Yeah, I get it. I said it more as a frame of reference to my disdain for the people who wont stop talking how great and on par with Photoshop GIMP is, although it did sound a bit too harsh in retrospect. Yeah, GIMP is fine for simple edits for me and I'm sure that if you know a lot about it you can do some impressive edits in it
toaster_fighter@reddit
I appreciate GIMP for what it is but I love that you're calling out that ridiculous bell pepper stamp. I wonder who uses that brush every time I see it.
sammymammy2@reddit
Popular meme on /g/
bvgross@reddit
If gimp implements adjustment layers or any other non destructive way of editing (maybe nodes) I would fully migrate.
CMYK-Student@reddit
If it helps, it's being worked on: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/merge_requests/958
(Really hoping to finish it up for review this month)
bvgross@reddit
Hey, thank you for your contribution!!
Thossle@reddit
I'm not terribly familiar with Gimp and I know nothing of Photoshop, but I can say that Blender (3D software) is packed with great graphics processing functionality. That's not what I do with it so I don't know the specifics, but it would be worth checking out to see how you might integrate it into your pipeline.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
I'm not really professional, I'm just a super angry student who can't use my preferred operating system (mostly) because of just one program.
Using 3D animation software for 2D image manipulation sounds a lot like taking pictures by screenshotting a video.
It might work but it's too convoluted of a solution.
Thossle@reddit
It would probably be fairly complicated to set up, especially if you're not already familiar with Blender or its scripting.
I think it's the sort of thing where someone who already uses all of those features as part of a 3D workflow gets the idea to start using it for general 2D stuff and writes some scripts to streamline the process.
Having said that...there are some incredibly advanced concepts in 2D processing software which will never be found in 3D software because they simply aren't worth the development effort when you can define geometry and lighting. That could be a pretty significant handicap if you were just working with imported image files...
onceuponalilykiss@reddit
Yeah it's serviceable for edits, it's terrible for actual photography work. CMYK was added like, this year if at all?
agumonkey@reddit
gimp is so terrible i prefer to script imagemagick in emacs
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
Wow we found the real pro here LMAO
agumonkey@reddit
(⌐ ͡■ ͜ʖ ͡■)
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
The next step from this would probably be to edit the raw binary data of the image file in order to alter the appearance 💀
agumonkey@reddit
don't tempt me, i like ed and hexedit too
not even sarcastic, it would teach me more image low levle file formats :D
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
Try to edit the data of an image by manually moving the mechanical components of an HHD in order to write the bytes
agumonkey@reddit
remember this https://xkcd.com/378/ ? :D
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
LMAO never seen it but still funny xddd
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
madlad
wow
commodore512@reddit
It's fine for photography as long as you don't plan on printing.
onceuponalilykiss@reddit
That's a pretty big "if" and even with CMYK gimp is like two decades behind Photoshop in many other areas, including the integrated Adobe suite for better/quicker RAW editing.
thephotoman@reddit
It’s landed in the 3.0 branch, at least.
But it’s not in the GA build.
onceuponalilykiss@reddit
Yeah I remember it being in dev but wasnt sure if that was out yet. 2023 with no CMYK support is just useless for serious photography work.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
nice that my post got removed in the span of a few minutes XD
Mouthtrap@reddit
/u/IdkWhatToCallMe123 - I messaged the mods this morning about the post removal, because I thought your post did comply with the rule they removed it under - It IS relevant to the Linux community, and concerns free open source software.
If you look at the top of the post, the removal message has gone. I asked them to review removing it. Thankfully, they did. I was hoping we could turn it into a discussion about coding and developing things for software like this.
Just as a side to this, do you have any coding skills or anything like that? If you do, you could be really helpful at distribution level for whatever flavour of Linux you run, because we're always looking for people in the background, like maintainers, packagers, bug fixers and so on, to keep these distros running smoothly :)
that_leaflet@reddit
I approved it a few hours ago.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
<3
Mouthtrap@reddit
Thank you :) It's always good to give people an outlet to vent their frustrations with software, because it gives people like me an opportunity to help them help themselves!
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
Thank you <3 :D
SynthGal@reddit
good
ScootSchloingo@reddit
I’ve been using Photoshop for 15+ years and GIMP for over a decade. GIMP has made some strides in recent years but I can’t think of a single advantage it has over Photoshop outside of it being FOSS. Even with the PhotoGIMP configuration literally everything takes more time and/or steps than it does on Photoshop.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
At least of me, GIMP just has a more consistent and nicer UI/UX in most areas.
For example, in GIMP if you add Linear motion, GIMP actually shows you a rendered preview of the effect and lets you adjust it in the workspace in real-time. While in Photoshop it only shows you a popup window that kinda lets you guess how the final effect is gonna look like.
And what impresses me is that in the latest GIMP beta running under Linux+Wayland, it actually has proper trackpad gestures. They are incredibly laggy, but they work. The latest Photoshop version on Windows doesn't have any of them.
Small stuff like this really shows that the GIMP devs care about making it nice to use, it's just a shame that it lacks a lot of basic stuff currently.
Also personally FOSS ain't a requirement for me but it's definitely a nice peace-of-mind thing to have that your software ain't doing anything sus.
sabutilnik@reddit
Maybe GIMP is a competent alternative to photoshop for those who say it, what i don't get is, why are you tired of what people other than you think/say?
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
They almost never mention what GIMP lacks compare to Photoshop or even to something like Affinity Photo.
If you are trying to recommend something that fit other people's needs it is important to see what those other needs. It almost feels like these people that recommend GIMP has never tried Photoshop or that they only used Photoshop to make memes.
I get upset because these people that say GIMP is good are not only directing people to a dead end and wasting their time. But also just giving them the impression that all FOSS software is crap when that really not the case.
slikrick_@reddit
Don't pretend like Linux zealots aren't a big reason people get turned off of using Linux, it's not the end all be all and you need to keep average users in mind
Past-Pollution@reddit
The problem is when it's recommended to people as an effective alternative when it's not.
A new user to Linux/someone asking for recommendations shouldn't need to spend a bunch of time learning a new software tool just to be familiar enough with it to realize it's insufficient, and those recommendations shouldn't be happening in the first place.
(And yes, I realize GIMP does do the job for people doing basic image edits, and for some it actually is an effective recommendation. But for anyone doing serious photo editing work it's not, and any recommendation should be made with that caveat)
MattyGWS@reddit
Because they’re relentless zealots that anecdotally get by with gimp for the occasional edits and, in the most dunning-Kruger way possible, assume they know everything about photoshop and how professionals use it. It’s frustrating when you try to explain how gimp falls short only for these people to pop up ready and waiting to say “YoU jUsT hAvEnT uSeD gImP eNoUgH iT cAn Do EvErYtHiNg PhOtOsHoP cAn”
playfulmessenger@reddit
GIMP has a fraction of the Adobe staff. It's always been a bit behind in functionality, but realistically, there's no way this far into its existence that it could cone close to keeping up with remaining "being a bit behind".
There are ways to get ahold of addons to fill in functionality gaps. But if I'm recalling correctly, there was revolt against the product name several years back and I think the code base went through a fracturing. So those selling addons may have moved on to other things. (I only use it for what it is, so I've not really explored all that addons provide.)
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
At least of right now, it's not just a little bit behind, it's way more behind even than I am in paying my bills (💀).
Addons are pretty cools but there isn't like one website/store that list them all, therefore they are insanely hard to find (if there are any that solves my problem at all)
I'm not blaming the GIMP devs, they are dong gods work for providing anything free at all. I'm just blaming all of the peeps that are recommending GIMP as a serious Photoshop alternative.
undeleted_username@reddit
This is like comparing a Bentley with a Kia Rio, and forgetting the price difference.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
My problem isn't the price difference, it is that there isn't any real alternative at all if I want to use Linux.
Where I get upset is hearing people online saying that GIMP can compare to Photoshop in most workflows, and without mentioning the biggest caveats. They really just wasting my (and probably others) time.
Justin__D@reddit
I'd definitely download the Bentley if I could though...
polite-pagan@reddit
Though Krita doesn’t position itself as a Photoshop clone, it is a better clone than GIMP.
GIMP devs tried to create an new UI (they even hired a designer) and claimed it was more usable than PS and lost even more enthusiasts. Talk about hubris.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
Krita's ui is more focused for drawing, which isn't really ideal for me.
Imo a lot GIMP's UI/UX quite a bit better than what is in Photoshop (better labeled buttons, more icons and better keyboard shortcuts).
But UI/UX ain't the problem. It doesn't matter how good a UI/UX is if the program it self just isn't capable enough.
kI3RO@reddit
And now that you posted this complain, a group of programmers magically appears and fixes all these problems.
PS: No sane person would say photoshop and gimp have feature parity...
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
It's kinda sad that the kind of features GIMP lacks just happens to be both the most time-saving ones and the most hard-to-implement ones.
Mouthtrap@reddit
You're right, they wouldn't, because it's simply not true. The point is that if you want something that isn't in the software, you have the option (if you can code, which a fair few of us who act as package maintainers and developers can), then you can write your own plugins for GIMP. It takes effort to learn, but once you have the skill to do what you need, the possibilities are quite literally, endless.
WelcomeToGhana@reddit
sure, but "Ah I have to finish editing this photo by the end of the week, I need to create a gimp plugin so I can have better results" sounds ridiculous.
Most graphic designers and photoshop users do not have the skills nor time to just learn creating plugins for GIMP.
betoelectrico@reddit
The problem is that the Venn Diagram of people who knows how to program this features and the people who needs this features is pretty thin. This most likely would require Free software developers receiving request/orders from people who don't have an idea of how to code and that is not going to happen anytime soon
Mordynak@reddit
Copying and pasting is a painful experience in GIMP.
It's called Gimp...
If you ever dare to compare it to Photoshop, the community shits in you.
It is a clunky mess unfortunately.
Krita offers a much better experience all round. Closer to Photoshop, but still nowhere near as feature complete or user friendly.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
Krita to me looks like a more updated and polished alternative, but the biggest issue is that it is meant for drawing, not for image manipulation. Using a drawing program to edit images is like using a spoon to cut your food instead of using a knife.
Works but nowhere ideal.
Mordynak@reddit
Agreed. Neither are up to par. But I would pick Krita over Gimp.
dlarge6510@reddit
Ctrl-c
Ctrl-v
Can it get any simpler?
Mordynak@reddit
Unfortunately, the results are nothing like you would expect. Works differently to every other program I've ever used.
WelcomeToGhana@reddit
yeah bro sure, what kind of other programs have you ever tried copying and pasting it, terminal?
ben2talk@reddit
Obviously there are no adjustment layers in GIMP - you should create a new layer from visible using Layer > New from Visible, and then apply levels to that new layer.
So evidently the problem here is the capacity to 'learn by poking buttons'.
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
What if you are trying to apply different types of color correction?
Like one for contrasts and another one for highligts/shadows.
And then you decide you only want one of them?
In Photoshop this would be solved by just deleting that one adjustment layer but in GIMP you would have to revert your modifications and reapply them again.
Not to mention once you've applied it there is no way to adjust it later.
So basically if you are working with a bigger amount of adjustments you need some sort of extra notebook to remember all the values you applied to your image if you want to be able to reproduce the same result after you deleted just one adjustment.
I mean it technically works but it is hella frustrating and time consuming.
returnofblank@reddit
At least Photoshop is on the web now, so it is in someway available for Linux
IdkWhatToCallMe123@reddit (OP)
The web version is mostly a nerfed-down version of proper Photoshop. It only contains the AI tools that get viral all the time. The rest is pretty much missing.
Think of it as a more advanced Google Photos editor.
It would be actually mindblowing if they manage to port the whole thing to the web
VulcarTheMerciless@reddit
There are definitely cases where Windows has the best application for a given task, and that's the case with Photoshop. (whereas, in my experience, Windows has no free pdf reader that compares to Okular) I stopped using Photoshop when I was still running Windows/mac, when they went to their subscription model. Adobe can kiss my ass, right where it puckers like a peach seed.
Necessary_Context780@reddit
I couldn't figure out how to copy and paste a rectangle from a picture in itself. In any other image editor I ever used, it was a matter of selecting with the mouse, ctrl-c, ctrl+v then dragging it to where I wanted it. But that simply wasn't possible in Gimp.
I dislike Adobe's approach to keyboard shortcuts and commands too, though. I think Adobe lags considerably in interaction and commands when compared to 3D Studio Max and etc - it's software made for a different purpose, of course, but how I wish panning, zooming in and out and etc were so intuitive and slick in Photoshop as it is in 3DMax
ilep@reddit
I am assuming many who like GIMP are coming from "drawing" aspect: draw rectangles and things like MS paint, Mac paint or Deluxe paint.
That isn't same as photograph processing like Rawtherapee and Darktable.
The thing with Photoshop is that it does it pretty much everything and is geared towards what graphics *artists* use - not programmers who do graphics on the side. The difference is about the same as putting individual pixel or polygons in place instead of 3D-sculpting and digital brushes.
Similar thing affects many other open source projects like desktop environments: they are often built by programmers for technical minded people or other programmers. The design, usability and tools differ quite a lot by what the thought-process of the end user will be.
Ludio1979@reddit
Gimp is pretty great but not nearly as easy to use as Photoshop. It gets the job done. On another note I really like Inkscape.
mpiepgrass@reddit
Who says that?
TotallyNotARuBot_ZOV@reddit
FOSS zealots.
They'll also tell you to use LibreOffice because that's just as good as M$ office, and that Lemmy is better than Reddit.
WelcomeToGhana@reddit
True though!
TotallyNotARuBot_ZOV@reddit
Libreoffice is garbage compared to MS office. It used to be on-par, but microsoft actually tried to make it more intuitive and useful, whereas libreoffice is an insane collection of features randomly distributed across menus and windows, as if it's still 2003.
Don't know about lemmy, but I'm also not interested at all. I'm on Reddit for the diverse community, and I can't I doubt anyone but FOSS/Linux nerds are actually on Lemmy.
WelcomeToGhana@reddit
and people who dislike the echo chamber that this shit site is also
TotallyNotARuBot_ZOV@reddit
It's a site with many individual echo-chambers, but they all contradict each other. It is not just one large echo chamber.
Can you tell me how lemmy is any less of an echo-chamber?
Jazzlike_Magazine_76@reddit
Was this written by one of those new Adobe neural networks or something? I'm confused.
Motorceptor@reddit
I would reverse the question and say photoshop is not a good alternative to gimp. If they'd taught gimp at photography courses, you would find it hard to use adobe and someone would have implemented a cmyk version. I get your point obviously, but what I mean is that it's also a question of perspective.
diegodamohill@reddit
I also gave up on GIMP years ago and moved onto Krita, partially because Krita is way, waaaaay better at drawing. But also because Krita simply does a lot of stuff that GIMP does not (Or at least didn't back then). I don't know exactly how powerful the selection tool is in Krita when compared to GIMP, but I can attest to how Krita handles adjustment layers way better than GIMP, with actual non-destructive editing, CMYK support and all the shabang.
Krita development also goes at a faster pace than GIMP currently.
FryBoyter@reddit
I have rarely read this statement before.
What I have often read, however, is that for example Gimp is a sufficient alternative for many Photoshop users. And I agree with that. Because I know people who use Photoshop just to scale images or do similarly simple things with it.
My circle of friends and acquaintances is very tech-savvy. And when I think about it, exactly two people actually need Photoshop. Because they work with it professionally and use it to create flyers or posters for bigger events, for example.
I don't mean to say that there is hardly anyone who needs Photoshop. But I am of the opinion that many users could achieve what they do with other tools. Maybe not with Gimp, but with other tools.
I_Love_Vanessa@reddit
Do you want your money back?
feenaHo@reddit
Agree.
Just like using darktable instead of adobe lightroom. May look similar, but the workflow lack behind lightroom alot.
KnowZeroX@reddit
I think people's needs and experiences varies, thus for some people it might be 90% and edge cases for others it isn't.
Personally, I moved to Krita from Photoshop because I wasn't a big fan of GIMP (personal taste). It is more aimed at drawing than digital editing, but it works fine enough in a more user friendly interface. At the very least, it can do adjustment layers/filters, non-destructive too
xiaozhuzhu1337@reddit
zaproxy and burp like this.
Hkmarkp@reddit
For most people it is
koloved@reddit
Maybe krita has this feature? I am not sure
amadeusp81@reddit
If only Affinity would make Linux builds. Or even better something like the Penpot of GIMP would be created as an open source app from scratch. A really good, feature complete editor available for all major platforms. #daydreaming 😅🫣
doubGwent@reddit
Once you bring the money and personnel behind the two project, everything , the difference between the two, makes sense.
medmedin2014@reddit
If Gimp gets the same money as Photoshop then it can become much better, so be patient and appreciate the work of volunteers around the glob which you get for free :)
Drwankingstein@reddit
is gimp transparent about how much donations they receive?
HyperMisawa@reddit
GIMP is fantastic for a piece of softewsre that's basically developed by like two people, but other that that... Yeah. I tried using it fro comics typesetting before, and it was hard even doing that. It's a shame, cause all it needs is some good funding, and the people working on it are doing a great job, but until then... Photoshop or nothing, sadly.
htschvl@reddit
I feel the same. Photoshop is literally the ONLY thing I miss since switching to Linux. I actually switched from Premiere to Kdenlive before dailydriving a Linux machine and it serves me EXTREMELY well. While GIMP... honestly, it's a mess. Horrible UX and loads of features lacking.
Super_Ad_2735@reddit
Imo I feel like photopea.com is more feature complete than gimp
calinet6@reddit
Thank you.
We need a new project to really try again at the whole open source graphics tool thing. Too much debt.
0ldfart@reddit
The sub is /r/Linux
This is a post for /r/software /r/foss or /r/opensource.
Gimp is not Linux.
Mouthtrap@reddit
Read this. GIMP is Free Open Source Software....
MicrosoftOSX@reddit
gimp has terrible workflow. might as well make a cli within the app.
catan84@reddit
Real linux users would use a cli for photo manipulation.
artivity@reddit
As a designer of many years, I can safely say that GIMP is still very much useless to anyone other than someone who is never going to be paid for their time spent using it. No idea for just photo capability, but even then, nobody who knows anything about photography will be using it either.
That being said, nobody who gets paid for digital creation is doing anything other than laugh at the people suggesting GIMP is great :D
al_with_the_hair@reddit
I don't think I can agree with your 60% declaration, although I'm not sure it's something meaningful to put a number on. I think it is about 90% of features, but it is seriously lacking as a Photoshop replacement for the reasons you're stating – namely, the missing 10% of features aren't actually trivial; for people who are very serious about image editing, those features are, on the contrary, quite important.
I think GIMP is still a great choice for many hobbyists who can't or won't use Windows or macOS or who aren't willing to pay Adobe. It's hard to see how it could ever really compete professionally without a lot more money to push forward development.
SamSausages@reddit
But it is, it replaces Photoshop CS6 very well.
Stupid_McFace@reddit
Not even though.
SamSausages@reddit
Yeah, you're probably right. Been so long since I used that. haha.
Stupid_McFace@reddit
But for real, CS6 works reasonably well with Wine and is better than current GIMP.
j0hnp0s@reddit
Kinda out of topic for linux, but yeah 100%
And adjustment layers are a big one
TBH, after the success of proton/dxvk, adobe and office are probably the only things that prevent linux desktop from going mainstream
PmButtPics4ADrawing@reddit
Yeah, gimp is fine for FOSS but anyone who thinks it's comparable to photoshop probably hasn't had to do anything more complicated than resizing or an image or whatever. PS has millions worth of R&D pumped into it and it shows
Kabopu@reddit
The vast majority of people who claim that GIMP is a good replacement for PS (or almost every other image editing tool) are programmers who have no idea what they're talking about.
AnythingAnthingAnthi@reddit
Rather than 'competent' you want the word 'viable' (or 'adequate' or 'reasonable').
r______p@reddit
Use Krita or don't. But why cry about it, you could have cracked Photoshop years ago, you regretting the decision not to isn't anybody's fault but yours.
vesterlay@reddit
Have you read the post? He's not saying that using GIMP was a mistake, just there are people on the internet misleading newbies saying that GIMP can do mostly the same stuff and is a real alternative.
r______p@reddit
Post was long I skimmed it. OP chose to use GIMP now regrets it & is mad at people that claimed GIMP is good.
NaheemSays@reddit
I guess I cant tell you to add the feature yourself...
but you could band together with a few others to fund a new developer to add the feature. over time it may even be cheaper than paying for photoshop.
Kulgur@reddit
If gimp is missing colour adjustment in layers, wtf was I doing just last night when adjusting colour. To a layer.
Qweedo420@reddit
Gimp does not support non-destructive editing and smart objects (Krita does btw) which makes it basically unusable for actual photography work
NatoBoram@reddit
I think he meant that the change was destructive
fpersson@reddit
It was true 20 years ago.
santanzchild@reddit
Gimp does what I need it to and doesn't require a subscription. If it doesn't do that for you then don't use it and move on.
Getting butt hurt because people are happy with an option you don't like is kind of stupid.
RomanOnARiver@reddit
I think it used to be an interesting thought, because they were in the same category. But it's pretty clear GIMP's developers don't want to chase Photoshop, and in general they're very resistant and slow to implement things that would make the product better.
linux-ModTeam@reddit
This post has been removed as not relevant to the r/Linux community. The post is either not considered on topic, or may only be tangentially related to the r/linux community.
examples of such content but not limited to are; photos or screenshots of linux installations, photos of linux merchandise and photos of linux CD/DVD's or Manuals.
Rule:
sintos-compa@reddit
Pixlr crew where you at?