To all of the authors below who have disparaging opinions on the UX/UI experience and or the download ability. It’s a volunteer project for a reason. If you have such grand ideas and abilities put your money where your fingers are and fucking sign up.
A lot of the hate GIMP gets is people coming from Photoshop expecting it to work like Photoshop. In fact that's true for a lot of Adobe-like open source projects. That's why "industry standards" are dangerous and really only exist to keep one company rich.
My hate comes from wanting it to work like LView Pro. There's no Linux image manipulation program that comes close to meeting the standard they set in 2001.
Off-Canvas Editing
Paint tools can now automatically expand the width and height of a layer as you draw! You can select “Expand Layers” in the tool options to enable drawing past the current boundaries of layers.
More features such as guides and auto-expanding layers can be used to work in the off-canvas space!
GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) version 3 has been released. But when will Valve release Half-Life version 3? They have already released 1, 2, the episodes, and Alyx. But when will Valve release 3.0? This is not fair because even GIMP has reached version 3.0, but Valve's Half-Life has not. 😔
Aw man i was hoping for a big ui upgrade like when blender released version 2.8 that now even cinema4d is copying.
I fear gimp truly doesnt care about its ui/ux because technically everything you want to do is possible as long as you learn the ways ans they dont care to attract an audience thats not die hard FOSS people. For example schools havent been able to use it because theyre so deadset on their nsfw name and schools cant have kids googling gimp with the pictures that will show up
Next. They should drop everything and solely focus on improving ux & ui . Every time I open gimp to try and get acclimated to it, I close it back out of frustration. Nothing is intuitive in that software. Not even the naming of the tools settings.
To be honest, nothing is intuitive in any complex software. Every time I open Photoshop I want to cry in pain. But it isn't because Photoshop is bad (that I don't know actually), but because I am not familiar with it at all
UI/UX is a very very difficult job. I've only ever known a few UI/UX artists that were any good, and OMFG, are they expensive.
You can't just drop everything and focus on something where you don't have domain experts. Not to presume too much about you, but that would be like saying you need to drop everything you're doing and focus on brain surgery next year. UI/UX is art. It's a very specific type of art that, unfortunately, doesn't come easy for people. There are companies for hire that work professionally on UX/UI, but they're not cheap either. Anyone can spot bad UX, but knowing how to fix it in a way that works for everyone, that's nearly a unicorn.
I've been using gimp since it was released for daily driver projects.
I've been using Photoshop for about a decade when required for gigs.
I can get around either app pretty decently at this point.
If you drop any new user into either, they'll be absolutely lost.
If you drop a seasoned Photoshop user into GIMP, they'll not only be lost but be unable to use their vast array of plugins and macros and aren't quite (but non-technically are) impossible for the average user to work on.
We can't make Gimp Photoshop-like. We can make strides to improve Gimp, but it's beyond reach for the current team. Maybe we can start a crowdfund to get a UX company to take a stab at it, but even at that we'd need buy in from the developers and it would likely be an incredibly large rework, not unlike the current one that took quite a long time.
There are many examples of software where the UI etc can be changed. I have never felt comfortable in GIMP's UI, but then again I'm much more of a vector guy.
It is essential that you explain exactly what you find unintuitive, otherwise -forgive me, but- this feedback is worthless. Make a bullet list, with captures, show how you would rename or rearrange things. Do your part !
Its not useless when literally 99% of the people who tried GIMP Over the past 25+ years have had the exact same reaction, pretending its not a thing its whats useless
This is exactly the problem they face. I use GIMP since ~15years. Any change they make will annoy me to a degree. But I also understand that getting into the UI is not that easy. They somehow have to manage these two completly opposing interests.
Just assume both did exactly the same thing and cost the exact same amount (free or otherwise). Which would you choose based on their website?
Why does GIMP (and pretty much all FOSS) have to be so secretive about their product? Why no screenshots? Why not showcase the software on their website?
It's so damn frustrating that every FOSS app appears to be command line software, or assumed that the user knows everything about it already.
Devs, you might have a killer piece of software, but screenshots go a long way to help with gaining interest and adoption.
How is Krita? I’m on a Mac and my biggest problem with Gimp and Inkscape has always been lack of MacOS integration. Mostly with the UI but even shortcuts were wrong when I tried it. And the mouse/trackpad gestures were the dealbreaker.
I use Pixelmator, which hopefully continues to be a well developed pay once app, even though Apple just bought them. That and Sketch get me all the design tools I need for 2D and web.
Hey, you look interested in becoming a marketing volunteer for GIMP. While GIMP is not as competitive in marketing as the others, you can help them if you want. 😎
I don't know man, I think the Photoshop homepage reeks of corpo crap, whereas the Gimp homepage does a good job at cleanly presenting the program in a quick way. Maybe I'm just used to FOSS, or already too allergic to corporate software, but going by the homepage design, my preference is obvious, there's not even a contest
I think my point was missed. I wasn't saying that GIMP should copy what Adobe does (I can't stand Adobe and their “business model” spyware bullshit.
My point was more to show that Adobe showcases the features of the software, so a potential user knows what it does without needing to go through the trouble of downloading it. It may not be what the user wants, and that's ok, at least they know!
But GIMP is so vague in their description and offers no insight to what the app does or looks like. There's no need to be mysterious.
If I want to know more I would go to documentation or tutorials.
See, that's not normal, though. You shouldn't need to "dig deeper" to find out what a product is or what it does.
The well-designed homepage should simply tell you that within seconds of visiting. Any additional clicks should only be to "learn more", but not to learn about.
If this was an analogy, imagine a street lined with restaurants.
On one side you've got "Vinny's Italian Pizzeria", "Joe's Burgers and Fries", and "Mary's Bakery and Treats". Each has posters of what they sell posted on the windows, and a QR code to their online menu.
On the other you have "Sal's Food", "Frank's More Food", "Sal's". The windows are either covered in brown paper, or have stock images of "food", but nothing specific about what they actually make. To learn more, you have to go inside, ask someone for a menu, wait for that menu, then have a look. But the menu lacks photos! You either have to know what they are describing to you in the menu, or you would have to have already dined there before.
Does the latter experience sound good? Because that's how too many open-source projects present themselves, and it's to the loss of the volunteer devs and their potential user base.
I wish I could, but this is a systemic problem, not a problem with one individual project.
Is the mindset that anyone looking for open source, FOSS, or Linux stuff is already tech-savvy enough to know exactly what they are looking for based solely on a text description?
Not only AI editing examples which makes me thing the tool is AI only.
An overview of the variety of major features it has rather than just AI editing.
Links to helpful documentation rather than endless marketing pages that say nothing.
Really think only thing I would like to see is some screenshots and examples of using the tool, rather than just info on what it does. But the Photoshop page barely has this, just a few examples of the AI tools.
Unless 3.0 has solved it, the gimp has a steep UI problem and a learning curve such that mass appeal on the website would be inappropriate anyway. I love it but I love it because I've been using it my whole life and know it very well. Foss in general struggles with useability due to a lot of hard to overcome problems - mainly, that by the time someone is ready to contribute to any given foss project, they're already intimately familiar with its foibles and probably have strong opinions about what UX elements are sacred cows and should not be fixed.
Well, it has solved it in large part, yes. Tablet pen buttons are correctly recognized on Windows at last, GTK3 allows panels to be dockable pretty much anywhere, the interface looks generally sleek.
Now perhaps you could specify what aspect of the UI you find problematic, otherwise it's hard to respond to such a vague statement. Imagine you're a developer, and you read a piece of feedback that says "the gimp has a steep UI problem". Where do you go from there ?
Idk if GIMP has a marketing problem but I definitely agree that FOSS projects should add screenshots and a description of what the program does to their website and repo. It really annoys me when someone links a piece of software and it just doesn't say what it does and there's no screenshots that would make it easy for me to see what it looks like and how the UI is structured. When there's no screenshots I'm rarely even interested in trying it out because, even with a description, I don't really know what it is. Like, I wouldn't be interested in a car based on only a description, I'd have to see a picture of it too.
This is a frequent source of frustration for me, too. Can't even tell if it's cli or gui a lot of the time, based on the documentation. If I could just see what it looks like, I'd have a good idea right away of whether it might meet my needs.
I would have to choose GIMP (in spite of this awful name) because that page loaded without javascript and the photoshop page requires me to enable javascript.
I know I'm being a bit facetious, here, but... Adobe can afford to hire full time front end devs and designers. FOSS projects can't really compete with Adobe's investors.
LOL. Brother, I get what you're saying, but I think you missed the point. If Random User X is just looking for an image editor, and they are presented with a few options they know nothing about. Do you think they're going to even bother with the one image editor that doesn't have any screenshots?
You know EXACTLY what it is and what it does within about 2 seconds. That would be more than enough information for someone to at least make the effort to download the software.
Gimp doesn't have a marketing problem. Its well known its just that not many people like it. It is not a nice program to use. I think gimp3 fixes a lot of the janky ui but I'll have to try it out again
Yeah, every time I have ever tried Gimp, attempting to do anything felt like someone had purposefully been contrarian and made every operation work in the hardest and most confusing way.
And someone may say, "well, you just have to learn it!" OK, sure. Or I can use something that makes much more sense from the jump like Affinity Photo. (Yes, I know you have to pay for it, but it's worth it. Yes, I know not everyone has the money to do so.)
this is exactly my opinion on it. one of my main gripes was the text rendering. if i needed to change some text i basically had to redo all of the work on any shadow or stroke as well, not just correct a spelling mistake or whatever. very excited to check out the new version.
Idk I like the gimp page. Two clicks, and you're into the tutorial on how to edit pictures. The first page gives you all you need to know: Image manipulation program.
adobe's page otoh... Well after the first two popups, I gave up.
...
Alright, Second try and four popups later, I'm in. gotta admit the funny animations and the tools they show off are pretty nice
I think it's because marketing is expensive and marketing people know that corporations have money to throw at them, and the moment they lower their prices for a FOSS project, they might not get their old revenue when working for a company that can definitely pay what they ask.
We need some sort of FOSM (Free and Open Source Marketing) that helps FOSS projects based on some sort of queue and whoever has recent changes that needs marketing.
Open Source software is not a product that needs marketing.
The devs making Gimp gain literally nothing from you downloading and using it.
Stop applying capitalist logic to one of the few aspects of life that haven't been monetized yet.
dont forget how they expect you to compile it. some projects offer a nice .msi for windows, a .whatever for mac, and then linux users just get a link to their github. i mean cmon.
edit: i'm not talking specifically about gimp, my dudes.
Incredible. This is one of those hard to believe moments.
It's been 21 years since the release of GIMP 2.0.
It's been more than 10 years since work on a majorly overhauled GIMP 3.0 was announced and initiated.
And it's been 7 years since the last major release (2.10).
I can't wait for the non-destructive text effects. After all these years of dealing with the fact applying drop shadows meant the text couldn't be edited, at last it's no longer an issue.
Yeah GIMP is more than a decade behind Photoshop and a lot of other software in many respects.
It's frustrating. Basic things like content-aware fill for small spaces, not even AI generating huge things for large missing pieces but removing some text over a person's cheek or plaid shirt, something in total 100x100 pixels big or so. Just doesn't exist. You can clone stuff but it's not aware of things like the gradient of a shadow that it should match or a highlight or other basic things so you're left doing extensive work using layers and then cleaning it up to be visually acceptable using multiple tools over 10 minutes of time whereas Photoshop does it with one tool in an instant.
As a long time - pre version 2 - gimp user my first thought was "what, don't be ridiculous" and now I dont know what to feel. Why would you do this to me personally
Brilliant and huge congrats to the amazing people who worked on it. One silly question though, is the "new" Gimp logo supposed to look out of focus or are my eyes getting old?
GIMP is generally geared towards photo-editing, so if you have an existing image, you can use GIMP quite well to e.g. cut out parts of it or to apply effects.
It's not really geared towards digital painting or creating new images from scratch, like Krita and presumably IbisPaint are.