New GIMP 2.6 Gives Photoshop a Run for Its Money | Hacker News Reader

New GIMP 2.6 Gives Photoshop a Run for Its Money

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64 pointsqhoxie30 comments

"That means that closing an image no longer closes the app and it also means there’s drag-and-drop support for opening images."

I have Gimp 2.4.7 on Fedora9 and it doesn't close the app when you close any or all image windows, and there is support for drag-and-drop opening to either an already created image window or to the tool palette window.

Gimp has been developed by developers for developers. They don't understand how designers use imaging applications and apparently they dont want to know either.

For example they've been told so many times that non-modal dialogs on ms windows sux. Your workspace windows appearing on the taskbar not only clutter everything, it also makes your ork harder by switching between windows. Just to cater this thing a project called gimpshop was forked but gimp community should have included it in the core. hoever they've always shot down this idea.

If they want to compete with photoshop they should focus on usability rather than features. The scripting features might be awefully cool for developers but for designers who have to sometimes make hundreds of clicks to get one pixel straight, usability matters the most.

Did you read the article?

>"Perhaps the most welcome change to the UI is that the palettes (toolbox and docks in GIMP parlance) are now utility windows, which means that they won’t show up in your dock or task bar as separate windows"

Apparently it doesn't yet apply to the Windows build (I haven't tried), but they have fixed the two single biggest and most obvious GUI annoyances - multiple pointless and confusing menus and multiple windows in task-bar. Another one of the biggest requested features - CMYK support - is on its way. It's /long/ overdue, but Gimp is actually seems to be making huge strides in the right direction.

Good for them, but I don't understand how they waited until 2008 to get this in. It seems like such a basic UI concept to me.

I think a lot of mac users (no, not me) would like to have a word with you about putting everything in one main window. This is completely anecdotal, but I remember hearing a few mac users enjoy the fact that its apps tend to follow the 'lots of windows' model versus the 'one large window with many sub-windows' model a la most Windows apps.

> If they want to compete with photoshop they should focus > on usability rather than features. The scripting features > might be awefully cool for developers but for designers > who have to sometimes make hundreds of clicks to get one > pixel straight, usability matters the most.

Perhaps the same designers who love to complain about the increasing licensing costs of the Adobe stack should step up and start putting their money where their mouth is? If a few hundred design nerds donated even a fraction of the upgrade costs for CS4 to developers working on GIMP, they could probably get all kinds of nifty usability and functional fixes into the next release.

I think the GIMP is one of the biggest casualties of pirating. It's ironic.

How so? Since the thing that matters most is that the people who develop it, and the people who use it and get involved, are enjoying the software, I don't see how not having those users that pirate Photoshop is any negative.

I've been an Open Source developer for over 10 years...and while it's nice to have a lot of users (particularly if you want to make money on the software in some way), the kind of users you have is more important than the quantity. I'd take one good Open Source fanatic over a dozen Photoshop pirates any day. The pirates don't do anything and they have little respect for the developers of the software. If I were building the GIMP, why would I want them to use my software?

If the goal of the GIMP developers is "kill Photoshop", then I guess piracy is a negative...but if the goal is "make awesome software", then there's nothing pirates can do to impact them in any way. I kinda suspect the goal for most Open Source developers is "make awesome software" first, and stuff related to proprietary competitors is way down the list, or not even relevant. (Again, assuming money doesn't enter into the equation...in which case, the story is somewhat different.)

For what it's worth, I've been a GIMP user since the very first public release (I remember the first mention on Slashdot), and I haven't used anything else in that time...never needed to. Regardless, I think GIMP is clearly one of the great success stories of friendly, consumer-oriented, Open Source software...and it gets better and more successful with every release.

You've already responded to my 'how so'. I would've said 'more users' you've said 'crap users.' Fair enough.

It's just that photo editing software has a relatively high learning curve. I think (anecdotal, I have no references for this) that due to the cost of photoshop many users start experimenting on pirated copies. Mostly kids & hobbyists. Years later they may buy a copy or take it with them to the workplace. By that stage, they're used to photoshop to the extent that it's the only option.

And so in the vein of your original comment - Adobe/Photoshop is one of the biggest beneficiaries of pirating software.

Yes it is. Actually it's sort of a take on freemium. Available pirated for beginners. Available at cost to professionals/adults.

There's certainly validity to the theory that piracy helps protect market leaders. It's the reason Microsoft doesn't aggressively fight piracy in developing markets (and if they do address piracy, it is by making the software available for practically free through legitimate channels).

I'm sure there are some Open Source developers out there who do want every possible user, and want, more than anything, to oust their leading proprietary competitor. I'm only among them when I'm thinking like a business man, and trying to figure out how to make money from my software.

Microsoft gives away its most important products for free for students in Germany. I guess they would not pay anyway.

I think there might be more to it then that. I'm not really a user of image editing software (Seashore covers most of my needs) so I can't really say this for sure. But I get the impression that GIMP want to do things their way, not the photoshop way. Getting young users using GIMP first gives them a chance to do that.

> Again, assuming money doesn't enter into the equation...in which case, the story is somewhat different.

Which anecdotally, isn't the case for the lead devel, since he started yesterday as the lead devel for a new startup around the corner from Directed Edge. :-)

The GIMP is an example of a user interface that has sucked for many many years, but because certain people are used to it being that way, it was never changed.

I agree that the UI in GIMP is pretty bad, but I really don't find Photoshop's UI to be so clever and easy to use that it blows away the GIMP.

I even prefer the keyboard shortcuts in GIMP better: "m" for move (it's "v" in Photoshop... what?), "r" for rectangular select (it's "m" in Photoshop).

If you've used one for a while, the other seems weird and clunky with an almost identical feature set. Having used the GIMP more lately, I'd say in response: Photoshop is an example of a user interface that has sucked for many many years, but because certain professionals are used to it being that way, it hasn't changed.

that's because 'm' is used for marquee, which allows both rectangular and elliptical as well as single pixel column (vertical and horizontal) selections.

'v' is used because 'm' is already taken and 'v' does make sense for the moVe command, especially if you stress the second syllable

There is a method to the madness!

For the record, rectangular select is "m" in Photoshop because the Photoshop tool is called the "Marquee" tool (because the flashing dots around the selection look like a theater marquee). So move gets "v" instead.

"V" is actually a better key for move than "m" because it's more convenient to hit with the left hand; many experienced Photoshop users work with the left hand on the lower left corner of the keyboard and the right hand on the mouse/graphics tablet.

Oh please, stop assuming Qwerty or we'll still be stuck with this shitty layout in 500 years!

Heh... I wasn't expecting a keyboard layout complaint as much as a left-handedness complaint, since the latter is bigger problem for more of today's users.

But as I presume you are someone arguing for a more ergonomic layout, I assume you can appreciate Photoshop's ergonomically fortuitous default choices. And as you are someone who likely knows how to remap a keyboard, I assume you are already capable of relocating a shortcut key to an appropriate location and making up an alternate mnemonic to match whatever letter is already there.

using that logic, wouldn't it be better to have "m"ove be triggered with a 'c' or a 'z'. I mean, they're even further to the right than the 'v' on QWERTY keyboards.

It depends on the frequency of use and where the hand is typically located. The index and middle fingers are strongest, so the keys under them are the most valuable. I'm typically chording on the modifier keys and spacebar, so "v" and neighboring keys are quite valuable to me.

I agree that the default tool shortcuts in that area are somewhat wasted; Photoshop seems to have chosen shortcuts more for mnemonic value and got lucky with the Marquee tool forcing Move to the "v" key. Crop ("c") isn't needed with the same frequency as the drawing tools, and Zoom ("z") -- while useful for beginners -- is effectively unnecessary with the ctrl-space and ctrl-alt-space key chords. "x" (exchange foreground and background), however, is extremely useful e.g. for quickly switching between drawing and erasing on black-and-white drawings.

maybe it's v because the move cursor looks like a 'v' ??? (and because m is taken of course)

GIMP doesn't give anything a run for its money if I can't figure out how the menus are laid out. I've tried and tried but I'm not going to spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how to do an unsharp mask when my Mac with CS3 is sitting right next to my linux box. Call me stubborn.

I'll have to install it and see what they mean by "The result is a version of GIMP that behaves much more like Photoshop and makes a very capable replacement for those not locked into an Adobe workflow." for GIMP 2.6

(edit: yeah I know there is gimpshop but i was just saying for the sake of argument..)

This release actually changes around some things, which may make it a better experience.

It amuses me that you have internalized the meaning of a technique called (without irony) "unsharp mask" but can't spend 20 minutes reading a tutorial to figure out how to do it in a different tool.

It's not for you. You have photoshop and like it, and apparently don't mind paying for it. Slamming competing software when it is blindingly obvious that you have no intention of using it is basically just knee-jerk jealousy.

Still no 'Direct Select' tool in GIMP, which is basic of basic tools in Photoshop and any other photo editing program.

GIMP has supported editing all components of a path, converting to a selection, moving the entire path, and adjusting the handles, for a while. If I remember correctly, it was buggy until around GIMP 1.2.

The second half of the video on this page, after the "Direct Select" tool is chosen at 0:16, is completely doable in The GIMP.

http://shapeshed.com/journal/photoshop_101_path_and_direct_s...

Now that this version exists, we need one that gives Photoshop a run for its money.

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