Do you like the GIMP image-manipulation program, or do you not? Please provide reasoning. Thank you for posting here as opposed to other forums about other topics.

Quote: Original post by pbjgame
Do you like the GIMP image-manipulation program, or do you not?

I like GIMP. I like its functionality. I don't like its user interface. I'm not asking for it to look and feel just like Photoshop; I just want its user interface to be driven by how an artist might approach something rather than the abstraction that made sense for a programmer - try to create a simple rectangle, for instance. I'd also like for its window management to be simplified.

Even though I have access to Photoshop CS4 at work and home, I appreciate the existence of the GIMP. It's important to have free, multiplatform, capable alternatives.

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi

Quote: Original post by pbjgame
Do you like the GIMP image-manipulation program, or do you not?

I like GIMP. I like its functionality. I don't like its user interface. I'm not asking for it to look and feel just like Photoshop; I just want its user interface to be driven by how an artist might approach something rather than the abstraction that made sense for a programmer - try to create a simple rectangle, for instance. I'd also like for its window management to be simplified.

Even though I have access to Photoshop CS4 at work and home, I appreciate the existence of the GIMP. It's important to have free, multiplatform, capable alternatives.

Same here. I almost never use it as drawing program tho (I make all icon art for my game in inkscape).

Actually what I will maybe buy among other things for image work is mathematica (rly. It looks really epic. No idea how usable it is, but i'm already using equations on images in my scripted tool that i use to composite 3d renders, and i really dislike layers stack, its too 'one dimensional' if you know what i mean).

I absolutely dislike the user interface in the GIMP, because it forces me to manage its windows by myself. And eventually it clutters my workspace, which is really counter-productive.

Having access to both Photoshop CS4 and the GIMP at work, though, we have found the GIMP to be useful occasionally (e.g., to switch palette colors in indexed images in a direct way).

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi
Even though I have access to Photoshop CS4 at work and home, I appreciate the existence of the GIMP. It's important to have free, multiplatform, capable alternatives.

I definitely agree with you.

for dialog windows, gimp 2.6 is lot better than whatever prior version i used (on linux at least, never tried on windows). Toolboxes etc. stay on top correctly.

I started using gimp just over 2 weeks ago, after using Photoshop (CS2 I think?) at school. GIMP is alright. There are some things it does better than Photoshop and others that it just plain sucks at. To be honest, all I've really used it for is drawing with a tablet, with no need for fancy filters or anything like that... Ah hell, it'll be easier to bullet point this stuff.

Things I like about GIMP:
- It treats the eraser on my tablets stylus as just another input, not as only an "Eraser", so for instance I can set the pen side to a brush, and the eraser to the healing tool, or what ever you want.
- Ctrl+click color picking (Probably an equivalent in Photoshop, but I didn't know it).
- To be honest, I actually like the way the toolboxes are set out, with the customizable tabs and docks and stuff. I didn't like the default layout of them though... it was ridiculous, it didn't even have the color-changer tab visible by default, or the navigator. But anyway, once I found out you can customize it all, it's all sweet again (Basically set up like Photoshop :). Also, I tried gimp once before (like a year or 2 ago) and the way it handled the toolbox windows sucked hard (That is, it treated the toolboxes as separate windows and just got damn right annoying when you were trying to search through windows). Now, it's much better and works as expected. This is on Windows at least. On Linux, it's still messed up (Luckily since you can get multiple 'workspaces' or whatever in Linux, i just set the toolboxes to always on top and work in a secondary workspace)
- Save file dialog is good (How you can save favorite folders :P, saves me a lot of time)
- It's free, which is always a plus.

Things I don't like about GIMP:

- Transformation tools suck *really* hard. For example, in Photoshop, lets say you want to rotate a specific section of a layer: you select the layer, use the outliner tool thingy to select the region you want, hit ctrl+t, and presto, you can move, scale, flip, rotate, etc all in that one tool. In GIMP... Well, the first 2 parts are the same, but then to scale you select the scale tool (Which, depending on the resolution of your canvas, will not give a real time preview). Then to flip it, select the flip tool, then click the part of the object you've selected, etc. But it's most annoying when you want to flip a whole layer, because you can just click anywhere and it will flip it, you have to click a part of the layer you want to flip, or it may flip the layer behind it, etc.
- Layers are also kinda messed up... And i don't think there is a lock button (Theres a button that looks like a chain, and its in the same place as the lock in PS, but it doesn't lock so..).
- It's slower than PS (I mean when drawing things, not selecting menu etc).
- I don't think the menu's are set out as "Logically" (coming from an average persons perspective, not a programmers). Eg, lets say you want to switch all reds to green, which makes more sense:
Image -> Adjustments -> Replace Color,
or
Colors -> Map -> Color Exchange?
I'd definitely say the former (I found it easily both ways... But I doubt the average user would even think to look in "Map"). (Also, Replace color (PS) is so much more feature-full than Color Exchange (GIMP), Which is annoying as I often make multiple sprites with differences in color :P).


There's probably a lot more for/against points I forgot... but oh well. Overall, I'd say The GIMP is shaping up nicely, but it's not quite there yet :). Still, I'd probably give it an 8/10 for the basic stuff I use it for. More professional level image editing well... I'm not really the person to be giving it a score for that :).

Quote:
for dialog windows, gimp 2.6 is lot better than whatever prior version i used (on linux at least, never tried on windows). Toolboxes etc. stay on top correctly.

Really? I still had problems with it on Linux (Though remedied by using a different workspace and setting the windows to "Stay on Top", so it's no big deal). I did a bit of googling, and as far as I can tell it's been fixed "more properly" on Windows than on Linux, which is odd :P.

The GIMP has come a long way in the last couple of years, and has lost some of its rougher edges. There are places that still could use some help, and of course Photoshop is a clear winner on the whole but the GIMP supports a lot of important features like channels, Layer masks, animated brush system, and a path tool and palette. When you take into account that you pay nothing I'm sure glad its there.

As for the UI I don't really see how its that different from Photoshop. Photoshop isn't exactly the most intuitive program to use either and a lot of things are done very similarly. I haven't really ever had a problem finding something. Though I am glad the colors menu found its way out of the layer menu(WTF) I'm sure there are ways to tighten the experience up, but its not high on my wish list. I haven't tried the GIMPshop thing or whatever its called. Paint.NET comes up up sometimes and its way nice to use and could probablly teach both of them a thing or two about usability. Unfortunately I need layer masks a lot of the time so I don't personally see using it unless it does, plus photoshop and GIMP are probably more complicated because they are more complicated. I'm personally fine with complicated.

From a stability standpoint my personal version of Photoshop is real old and F'ing hates XP. It's constantly hanging on background processes and locking up. Large files eventually scratch disk error and crash. It can be a total nightmare working with it, but fortunately I have had little to no stability issues with running GIMP. So I can do some leg work in GIMP and finish up in Photoshop if need be.

If I could change a few things I would. Those suck hard transformation tools suck a lot less now than they did not too long ago. Trying to scale something two or three yeas ago just gave you a grid and not and image. It still would be nice if all the transformations were in one cohesive tool and if it could show you
an active preview that is blended in the image correctly.

I suspect though that last one would be a problem given the GIMP's single biggest flaw for what I do. It's soooo damn slow! It runs a lot better on 64bit Linux than when I run it under Windows but Photoshop still stomps the ever loving crap out of the GIMP in speed. I suspect it has more to do with Photoshop's awesomeness than it does with a GIMP failure, but the larger the image the more you pay. Working with 3000x3000+ pixel images can be a real drag and Trying to work on 6000x4800 pixel image is real rough. Really anything over 5x7 @300 ppi you start to pay for. I also think it uses memory far less effecently which adds to the problem with working on large to huge files. It also makes real time previews of color adjustments or anything else highly unresponsive, especially compared to Photoshop.

I would also with it had some sort of batching and action functionality. It looks like there is batching one could do from the command line but I can't say that's what I'm looking for.

All and all I'm glad its there. It could be better here or there, but I could also have to pay for it.

I've already become used to the u.i.
Of course, a good point is that it's cross platform.
A bad point is that it uses it's own system for saving files ( a bad system imho), it always forgets the directories where I saved.
And, there is a plugin for handling CMYK separation.

Oddly enough, basically every major complaint I've heard about GIMP disappears when you go dual monitors.

I don't mind GIMP, but I can't stand some of the changes they've made to tools in the latest version. The free select tool has been merged with a polygon select tool, and it is completely Broken as a simple Free Select tool now! And I mean I nearly threw the pen to my tablet across the room in frustration because such a simple action that was open to me a few minutes before I upgraded was such a pain and impossible to do.

Quote: Original post by Talroth
Oddly enough, basically every major complaint I've heard about GIMP disappears when you go dual monitors.

I don't mind GIMP, but I can't stand some of the changes they've made to tools in the latest version. The free select tool has been merged with a polygon select tool, and it is completely Broken as a simple Free Select tool now! And I mean I nearly threw the pen to my tablet across the room in frustration because such a simple action that was open to me a few minutes before I upgraded was such a pain and impossible to do.

Yeah polygonal select! I didn't realize it was there. Just played with it. I never use the free select but I didn't find it weird to use. Does it skip with a tablet or something?