I like GIMP, it does all I need. The UI sucks but I'm a Linux fan -- I'm used to that already. Also, I'm not an artist, so “All I need” isn't much, really.

I've to admit that the GUI in lastest version feels a little broken. The preview of filters is broken. I'll stick to the version that has a pencil in the splash which happen to work a lot better.

IMHO they should finally accept that MDI is the right interface for a multiple document manipulation program.

Quote: Original post by Goober King

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?

my issue was that it often refused to close the selection, or it would refuse to start free selection correctly, meaning you had to sit there and edit your selection far more than should be required.

I've used GIMP before but always gave up in frustration.

A new program I've started using at work is Fireworks. It's like the best parts of Photoshop and Illustrator without all the stuff I don't need. It's hands-down the best way I've seen yet to prototype web pages, then slice it up and make images for the actual page. Anyone else use Fireworks?

I quite like the GIMP. It's free, it's functional. But I will say it's tricky to use. I've used it long enough to know my way around it well - so much so I find Photoshop difficult to use these days. Same with Blender, I'm used to it - Maya is difficult for me. Then again - I'm not an artists - I don't really care too much now that I can use the tools to do what I need.

Quote: Original post by BeanDog
I've used GIMP before but always gave up in frustration.

A new program I've started using at work is Fireworks. It's like the best parts of Photoshop and Illustrator without all the stuff I don't need. It's hands-down the best way I've seen yet to prototype web pages, then slice it up and make images for the actual page. Anyone else use Fireworks?

Used to use Fireworks when I done a bit of a web stuff. VERY nice program.

I have a copy of fireworks, so using GIMP is nearly pointless for me. Also whenever I use GIMP the horrible separate window UI system drives me nuts. Most of the stuff I do is pixel art related so drawing lines and managing layers is really intuitive with fireworks. If you haven't used it I recommend trying the CS3 version.

I do use GIMP at work though when I need to edit an image or something for a website. I can tolerate it that much.

Quote: Original post by Kobalt64
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.

Photoshop defaults to treating your erase as an "Eraser," but you can assign any tool you want to it. I'd like to see both GIMP and Photoshop implement more pressure-sensitive eraser models.

Quote: - Ctrl+click color picking (Probably an equivalent in Photoshop, but I didn't know it).

It's either Shift- or Alt-click (possibly Option-click on OS X). Can't remember off-head; it becomes a muscle motion each time I fire up PS.

Quote: Original post by Goober King
As for the UI I don't really see how its that different from Photoshop.

GIMP launches multiple application-level windows, and doesn't shade them collectively. Under Windows, you get several GIMP buttons in your task bar, and GIMP doesn't exit until all of them are closed (or you explicitly select the File>Exit menu item). The palettes and so forth should really be tool windows. For instance, under OS X, Photoshop's document windows will remain visible when you switch away from the application, but its tool windows/palettes disappear. The fact that window raising is document-based rather than application-based is something I use quite a bit on my single-monitor setup (hopefully I'll get a Cintiq in August!) to interleave documents from different applications, creating the right workspace.

GIMP's use of document-like windows for tool windows messes with document switching and just every so critically messes up the user experience.

Quote: I haven't tried the GIMPshop thing or whatever its called.

It sucks.

Quote: Paint.NET comes up up sometimes and its way nice to use and could probably teach both of them a thing or two about usability.

It's easy to be "usable" when you don't have much functionality (in comparison). WordPad is more "usable" than Word, by this metric. Though I do like Paint.NET a lot, and I use it on Windows when I want to make quick edits - especially cropping and flattening.

Quote: ...plus photoshop and GIMP are probably more complicated because they are more complicated.

Yeah, exactly.

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

Aye. [smile]

Quote: Original post by BeanDog
A new program I've started using at work is Fireworks. It's like the best parts of Photoshop and Illustrator without all the stuff I don't need. It's hands-down the best way I've seen yet to prototype web pages, then slice it up and make images for the actual page. Anyone else use Fireworks?

I use Fireworks. I don't know that I'd call it the "best parts" of Photoshop and Illustrator; my workflow, and that of several designers I know, seems to revolve around aggregating and laying out elements created in Photoshop and Illustrator. Fireworks is a hybrid raster and vector image editor, but it has very weak (nearly non-existent) drawing tools.

Great for prototyping websites. No use for illustration/digital painting work. I couldn't create the following in Fireworks:



It involved placing a scanned image in a layer above the background, masking out the paper texture around the figure, using the healing brush to eliminate some of the pen hatching (the image was not originally conceived for digital coloring), creating a new multiply layer in which color was applied, and then a third normal layer for highlights and so forth. It's not even a great image, but it's far beyond what Fireworks can do.

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi

Quote: Original post by Goober King
As for the UI I don't really see how its that different from Photoshop.

GIMP launches multiple application-level windows, and doesn't shade them collectively. Under Windows, you get several GIMP buttons in your task bar, and GIMP doesn't exit until all of them are closed (or you explicitly select the File>Exit menu item). The palettes and so forth should really be tool windows. For instance, under OS X, Photoshop's document windows will remain visible when you switch away from the application, but its tool windows/palettes disappear. The fact that window raising is document-based rather than application-based is something I use quite a bit on my single-monitor setup (hopefully I'll get a Cintiq in August!) to interleave documents from different applications, creating the right workspace.

I believe they fixed most of that in the latest edition.

GIMP on the Mac is lousy. It takes forever to load (even compared to Photoshop) and it has to go through X11, making it even worse.

I'll stick with Photoshop, thank you very much.

I don't know much about the features the latest version of GIMP provides, but the UI turns me off to such an extend I don't even want to find out. Every single time I ever tried to do anything with GIMP, the UI made me want to throw my keyboard into the screen. I very quickly fired up Photoshop (or Paint.net) instead.

Did they finally add native CMYK and floating point RGB (HDR) support ?