Of course it can, it already does at least 90% of what Photoshop does. People are less likely to want to contribute to its development if others are always shitting on the project though.
It comes down to UX. Blender used to have an awful UX, and it was a distant trailer behind the Autodesk products for usage. After they dramatically improved the interface, it became much more popular. Gimp needs the same treatment.
I remember at the time there being a lot of pushback on blender UX changes, too. I watched a talk on it where a guy really said “I had to Google everything so these guys should, too”. I know a lot of FOSS guys abhor the idea of conforming to an industry standard, and I get it, but the truth of the matter is that people would rather pay than have to relearn their entire workflow.
I wonder if it comes down to FOSS projects typically not having any designers, but just developers. Like…if that’s the case, the maintainers would have to actively reach out to UX folks to help. But I imagine mkst don’t even realize or admit there’s a problem because they’re already intimately familiar with the entire app.
On the contrary, it will only get better if people understand its faults.
There’s a lot it cannot do but more importantly it is quite unintuitive. if they’d work on the UI and shortcut keys, I’d be ecstatic because fuck adobe.
Do you mean that the menu structure makes no sense or that it’s different to Photoshop, which is what you’re used to? I’m not sure that what you say about shortcuts if fair either. For example, by default in GIMP you select the Move tool using M, which makes sense. In photoshop it’s V… Duplicating layers in GIMP uses D, PS uses J… Clone tool in GIMP uses C, PS uses S. All of which isn’t even that much of a big deal anyway, since both programs allow you to set whatever keyboard shortcuts you want. GIMP and PS are way more similar than they are different, even from a UX standpoint. Both projects have borrowed from each other historically. They will always be a bit different though and I think that’s fair enough.
I was a bit disorientated when I first started using GIMP after a lifetime of using Photoshop, including at work where it’s still the main piece of software I use. But like everything in life you get out what you put in and after watching a few tutorials and reading some documentation GIMP does click and make sense.
At least we agree about fuck Adobe though! It’s only going to get worse as well in my opinion. GIMP is only going to get better though (as long it stays open source) but perhaps not as quickly as we’d like. I have much more faith in GIMP in the long term, so I’m behind them. BTW you can already try out GIMP’s first implementation of adjustment layers in their development version
Do you mean that the menu structure makes no sense or that it’s different to Photoshop, which is what you’re used to?
Both.
I think not only if I approach it as thinking Photoshop did it right or as a blank slate “how do I do X?” I get really confused and annoyed. Off the top of my head I won’t be great with examples but here’s a couple. There were a couple of very basic and common things I tried to assign a shortcut key to in Gimp which the UI wouldn’t allow. Also, selection within a layer feels bonkers to me in gimp. There’s like two selection modes, one is floating or something? Just feels weird and convoluted. I always feel like I’m on the verge of destroying my selection by accident.
Adobe indeed will only be worse over time from all the evidence we’ve seen, I agree. I have a windows install on a secondary drive but I try to never use it, even for Photoshop. But I would absolutely love a version of gimp that has the basics a bit closer to Photoshop, because:
a lot of things Photoshop does are more intuitive for me. Even the move = V thing. Pretty sure they did that because a v looks like an arrow which you point at what you want to move. I never remember a moment when I couldn’t remember which key it was, for that reason. Yeah M for rectangular isn’t a good example but eventually you run out of letters…
even if some things are not intuitive in Photoshop per se, it really pays for users to get what they expect. This has been the go to professional tool since, what, 1990? To illustrate what I mean about expectations: Ctrl v only makes sense due to its keyboard layout position (near c) but I think many on keyboard layouts, that’s not even true. Conventions (logical or not) arise and get adhered to and that’s a good thing. Can you imagine if paste on Mac was command P, control V on windows and Control G (glue) on Linux. Yikes I’m so glad that’s not the case.
Agree. I have tried gimp regularly over the past decade or so and never a single time has it been anywhere near close enough to act as a “replacement”. A free tool to use in a pinch, sure, but as a full on replacement? Not a chance in hell.
I really wish gimp could replace Photoshop but it absolutely cannot
Of course it can, it already does at least 90% of what Photoshop does. People are less likely to want to contribute to its development if others are always shitting on the project though.
It comes down to UX. Blender used to have an awful UX, and it was a distant trailer behind the Autodesk products for usage. After they dramatically improved the interface, it became much more popular. Gimp needs the same treatment.
I remember at the time there being a lot of pushback on blender UX changes, too. I watched a talk on it where a guy really said “I had to Google everything so these guys should, too”. I know a lot of FOSS guys abhor the idea of conforming to an industry standard, and I get it, but the truth of the matter is that people would rather pay than have to relearn their entire workflow.
Some goes for Resolve. Absolutely awful UI. Which is why I will continue to pirate Adobe products.
I wonder if it comes down to FOSS projects typically not having any designers, but just developers. Like…if that’s the case, the maintainers would have to actively reach out to UX folks to help. But I imagine mkst don’t even realize or admit there’s a problem because they’re already intimately familiar with the entire app.
On the contrary, it will only get better if people understand its faults.
There’s a lot it cannot do but more importantly it is quite unintuitive. if they’d work on the UI and shortcut keys, I’d be ecstatic because fuck adobe.
Do you mean that the menu structure makes no sense or that it’s different to Photoshop, which is what you’re used to? I’m not sure that what you say about shortcuts if fair either. For example, by default in GIMP you select the Move tool using M, which makes sense. In photoshop it’s V… Duplicating layers in GIMP uses D, PS uses J… Clone tool in GIMP uses C, PS uses S. All of which isn’t even that much of a big deal anyway, since both programs allow you to set whatever keyboard shortcuts you want. GIMP and PS are way more similar than they are different, even from a UX standpoint. Both projects have borrowed from each other historically. They will always be a bit different though and I think that’s fair enough.
I was a bit disorientated when I first started using GIMP after a lifetime of using Photoshop, including at work where it’s still the main piece of software I use. But like everything in life you get out what you put in and after watching a few tutorials and reading some documentation GIMP does click and make sense.
At least we agree about fuck Adobe though! It’s only going to get worse as well in my opinion. GIMP is only going to get better though (as long it stays open source) but perhaps not as quickly as we’d like. I have much more faith in GIMP in the long term, so I’m behind them. BTW you can already try out GIMP’s first implementation of adjustment layers in their development version
Both.
I think not only if I approach it as thinking Photoshop did it right or as a blank slate “how do I do X?” I get really confused and annoyed. Off the top of my head I won’t be great with examples but here’s a couple. There were a couple of very basic and common things I tried to assign a shortcut key to in Gimp which the UI wouldn’t allow. Also, selection within a layer feels bonkers to me in gimp. There’s like two selection modes, one is floating or something? Just feels weird and convoluted. I always feel like I’m on the verge of destroying my selection by accident.
Adobe indeed will only be worse over time from all the evidence we’ve seen, I agree. I have a windows install on a secondary drive but I try to never use it, even for Photoshop. But I would absolutely love a version of gimp that has the basics a bit closer to Photoshop, because:
Agree. I have tried gimp regularly over the past decade or so and never a single time has it been anywhere near close enough to act as a “replacement”. A free tool to use in a pinch, sure, but as a full on replacement? Not a chance in hell.
Yeah, exactly. I’ve used it for like 20 tasks now. Every single time it’s been a struggle