A First Look At The GIMP 2.0 713
An anonymous reader writes "Brice Burgess has given everyone a good peek at what's coming in 2.0 for the GIMP in his review over on NewsForge. Don't like the old UI? It's gone. All new. There have also been megawumpus improvements in the text tool. Brice says he sees some room for improvement still, but overall he is "very impressed."" (Slashdot and NewsForge are both part of OSDN.) The new text tools are a big step up, though the interface as a whole remains a love-it-or-hate-it thing.
And still... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And still... (Score:3, Funny)
I would gladly pay 100 times as much, and I never even USE this stuff!
Re:And still... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And still... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And still... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's helping people stay legal.
Re:And still... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And still... (Score:5, Informative)
You're wrong :^) I'm not an Elements user anymore, but it had most of the Photoshop functionality, including layers.
Just to get it out of the way now (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, I see no reason for having eight taskbar buttons open for one app. I have to devote an entire desktop to Gimp. You can argue with me how "bad" MDI is supposed to be until the cows come home. It hasn't affected the success of Photoshop, and it's what people want.
Photoshop's multi-monitor support (Score:5, Interesting)
I routinely switch between a single monitor (think notebook) and multiple monitors (think notebook with nice big monitor at work). When I'm only using the single, Photoshop often leaves certain dialogue boxes on the non-existant monitor. The effect is that the app is broken until the next time I'm at work.
I'm pretty careful, now, about where I use and leave dialogue boxes, but it still happens. The "Reset palette locations" command works for palettes, but not for dialogue boxes. Adobe confirms that this is a known bug; I can only hope they'll fix it in the next release. Otherwise, I loooooove Photoshop. Cheers!
Re:And still... (Score:3, Informative)
I believe your argument only holds water for the Windows version, at least as I remember it.
The Mac version of Photoshop has the menubar and floating toolbars, put them wherever you want.
I'll have to check out the
You're kidding, right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why am I even bothering? OSS people will always think of inane reasons their OSS version is superior (i.e., the multi-monitor feature, which Photoshop also does anyway).
Re:You're kidding, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but, I enjoy hacking code. I can go at my own pace, and the things I am doing are things that are useful to me. Some people say, "Time is money, and OSS isn't worth the time you waste despite the money you save," but that's not true for me, because time I spend working on developing my _own_ ideas, tweaking my _own_ system, is much better spent and much more fulfilling.
There is the whole "why reinvent the wheel, unless you can do it better?" argument, which would make OSS seem pointless, because OSS often lacks some of the features or wide userbase of similar proprietary packages. But, I don't really like using features I don't really understand; one of the things I have never quite understood about many other people's approach to computer use is how they just click things at random until they get what they want, rather than trying to understand how it's all put together so that they can always know how to get what they want. Therefore, if there's something missing from OSS that I want, or something I want to change to be better for me, chances are I know enough to do it myself. I can't justify spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to pay someone else to do something that I could have done myself.
Maybe I just have a big ego, but I place much higher value on time I spend re-doing what others have already done than on money I would have to spend. For me, it's really a question of: do I want to work hard, feel good about myself, and have something to be proud of? or, do I want to throw around money for no good reason, sit on my fat end-user ass and never write a lick of code, and have my computer system always feel like a hotel and never like my home?
Of course, I do understand if, to everyone else, it's a question of: should I waste time doing tedious work I see no point in doing given that others have already done it? or, should I swallow my pride and shell out a few dollars so that I can use a product developed by experts?
I think it all depends on the mentality of the person making a decision between proprietary and OSS, right now. In the future, if desktop OSS gets to the point where it's on par with proprietary, it may be more of a social clique issue (specialty products will always be good for proprietary markets; I understand that much!)... I think that's *really* what Linux advocates are hoping for: not that most graphic designers would flock to The GIMP, but that most casual PhotoShop users would be able to do their work just the same with a free (in both senses of the word) product.
btw, RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
"Admittedly, the current rendition of CMYK in the GIMP is far behind that of commercial offerings, but the mere existence of CMYK in the latest version means we can look forward to improved profile selection in future versions."
And that's just CMYK.
Re:And still... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can use it for web stuff (color precision doesn't matter), but for pre-press we cannot get away from Photoshop... beyond CMYK and ColorSync support, paths, clipping, masking, and RAW support is not up to par.
Re:And still... (Score:5, Funny)
Prevent forgery of bank notes [slashdot.org]?
Re:And still... (Score:4, Insightful)
Adobe has integrated Photoshop and Illustrator to the point where they might as well be the same application. Photoshop's
This vertical integration extends from fonts and color management at one end to printing at the other, with the applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, InDesign) in between. The Gimp might get awfully close to Photoshop's feature set, but until there are mature and stable open source vector graphics and page layout packages, all the Gimp will do is steal market share from PaintShop Pro.
k.
Re:And still... (Score:5, Insightful)
Faded? A few days ago, a buddy of mine decided to venture into the wonderful world of Texturing as it related to 3D animation. He took a digital photo and wanted me to help him make a textur. He didn't have Photoshop, so he downloaded Gimp. I use Photoshop on a daily basis, I've gotten to know virtually all the features in it. I've learned quite a bit about how to do some of the things you need to do. I don't mean just what buttons to push, but what is being done to the image to get to the result. I sat down at his computer and started flipping through the features in Gimp and.. ouch. It felt like Photoshop lite. It was very limited in what transparency modes it had. There was almost none of the workflow shortcuts that PS has, like Layer sets etc. My experience trying to paint or smudge was... inconsistent. It's like they didn't tune it to what an artist would use it for.
That was about as far as I got. GIMP is not in a state right now where it'd save me $150 for the next PS upgrade. Not only that, but Adobe's chugging ahead with new stuff as well. (I can't believe what an upgrade 7 was from 6...)
I'm going to be honest with you: I think most of the peeps that are dependent on Photoshop are terribly interested in voicing in on this argument, thus the perception that it's "faded". No, it's not Photoshop. But that's not really the question, is it? It's "is it Photoshop enough for you?" Well that's a different deal. You can do your cropping, color balancing, contrasting, etc. That's fine. Just don't get too general about this. Photoshop is a $600 tool. Mastering it can earn you a living. Apps like that are very difficult to keep up with in the Open Source world.
Re:And still... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have also been annoyed by all the taskbar entries (as others have already commented). There's really no excuse for opening so many windows.
I'm not a coder, but I have to say that I'm surprised that Gimp hasn't split off/forked into more projects. If I were a talented coder, it seems like these interface problems could be fixed relatively easily?
Re:And still... (Score:4, Interesting)
The core system does a lot, but the real usefulness of the GIMP (at least for professional folks) lies in that they can write up a perl script to accomplish any damn thing they can think of. Of course, you can write C plugins as well.
You can't do that so easily with Photoshop unless you've already invested the time and money to make it common practice. (Which, sadly, a lot of firms do. It's easier to commit to trudging an extra couple of miles in familiar territory than risk learning something new.)
Re:And still... (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest issue with the GIMP that I see, is that the majority of people out there making money with photoshop have no desire to learn something new. I include myself in that...I have been using photoshop now since version 2, and can use the app practically in my sleep. There is no need to think about "now how will I do that? What menu/palette/option is that?"
I have played with the GIMP off and on, and while I think it is a great program. I see no reason to switch to it for my main app. Especially as 2 hours of billable work pays for an upgrade to photoshop.
Re:And still... (Score:4, Insightful)
This might be a killer app if artists tended to be heavy into scripting. About the only thing most of us would use it for would be automating a bunch of repetitive tasks, and Photoshop has a wonderful macro recorder that handles that with a nice useful UI.
The R&D for GIMP is coming from a software engineer's perspective, not an artist's. I don't really have an issue with that until people start asking why us "stupid people would pay so much for an app." It's sort of like asking why somebody would drive with a manual transmission. Frustrating, iddn't it?
The R&D for GIMP, if it has aspirations to compete with Photoshop, need to change gears. Those of us that make livings off the software want our healing brushes more than we want perl scripting.
Pulp Fiction Drivel (Score:4, Funny)
"But the gimp's prelease."
Well I guess you're just gonna have to go CVS him now won't you."
Re:Pulp Fiction Drivel (Score:3, Informative)
Flame me if you want... but... (Score:5, Flamebait)
Are any of these features NOT copied from PhotoShop?
Re:Flame me if you want... but... (Score:5, Funny)
I believe they were unable to copy the pricetag.
I've been using 2.0pre for awhile and I really like it. Has some firework-esq features and it was really easy to make up graphics for my website
Re:Flame me if you want... but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The author is asking whether GIMP is doing things that we don't see in commercial tools. I'm interested in this, too.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
Re:Flame me if you want... but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a pro, but I use GIMP because I find it simpler and less daunting than Photoshop, and still almost as powerful.
Re:Flame me if you want... but... (Score:4, Informative)
Try it, it's free.
This isn't really a new feature, (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Flame me if you want... but... (Score:5, Insightful)
One feature not included is the "Call the FBI when you scan in a $20" feature.
Uh, gone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Great tool, but the GUI makes it difficult to find things, IMO. I was hoping for something more from a "new" GUI.
Re:Uh, gone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Feel of new Gimp GUI is completely different than the old one
Re:Uh, gone? (Score:4, Funny)
The new GUI combines the best of both worlds: You can put whatever you like in a single window and you can use as many windows (on as many different screens) as you want.
I'd say Gimp 2.0 is put clearly ahead of Photoshop.
Re:Uh, gone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh, gone? (Score:5, Funny)
My suggestion.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Uh, gone? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're saying that probably because you were expecting a MDI interface like Photoshop's. GIMP will nerver have this, because of a GTK limitation/stand.
"Limitation" as in GTK doesn't implement a MDI-like interface. "Stand" as in they won't never implement it, because of their opinion on this - they think MDI is evil, and while at first I didn't agree, after working with GIMP for awhile (and the new interface *IS* better, but you have to use it to understand why), I've came to belive that MDI is not necessar
Mouse pointers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mouse pointers? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mouse pointers? (Score:4, Informative)
Yucky (Score:5, Insightful)
What about Gimp-Print? (Score:3, Interesting)
I see... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I see... (MDI) (Score:5, Troll)
And here's the deal: if you obnoxious Linux zealots keep responding to points like this with "d00d install linux u l00s3r" and comments about how stupid windows users are, you will continue to miss the point that Linux will survive by gaining mindshare and marketshare, and this will not happen if the majority of Win32 people (yes there are lots of them that don't love Win32, but they like to be productive) have the idea that "wow, the OSS tools on Linux are really hard to use". And that's the impression people get. I would think that if they go to the effort of building and releasing binaries on Win32, they could add some MDI support so people could actually find the product useable without burning through their ALT and TAB keys. My left hand is sore after ever GIMP session on my Win32 box, and I feel like I spend half my time minimizing/restoring windows to try to find the right ones. This is a problem, period. Many solutions, but a good one would be to support MDI, like nearly every other windows app in the world.
Re:I see... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mac OS X (and probably prior, but I have no experience) advocates not using the MDI paradigm. I switched from MS to Linux and now I use both Linux and Mac. At first the absence of MDI was a little daunting and I didn't like it.
However, after a couple weeks of adjusting, I'd say I agree with Apple that MDI is a horrible idea and should be avoided. I find managing my workflow far more efficient when my windows are constrained only by my desktop rather than some application that deems itself smarter than I am.
Re:I see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone likes Mozilla's tabbed browsing, right? Well, that's just another form of MDI. It's windows-within-windows, but done right.
What is evil is MS's old brain-dead MDI where you have a blank useless desktop with icons on top of it that can be hidden. Tabbed browsing just this trimmed of some extra features.
What Mozilla does also right is that the whole SDI/MDI model not an either-or choice anymore. Want all pages in different windows? Fine. Want all pages in one window? Fine. Wants some pages in some windows? Fine. I showed Mozilla to various family members who usually use computers, and they all immediately love tabbed browsing.
MS doesn't seems to understand which is better. They keep going back and forth between SDI and MDI when the answer is both!
UI (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:UI (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:UI (Score:5, Informative)
Like that?
Export SVG into illustrator? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a fantastic vector graphics editor, one that reminds me slightly of Draw on the old Acorn, but more powerful.
Ad when is REAL CMYK Coming ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ad when is REAL CMYK Coming ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that gimp won't do it, it's that legally they can't until adobe release the patent, or allow the gimp authors to use it for a low price.
Personally, I'm in favour of a constitutional amendment that insists patents are only valid on commercial products, but that free/oss software is immune from such. It's the only way to increase competition to benefit consumers.
Re:Ad when is REAL CMYK Coming ? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Gimp team wants real CMYK they can do it themselves with a team of volunteers, a few Gretag spectrophotometers and several years of fine-tuning but there's a reason that everyone licenses this stuff from Pantone, Screen, EFI, Adobe, etc. and it's because it's really, really, really hard to do.
Re:Ad when is REAL CMYK Coming ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that gimp's internals are all designed for 1 and 3 band 8 bit images. When they get GEGL up and running, gimp will have real CMYK.
Re:Ad when is REAL CMYK Coming ? (Score:5, Insightful)
..megawumpus improvements.. (Score:5, Funny)
Wake when there are gigawumpus improvements.
(Did I use that properly? Should I be ashamed?)
Re:..megawumpus improvements.. (Score:4, Funny)
Screenshots comment (Score:3, Insightful)
It should be noted that when you are trying to convince people that something is good, it helps when it also looks good.
Now, sure you can abstract the green theme (is that guy colorblind? maybe he likes red?) and see the improvements in the GIMP, but still. It just doesn't look very professional.
Dock Bar? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dock Bar? (Score:3, Informative)
Personally I like to make them translucent at the bottom of the screen in a more traditional gnome layout. I would think a panel where he has it would either get windows over it a lot if he doesn't have it configured to stay on top or would get in the way a lot if he does have it configured to stay on top.
Being different for being different (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, the fact that all tools are under a single window hasn't seemed to hurt the Adobe family of products from being wildass popular. So what, other than being different for the sake of being different, is the point? Copying popular Windows/Mac apps isn't a bad thing if it is what people really like about the user experience.
Folks seem to like the "one window to bind them" approach. Additionally I (and probably others) can't stand to use GIMP with its bazillion windows cluttering my taskbar (as it gets in the way of quickly ALT-TABing throug different apps).
Also, would it kill them to mirror the prebuilt binary/installer packages on a machine larger than a Casio calculator? I spend more time trying to get Gimp on Windows than using it.
Ok... that's it... #def rant 0.
Re:Being different for being different (Score:3, Interesting)
With multiple virtual desktops (a feature Windows and Macs lack), I can have one bit of The GIMP on one desktop, and other dialogues on another. This means, for instance, that I can keep informative dialogues open and switch over to them when I need them.
I'm sure serious graphic-heads fin
This could finally kill my last dependence on M$ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This could finally kill my last dependence on M (Score:5, Informative)
gimp interface... grrr... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a Photoshop user. I use the Corel line of products. Why? Corel puts everything into one window. I'm aware of the pains in programming an interface, but I don't understand why a separate option isn't there for the rest of us?
Please?! If only the Gimp was like this, I would use it. It would be a learning curve, but I could do it. Instead, I have to make sure I have enough room on my desktop to fit all the tool windows I need, along with enough space to view the image I'm manipulating at a size bigger than 40x40. y'know? Every time I give the Gimp a try, I'm impressed with the features, but not impressed with the interface.
I just can't use it. "It's hopeless... utterly, utterly, hopeless."
Feature request (Score:5, Funny)
I just never got used to it (Score:5, Insightful)
All I want are dockable or floating palettes that use a small font size(ie not screen hogs) just like PSP, Photoshop and illustrator use.
And on a second note, I don't wish to see my desktop peep through. A big gray dull background would be less distracting. I've grown way too used to MDI in Windows apps to comfortably use the open source SDI way.
Mod me down for said redunant comments.
Re:I just never got used to it (Score:4, Insightful)
The default setup of the GIMP 2.0 has a "small" theme, which uses tiny fonts and minimizes the deadspace between various control widgets. Use it, and it makes an 800x600 screen almost usable, and a 1600x1200 screen into a polo field.
Afew suggestions (Score:3, Insightful)
If you then added a way of remembering the settings of that particular plug-in on a layer you could add the ability to go back at any time and adjust a plug-in/layer and have that adjustment filter through to the current image - that alone would out-do photoshop!!
Adjustability is what its all about, anyone else with me?
Toilet Paper Template (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! on this screenshot [gimp.org], I notice that they have the all imporant toilet paper template... a must have. :)
Much Needed Improvements (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, brushes, Photoshop 7 has a great brush system, being able to combine brushes is great. Photoshops size, color, shape dynamics as well as jitter control via pen preassure and tilt are great.
This brings up point number 2
This is just from my experience, but getting GIMP to work with a pen/tablet is like pulling the teeth of a grumpy aligator, it's just not worth it. I have a wacom tablet that supposedly works with drivers from the wacom linux project, although I can get it to work as a mouse in X, I have had 0 luck getting it to work with gimp
The last thing is a UI improvment
I haven't used the new version yet, and its hard to tell from the screenshots, but GIMP has some major usability problems when working with multiple layers, history editing, and things of that nature. I think the multiple document interface is a good thing, and the tool selection window is not bad, but having to right-click on the document to get the standard utility menus is a pain in the rear.
Because of the afore mentioned problems I have not used GIMP extensively for actual work, instead I photoshop on my mac, but it seems to have a solid painting engine underneath it, and many of the filters are better than those available for photoshop, even if some of them are a little to flashy.
All that said, I do graphics professionally and so perhaps I just put more demand on an application than the average user, but right now gimp seems like just a nice toy untill they get some of that stuff fixed.
I do prefer to use Open Source software when possible and wait eagerly for the day when GIMP or another project is a usable alternative to Photoshop, and I will be sure to give this new release a go, but I think we may still have a while to go.
Off Topic but, if anyone has had luck getting a Wacom tablet to work under Linux with GIMP and can let me know how to do so as well I'd love to know.
Pain and Pain Me More (Score:5, Interesting)
That being said, it's completely unusable for long periods of time by a guy who, admittedly, is NOT a graphic artist.
I use graphics programs like secretaries use computers. I want it to do what I want it to do, I don't want to know why, I don't want to know when, and I sure as hell don't want to have to spend a half hour figuring out HOW to do something. Ever tried to do something like a inner bevel in Gimp? I'm sure it can be done, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. And that, to me, is a failure of the program for users such as myself.
Maybe you graphics types find it just fine, but it certainly doesn't work for us reg'ler folks.
Re:Pain and Pain Me More (Score:4, Funny)
Why won't they support us guys who don't want to learn how to use the program? We matter!
Whining about one window (Score:5, Informative)
To that, I'll remind you that your Linux window manager probably has multiple desktops. It sounds incredibly stupid for its simplicity, but once you realize it, there's absolutely no problem with the interface.
I'll also encourage you to use 0x808080 or something similarly neutral for the background on that desktop. You'd be surprised how much the surrounding noise can affect the way you work. I even go to the extent of making all my window decorations a soft grey when I'm drawing up stock schemes or otherwise doodling.
One thing I don't get. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand why anyone would want a box covering the very thing they're working on. Is there some option to make it that way, or customize it - say 'Adobe 7' or 'Corel 4.5' profiles?
I use Photoshop more than 10 hours a day - if Gimp wants users, it should make it easy for Photoshop users to migrate with as little adjustment as possible. Why would I want to throw my years of PS experience away? Adjustment is necessary, but not full-blown re-education.
16-bit/float formats? (Score:4, Insightful)
gimp16 looked promising, but it never went anywhere. Photoshop's 16-bit implementation is pretty weak; it can read it, but can't write it in any format other than a photoshop file and (last time I checked), it still only painted in 8-bit.
Megawumpus improvements. (Score:3, Funny)
So, the improvements aren't really welcome, right?
First Impressions (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the first thing that I see? Well, we have a bunch of little windows with a terminal manager peeking through. Annyoing, but I can deal with it. Hmm - they're all showing up on the taskbar, too. More annoying, but lets move on.
Looking at what I presume is the "new" Gimp interface, on the left, the colored icons are much easier to understand at a glance. The menus, however, leave a lot to be desired. One problem with small windows is that, unless you're using Mac style menus, you have small menu labels. Like these ones. File: fair enough. Help: likewise. Xtns:
Looking at the bottom of the docked options window, I can see some buttons. I'd guess that the first one is Save, the second (greyed out) is undo/back, the third is delete (delete my ink options?) and the fourth is... erm... undo again? You've got me. Hope that they have mouseovers, but they really shouldn't have needed them.
Looking at the "Brushes, Patterns, Gra" window. Ooh, nice title. Anyway, these seem pretty reasonable, although the weird icons at the bottom are back, and different. I guess the first one is
Okay, now onto the main window. Heh - they can't seem to draw their rulers correctly so that you can see the stops and read the numbers. Oh, well. Again, we have the problem of the window size - this time the menus are readable, but one of them seems to be "La" - possibly "Lay" - and who knows how many are inaccessible off to the right? Its good to know that I can cancel my picture, however - or could in some situations whenever the button is enabled.
All in all, from a first glance (which is all many prospective users will ever give it), I'll stick with Paint Shop Pro, thankyouverymuch.
MacOSX version? (Score:4, Informative)
Does the current gimp source compile on osx? Does it need X or it works on aqua too? Am i stuck with fink?
One thing Photoshop has that The GIMP doesn't.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Moving the Masses (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I am moving into Gimp from Photoshop as well as Openoffice from MS Office because I'm just tired of the ridiculous upgrades to keep compatibility issues in check.
Open source is the single greatest thing to happen in a very long time. It has opened up a new horizon for me and the people I recommend software to. I am our company's "IT Guy" for our state and my top recommendations of late are Firefox, Openoffice, Gimp, and SuSe for those looking for a change. This is coming from a strictly Adobe/M$ house. I figured I could use the "$" now since I'm an open source fanboy now!
It's pretty cool when I can move 100's of people in the direction of open source and this filters down to their families too so I am doing my part.
Side by side comparison for JPEG compression. (Score:5, Informative)
Lol, when Photoshop trolls come out to play. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have just waded through about 20 +5 insightful modded posts about how bad GIMP 1.2's GUI was. Sigh, I know this is slashdot, but is even reading the editor's comment to much, even if RTFA is?
How on earth can you say that the GIMP 2 is crap unless you've tried it. I can see this working quite well for web graphics and standard home printer stuff, and the new interface with dockable palettes and menus in the image window saving one from having to right-click all the time are fantastic.
I don't know what pisses the PS people off more: the fact that the GIMP is finally improving or that they spent an enormous amount of money on Adobe's tools that they only use for web graphics in the end.
Well, how the hell do ya' draw a circle (Score:5, Informative)
When I tried to introduce my wife (graphic designer/QuarkXPress/Photoshop/Illustator ninja) to The Gimp 1.2, the first thing that happened was this:
Where's the shape drawing tool? Whaddya mean I have to use the selection tool to draw a circle? That's stupid. Weeellllllll, let's make a little text instead. One line? I can't auto-kern? Where the hell's the preview? Ok, there we go.....dammit, maybe not. Where in the fuc.....oh, there it is. Hey, how do I select multiple layers--the damn shift key doesn't work. The hell with this...what good is this thing, anyway?
There's a lot to be said for standardized user interface elements if you want to get the professionals on board..........
Re:Well, how the hell do ya' draw a circle (Score:4, Insightful)
Drawing bezier lines in Photoshop is useful for any number of bitmap editing reasons. You wouldn't do a full on vector based layout with it, it's not designd for that. But bezier shapes that can be resized without resolution loss are great for masking, selecting, using as templates, vitural frisket for airbrushing, etc...
Since isn't a bitmap editor it wouldn't have served the poster's wife's needs at all.
I love the Gimp, but when will it heal (Score:4, Interesting)
After discovering Photoshops new "healing brush" for touching up photographs I will never be able to go back to just the clone tool.
The healing brush clones, makes the clone match the color characteristics of the surrounding pixels, and blends the clone with the surrounding pixels.
A 20 minute job can be done in 3 or 4 minutes.
Not PS, but impressive nonetheless. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a mulimediadesinger and have worked with a wide range of tool on a professional level.
Gimp 1.3 actually _is_ a usefull tool. It's not the tool of choice for most things, but in some scenarios it can actually deliver results were other grafics tools get in their own way with feature and algorithim bloat.
The habit of putting every thing in it's own window made pre-1.3 Gimp absolutely unbearable for production. Unless you had Fluxbox, maybe.
But the simple level Anti-Aliasig and some other nice features along with the one or other workaroud trick make Gimp a nice Pixeleditor to work with. Praise the Gimp team for getting the message and introducing tabs and other must-haves for GUI work.
On top of that, - and this is one of the most notable things of this OSS project imho - as long as I can remember, Gimp has allways been an absolute breeze to install. I wish all OSS would install that way. For instance, right now I'm debugging a default Postgres/ODBC Setup and it's taken up 30 workhours allready with no end in sight...
To me the undo stack in Gimp 2.0 looks promising, as it hints in the direction of the PS protokoll. Which, btw, proves that PS is still waaaaay ahead of any competition, be it comercial or OSS.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to Gimp 2. Cudos to the Gimp team for their good work.
Gimp is a great program (Score:5, Insightful)
1. I've never used it, but from the screenshots it looks scary! It sucks!
2. I've used it, and it didn't work exactly like Photoshop. It sucks!
As a person who has used Photoshop (and a bevy of other paint programs, all the way back to the days of DPaint) extensively, I feel the Gimp is by far the best program available for creating (pixel-based) graphics, especially in the realm of web imagery.
I have used it to create from-scratch graphics for countless websites, including: this [dusk.org], this [trustcommerce.com], this [adamwiggins.com], and this [dusk.org]. I have also used it to do many print items, such as this flyer [adamwiggins.com]. (Amazingly enough, CMYK is not really that necessary if you don't mind slight variations in the color on the final product. If you are doing serious print work, you should really be using a vector illustration program for everything but photo retouching anyhow.)
I think perhaps the Gimp's strength is how a non-artist (ie, me) can create pretty nice looking art with it - as I believe the links above will attest. It has a number of features not found in any other paint program, such as highly configurable tablet sensitivity.
Unfortunately, the hardest thing about using it for someone who has switched from Photoshop is that it looks _very_ similar to Photoshop, but yet it is really not very similar at all. Much like an expencied Windows user switching to KDE, they will find themselves fooled into expecting the interface to behave exactly the same way - and it doesn't. It's a different program, with a different interface.
But those who either have the patience to un-learn their Photoshop habits, or are not burdened by them to begin with, will find the Gimp to be one of the most powerful graphics tools available today. It is also quite likely one of the most impressive and mature applications available in the realm of free software - on par with Mozilla, OpenOffice, and Evolution. I'm not sure why it doesn't get the same respect that these packages do.
My opinion on Gimp 2.0 Preview (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyhow, I was very impressed with it. Admittedly, there are some things that are still rough around the edges, but this is a significant improvement over previous releases. Things I especially liked:
- Relocation of the line stroke button that makes it easier to use Bezier curves and the like.
- Better resizing and resampling algorithms that produce that nice, anti-aliased effect.
- Quick, no frills approach to plugins and features.
Things that I still think need improvement:
- I think that rather than have a smattering of premade brushes with the option to make your own that Gimp should adopt a system like Paint Shop Pro where the menu for the paintbrush (and other relevant tools) lets you adjust the brush size, density, step, etc. in one convenient panel, rather than having to go through the effort of making an entirely new custom brush for the task. The current approach is functional, but unnecessarily clumsy.
- Have something akin to the Browse feature in Paint Shop Pro. This feature analyzes all graphics in a directory, produces thumbnails of all of them, and displays them in a window where you can pick and choose which ones to open. It's like a pictoral file selector.
- Implement more features that can be done with Layers, like adjusting gray channels for example and allow layers to modify layers beneath them (e.g. a Multiply layer or a Screen layer). If this ability exists, I haven't found it.
- I'm not still not a huge fan of the MDI approach. If you have related taskbar icons cluster in Windows or Linux, it's not too bad however, and there are pros and cons to both approaches.
But it's not at all bad. For free, it's a remarkable product. As an example, I selfishly submit this plug for my webcomic whose most current chapter was done with Gimp (true until this Sunday, unless I decide to use Gimp again): http://dragonangel.keenspace.com
It's just that with Paint Shop Pro already costing about $60 on sale (as low as $15 for previous users), and being more substantial and feature packed than Gimp, I don't have a reason to switch to Gimp (unless PSP 9 is a similar flop), but I would certainly recommend it for the graphic artist on the cheap.
What we really need (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, y'all, I know I'm ringing in on this late, and it's 6:00am without any sleep for me, so I might come off as brusque. Everybody says "I'm not a graphic designer, but..." Well, I actually am a graphic designer.
The GIMP may, someday, be as good as Photoshop. Right now, it's not even close. Photoshop's interface is so polished and so wise, and its tools are so powerful but easily accessible, that all of these debates about the GIMP are frivolous. I've used both extensively, and for anything other than fucking around, there's no comparison.
I will pay $600 for a program as powerful as Photoshop. But, I'd really like to have Photoshop (without the use of CrossoverOffice) run on my Linux desktop machine. I can boot into Windows or I can walk to my Win98 box to run Photoshop, but it's frustrating not to have Photoshop accessible when I'm doing other sorts of serious work.
What I think graphic designers who want to use Linux should do is lobby Adobe to make PS available on Linux. I would pay, and I know others who would, too.
Re:Will there be an improved Windows version? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a Windows version (Score:5, Informative)
These are up to Gimp 2.0 pre2.
Cheers,
Joe
Re:Will there be an improved Windows version? (Score:5, Informative)
Seeing all the work the core GIMP developers put into GTK, I don't image they'll put the time into porting it to another widget set. That is not saying it can't be done. Just don't get your hopes up.
Re:Worst screenshots ever (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, they couldn't figure out how to use the new selection tools.
Re:That interface... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:From the article (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure there are things, I'd _LIKE_ done to some of my favorite OSS projects (plug for GNUCash 2.0 to get finished
Oh and gimp 2.0pre2 works fine on my G4 at wor
Re:From the article (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no problem with a bunch of people donating time chosing not to support a platform, and they make it easy for someone who _does_ want to support the platform by releasing the code - all that would be required is converting GTK calls into Aqua calls and reimplimenting the libraries.
In the meantime they gave you a working solution (install GTK etc - which then gives you access to ALL gtk apps, not just this one) -
Re:From the article (Score:3, Insightful)
Mac programs are held to certain standard, and running on X doesn't cut it.
Re:What?! Old GUI is gone?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at the writeup, I saw only ONE improvement that I really, really want - the multi-line text tool. And the reviewer was careful to point out that other goodies (like a multi-COLOR text tool) were NOT implemented.
Personally, I'd be just as happy if someone would retrofit that new multi-line text tool into 1.2 and forget about the rest of it. I've taken the time to get used to right-click menus and floating toolbars and such, it wasn't that hard. So pardon me if I don't enthuse for changes that disrupt all the current users just to make things easier on a few newbies!
Re:What?! Old GUI is gone?! (Score:5, Funny)