It’s that phenomenon where people who endured trauma to attain something expect others to also endure the trauma.
I’ve tried learning GIMP, and it sucks. I’m not saying GIMP sucks, but you have to be crazy to not see that it’s hard to learn.
Not vonly hard to learn, it lacks some really basic stuff like undestructive ediring (adjusment layers) and such.
I am using 2.99.18 (non release, unstable build). Non destructive editing has landed. You can make adjustments through the usual menus and then enable/disable the adjustment under layer effects.
Wow, that’s greate!
OHH it even works with text layers!!! you can finally add drop shadow to a text without discarding the text information! ;A:
The sudden South Indian accent surprised me (vonly)
I’ve tried learning GIMP, and it sucks. I’m not saying GIMP sucks, but you have to be crazy to not see that it’s hard to learn.
I use GIMP for memes and here’s my two favorite tips
-
Hit the forward slash key
/to open a command palette and jump to any action -
To remove backgrounds, use a layer mask. select around the object and paint a white/black section on the layer mask. Here comes the trick: use a Gaussian filter on the layer mask to create a transition from black to white and the crop job looks a lot less choppy.
My anti-tip
- Adding text and shapes sucks and I never found a way to make it better. Export your image and finish the job in Krita, Pinta, Photopea, …
fuck, i neverthought of the gaussian blur thing, i always just traced over the edge with a soft edged brush…
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Feather?
Smart people use terms like gaussian blur to refer to a blur distribution rather than a non technical term such as feather. Feathers are what helps birds fly for example. Let’s try:
“You can feather the pedals on your car to make it drift.”
“You can feather the pedals on your Ford to make it do the Tokyo style turns.”
Which sentence was better 😂?
-
The Autodesk forums are 40% this, 20% “just learn to program, spend a few years getting good at it, then write yourself a custom script to do what you are struggling with”, 20% “you are wrong for wanting that in the first place” or “you are wrong for having this issue”, 15% “this has been brought up once at some point in the past two decades, try searching”, 4% “OMG yes I have this issue too!”…
…and 1% split between actual helpful answers, and confirmation that it’s a known issue.
No, GIMP does suck.
It has the same problem as most FOSS packages that are too wide in breadth and have multiple contributors with their own hobby horses pulling in all different directions, and to this day does not actually provide a feature-complete whole, nor an interface that actually makes sense. And it’s not a matter of the workflow just being different – it categorically fails to replicate functionality that is core to its commercial competitors. Numerous other “big” productivity packages have the same problem including FreeCAD (boy does it ever), LibreOffice, etc. I say this as a staunch supporter of FreeCAD, by the way. It’s the only CAD software I use even though it’s a pain in my ass.
The shining exception to this I see is Inkscape, but it is still significantly less powerful than even early versions of CorelDraw.
For 2D graphics work these days, I hold my nose and just use Corel. I use it for work. Like, actual commercial work. That I get paid for. It is at least a lesser evil than doing business with Adobe.
And if you want to stick it to the man, it is easily pirated.
Photoshop is also hard to learn. What’s your point? Just because it’s different to what you used to does not means it’s more or less difficult to learn.
I’m not used to photoshop so I can’t say anything about that.
I was a big fan of paint.NET but now that I stopped using Windows, it’s the only software that I really miss.
It had fewer features than GIMP, but it was so intuitive yet surprisingly powerful.
Have not found a similarly amazing alrernative, I wish Wine could make it work…
Does it run with WINE? iirc it was used a lot as an example for wine on android because it supported windows-on-arm
Not having Paint.NET sucked when I switched to Linux. I got very used to it and that was the one I missed most… it took a few years bouncing between programs but I’m happy with Krita now. GIMP just never clicked for me unfortunately.
I sometimes think about making a Paint.NET clone for linux but i have too many other projects and hobbies i wanna do instead yk
You could contribute to Pinta, which I’m pretty sure has the same vision
I’ve tried learning GIMP, and it sucks. I’m not saying GIMP sucks, but you have to be crazy to not see that it’s hard to learn.
“Im not saying it sucks but it does” How do you want us to take you seriously when you don’t even agree with yourself ?
They didn’t say GIMP itself sucks, they said leaning to use it sucks. Those are two different things.
anyone who has ever used image editing software professionally knows gimp’s ui sucks very much.
we could have had an opensource photoshop killer if the developers werent adamant to keep the 90s workflow holding it back for so damn long.
“you are using it wrong!!” my ass.
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I mean, there’s something to be said about adhering to an industry standard. Of course no project has to do so if they don’t want to, but people trying to get on with their work don’t want to spend a bunch of time relearning everything. I think Blender really thrived when they loosened up a little on their ideas of what a workflow should be and gave people industry standard options out of the gate.
Whether we like it or not, GIMP isn’t going to be most people’s first experience with image manipulation. Whether they had a free PS license through school/work, had a subscription at some point, or once got it through ahem alternative means, people will be coming into GIMP with certain expectation of what the workflow should look like and will get frustrated pretty quickly.
we saw a similar thing with blender, everyone kept shitting their pants over blender, until studios started actually using it, and then nobody cared.
Most of the complaints are just people mad that they have to learn something. As is true for most things in life.
Blender has also undergone multiple UI changes over the years to make it more usable for new people.
Lazpaint
Pinta
Krita
Asesprite
I dunno if it was you asking the question or not but ^^;; if you want some decent replacements for gimp I recommend krita, it’s more Photoshop like and honestly it’s my go-to however there is also photopea which is a browser editor that I heard is actually pretty good, and if you’re on Mac or Windows (if so I dunno why you’d post here XD) I recommend the Affinity suit, it’s cheaper than Photoshop and it’s a one time payment instead of a subscription.
I was just lurking, but I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and I like your use of the ^^;; and XD emojis :3
I feel like it would be helpful to include the text of their post rather than just the title:
TL;DR Sorry if this is wrong group. GIMP = Epic POS. Do not use. Please recommend a decent alternative. Don’t waste your time with GIMP help because I am done.
I hope the mods or the bots don’t kill this post right away. It’s a serious and legitimate question from a UX designer with several decades of experience, who doesn’t want anyone else to suffer what I have. I didn’t know where else to post it, so I’m trying here as a first-timer. I apologize if this is not in the spirit of the group.
I quit Adobe, can’t afford the price any more (long story). I thought GIMP could replace Photoshop. But the user interface is horrible, and the app is full o’ bugs.
Here’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I tried to make a meme. The font selection overlay was a tiny, pathetic, hard to read joke. Not even a font selection dropdown, let alone one that provided previews with every line item like PS does. Deep breath, continue. I type “Impact”. Red text. I backspaced and typed “Im”. All I got was Impact Condensed. (Yes, I have Impact, and have used it in PS). So I picked it anyway. Then I tried to find the outline font feature. In Photoshop, it’s a simple “choose stroke” feature. GIMP? Hello?
I want to the Web to find a tutorial where it pointed out the feature. No luck. Searched again to find a workaround / hack. Mostly crap. Found one that was current and seemed decent. Followed it carefully. GIMP crashed.
While I appreciate the thoughts of anyone who may be compelled to point out a simple workaround or feature that I missed, don’t bother. This is the last of many dozens of problems I have wasted my time working around while suffering many crashes, and I already uninstalled it.
So. Recommendations?
I think it’s also worth giving the correction that there is a font selection dropdown with previews in GIMP. It’s to the left of the font input box.
I use gimp but OP isn’t wrong. Doing a stroke on text is mindless in Photoshop and very convoluted in gimp.
GIMP needs the Blender treatment honestly. Inkscape too. That would cover the vast majority of what I do art-wise.
Inkscape has been a lifesaver many times, but it’s packed like a shit in a bag.
I can’t believe they still use the old file selection on windows without a path input box. I literally can not open a file from my network drive. It doesn’t even remember the last path!
The easiest workflow I found is to just copy projects to downloads for editing.Besides other things.
Gimp 3 might clear some of that up we will see
I hear good things about Krita.
From my amateur experience Krita is really nice for drawing, painting and sketching, especially if you have a graphic tablet, as it bundles commonly used features and makes them easily accessible.
But it is by far not a sophisticated image manipulation program such as GIMP, which comes with a plethora of more features you’ll probably not use if you’re just doing some “typical Krita stuff”.
inkscape in my opinion is intuitive to use, maybe because before I was used to Photoshop
To be fair
- GIMP is really good
- GIMP is hella complex to use
For example there was a (now enshittified) tool on Android called “image attacher” or something, for making a long image from 2.
This is probably also pretty easy with some CLI tool.
I actually took the time to learn “how do I attach 2 images together” in GIMP.
Or “how do I create a textmarker”.
And the stuff works, but its just very complex.
attach 2 images
- Open 1 image
- “open” “open as another layer” the second image
- your canvas is as big as the first image. Guess how big it has to be when fitting them next to each other
- know that there is a difference between “layer surface” and “canvas” for whatever reason
- in the menubar, find the canvas options
- find where to resize the canvas and make it bigger
- click on the surface layer of the other image and move it so it fits where you want it
- use “merge downwards” to make the 2 layer one. BE CAREFUL TO NOT USE ANY IMAGE PARTS
- use the crop tool
- crop the new combined images to the wanted size
This is sooo manual and seems very hacky. The difference between canvas and layer make no sense to me. The enlargement is “eyeballing”. The cropping too. There is no snapping when placing next to each other. There is no “dynamically increase canvas size” option afafaik.
text marker / highlighter
Something with brush, make it bigger, yellow, reduce the opaqueness, change the paint mode to “only make darker”
GIMP is like using
catawkandtailto write an office document lol. It works but it is damn technical.But if you know how to do it, you know how to do it.
it’s also damn slow and destructive if you’re trying to fit it into a true professional workflow with deadlines. i work with programs like it professionally and I only use gimp when i find myself on a random computer that doesn’t have anything else. it’ll get the job done, pretty much any job, but it might be very slow and painful. as someone who DEFINITELY knows how to use gimp, i understand the op they’re clowning more than i understand the 1 peer i know that’s actually managing to make money with a fully foss workflow. I also happen to know he largely doesn’t sleep to accomplish it.
gimp and darktable and similar projects are great, but workflow efficiency is what they do after they finish adding features. that just never happens. it’s not the exciting work.
See, this is exactly my point in my other comment above. I could do this in about five seconds with Corel PhotoPaint.
- Make a new document that’s arbitrarily large.
- Import both (or all 3, or all 10, or however many) images. (Images can be batch imported.)
- Snap the first one to the top left corner.
- Snap the others below it. Their corners and edges will click together if you have alignment guides enabled. 4a. Optionally resize any of the images by just typing in the value you need in pixels, in the toolbar when it’s selected. If you need to know the size of any other image, just click it and it’ll tell you. It’s not even in a menu.
- Crop tool (D) to knock the oversized canvas down to whatever size you need. Again, you can just type this in, in pixels, and it’s not even buried in a menu.
- Export, post, accumulate lulz.
Export to a flat format (.jpeg, .png, .gif, whatever) and your output will be flattened. You don’t need to think about layers or merging or layers being bigger than the canvas or not. There is no, “Be careful not to XYZ.” What you see in the preview is what the output will look like. Period. You can even apply your monitor’s color calibration to it or the color profile of any other output device (printer, a different monitor, etc.) on the fly if you are a big enough nerd.
You can do this in an even simpler dumber way in CorelDRAW!
- Import the images. Images can still be batch imported.
- Arrange them however you want, snap them together, whatever.
- Lasso them all and export.
That’s… literally it. You don’t have to crop, you don’t have to trim, or layer, or anything. You can specify the dimensions of the output file in the export window before you hit save if you want it to be different than the original. Your arrangement doesn’t even have to be rectangular and it will still work.
I could do this in about five seconds with Corel PhotoPaint.
that is because you are familiar with corel photopaint. i could do that faster than you in gimp, because i am familiar with gimp.
and yes, using tool capable of doing lot of complex tasks takes more time to learn than some single-purpose tool that is optimized to do one task (and even then you have to learn how to use it). that is like wondering that learning to pilot aircraft takes longer than learning to ride on a bicycle.
I’ve tried using GIMP and it absolutely sucks and I wish there was a good paint.net replacement.
Something I found about a lot of open source projects is that the UI is always terrible
I use https://www.photopea.com/. It is an online editor and never disappointed me.
I honestly think it’s unfair to judge someone for not putting significant time into learning another complex program. I’ve used Photoshop since it first existed, and it’s basically a lifetime of knowledge. A combination of things has brought me to exploring other open source solutions, but GIMP is definitely unintuitive in comparison. I’m only putting the time in because there’s literally no alternative that’s as powerful and ubiquitous an image editing solution, but I’d also be the first to jump on alternatives that would make the transition easier. It’s especially not fair to cast that judgement on professionals who don’t really have the time to invest in learning a new tool from scratch.
It looks like this was asked in a GIMP forum, so I’m not really surprised at the backlash. It’s super rude to ask that in that forum. Like, they shouldn’t be rude back, but I understand why they were.
Is it? It’s just a forum it’s not like he’s asking the devs
many such cases. good to call it out, and needs to happen more often and consistently as toxicity is the #1 barrier to the “year of the Linux desktop” in my experience
edit: also https://krita.org/
Krita is really good for digital drawing and painting, but photoshop does cover a lot of other things, which krita can not do. In that sense Krita is more of a Corel PaintShop Pro alternative. While GIMP is the best, but still very bad, alternative to photoshop.
I’m annoyed no one ever bothers to mention this:
because it’s illegal
GIMP would be infinitely better if they just changed the name so we could talk about it around normal people without getting dirty looks
Also if they made it have a workflow friendly to people who are used to almost anything else
almost anything else
You mean photoshop right?
I mean, or Corel or even Paint.net.
Just don’t live in an English speaking country, easy!
Gimp isn’t perfect. But neither is Photoshop. In fact Lightroom users grizzle that Photoshop is so much harder to use than Lightroom. It’s a different animal.
I use Pinta or Paint.Net when I want a quick edit. But Gimp has the tools for serious editing. More tools, more hard to use.
Some Gimp things, yes! should be improved. And other things are being improved as we speak. And some things can be done on a photo much easier in Inkscape.
I hope the whiners donated to Gimp development? No? Then just please step back, and think for a bit. If thinking is too hard, then just take a deep breath.
Donating to GIMP will not likely make it user-friendly enough to make me use it unless absolutely forced to. I would much rather donate to Pinta or Paint.NET or something where development would actually benefit me.
To be fair, you can’t exactly ask for a GIMP replacement on r/GIMP and not expect that reaction
Sure you can.
