GIMP 3.0 is over 96% complete!
The GIMP team got sick at the Libre Arts conference over the summer, hence the setback to the release schedule but they are now back making good progress.
Along with non-destructive editing and a colour overhaul we've all been waiting for, longstanding critics of the UI/UX will be pleased to hear that GIMP are setting up a UX repository and are looking to build a dedicated team of designers to develop this.
All of these things look set to make the GIMP project feel a lot more current and dynamic. I can't wait!
And if anyone wants to help out it looks like testing/reporting, donations and updating the help manual are all welcomed by the project at the moment.
That's how it started, as more of a replacement for Corel Painter, but today it's a very competent photo editor too, personally I find it much better than GIMP.
It's not free of pain points though - text editing sucks compared to Photoshop, (it's similar but better than GIMP though, both input text into dialog prompt then render it, GIMP is one and done, you need do it again if you want to edit, Krita lets you edit) no WYSIWYG on the canvas.
Also getting used to the UI will take a bit from PS.
I'm not a graphics designer, I just occasionally dabble in GIMP. Is it really that bad or is it just different from Adobe? I've had some issues at first because the GUI is not intuitive in the slightest but I kind of enjoy the workflow now.
Although the most complicated thing I've ever done was recreating an AI generated logo with actual symmetry, logic and around 20 layers.
Well, i feel like gimp only have like the 40% of the funcitons and some of the dont work so well. Just starting with no CMYK mode, so I can't work with printables.
I find it great and in fact I prefer some things to photoshop, like the default keyboard shortcuts, saves as a project file, better filters, amazing plugins, full control over preferences and scriptability. I also prefer the foreground select tool and unified transform tool. There are a few things that PS does better though, like its warp tool and custom print settings, plus obviously nondestructive editing (coming in next GIMP release). People shit on GIMP way more than it deserves. I put it down to a) sunk costs in learning Photoshop b) slow development in the past and c) groupthink/fashionable.
For professionals used to Photoshop, yes it is that bad. People want what's familiar because they're used to it and they're busy or lazy. They don't want to learn something new.
If GIMP wanted to increase their userbase by a million overnight, they would make it look more like Photoshop.
The problem is they and many current users are huge FOSS zealots and see this kind of thing akin to selling your soul to the devil.
To me Adobe has very bad UI, I did try to use it, and first time was awful. Freehand was a lot more intuitive, but when Macromedia was bought, was killed.
I get it, that a lot of people did learn to use Adobe UI, and of course they want the same because they're used to, but doesn't make it better.
Affinity is more friendlier than PS to me.
I'm not saying that GIMP UI is perfect or good, but right now, to my casual use case, is not bad. Obviously can be better, and get some ideas from other UIs.
I'm not a designer (I have spared the world from my designs) but I think the Affinity suite is pretty good. It's not as feature complete as Photoshop but it's fairly close and the UI is also fairly close.