(Read before Comment) Why you don't like GIMP UI?

For what i heard, a lot of people on the Linux community use Krita for image manipulation, even though, it’s intended for digital painting, and GIMP is the one intended for image manipulation, because people don’t like the GIMP’s UI.

My issue is, i never understood why they don’t like the GIMP’s UI, since i never have issues with it,(Although it’s probably because i’m used to the UI) so i need to adress this problem and ask you What does the GIMP UI has that you don’t like or hate so much and why you like Krita’s UI over GIMP’s?

Before you event comment your answer i need to ask you to do the following:

  1. Address each specific issue along with an concise and direct explanation of why you don’t like it
  2. Answers such as “I just don’t like it”, “I don’t like where it’s placed” or anything alike doesn’t count as “Concise and Direct”, we are adults, not 4 year old children.
  3. If you can provide a suggestion of how GIMP’s UI can be improved, it would help a lot, and maybe this issue can be solved.
  4. If someone else commented something you were about to comment, upvote them, this way we can address the most common issues effectively.
  5. I need you to watch the screenshots of both UI’s, because something that most people don’t know, it’s how similar Krita and GIMP’s UIs are.

Krita’s UI https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/60b262a6-7c9c-44f3-8c9b-86200b544f45.png

GIMP’s UI https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5c01ee4e-2a3c-485d-891b-36a4edd66d62.png

(Credits to a friend of mine for lettig me use the screenshots.)

My ideas on how GIMP can improve it’s UI

  1. Adding the option of the new UI selected by default, but with the possibility to switch to the new UI.
  2. Possibly addding “work spaces” like Krita would help too, along with the possibility of exporting and importing them, this way people can have custom arrangements of the UI according to the kind of work they will do.

Thanks for reading and hopefully we can address this issue effectively.

NoiseColor,

I tried it last year in a failed attempt to get of ps, which I to every few years.

I can’t name specifics, but ps is just more intuitive, more user friendly, faster, more stable, gives you more for formats… I don’t even think ps is all that. Even if we forget Adobe owns the pro space here, it’s just not viable to use gimp professionaly. I never understood why gimp doesn’t just copy all the user flows from photoshop when it’s clear that not only they work, but all users are familiar with them from other software.

RayOfSunlight,

There’s a reason of why GIMP doesn’t copy things, it’s not a Photoshop clone, but you can modify the UI to make it more like Photoshop, in fact, here is a video on how to do it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY7g2JGyJeQ

An alternative option is downloading PhotoGIMP Addon for GIMP, but i consider this to be a better option.

NoiseColor,

I understand it’s not a clone, but the truth is ps has a much better ux. There is no reason to not to copy the better ux.

I tried this plugin, it does very little to make the experience better, it actually makes it worse because it’s more difficult to find things, when you can’t easily Google to find them.

RayOfSunlight,

Yes, but with Photoshop (If you are paying the creative cloud) You’ll be paying 60$ a mlnth which translates to 720$ a year every year for the rest of your natural born creative life.

Also, what functions are you trying to find anyway?

NoiseColor,

I’m paying 36 per month for the whole creative cloud. Whole. Photoshop, illustrator, AE,… It’s been a few months, but all of them are just better. Unfortunately it is what it is. And now, now with ai, it’s the only option reasonable.

RayOfSunlight, (edited )

So you’re letting yourself be a slave of the company and food for the bloodsuckers?

Edit: Not to mention that the software LITERALLY it’s not yours, you’re just paying a license that isn’t perpetual, so they can revoke it from you to make you stop using it if they want to.

NoiseColor,

I pay monthly fees for lots of stuff. A newspaper, Internet, water and heating,… For sure I’d rather not, but I mostly I don’t have an alternative option. With Adobe the case is such.

RayOfSunlight,

there ARE alternatives to Adobe Suite, here’s an article that talks about it notes.ghed.in/…/free-software-design-studios/

But in short:

Lightroom > Darktable Premier Pro > Kdenlive Ilustrator > Inkscape Adobe Audio Studio(I forgot the name) > Tenacity(Fork of Audacity)

You may also take a look at alternativeto.net to find more alternatives to more stuff

NoiseColor,

:)

Tried them all. They don’t compare.

There are some that can be replaced easily, like Adobe premier, maybe even after effects. Audacity for sure. Not indesign, Not illustrator, not photoshop. Not only because the alternative are worse, but because everyone else uses Adobe and its incredibly easier to collaborate. If you are a pro in graphic design, like a real pro that these tools are a daily use, you can’t use anything else but Adobe.

RayOfSunlight, (edited )

Can’t really compare Commercial Software with FOSS since both have different objectives, Adobe wants to empty your wallet and credit card along with everyone else’s, and FOSS focus on bringing great functioning alternatives

NoiseColor,

I’m sure you can get even more poetic about it without trying too hard, but at the end of the day you still end up with a tool that does the job significantly better and faster than the alternative - a tool that brings more value even though it costs more money.

RayOfSunlight,

Adobe only cares about how much they are squeezing from you, companies are not your friend.

But dang, you’re hopeless.

NoiseColor,

Your still don’t get it. Adobe brings the user more value, because using their software users are able to work quicker, finishing more work and earning more money. Adobe subscription is negligible. Freelancers earn more in an hour of work. But save a lot more.

Even people like me, who are for some weird reason especially inclined to use FOSS, we try to dabble in it, every few years check is anything has changed. But it doesn’t. It remains the same. Pros can’t afford not to use the best software and nothing comes close to ps, ai. Sad but true.

RayOfSunlight,

“Brings the user more value”

What kind of value? You literally don’t own the software, it’s more directed to companies rather than individuals and freelancers, not to mention it gets expensive.

NoiseColor,

I will only repeat this once more : Full Adobe package costs me less than an hour of work per month. Adobe software makes me save more than an hour per month (probably more like an hour per day).

That is an equation. An equation that favours Adobe against the alternatives.

There are no feelings here, just an equation of time and money.

RayOfSunlight,

You’re hopeless

NoiseColor,

In hopeless because I prefer to work more efficiently, faster and to make more money instead of less. Yes, I guess I am hopeless in that kind of way.

RayOfSunlight,

No, you’re hopeless because you’re letting the company control you and suck your bank account dry and you don’t see how companies are, in the end, they are very likely to kill the entire world just to keep all the money.

NoiseColor,

I make more money because of them! It’s not actually more, it’s just quicker, so I have more free time to enjoy my life. Sweet!

In the end everyone will die.

RayOfSunlight,

I hope you get your wallet sucked dry

NoiseColor,

I hope you finish your work quicker just like me, so you can have as much free time to enjoy!

RayOfSunlight,

Oh i forgot, Adobe threatened users with taking legal actions against them if they don’t updtae to the lastest version of their software once, DO YOU REALLY THINK THEY CARE ABOUT YOU? 😂

NoiseColor,

Are you off your meds? I’m not taking about who cares about who. I’m pretty sure gimp developers don’t care about me either.

RayOfSunlight,

They are not a company, and no, i don’t consume drugs of any kind, they never brought anything good to this world.

MXX53,

I can never put my finger on why I don’t stick with GIMP. I install it on every machine I own, and occasionally use it to open a file and export to another file format.

From time to time, I tell myself I will finally sit down and just only use GIMP. Finally learn the tool. Envitably I find myself googling to find every tool, and then I will come across something simple, like making a red rectangle, and I end up having to google how to do it, and then get frustrated that I can’t just draw a box and quit.

There are probably legit reasons for the decisions, but if it kills my workflow, I can’t afford to use it.

RayOfSunlight,

Doesn’t mean Krita will do the job for you either.

MXX53,

That’s correct. But I don’t remember if I said it would or not.

RayOfSunlight, (edited )

The Krita devs themselves said it, it is intended for Digital Painting

MXX53,

I’m confused. My post is about my experience with GIMP. What does Krita have to do with what I posted?

TheJack, (edited )

As others have mentioned, it’s simple things takes alot time finding/figuring out.

I use GIMP within Ubuntu MATE few times a week to edit pictures. Simple edits nothing major.

One of the thing I need regularly is to highlight certain part of the picture.

Now in Microsoft Paint I can draw a rectangle, choose its border thickness, and color in 2 seconds.

I have learned how to do the same in GIMP few times but it took alot of time and I still forgets after few weeks.

So now I just reboot the PC and log into Windows or use Windows virtual machine and draw rectangle in 2 seconds in Microsoft Paint.

Mine is extremely simple use case, so I can only guess how difficult or how time consuming it would be for actual professional to create artistic work in GIMP vs Photoshop (or in similar commercial software).

Just my 2 cents.

klangcola,

I hope you’re joking about rebooting to Windows for paint 😁

But just in case, and for the benefit of others: KolourPaint

It’s basically KDE Paint, and works great as a simple image editor

RayOfSunlight,

Yeah i agree, it’s even available as Flatpak which makes it even better.

xenspidey,

I think it’s all about use case. I’m not 100% sure but the way I use GIMP probably wouldn’t work in Krita. I use GIMP mainly for removing backgrounds so they are transparent, as well as converting raster images to paths so I can make dxf’s of them. This is very easy and fast in GIMP. I think it all just depends on use case.

RayOfSunlight,

What i mean is, most people on the Linux community (Appearently) use Krita for Image Manipulation, which is like using a screwdriver as a Hammer.

xenspidey,

I agree with that. Krita is more of a creation software in my opinion. Painting, drawing, etc.

RayOfSunlight,

Yeah but it’s because of the UI that people prefer Krita when in reality, they are hitting a nail with a paint brush

HatchetHaro,
@HatchetHaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I’m just looking through this entire thread, and call me crazy, OP, but you seem angry not more people are using GIMP. You’re quite aggressive about it, attempting to shut down legitimate UI and UX concerns at every corner, and it is genuinely fatiguing to see.

RayOfSunlight,

Just saying, using Krita for Image Manipulation it’s like using a Driller to cut wood, that’s the wrong tool for the job.

HatchetHaro,
@HatchetHaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If it works for them, then it’s not the wrong tool for the job.

RayOfSunlight,

No, that’s like cutting wood with a kitchen knife

HatchetHaro,
@HatchetHaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

In your opinion, sure.

RayOfSunlight,

Bruh, Even the Krita devs themselves say that Krita is made for Digital Painting

HatchetHaro,
@HatchetHaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I don’t care.

Andy,
@Andy@programming.dev avatar

I have trouble with both, but more experience with GIMP. I can’t stand all the little tool buttons with no text. I want the name of each tool always visible on its button.

I have the same problem with Inkscape.

RayOfSunlight,

You know you can do this, right? https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/953b5fc7-0a20-4859-9b76-95afbdcef497.png

Andy,
@Andy@programming.dev avatar

I don’t know what I should be noticing there. I can’t see any text for the tool buttons along the left edge of the window.

RayOfSunlight,

Look at the default GIMP layout and my post and compare it with the one i gave you

Andy,
@Andy@programming.dev avatar

OK, I see some differences between your two screenshots, but what’s the relevance to my comment?

RayOfSunlight,

What i mean is, you can Rearrange the UI to look like Photoshop.

Andy,
@Andy@programming.dev avatar

So . . . not relevant to my comment?

gerryflap,
@gerryflap@feddit.nl avatar

Now admittedly I’m not someone who often uses drawing programs, but my biggest issue in GIMP is that I never seem to be able to find what I’m looking for.

In the two images you posted you can actually see an example of such a case. In Krita all the tools (or whatever you’d call them) in the bar on the left are ordered in a logical way, and separate types of tools are also visually separated by separator lines. The bar with tools is also only 2 icons wide, which makes scanning for the right tool a bit easier, since you can mostly just scan along the vertical axis. In GIMP it’s just a pile of low contrast icons in seemingly random order. Unless you’ve used it enough to know the order, you’re gonna have to do a lot more searching. And searching will be way harder since you’ll have to search horizontally and vertically.

It’s like reading a website where the text is taking the whole with of the screen and without paragraphs (GIMP) vs reading a website where the line length is constrained, the text is horizontally centered, and there are proper paragraphs.

I feel like this example reflects my personal experience with both. I’ve used quite a few different types of image editing programs, and with most of them I can fairly easily find the stuff I need. Using GIMP however, I used to be quite lost. Nowadays it’s gotten better because the windows are not all floating around and I’ve used it more. But still, I only found Krita after using a fair bit of GIMP, and yet I felt instantly more at home because the UI was easier to navigate.

Edit: That being said, GIMP is a very cool program. I don’t want to hate on it too much. It’s helped me countless times. The UI has already improved a lot since the floaty window days, and I hope that continues.

zout,

For me all the things you said about GIMP, but my biggest issue is how layers work in it. It is totally unintuitive to me. Last week I tried to edit some simple image in GIMP, basically pasting some small objects and touching them up. I couldn't get it to work properly, and would probably have redone it in Photoshop if it was to be used by more than three people for a short period.

RayOfSunlight,

Dude, you can put the tools on the same way as Krita, just look at this https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/520a1947-9633-4d55-bbfe-edb4cdc47c82.png

fuckwit_mcbumcrumble,

you can

That’s the key. can. It needs to not suck by default. If people have to tweak the program to be usable first then nobody’s going to want to use your program.

RayOfSunlight,

The deal is, it’s not mine, it’s a Libre Software, so it belongs to everyone, not just me.

fuckwit_mcbumcrumble,

That’s cool. I’m not going to fix software I don’t like.

pop,

no one asked you to?

gerryflap,
@gerryflap@feddit.nl avatar

Can, but not by default. The default setup is what leaves an impression on most users. Most users opening GIMP for the first time expect to be able to find stuff that they need, not have to first spend a lot of time getting familiar with all of its options. It shouldn’t be needed to first spend time opening all the sane default windows and re-aliging stuff every time you boot it for the first time. At least, that shouldn’t be the case of GIMP wants to be as popular with non-technical users like Krita is.

Also, the tool bar still doesn’t have the nice separations between tool functions, and it still feel a bit more chaotic. Not sure of it’s the icons or the order.

RayOfSunlight,

I hate it when people are SO quick to judge and so superficial

gerryflap,
@gerryflap@feddit.nl avatar

You call it “quick to judge and superficial”, but imo that’s the wrong attitude. Every tool we use as humans should be designed to be as intuitive as possible. It makes it easiest for people to learn how to use a new tool. That doesn’t mean that a tool cannot be complex or customizable, but the default experience should make it easy for new users to quickly achieve something. Once they grow accustomed to the tool they can tailor it their own way.

No tool has to do this, but if it wants to be widely used then this is kinda necessary.

There’s a reason why there are whole fields of study into human media interaction, and why software companies hire UI designers. Everything that doesn’t have to be explained in words and text because it is intuitive saves mental overhead for the user and makes the application more accessible.

WalrusDragonOnABike,

Changing icons to color helps me find which ones I’m looking for. Seems weird it defaults to it looking like they’re greyed out because they won’t work on the current selection.

FatLegTed,
@FatLegTed@piefed.social avatar

Because the name begins with GIMP.

RayOfSunlight,

That’s not valid, personally i understand what it means to you since i made a small research because the auto Subtitles in Youtube do not show “GIMP”, however, i need you to understand that GIMO stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Program.

And no, Glimpse is an abandoned project.

FatLegTed,
@FatLegTed@piefed.social avatar

I know what GIMP stands for. I've been using it since it came out. If you're going to be pedantic at least spell it correctly and not GIMO.

I have no idea what Glimpse is.

Goodbye

RayOfSunlight,

That was a typo i didn’t saw

potentiallynotfelix,

I like it

Coskii,
@Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Every time I install gimp in an attempt to switch over, I find myself frustrated that the tools I commonly use on other programs are not either available by default or unintuitive enough that 20 minutes of looking through tools, tabs, and menus has not provided the results I went looking for.

I try every few years, or every major update, whichever happens first.

RayOfSunlight,

There are settings you can change to make the UI better for you, there’s even a tutorial made by Davis Media Design that teaches how to make GIMP look like Photoshop CC 2020, alternatively, you can install the PhotoGIMP addon.

Coskii,
@Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

This topic actually prompted me to google the answer to the one thing I had been looking for only to find that the answer is completely obtuse and kind of misleading, which is why I wasn’t able to find it on my own.

nasi_goreng,
@nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip avatar

The default toolbox placement is should be conform with other design software.

Sure, people can figure it out once they tried it, but majority of them will move to another software that has familiar experience out of the box.

When people asking me to install GIMP, I always change it to this layout, making it more familiar to another software like Inkscape, Krita, Affinity suites, Photoshop (and other Adobe software), etc. https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/6c22ab87-c626-49e4-bcf4-4e9c8ca9c625.webp

RayOfSunlight,

Maybe i am very used to the default layout, it would be also good that people would watch this video, it would help them a lot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY7g2JGyJeQ

nasi_goreng,
@nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip avatar

Average people will simply search app that has the most familiarity, so “looking for additional workaround” is often irrelevant.

RayOfSunlight,

God damn it i hate when people are lazy and quick to judge.

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

This sounds a lot like how people would use windows paint for simple things over photoshop. Many folks just want a simplified tool. I was estatic to find out firefox now gives simple pdf editing capabilities instead of me importing it into libre office draw.

RayOfSunlight,

I guess i am so used to the layout i barely have a problem, but finding things in GIMP, isn’t it the same as Photoshop? I mean, maybe not for Krita, but in GIMP you can change the settings so the tools are all visible instead of being on little boxes.

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

Im not sure but im guessing most people complain because they want something intuitive and easy although my wife uses photoshop and I could not get her to use gimp so the layout must be different to some degree.

RayOfSunlight,

You can modify the UI to make it look like Photoshop, there are two ways for this:

  1. Making GIMP look like Photoshop CC 2020 by Davis Media Design youtu.be/dY7g2JGyJeQ?si=AQ3uYQxHb7uG0xd3
  2. Installing the PhotoGIMP addon for GIMP, also by Davis Media Design youtu.be/57DNUsf4A-0?si=XSCZhf_6rf4k25qx

I would personally recommend the first one, but it’s up to you.

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

thing is I don't use photoshop. my wife does. its hard to explain her personality but im not using any convincing chips on this particular battle as we have more important things to get handled. Maybe someday.

RayOfSunlight,

Well, here’s one final advice from my part.

Go slow and gradual

Changes are not easy, you need to get hang of GIMP before makig the switch, try it, learn to use it, see if you like it.

Another alternative is Photopea, but it’s propietary and it’s a browser application, although it’s available in Flathub.

merthyr1831,

UI is dated, for one.

range inputs can’t be scrolled, dragged around the screen, and are absurdly small on high DPI screens.

There’s a load of UX issues, such as how pasting content will create a new layer that is for some reason more limited than a typical layer.

Feature discoverability is poor. Most features are buried in years-old dropdown tabs that aren’t kept up to date with UI/UX expectations.

Some features are incredibly obtuse in how they explain themselves: selecting a brush dynamic selects stuff from a massive scrolling list with nothing but a title to explain what they do.

UI is inconsistent. Some elements are clearly older than others even after ““recent”” (years-old) updates.

There’s way more, btw. But honestly if this years-long push to get GIMP to GTK 3 has told me anything, it’s that the project should’ve canned the update years ago and written an entirely new app from scratch, dropping the technical debt, the archaic choice of language and UI toolkit, and they still would’ve come out with a new version faster than they have now.

Hadriscus,

How would writing an entire program be faster than upgrading an already fully functioning one ? I don’t see the logic ?

Grass,

Probably in a similar way to how USA and Canada are stuck with a two party government system and any attempts to remedy that haven’t been working out, but maybe if the country collapses under its own stupidity and the ultra wealthy run off with all the resources then the remaining people can struggle to survive with nothing left and die then… Oh wait…

merthyr1831,

Because the underlying dependencies of GIMP changed a lot, especially between GTK2 and GTK3. It pulls resources from writing code to figuring out how to migrate code to a new version, usually as changes in the toolkit mean you may have to rewrite stuff anyway, which can mean more bugs or regressions in functionality which must be addressed.

Writing from scratch, you can write code that immediately fulfills the spec you’re working to (They could’ve even skipped straight to GTK4!) and used the old code as a reference of what’s needed for users whilst throwing out anything and everything else that isn’t strictly necessary.

It allows you to throw out old features and code that you had to work with in the past, but may not actually be used by anyone. If it WAS needed, it can be added later.

Most importantly, there’s little to no expectation that the new app will supersede the old one immediately, whereas during a toolkit migration you need to keep everything working for every release you do.

It’s like how building a new house can be faster than renovating an old historically-protected building to the same regulatory standard. There’s red tape, you have to work around old masonry and brickwork, you have to avoid damaging the building and keep its appearance the same. A new house may be different in looks and miss the old charm or familiarity, but it’ll be built faster, cheaper, and for the same price have more features to the old building.

Hadriscus,

I see ! couldn’t development be done in a separate branch with no expectation of an immediate release ?

gandalf_der_12te,

GIMP feels non-intuitive sometimes.

For example, layers.

I expect that GIMP internally has a list of all objects that I added to the file. Like, text, brush drawings, pasted images. Instead, I cannot find that list anywhere.

twei,

That list is either the undo-menu or the layers themselves, as everything you do in GIMP is somewhat destructive. This behavior will be changed in GIMP 3 tho.

gandalf_der_12te,

Yeah, good to know. today I learned …

merthyr1831,

Because updating dependencies after a long time breaks most of that code anyway, so you have to do a lot of work just to get things working exactly how they were before, only now your code probably has a bunch more bugs that you now have to fix, and it’s still not utilising enhanced features that updated dependencies may offer.

Rewriting can take more time, but if your alternative is to slowly upgrade code originally written in the nineties, you’re actually saving time by using your experience to rewrite something.

RayOfSunlight,

How about installing Flatpak instead of .deb packages?

Flatpak has all the dependencies self-contained within the program, so it should work a lot better

merthyr1831,

That’s different to how dependencies are managed when developing an application. When they’re updating GIMP and updating it from GTK3 to GTK4, they have to upgrade a bunch of old code that was meticulously fixed to work with GTK3, and things may be changed, broken, or missing entirely. That’s the kind of work you need to do when upgrading an app versus writing a new one from scratch :)

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