this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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That's a very good point. As a counterpoint though, pretty much every other app (Affinity Photo, Photopea, even Krita to a certain extent) emulates the PS workflow, which makes GIMP feel even more odd. Its paradigm was probably OK in the early 00s but the world has moved on.
Yeah that's fair. I'd have to figure out how people are getting on without layers, probably take myself back to basics and pretend I know nothing and see how the 'learn from scratch' track teaches these skills today.
OTOH, I also getting to the old dog point, not because I can't learn new tricks, but because I have so many responsibilities I have little time to do so, which is another reason ideological camps like this form. Which frankly is the wrong reason for them to exist.
I should go figure out how the new apps work, but when I do need to do graphics (since its not my main bread and butter but usually an additional skill I need to help develop something) I habitually pull out the familiar to save time.
Totally understandable in your case. I'd like to see GIMP merge the PhotoGIMP project and make further modifications to bring the app more in line with current best practices. They could make the "classic" vs "modern" UI toggle-able on first launch. Its underlying functionality is not bad, but it's just so far outside of what people are used to today. It's like like asking a random 20-year-old to use dialup and Netscape Navigator.
The problem with that, though, is if they changed the workflow to be like Photoshop, it would leave those of us who know how to use Gimp but not Photoshop high and dry
Gimp is intuitive to me at this point because I have some idea of how it looks at raster image manipulation from using it off and on for years. I have no clue how to do things in Photoshop that I can do easily in Gimp. It may be the better user experience, I don't know.
If they ever do that, I really hope they leave the option for it to work like classic Gimp in there, because people like me don't actually do image editing that much overall and relearning would be painful for much longer than someone who can deep immerse themselves until they get it. I'd hate to do it but I think I'd have to stick with an old version if that happened without any way to keep doing things the same way
That's a VERY good point. I think a good example would be how Blender has evolved in the last decade or so.
It started out very "in-house" and unconventional, but it had very specific UX principles in mind rather than just aping "ThE iNdUsTrY". Coming from learning 3D MAX to OG pre-3.5 Blender was really difficult. Right-click select?!
But like Blender, I feel like GIMP could benefit from having easily adjustable settings that could line up with what a particular user finds intuitive. Certain layer behavior seems to be the big one here. The settings are there, they're just awkwardly small buttons or buried in menus.
(Adding the universal transform tool was a VERY nice jump in the right direction.)
Blender's UI / UX overhaul caused a bit of screeching, but overall was instrumental in balancing accessibility with familiarity to existing users. It made those options very accessible and modular.
For instance, I always use left-click-select, but I use the "Blender way" for everything else. If someone's coming from Maya? There's the "industry standard keymap" for them.
Sorry for the ramble. LOL
From the post you replied to:
To add to this, it's not like other apps have just blindly copied Photoshop. Affinity Photo has shape tools that are far less convoluted than Photoshop but they still feel instantly familiar.
Even when they couldn't stick to common patterns (such as the eyedropper tool) they still manage to communicate how the feature works just by designing intelligently, no Googling required.
But every time I've used gimp, common tasks feels like a collection of workarounds for missing features. Someone elsewhere in this thread asked how to place an ellipse and got told that wasn't something commonly needed but to make a selection and fill it using the paint bucket tool (and a modifier key).
That solution is jankier than MS Paint, which at least offers you an actual tool and a short period where you can make non-destructive modifications to the stroke, fill, size and position.
But since you've technically got the circle you asked for, it's treated as "people who don't like GIMP are just haters" rather than "people don't want to use bad tools for their job"