Photo Pea is where it’s at. Browser based Photoshop clone. Unless you’re doing art, then go with Krita.
Gimp is needlessly unintuitive. I’ve used a ton of programs since I was 10 - I’ve ran Paint Shop Pro (JASC days), Corel Painter, Photoshop (all versions since 7), Krita, Inkscape, a tiny program called Paintstorm Studio, various Oekakis when those were a thing, paint tool SAI, and now Procreate. I have NEVER seen a program weirder than GIMP. People defend GIMP with the old “just because it’s not Photoshop doesn’t mean it’s bad”. My dude I’ve used programs that were entirely in Japanese and they made more sense than GIMP. The way the tools function and where they’re located makes no sense.
And now Krita does 99% of everything you’d need GIMP for as the average person (cropping, filters, a bit of editing). There’s not a good reason to get GIMP. I’m genuinely confused because the features are there, I’m not sure why they don’t reskin the damn thing already.
Thing is.
I’ve used GIMP for the better part of the last 15 years…
Now everything else makes no sense. I tried Kita multiple times already and it never works out and I go back to GIMP.
GIMP broke me, rebuilt me and made into one of their own.
Gimp’s brushes leave a lot to be desired. Photoshop has had vector like brushes for years, Krita has them as well these days, but it still feels like Gimp has rastery pixels on the edge of brushes.
Given that I typically used GIMP for pixel art when I got started, that was never really a problem for my use case. These days I try to use Aseprite for that purpose but GIMP was able to do what I needed it to easily enough while being free and easy to download. It’s got its limits but it’s what I know. These days I mostly use it for its relatively unique (and charmingly janky) filters as well as regular contrast/hue/etc adjustments
Pixel art might be an exception, you’re right. But to be fair, people can make pixel art in Paint. I mean, I’m sure it’s not fun to do it in Paint, but it’s very much the “ballpoint pen on notebook paper” of digital art.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I do know that GIMP is not the best, but I rarely ever use it anyways and then never have the time to really dig into something else.
If it works for you, I’m happy. I’m just frustrated when GIMP is recommended to newbies looking into FOSS art programs. I think a lot of people have the wrong idea about FOSS art programs because thier first introduction was GIMP. As a result I feel like we have a lot more people who are in the apple ecosystem, when in reality being artistic shouldn’t necessarily come paired with really expensive products. I mean most artists are broke and creative, and a lot of them have very left leaning ideals. FOSS art programs and cheaper hardware should be a natural fit, IMO.
Hugs to you. Honestly I just want the hardware support for drawing tablets to get better (on Linux), and I want Krita to work well on Android eventually. I bought an iPad even though I own nothing in the Apple ecosystem because it’s just the wiser choice when it comes to drawing tablets with screens. But it’s so much better than the days people told me to “just get GIMP, it’s like Photoshop but free” - also the nightmare of trying to make my Wacom tablet work in Ubuntu… Dark days. We’ve come so far.
I see again, I appear to be one of the few since I have an old Wacom Tablet with good support on Linux. It’s admittedly one of those without a screen, though.
This was years ago (2010 I think) before the good Linux driver for Wacom was made. Or maybe during the infancy days of it. I had a Bamboo Fun. It’s funny to me that I’ve been fiddling with Linux since 2010 - growing up during the recession made me pretty receptive to making free solutions work, even if it meant troubleshooting things I didn’t understand and crying at 2am because it’s not working. I went back to Linux last year and it’s been insane how easy it all is.
If I remember correctly, that unintuitiveness is by design. From what I saw they seem really perturbed by the notion that it should function how most people use similar programs.
Gimpshop was a thing (where they moved the tools to make it look more like Photoshop) but the Gimp people got upset.
You can still set up PhotoGIMP but it’s not good IMO. Making something unintuitive on purpose is strange and oddly elitist. Procreate is totally different than Photoshop but both programs have designs that make sense. Hell, I prefer Inkscapes interface to Illustrator. Nobody says you have to copy the paid product as long as your interface actually makes sense.
Photo Pea is where it’s at. Browser based Photoshop clone. Unless you’re doing art, then go with Krita.
Gimp is needlessly unintuitive. I’ve used a ton of programs since I was 10 - I’ve ran Paint Shop Pro (JASC days), Corel Painter, Photoshop (all versions since 7), Krita, Inkscape, a tiny program called Paintstorm Studio, various Oekakis when those were a thing, paint tool SAI, and now Procreate. I have NEVER seen a program weirder than GIMP. People defend GIMP with the old “just because it’s not Photoshop doesn’t mean it’s bad”. My dude I’ve used programs that were entirely in Japanese and they made more sense than GIMP. The way the tools function and where they’re located makes no sense.
And now Krita does 99% of everything you’d need GIMP for as the average person (cropping, filters, a bit of editing). There’s not a good reason to get GIMP. I’m genuinely confused because the features are there, I’m not sure why they don’t reskin the damn thing already.
Thing is.
I’ve used GIMP for the better part of the last 15 years…
Now everything else makes no sense. I tried Kita multiple times already and it never works out and I go back to GIMP.
GIMP broke me, rebuilt me and made into one of their own.
Gimp’s brushes leave a lot to be desired. Photoshop has had vector like brushes for years, Krita has them as well these days, but it still feels like Gimp has rastery pixels on the edge of brushes.
Given that I typically used GIMP for pixel art when I got started, that was never really a problem for my use case. These days I try to use Aseprite for that purpose but GIMP was able to do what I needed it to easily enough while being free and easy to download. It’s got its limits but it’s what I know. These days I mostly use it for its relatively unique (and charmingly janky) filters as well as regular contrast/hue/etc adjustments
Pixel art might be an exception, you’re right. But to be fair, people can make pixel art in Paint. I mean, I’m sure it’s not fun to do it in Paint, but it’s very much the “ballpoint pen on notebook paper” of digital art.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I do know that GIMP is not the best, but I rarely ever use it anyways and then never have the time to really dig into something else.
If it works for you, I’m happy. I’m just frustrated when GIMP is recommended to newbies looking into FOSS art programs. I think a lot of people have the wrong idea about FOSS art programs because thier first introduction was GIMP. As a result I feel like we have a lot more people who are in the apple ecosystem, when in reality being artistic shouldn’t necessarily come paired with really expensive products. I mean most artists are broke and creative, and a lot of them have very left leaning ideals. FOSS art programs and cheaper hardware should be a natural fit, IMO.
Don’t you worry then, I will never ever recommended GIMP. When asked today, I recommended Krita and Inkscape (for Vectors)
Hugs to you. Honestly I just want the hardware support for drawing tablets to get better (on Linux), and I want Krita to work well on Android eventually. I bought an iPad even though I own nothing in the Apple ecosystem because it’s just the wiser choice when it comes to drawing tablets with screens. But it’s so much better than the days people told me to “just get GIMP, it’s like Photoshop but free” - also the nightmare of trying to make my Wacom tablet work in Ubuntu… Dark days. We’ve come so far.
I see again, I appear to be one of the few since I have an old Wacom Tablet with good support on Linux. It’s admittedly one of those without a screen, though.
This was years ago (2010 I think) before the good Linux driver for Wacom was made. Or maybe during the infancy days of it. I had a Bamboo Fun. It’s funny to me that I’ve been fiddling with Linux since 2010 - growing up during the recession made me pretty receptive to making free solutions work, even if it meant troubleshooting things I didn’t understand and crying at 2am because it’s not working. I went back to Linux last year and it’s been insane how easy it all is.
If I remember correctly, that unintuitiveness is by design. From what I saw they seem really perturbed by the notion that it should function how most people use similar programs.
Gimpshop was a thing (where they moved the tools to make it look more like Photoshop) but the Gimp people got upset.
You can still set up PhotoGIMP but it’s not good IMO. Making something unintuitive on purpose is strange and oddly elitist. Procreate is totally different than Photoshop but both programs have designs that make sense. Hell, I prefer Inkscapes interface to Illustrator. Nobody says you have to copy the paid product as long as your interface actually makes sense.