I've just installed Mandriva One 2008 on my kid's computer. Ordinarily, I'd be reviewing that first. But the first thing I do with a distro review is pop open Gimp to take screenshots. And Mandriva's using the release candidate Gimp 2.4. And I opened it and with a tortured shriek that sent birds flying from every tree on the block, uttered the line which makes the title of this post.
I have good news and bad news: the good news is that a ton of new features have been added. The bad news is, the UI has been entirely re-designed. Have you ever used the Gimp before, read a Gimp tutorial online, been using it since the 1.0 days? Then you will be lost. I repeat, you will be lost. You might as well go pick a new graphics tool to learn as the Gimp. For instance, where were drop shadows? Script-Fu->Shadow->Drop Shadow? No, as the above screenshot shows, it's now in Filters->Light and Shadow->Drop Shadows. And the old light menu now has shadow stuff dumped in on top of it. And there simply is no script-fu menu any more... presumably, there won't be a Python-fu menu any more either.
And they've added a Red Eye Tool like Photoshop's, even though it makes no logic because adjusting color levels does the same thing, but requires knowledge. And they've put in a "heal" tool which basically does just what paint-with-image-region used to do, but required knowledge. And you have brush attributes like Photoshop's, because using an image pipe requires knowledge.
This is bad news, because Photoshop... Hold on, wait a minute, let me show you something...
Remember when I got the spare box with Windows XP on it a while back? Well, it has Photoshop PS3 on it. So here's a screenshot (taken with the Gimp!!!) of me running it with my frozen hockey puck logo open to show that yes, Phototrolls, I've used both so I know what I'm talking about.
This re-design of Gimp at the behest of the flaming troll brigade is bad news, because Photoshop compared to Gimp sucks. It sucks the road tar off the Highway to Hell, thanks for asking. And we're peeper-deep in flaming Phototrolls, who are the sole influence keeping people paying $800 for a simple, basic thing like editing pictures with a program that started out as freeware.
And the Phototrolls have carried their flamewar to the ends of space and time. It's permeated the depths of Usenet. It's on the most obscure channel of IRC. It's translated into Chinese, Romanian, and Hindu. It's scrawled as graffiti in the subways. You can't take your laptop to the middle of the Sahara desert and open Gimp without three Phototrolls springing from the sand like B-movie mummies who start whinging about Photoshop at you.
So the Gimp team is crushed and defeated, and are beating a retreat. Unless I haven't found the replacements yet, I could swear that actual features have been removed, simply because they aren't in Photoshop. But OK, they have to do something to get the bullies off their backs, while they know we FOSSers will forgive them in the end.
So you know the drill. Pretend I bitched and fussed about turning Gimp into "I-Can't-Believe-Its-Not-Photoshop!" for another six paragraphs, linking yet again to my antique "Stealth Bombers are more difficult to operate than tricycles BECAUSE THEY CAN FLY" rant, pointing out that Gimpshop is there already, and then ending with some caddywumpus line like, "Welcome to the new political correctness - lobotomy? - good, line on the left, one scalpel each."
Of course I'm miffed! I'm me, aren't I? I'll just save it for the next outrage, when Richard Stallman announces that the next Emacs will be based on MS Notepad, Linus Torvalds rewrites the kernel as an NT server, and the Bush administration outlaws every language but Visual *Sick.
Well, that's the bad news. And Gimp is still the only game in town for FOSS raster editing, so I'm going to have to do something very un-politically-correct, very un-Phototrollish, and make the best of what I have. And there's a metric ton of good features which have been added to the Gimp, if you can only Easter-egg-hunt them down. I'll be covering the good news next time.
Because that's what I do when a release is marvelous and rotten - I just write two reviews!
Update: Minutes after posting, the release of Gimp 2.4 breaks on Slashdot. And what do the comments do? Flame, flame, flame, nobody tries it, nobody uses it, just endless flames...
Thanks, Gimp team! You ruined a perfectly good program to try to make people happy who refuse to be happy no matter what you do.
Son of an Update: Just to show that all is not mudslinging in online Gimp discussion, OS-News has a much more clear-headed audience. The discussion here is more realistic, focusing on the core issues with Gimp: tons of users, hardly any developers, no funding. In a nutshell.
I'd like to point out, I've never before been critical of the Gimp. My issues this time are that rebuilding the interface to try to please a bunch of - it will get into the Webster's dictionary if I have any say in it - Phototrolls is a huge waste of the few resources they have. It is the classic case of bike-shed-painting.
And yes, I *will* get the "good news" side of Gimp 2.4 up - I'm sweating it out in the background. Trouble is, I keep getting derailed because I only have 2.4 on that new Mandriva, and I'm still getting everything on that box set up.
UPDATE: If you didn't like my protesting at the rebuilding of Gimp in Photoshop's image, don't miss an opportunity to get even more pissed off when Adobe came around a while later and said they have to re-think Photoshop's interface. 'Cuz it sucks!
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Comments:
Gone. I used those all the time as shortcuts to change gradients and brushes. Things like that. Maybe there's a way to turn it back on in preferences; I haven't found it yet.
On a tangential note, looks like they refreshed the main page so that it no longer looks like something from the 1990s.
Any helpful info here:http://gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.4.html
The new tango-compliant icons are quite nice to look at.....
Thanks to your review I can finally find the Script-fu.
There's nothing wrong of course with moving items around, but I never found the Gimp to be hard to use, even though that's all you'd ever hear people saying. And you're right about Gimpshop (which I tried out and abandoned quickly), if people want a photoshop replacement, they can use that.
I think folks are too concerned about people transitioning from Windows and ought to instead just concentrate on making better programs and not worry if they look and feel like their so-called Windows counterpart.
Xnview for Windows under WINE works good for simple stuff and supports photoshop filters better than the Gimp's pspi.exe plugin.
The previous icons were fine.
Maybe they only want Windows users to use the Gimp?
Rather it clones a texture, then it blends the colors around the place that you have cloned to fill in any anamoly without any seams. In Photoshop, it makes it child's play to remove dust and scratches off of photos.
It's truely my favorite tool in Photoshop as I do a lot of Digital Photo Repair. You can see an example of what a before and after photo is like when using the Heal tool and others by visiting this link:
http://www.practicaluse.net/artwork/Project%207%20-%20Photo%20Repair.jpg
A red-eye tool is also a Photoshop feature that aids in photo repair. Who would really want to select each eye one at a time to adjust the colors manually when you could just point at the red and click to have it removed. It may not be 100% fool proof, but even photoshop can screw up with that tool.
Both tools are invaluable and I do believe that to programmers at GIMP did a fantastic job implementing them. This new release brings me even closer to a Windows free environment.
Pete you and the likes of you along with all the unix nuts are spokes in the linux usability wheel on the way to the desktop.
Hm, I'm not sure exactly what the function of those icons was, but the tabs for gradients, patterns and brushes are on the menu which also contains the layers etc., and they can easily be added to the tabs underneath the main tool box, too.
Screenshot: http://www.nyboria.de/images/gimp2.4.jpg
This is a release candidate version, though. But I don't think they removed this in the final version.
Anyway, I don't see any changes yet which are worse than any changes from one Photoshop or (shudder to think) Corel Draw version to the next. It is something I get used to. Change happens so quickly in the IT world that adjusting is the skill to develop, not memorizing.
I got one gripe only about gimp, and that's still no proper CMYK support.
Yep, you'll have to relearn a bit.
Yep, it's a bit more like PhotoShop.
On the other hand, that's not necessarily bad.
It's not only more like PhotoShop, it's also more like just about every other image manipulation software out there. I've stayed away from Gimp, unless I've had to use it, for exactly that reason. It's too different, the threshold is too high. These changes helps lower that threshold.
At least give the new design a chance, don't throw it out just because it's different. Improvement means changes, even if changes doesn't necessarily mean improvement.
If we aren't prepared to accept changes, how many will see the light and switch to Linux?
I am a designer who has been using Photoshop for as long as I can remember, mostly because it was the program I always heard friends raving about. And it wasn't until recently that I heard about the GIMP and other alternative programs like Paint.NET (albeit the latter being for Windows only).
After trying out the GIMP the first time, I thought it was a decent piece of software, but I just didn't want to spend the time learning a whole new program. The newest version has done little to change that decision, although I do see benefits in the direction they are going with the GIMP's development:
- Adding new features is always a good thing and makes any program better if the feature are implemented correctly.
- The GUI re-design is a big change, but if it makes the program more like Photoshop, it may help draw in the "Phototroll" crowd and soften them up to the idea of an alternative.
- Despite the fact that you are a GIMP fan, you must realize that if the GIMP is starting to emulate Photoshop in some ways, it might be because Photoshop is a hugely popular, very powerful (in its own right) image manipulation program that, despite its high cost, most likely has a much larger fan base than the GIMP (granted, it hasn't been around as long either).
Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is not all Photoshop users are biased jerks, but simply do not want to make a change to new, unfamiliar alternative. Similarly, you yourself do not want to have to learn a new program either, which the changes in GIMP seem to be forcing you to do, to some degree.
Finally, I'll leave you with one last thought - Photoshop has changed significantly since it first came out, and as Photoshop users have seen, change is not always bad.
Believe in the GIMP.
The change makes absolute sense. The original location makes no sense - WTF is 'Script-Fu' supposed to mean?!
"... Gimp 2.4 breaks on Slashdot. And what do the comments do? Flame, flame, flame, ..."
No they don't, it's just the usual rambling Slashdot debate.
What we have with this article is someone stamping their feet because their software has been changed and improved ... and those two things always go hand in hand.
So, well done the GIMP team for a solid new release which moves it closer to a complete replacement for Photoshop that many of us want.
Gimp was the -only- app that I have ever found, as a newbie, simply too cryptic to understand or even use initially. I had to go enrol on an adults evening education introduction to Gimp (in windows) at the local college. It was very basic, and was useful. After that I began - very slowly - to use gimp for more day to day stuff.
I have tried to follow tutorials, some are what I need, most are way above my head. I am an occasional user.
After a couple of years of this, I am beginning to appreciate gimp. But still it is really hard work to learn.
I still don't understand the -fu stuff, but I am quite sure it will be valuable when I get to it. :-)
Anything that addresses the UI for real non expert beginners in gimp will get my vote.
I was the first person I knew who learned ctrl-c, x, and v in the Windows world. In Blender, Photoshop, Word, and OO.o Writer, I use the mouse as rarely as possible. I hate using the mouse because it interrupts my creative flow by making me search through menus to try and find where they have hidden this feature or that one. This is the hardest barrier to GIMP adoption possible because if they change to Photoshop users they've just messed things up for every single GIMP user. If they stay the same then Photoshop users come that "It's too hard!!"
Seriously though, there's nothing hard about The GIMP. All the basics are self-explanatory and use the same terminology. But if you're from Photoshop and then just look at it and give up at the first thing that's different, of course you'll think it's too hard.
Bottom line in reality is that you should use whichever tool gets the work done for you. Freedom is also the freedom to choose unfree programs. I try to do everything I can in Linux because I believe in the freedom, but sometimes I just can't. And that's ok because one day I just might be able to.
That's where the traffic is coming from, but with these comments, there's got to be more to the story. These might be Digg or Fark readers linking to LinuxToday and then linking here.
Oh, well. Welcome to the discussion, everybody!
@pro, who contributes: "Dude you are a fucking idiot!"
Maybe so, maybe not. But I have the courage to say what I think and report what I see.
Microsoft finally made a decent version of Windows (understand I am a Mac user and I use Vista) and the whole world screams because it looks different and they just might have to learn something new.
Now, with GIMP, it looks different. Great! Finally! Now, it doesn't look like it was chiseled out of stone by cavemen.
The biggest criticism I always get about the GIMP is how it looks and that folks just can't find what they are looking for. Many people turn to Photoshop because it has a sense of standardization and it can be a bit easier to use than the GIMP.
Instead of ranting, try taking a few moments to do the "geeky" thing and gain some more knowledge. That's what we do.
How about this... Take Yoda's advice. "You must unlearn what you have learned."
You mentioned one thing, that there's only one tool "in town" for image editing... I'd like to recommend Krita.http://www.koffice.org/krita/
I notice you're running KDE, and Krita is a KOffice app. I personally haven't used Krita much to know how it compares to GIMP but in my very minimal it could stand as a replacement.
What's script-fu? And why is there stuff in this menu that looks like it belongs in the filter menu?
Is it possible that the GIMP guys actually made the interface a lot more better, and regular GIMP-users are just annoyed because they changed stuff around for the sake of making it more user-friendly and approachable?
Just a thought.
A feature missing from Photoshop. What's this "Digimarc" thing at the bottom of the filters menu in CS3? I'm confused! I can't Google! I can't read manuals! I refuse all explanations! I wasn't born knowing it, so it must not make sense!
Hey, everybody, Photoshop is unusable! It has a menu entry called "Digimarc" that isn't intuitive! Bad software! Adobe is evil! Destroy! Destroy!
Oh, come on. That was funny.
powerful version of KolourPaint (in KDE V3.57), which does most of the things that Deluxe-Paint (Amiga version) is capable of doing. It seems like every
Linux program that I've tried is either so complex (like Gimp) that it's incomprehensible or so simple it might as well be a child's toy program.
Some developer needs to sit down with a painter and see how they create a painting, then implement it in software. Photoshop, and unfortunately
Gimp, are being written for the needs of photographers, which is a completely different realm of expertise.
Think bout it!
Second, I don't know about the other changes - presumably I'll get a GIMP refresh when Fedora 8 comes out in about 2 weeks (unless they get delayed, as usual). However, I would have to say that combining Scrip-Fu and Python-Fu (and I'm pretty sure that the first was already marked as deprecated) into filters makes more sense. I never quite understood the reason for having them in separate menus. With plugins (that's what they are, isn't it?) It should be a black box to the user as far as what interface was used. To clarify, when I use a plugin for Pidgin, I don't care if it was written in C#, C++, Perl, Python, or Ada. I don't want a section for each based on the programming language or interface. If they're all filters they should all be under the filter dialog.
Again, I haven't seen this new version. But.... Now, if they have entirely removed the ability for the user to create their own filters via Python-Fu or whatever, then that's really dumb. Imitation of Photoshop, when it takes place, should be limited to adding of features in photoshop without removing features from GIMP. Otherwise, what is the reason to convince people to switch. The only reason I'd switch is if GIMP had everything Photoshop has PLUS MORE. Because if it's just the same thing - well I've already paid for Photoshop and I can't get that money back so there's no reason to change.
And I guess that's part of what you were discussing. Again, I'd like to know what has been removed. Or, is it just like the Script-Fu/Python-Fu thing where it's not where you expect it, but it's still there.
Anyway Pete, you know from my history of comments, that I respect your opinions. Think of this comment as a bit of a journalistic challenge. Both for the integrity of your article and to inform myself and other readers - what precisely has been removed or was your ire provoked by the perceived removal of features?
Looking fwd to your response. q:o)