this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it works for you, I'm happy. I'm just frustrated when GIMP is recommended to newbies looking into FOSS art programs.

Don't you worry then, I will never ever recommended GIMP. When asked today, I recommended Krita and Inkscape (for Vectors)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I went back to Linux last year and it's been insane how easy it all is.

Word.
My daily driver including for gaming with my friends is PopOS for like a year now. Never looked back through all the Win11 stuff and multiple vulnerabilities including the recent one with Minecraft that didn't affect me since Linux figure out containers like a century ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How do you like PopOS? I've been on Ubuntu for about a year and I like it but... It's Ubuntu. I don't necessarily love how the file system is set up, and snaps... Just... Snaps. I've been considering either Mint or Pop.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like it for a lot of reason, but it's certainly not perfect. (but they're working on it...)

I don't necessarily love how the file system is set up

But Mint and Pop are both Ubuntu-based, so I don't know if that will be better.

I like that Pop has Flatpaks and steam included but it and Linux are still missing quote a few features to make them great.

For example: I have 1 4k and 1 HD monitor but cannot use them with their respective resolution.
Also Flatpaks are installed in home and I hatte that and the only workaround (I found) is not using the Pop-Shop but CLI and creating a custom install directory.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not very worried about the monitor thing, right now I have some basic 1080p monitors and I may just eventually get one big great monitor. Hopefully just one monitor will not give me issues? How was gaming on Pop? I had a bit of a time getting Nvidia to work - kept getting some error. I needed to get the reinforcements (aka software dev boyfriend) to help. I heard Pop comes preinstalled with a lot of drivers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh right, Pop ships with the non-FOSS Nvidia drivers and the only thing you should look out for is not updating those first thing in the morning because you will need to restart the PC right after.

I dont really play AAA-games, so your mileage may vary.

Gaming is great. I mainly use Steam with Proton which gives me most games (see protondb) and otherwise Look out if the games are available on Linux in any way, which a lot are. The exception being some restrictive multiplayer titles using BattleEye or EasyAnticheat or stuff.

A little overview of what I am playing/played recently:

  • Minecraft (PolyMC as Modmanager)
  • Slay the Spire
  • Stardew Valley(also modded)
  • Dwarf Fortress
  • Darktide
  • VVVVVV
  • Orion: Prelude
  • Tabletop Simulator
  • Mtg: Arena
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing this! I also play Steam with Proton and the only games I play are Minecraft, Stardrew, and the Sims 4 (modded). I want to switch distros but I don't want to have to deal with the Nvidia thing again so if POP ships with drivers outta the box, I'll be happy.

I need to try some of those other games. I'm not big on any major AAA titles myself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Okay, if you like Steam and Proton, try the Heroic Games Launcher and Lutris.
Both allow you to play non-Linux games via Wine.

Lutris already has user-built configs and a lot of built-in shops which is great.

And Heroic allows you to install games from gog and Epic with Wine or Proton. There you have to do a little bit of trial and error but can get games you otherwise wouldn't easily be able to play.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I've had a pretty bad time time to get Heroic to work, but I'm very slow with this stuff. I think I'm a very non-tech person that constantly attempts techy things... And the results are all over the place!

I'll try it again soon, but I'm garbage at getting anything Wine related to work. Why I put myself through this, I'll never know.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

gimp is good, just takes some time to get used to things, and knowledge of when you should be using inkscape instead

[–] animelivesmatter 18 points 1 year ago

The only time someone said something about my Linux desktop in class, they said it looked pretty :)

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

I've heard Krita is better for drawing than GIMP.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Man, this was stale pasts 10 years ago, never would have thought it would have legs for miles

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

real though. every time ive tried to use gimp it's a struggle to make anything lol. im dumb though.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've seen people use it before, and they can make some great stuff, but everytime I've tried, I can't even get the brush tool to work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

GIMP has an odd workflow. I couldn't tell you the amount of times I have done the specific sequence of Select -> Select.Grow -> Select.Border -> (optional)Select.Feather -> manually fill in selection with active brush. If you ran an ellipse select while holding shift for step 1, that would be one of the better ways to draw a circular outline in GIMP lmao

Plus the number of times I've run a 0.5 size Gaussian Blur to soften the noise after running another filter

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

yup. I use gimp but i installed photogimp to make it slightly easier for me to get the hotkeys

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So reposts are still a thing.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

well the rule says you gotta post something

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Yeah, there's no way to make the comm work without allowing reposts

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Krita? I always have liked Ubuntu Studio, pretty sweet distro for most stuff.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

yeah yall aint gonna catch me using linux at school, besides the times i used linux at school. just dual boot in case windows would be more convenient

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

aint gonna catch me using linux at school, besides the times i used linux at school

Well yeah

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

As much as I love gimp, the struggle is real

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago