Man, after decades, why does GIMP still have a marketing problem?
Just visit https://www.gimp.org/ and compare it to https://www.adobe.com/ca/products/photoshop.html
Just assume both did exactly the same thing and cost the exact same amount (free or otherwise). Which would you choose based on their website?
Why does GIMP (and pretty much all FOSS) have to be so secretive about their product? Why no screenshots? Why not showcase the software on their website?
It’s so damn frustrating that every FOSS app appears to be command line software, or assumed that the user knows everything about it already.
Devs, you might have a killer piece of software, but screenshots go a long way to help with gaining interest and adoption.
Yeah, I never got into illustration or 3d art/animation, but I sure as hell know what Blender is!
It’s quite the testament that the Blender name is known to the masses (hope you don’t mind me calling you the masses)
The whole skateboard community thrives on it where I’m from, especially in this age of everyone wanting their own skate vid.
Wow. For editing purposes ?
Yeah! I got a couple of them into it when people came to me asking how I do my own edits, and from there it seemed to just be word of mouth.
Thankfully I helped the first through get the basics down and they then passed that knowledge on and so forth, so it’s worked out pretty well. A bunch of broke ass skaters will learn anything as long as it’s free, it’s why we spend most of our time falling.
How is Krita? I’m on a Mac and my biggest problem with Gimp and Inkscape has always been lack of MacOS integration. Mostly with the UI but even shortcuts were wrong when I tried it. And the mouse/trackpad gestures were the dealbreaker.
I use Pixelmator, which hopefully continues to be a well developed pay once app, even though Apple just bought them. That and Sketch get me all the design tools I need for 2D and web.
Your first problem is you’re using a Mac. But beyond the obvious trolling, Krita excels at painting and is getting better at text as well -so far text tools have left to be desired but they’ve been working on a revamp for some years now, probably coming rather soon. What I find lacking as a daily user (I do illustration in Krita, animation in Blender) is the general image manipulation tools. Transforming, snapping, transform masks… are often either lacking in flexibility or poorly performing. I use Affinity Publisher on the side for compositing my illustrations with text for print or web, I wouldn’t be able to rely on just Krita for that. But for painting, it’s absolutely fantastic -performance wise, usability-wise, the shortcuts are so well thought out it’s a joy to use. It’s really made with painting in mind. If you like using filters, they have a good G’mic integration with hundreds of builtin filters. I can’t comment on their mac builds though, you’d have to try them yourself.
It’s more of a paint program, and it’s great if you have a pen and tablet. I haven’t tried out gimp for while, but it was more of a photoshop alternative at that time. I think Apple’s version of Krita would be Procreate, but Krita is free.
How is Krita?
I fully converted all my workflows to Krita a long time again, its amazing
Have you checked out Affinity? They support Mac and iPad, and are comparable with the core Adobe suite. Its a buy once scenario (per major version release). My only problem is they don’t support Linux.
Of note, they were purchased last year by Canva, but it has been stated they will keep the Affinity products separate for purchase.
I actually like the GIMP website homepage more than the one for photoshop.
Its simple and efficient. If I want to know more I would go to documentation or tutorials.
The photoshop site just looks like a random squarespace template with a bunch of stock photos.
If I want to know more I would go to documentation or tutorials.
See, that’s not normal, though. You shouldn’t need to “dig deeper” to find out what a product is or what it does.
The well-designed homepage should simply tell you that within seconds of visiting. Any additional clicks should only be to “learn more”, but not to learn about.
If this was an analogy, imagine a street lined with restaurants.
On one side you’ve got “Vinny’s Italian Pizzeria”, “Joe’s Burgers and Fries”, and “Mary’s Bakery and Treats”. Each has posters of what they sell posted on the windows, and a QR code to their online menu.
On the other you have “Sal’s Food”, “Frank’s More Food”, “Sal’s”. The windows are either covered in brown paper, or have stock images of “food”, but nothing specific about what they actually make. To learn more, you have to go inside, ask someone for a menu, wait for that menu, then have a look. But the menu lacks photos! You either have to know what they are describing to you in the menu, or you would have to have already dined there before.
Does the latter experience sound good? Because that’s how too many open-source projects present themselves, and it’s to the loss of the volunteer devs and their potential user base.
Dig deeper ?
Homepage text :
The Free & Open Source Image Editor
This is the official website of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).
GIMP is a cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and more operating systems. It is free software, you can change its source code and distribute your changes.
Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools to get your job done. You can further enhance your productivity with GIMP thanks to many customization options and 3rd party plugins.Man, that text does the app no favours. “Image editor” could mean that it crops photos. But GIMP does a hell of a lot more. It’s been “the open-source photoshop” for decades, and they’re really selling themselves short. Screenshots would have made it so much easier to see what the software does.
Indeed
I feel like the Adobe marketing is somewhat pointless. Anyone that has been in the target industries for any amount of time already know the deal.
GIMP is not Photoshop. They are not competitors. It’s a difficult transition. I’m not sure we should even bother drawing a comparison.
I’ve used Photoshop since 1992. I know, I’m old. I started using GIMP about four years ago. I recently got to the point where I can function.
Money and momentum is a motherfucker. Adobe has fuck you money. GIMP has volunteers. Those that don’t like their site should volunteer time or money.
Edit: fwiw I like the GIMP site better too.
I totally agree
You’re welcome to contribute your experties.
I wish I could, but this is a systemic problem, not a problem with one individual project.
Is the mindset that anyone looking for open source, FOSS, or Linux stuff is already tech-savvy enough to know exactly what they are looking for based solely on a text description?
You can if you wish. You just choose not to. Like so many of us. If more did volunteer, the problem would disappear. It’s that simple.
Basically, yes.
Idk if GIMP has a marketing problem but I definitely agree that FOSS projects should add screenshots and a description of what the program does to their website and repo. It really annoys me when someone links a piece of software and it just doesn’t say what it does and there’s no screenshots that would make it easy for me to see what it looks like and how the UI is structured. When there’s no screenshots I’m rarely even interested in trying it out because, even with a description, I don’t really know what it is. Like, I wouldn’t be interested in a car based on only a description, I’d have to see a picture of it too.
Actually I would pick GIMP.
- Says what it is, an image editor.
- No popups and random interruptions.
- Not only AI editing examples which makes me thing the tool is AI only.
- An overview of the variety of major features it has rather than just AI editing.
- Links to helpful documentation rather than endless marketing pages that say nothing.
Really think only thing I would like to see is some screenshots and examples of using the tool, rather than just info on what it does. But the Photoshop page barely has this, just a few examples of the AI tools.
I would have to choose GIMP (in spite of this awful name) because that page loaded without javascript and the photoshop page requires me to enable javascript.
I know I’m being a bit facetious, here, but… Adobe can afford to hire full time front end devs and designers. FOSS projects can’t really compete with Adobe’s investors.
LOL. Brother, I get what you’re saying, but I think you missed the point. If Random User X is just looking for an image editor, and they are presented with a few options they know nothing about. Do you think they’re going to even bother with the one image editor that doesn’t have any screenshots?
Just another comparison, a little more relevant: https://www.rawtherapee.com/
You know EXACTLY what it is and what it does within about 2 seconds. That would be more than enough information for someone to at least make the effort to download the software.
You’re right. I wasn’t familiar with rawtherapee but just seeing that home page immediately clued me into the fact that it was some kind of image program. Didn’t even need to read a single word.
Come to think of it, there have been a number of times where I’ve wondered about what a foss project does/looks like and I think a single screenshot would’ve just been a big help in understanding how it behaves.
Come to think of it, there have been a number of times where I’ve wondered about what a foss project does/looks like and I think a single screenshot would’ve just been a big help in understanding how it behaves.
Yes!! I’m glad I was able to illustrate my point better.
If I recommend some software to someone, most normies I know would directly go on to youtube and check some guy using and reviewing a software. The “official website” wouldn’t even cross their mind.
In this day and age if a random user really wants something, they have a miriad of options to see what they’re about to use. Forums, Youtube, blog posts and so on.
If a user doesn’t even bother a bare , they’re better off not downloading random executables from the internet.
The website isn’t end all, be all of how users find a software demos. You seem to think a single website is enough for users to make their choices these days. It isn’t the 90s.
An informed user goes through that much effort. Most users are not informed and will do a quick search, download something that looks remotely what they think they need, and they’re done.
This is why it’s frustrating that some really good open-source software end up being lost in a sea of other stuff that was easier for someone to download, without doing a ton of research.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a website, but a website should be “home base” for a software, company, etc. If not the official website, then the developer has less control over the presentation of their product, which would suck.
App stores are successful for a reason: they offer a quick, accessible means to find 1000s of apps or desktop software. And if an app has a poor description or piss poor screenshots, they are skipped very quickly.
The same applies to the UX and UI of an app or website. A poor experience can cause someone to uninstall it (or exit the page), even if it offers them the features they want/need.
Unless 3.0 has solved it, the gimp has a steep UI problem and a learning curve such that mass appeal on the website would be inappropriate anyway. I love it but I love it because I’ve been using it my whole life and know it very well. Foss in general struggles with useability due to a lot of hard to overcome problems - mainly, that by the time someone is ready to contribute to any given foss project, they’re already intimately familiar with its foibles and probably have strong opinions about what UX elements are sacred cows and should not be fixed.
Well, it has solved it in large part, yes. Tablet pen buttons are correctly recognized on Windows at last, GTK3 allows panels to be dockable pretty much anywhere, the interface looks generally sleek.
Now perhaps you could specify what aspect of the UI you find problematic, otherwise it’s hard to respond to such a vague statement. Imagine you’re a developer, and you read a piece of feedback that says “the gimp has a steep UI problem”. Where do you go from there ?
I mean, I could make a list of things I think are problems, but I’ve been using it since a bit after 9/11 so I dont think my guesses would represent new user experiences. I am mostly going off what people tell me when they try to learn it.
otherwise it’s hard to respond to such a vague statement
I wasn’t writing advice for the devs, I was making a general statement about why foss stuff doesn’t tend to suit glitzy, highly marketable front facing stuff, using gimp as an example
I’m not involved with Gimp development, I’ve been watching it from the side, so I can’t tell if there’s an actual lack of contributions related to UX design -but so far I have only seen the public respond with the same sort of vague feedback : “the UI needs work”. Unfortunately that’s as unhelpful as it gets. Spending some time designing interface mockups, or writing up descriptions of how such and such feature should work, now that’s helpful, and is something pretty much any user can do.
I was making a general statement about why foss stuff doesn’t tend to suit glitzy, highly marketable front facing stuff, using gimp as an example
Yea, I believe that’s true. And it is always a resource problem, because with limited resources, developers focus on making the thing work first, look nice second
developers focus on making the thing work first, look nice someone else’s problem
I mean, tastes are different, but I really did not like the photshop page design.
Taste aside, you can easily see what features Photoshop has, rather than guessing, right?
I should have used a FOSS example, since Adobe is just bad in general (users saying the page has pop-ups, etc.).
All I see is “Ooooh look, we use AI!” which actually repels me quite a lot. The page leaves the impression that photoshop is a toy, not a tool.
Ok, let’s get off Adobe for a second… here’s a FOSS example: https://www.rawtherapee.com/
Easy to understand exactly what it does, screenshots are excellent. Surely, you can agree that this is better than how GIMP presents itself, right?
Great updated example and I look forward to hearing the arguments against this just like Adobe.
The photoshop page doesn’t even have a download link.
0/10 would not download.
I mean, the Adobe website flashed me pop-ups about not being in the right location, about cookies - I would choose GIMP based on this.
I choose FOSS 90% of the time because they are not beholden to the same conventions that compel most for-profit products. A lot of the concerns I’m reading about readability, marketability, etc ring absolutely true for life-or-death for-profit ventures, but there are definitely people who don’t mind missing all of that stuff in exchange for good and decent software.
The goal, after all, is to be image editing software, not an advertisement.
I don’t know man, I think the Photoshop homepage reeks of corpo crap, whereas the Gimp homepage does a good job at cleanly presenting the program in a quick way. Maybe I’m just used to FOSS, or already too allergic to corporate software, but going by the homepage design, my preference is obvious, there’s not even a contest
I think my point was missed. I wasn’t saying that GIMP should copy what Adobe does (I can’t stand Adobe and their “business model” spyware bullshit.
My point was more to show that Adobe showcases the features of the software, so a potential user knows what it does without needing to go through the trouble of downloading it. It may not be what the user wants, and that’s ok, at least they know!
But GIMP is so vague in their description and offers no insight to what the app does or looks like. There’s no need to be mysterious.
I mean, the name is a bigger problem than anyone seems to want to admit…
I mean, the name is a bigger problem than anyone seems to want to admit
Which is why I use Krita and recommend it to other people… telling them to use GIMP would get too many laughs and weird looks
I think it’s because marketing is expensive and marketing people know that corporations have money to throw at them, and the moment they lower their prices for a FOSS project, they might not get their old revenue when working for a company that can definitely pay what they ask.
We need some sort of FOSM (Free and Open Source Marketing) that helps FOSS projects based on some sort of queue and whoever has recent changes that needs marketing.
I think it’s because marketing is expensive
Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by “marketing”. I’m not talking about spending tens of thousands of Facebook ads, or any ads, really.
A few screenshots on a product page would be more than enough for some projects. Highlight some key features. Generate interest.
It’s really low effort stuff that makes a huge difference.
These are all excellent ways someone can contribute to a project. Our project website has a repo anything can contribute to to make changes, even the blog entries are statically generated pages.
Is it because in Linux the UI is so customisable that there’s no definitive ‘look’ to sell?
Hey, you look interested in becoming a marketing volunteer for GIMP. While GIMP is not as competitive in marketing as the others, you can help them if you want. 😎
deleted by creator
.
That’s false, not sure why you would say that. Literally just visit the download page
.
I sure hope so
this can be solved by using a package manager. because thats what they expect.
The fuck are you talking about. It’s available in all the repositories
.
compiling a program takes like 2 clicks dude
Incredible. This is one of those hard to believe moments.
It’s been 21 years since the release of GIMP 2.0.
It’s been more than 10 years since work on a majorly overhauled GIMP 3.0 was announced and initiated.
And it’s been 7 years since the last major release (2.10).
I can’t wait for the non-destructive text effects. After all these years of dealing with the fact applying drop shadows meant the text couldn’t be edited, at last it’s no longer an issue.
As a long time - pre version 2 - gimp user my first thought was “what, don’t be ridiculous” and now I dont know what to feel. Why would you do this to me personally
To make sure to remind you to take your vitamins.
Seems like a long time to wait for non-destructive drop shadows… most other art applications including Krita have had that for a very long time
Yeah GIMP is more than a decade behind Photoshop and a lot of other software in many respects.
It’s frustrating. Basic things like content-aware fill for small spaces, not even AI generating huge things for large missing pieces but removing some text over a person’s cheek or plaid shirt, something in total 100x100 pixels big or so. Just doesn’t exist. You can clone stuff but it’s not aware of things like the gradient of a shadow that it should match or a highlight or other basic things so you’re left doing extensive work using layers and then cleaning it up to be visually acceptable using multiple tools over 10 minutes of time whereas Photoshop does it with one tool in an instant.
Version numbers are basically meaningless.
zero screenshots on the announcement page and zero screenshots on the homepage. Exactly what i expect from gimp lol
The UI looks the same lol
The layers are the big thing, but its hard to show because the final result looks the same anyways
Aw man i was hoping for a big ui upgrade like when blender released version 2.8 that now even cinema4d is copying.
I fear gimp truly doesnt care about its ui/ux because technically everything you want to do is possible as long as you learn the ways ans they dont care to attract an audience thats not die hard FOSS people. For example schools havent been able to use it because theyre so deadset on their nsfw name and schools cant have kids googling gimp
I fear gimp truly doesnt care about its ui/ux
Why, because its been the single most requested change by the GIMP community for 20+ years and its the one thing they refuse to address?? Dont be silly, its not like the devs are acting like the guy who makes Filezilla who has been steadfastly refusing to implement a ‘dark’ feature simply because he does think anyone wants it… oh wait
Is that seriously a thing with Filezilla? I had to use it for something recently and downloaded it for the first time in years. Couldn’t find any way to not blind myself no matter how hard I tried.
Just use WinSCP and spare yourself the pain of using Filezilla.
they could have just called gims or gim
naming stuff is important
No self-respecting UI designer would ever want to work on that dinosaur of a codebase. The GIMP team is simply unable to do what Blender did, even if they made the UI their number one priority.
I mean the whole point of doing the mega rewrite to gtk3 was specifically to enable such forward looking progress.
What they did in the 3.0 release was, largely, a massive modernization of a dinosaur code base.
Now that it’s done it makes sense to do a UI overhaul. Before 3.0 it made no sense to even try, now it does.
Why not? Krita did it, they made an entirely new interface (hell they did it over 10 years ago) so why does the GIMP teams refuse to do the same?
They’re not refusing. They’re actually doing the opposite. But they needed to get their house in order first.
The 3.0 upgrade was the result of the getting their house in order and modernizing. Doing cosmetic changed before hand would have made no sense because those changes would have been thrown away when they would have to modernize things anyways.
I think I have an analogy.
Gimp was like an old American style wooden house that was flooded. After the water recedes you could try to make things look nicer by plastering and painting the walls etc. But as goes with flooded houses if you do this the mold will rot everything out.
In order to save a flooded house you need to remove all the dry wall and use fans to dry out the internals. Once things are dry then you can plaster and repaint things.
Gimp 3.0 was them ripping out dry wall and air drying the internals. Now that that is done it now makes sense to clean up the UI.
If you clean up the UI before you dry the walls out it’s just a waste of time because those improvements would need to be ripped out with the dry walls always.
It’s not perfect as far as an analogy goes but it’s close. Gimp should have never let the house flood in the first place. (Analogy breaks down here a bit). But since they did. They needed to fix the fundamental before it would be worth fixing the UI.
This all being said they could at this point genuinely refuse to change things UI wise. I hope they choose to pull a Blender or Krita but they don’t have to.
The 3.0 upgrade was the result of the getting their house in order and modernizing
meh I believe they can walk and chew gum at the same time, I think they just wanna walk and not chew gum at all
They refuse to do the same because migrating from GTK 2 to GTK 3 took 7 years to achieve with a diminutive team and they still implemented a multitude of requested features.
My college taught us GIMP for anyone in the CIS program, but not the actual graphic design track.
To all of the authors below who have disparaging opinions on the UX/UI experience and or the download ability. It’s a volunteer project for a reason. If you have such grand ideas and abilities put your money where your fingers are and fucking sign up.
A lot of the hate GIMP gets is people coming from Photoshop expecting it to work like Photoshop. In fact that’s true for a lot of Adobe-like open source projects. That’s why “industry standards” are dangerous and really only exist to keep one company rich.
Money link donate now you!
It’s been tried. The gatekeeping of GIMP’s monstrously horrific UI/UX is both vicious and impenetrable.
God forbid people offer feedback.
Helpful Feedback is fine. As the OP said there is no need for disparaging feedback.
Declaring that the only legitimate feedback comes from people who are also capable of doing the work is not a good way to solicit constructive feedback.
No one said that though.
Right, and the initial sentence
To all of the authors below who have disparaging opinions on the UX/UI experience and or the download ability.
modifies the rest of the text
It’s a volunteer project for a reason. If you have such grand ideas and abilities put your money where your fingers are and fucking sign up.
Point being, feedback is welcome, disparaging opinions are not.
Nobody declared that “only legitimate feedback comes from people who are also capable of doing the work.”
Reading comprehension, my friend.
Hmm. So doubling down then.
So in the end we got gimp 3 before GTA 6
We got gimp 3 before half life 3.
We got Gimp 3 before The Winds of Winter.
No, no, no. It’s the end of times. I can hear the trumpets of the apocalypse.
Now Valve needs to release half life 3 and the world as we know it will truly perish.
Jokes aside. I hope this means work on a UI overhaul can seriously begin.
Valve needs to release half life 3
Jokes aside Fresh leaks suggest Half-Life 3 development may be nearing completion .
The Orange Box 2; featuring Half Life 3, Team Fortress 3, and Portal 3.
And maybe WW3 too, why not. Complete package.
Portal 3 would actually make hype, I love those games
Can you get apocalypse insurance? I think I’m in the market for it.
Now I really want it officially announced on April 1. It would be a perfect moment.
3 Sentences horror story…
Gimp 3, Half life 3, Bloodborne 2
Nah, end of times is when Shenmue series finally finishes
Next. They should drop everything and solely focus on improving ux & ui . Every time I open gimp to try and get acclimated to it, I close it back out of frustration. Nothing is intuitive in that software. Not even the naming of the tools settings.
To be honest, nothing is intuitive in any complex software. Every time I open Photoshop I want to cry in pain. But it isn’t because Photoshop is bad (that I don’t know actually), but because I am not familiar with it at all
Don’t touch my workflow. Just because you couldn’t get acclimated to it, doesn’t mean no one did.
Reminds me of this:
Source: https://xkcd.com/1172/
Thankyou!
Gosh randall is always on point, though. Either a complete psycho or a savant of the human perspective (laziness, i guess? It seems like most of his stuff is mocking the lazy process fails in science, bureaucracy or people interactions)
There are many examples of software where the UI etc can be changed. I have never felt comfortable in GIMP’s UI, but then again I’m much more of a vector guy.
It is essential that you explain exactly what you find unintuitive, otherwise -forgive me, but- this feedback is worthless. Make a bullet list, with captures, show how you would rename or rearrange things. Do your part !
forgive me, but- this feedback is worthless
Its not useless when literally 99% of the people who tried GIMP Over the past 25+ years have had the exact same reaction, pretending its not a thing its whats useless
It is worthless, in fact. Because it’s not actionable. Read what the above user said again :
Every time I open gimp to try and get acclimated to it, I close it back out of frustration. Nothing is intuitive in that software. Not even the naming of the tools settings.
Nothing in here is specific enough to do anything about it. Imagine you’re a developer, and you read this. What do you do ?
As users, we may not be able to program stuff, but we can do so much design work. Making mockups takes some time but it’s within our reach. Let’s all contribute to the best of our ability. If all a user can say is “Nothing is intuitive”, then their feedback can only be dismissed. Because it’s not actionable.
How many of those who have never used Photoshop would have the same reaction to Photoshop?
This is what always frustrates me when people complain about GIMP’s UI!
The common opinion is to “make it more like Photoshop”, but Photoshop is absolutely not beginner friendly - most of those people are just familiar with it already.
I remember being completely lost and constantly getting annoyed when I first started using Photoshop.
I followed some YouTube tutorial to rearrange all the stuff that can be to make it more like photoshop, which did make things somewhat better
GTK 3 support just in time for GTK 4 & 5
Now do VLC 4.0 :D
Already on flathub. Nice modern packaging world. https://github.com/flathub/org.gimp.GIMP
I’ve been seeing quite a few posts about this, pretty funny that it all happened so fast.
I’ve only used GIMP a handful of times, so please forgive my ignorance – how does 3.0 compare to Krita or IbisPaint?
GIMP is generally geared towards photo-editing, so if you have an existing image, you can use GIMP quite well to e.g. cut out parts of it or to apply effects.
It’s not really geared towards digital painting or creating new images from scratch, like Krita and presumably IbisPaint are.
deleted by creator
If it’s non destructive now I might try to learn it.
It is.
Good to know, thanks.
Kind of regret not trudging up the steep learning curve of that hellscape GUI earlier now that sounds like it’s finally useable, but better late than never.
FUCK YES!!!
I’ve been waiting for this for years! Omg, what awesome news!!
