This might be the final release in the GIMP 3.0 series
Gimp 3.2 will include new link and vector layers, new brushes, and significant user interface improvements. Gimp 3.2 is designed to punch Adobe in the face
I love Gimp, use it every week, and am stoked for 3.2, but I’ll believe that it punches Adobe in the face when I see it.
But does it ?
Ive not tried gimp in years
I use gimp to edit (clean up) my scanned watercolor paintings. Yes, gimp is good enough now for what I used to do with photoshop: adjustment layers, more sane ui. Only thing that was missing is a very obscure feature that photoshop has, to merge multiple scanned pages of a very large photo. I now use vuescan for that (the free version does not add a watermark when using that particular feature, unlike its scans!). And then I edit in gimp, or RapidRAW (a new, lightroom-like app, that’s easier to use than darktable). So I’m set.
This is how I do it:
- Scan with the official EpsonScan2 app form flatpak as TIFF (unfortunately their .deb file coredumps on Linux Mint). The XSane app unfortunately is too buggy.
- Then I merge the various scans to a single scan (if my painting was too large and needed several passes), with the free version of VueScan. There is one other foss app that can do that, but it’s so convoluted that it’s not even funny. Vuescan does it with a single click and it doesn’t add a watermark, curiously enough!
- Then I edit either in Gimp to fix the wrong scanned colors (this epson scanner moves oranges to red a bit), or fix mistakes (that’s common now even for traditional illustrators). If it’s only colors I need to fix and not change actual parts of the painting, I might just use RapidRAW.
- Then I export at 1024px high for web usage, as a jpg 90% quality. I then archive the TIFFs and XCF files.
I think Vuescan is really pretty good software that’s at least twice as expensive as I’m willing to pay for it. Every time I come across it as a solution to a problem I realize that I could replace the obsolete hardware for the same or less.
I don’t think so, it’s just $33 to buy it outright (no subscription). You can’t buy a good scanner or a printer for $33. It’s a good value for money, especially since the guy has to buy (and most importantly) test all that hardware for each release. It’s a lot of engineering time. But as I said, he probably forgot to add watermarking to the scanning stitching feature, so no purchase was necessary for me. The demo version is good enough for it!
Not quite. It’s $33/year subscription, $100 to buy it outright ($200 for pro).
If it was a one time $33 I would have purchased it a decade or two ago.
It’s $33 for the basic edition to buy outright, which is what most people need.
here in europe we get this for a one-off purchase:
I use GIMP since 2.8 version, which is ages ago. Used it to edit my photography, to create price tags for my local shop, create web banners, memes… lot of memes, editing pixel graphics, and more.
To be honest it was not a good experience editing photography, especially as it didn’t have some standard features like layer effects. And the missing standard features like shape tools and such is also a big deal for me. Also for printing the price tags the color space was a problem too, as it didn’t support CMYK. I also wish there was a simple “record and playback macros” functionality, which I saw in Photoshop years ago.
All in all these points and many other are addressed or are being addressed right now. GIMP is still not as good as Photoshop and there are pain points. But it is improving and already has improved ton of a lot.
It does.
I had to isolate part of a frame from a 70s Italian cartoon to make a giant vinyl sticker and it worked amazingly. Cleaned up the image and pulled it right from the background. I was also able to desaturate the colours well too.
