Carol Spears wrote:

for how many years now does Photoshop(TM) get free advertising on this mail list and the only thing that have to fill the free time with is that layers effect thing?

a forum where they can constantly bombard and belittle TheGIMP and are free to do so and the best they can pull out of their over-extended reasoning is this layers effect stuff.

do any gimp users think this is helping them?

carol

I think you have to accept that, on a gimp forum, people are going to discuss what they like and what they don't like about the gimp, while inevitably comparing it to the alternatives that are available. It's also a fact that people post to a user forum with problems more than they post with tales of glee. Perhaps that's a shame; I think it's inevitable.

Since you bring it up, I was thinking just earlier today how frustrated I get when something suddenly stops working and I need to stop what I'm doing and look through the manual to find out what's wrong. The manual, btw, is always close at hand. I was wondering if it's' something I should discuss with the list or not. How can the interface be improved? What are its short comings? Does anyone else have this problem with it? Judging by Carey Bunks's FAQ section at the end of every chapter of "Grokking the GIMP", yes. It would be nice to see some discussion of the GIMP's design, or its roadmap, or to feel that one can be involved in this project other than just by submitting bug reports or hacking code.

As for layer effects, well perhaps you should ask the users what it is they get out of them. Who knows? You might learn something.

Sometimes the GIMP helps me, sometimes it hinders me. That's how it is. Not being a programmer, there's not much I can do directly to change it. And since you'd rather I bite my lip about it, it's unlikely that anybody else will do anything about it either.

At least, most users makes resonable complains. Sometimes I get pissed off when I´m talking with friends at IRC and they tell me that gimp sucks and it´s nerd thing. This is something negative. But, when you say that something in the interface annoys you, or you don´t like how gimp deals with cmyk, or that it tool are wack, it´s okay... it´s acceptable. However, it would be really nice with you say how would you like it to be, what else it should do, how to improve it...

I know that most of us, in this list or whatever else, aren´t programmers. I wish I was! I wish I could help gimp figuring out these things.

I dont know what else can I say.

I think that´s all...

cheers!

And I pretty concerned about free software on europe... it can be our "end".

David Marrs wrote:

Sometimes the GIMP helps me, sometimes it hinders me. That's how it is. Not being a programmer, there's not much I can do directly to change it. And since you'd rather I bite my lip about it, it's unlikely that anybody else will do anything about it either.

Actually, that was a bit of a terse reply, now that I read it back. I can appreciate that you may well have put a lot into the GIMP as a developer and would like to see a bit of encouragement from its users. I *am* very grateful for the GIMP and think it says much for the spirit of free software. I also think it has some way to go before it becomes a mature product, but I think that it is only a matter of time before it is at least on a par with products like Photoshop, unless software patents beat us to it.

But I would like to see more direct involvement with the users. It seems that you have the developers on the one hand and the users on the other. The developers provide a new release, the users assess it, the developers consider the criticism and the cycle continues. Inkscape has a much more social nature. Everyone chips in; it feels very much like it's our software. There are requests for users to help out in various ways and everyone can help somehow if he wants to. There's also a clear roadmap so that we can see what's coming and make suggestions about how certain features might be implemented. Their mailing list is much more optimistic because, I think, users feel that this is their project that they are helping make. I'm not sure that users feel that way about the GIMP. I don't, to be honest.

David Marrs wrote:

As for layer effects, well perhaps you should ask the users what it is they get out of them. Who knows? You might learn something.

I think most of the developers already understand the value of layer effects quite well. Let me try to summarize the current situation. There are basically two possible ways of proceeding. One is to add layer effects onto the current GIMP architecture, which could be done, but in a somewhat hackish and ugly way. The other is to defer them until the arrival of the long-planned GEGL-based architecture, which will make layer effects and many other nice things easy and natural to implement. The decision has been to wait for GEGL. Whether this is the correct strategy can be debated, but it definitely doesn't mean that we don't care about layer effects.

Best, -- Bill

______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Sent via the CNPRC Email system at primate.ucdavis.edu

David Marrs wrote:
I
*am* very grateful for the GIMP and think it says much for the spirit of free software. I also think it has some way to go before it becomes a mature product,

Huh... the Gimp is not "mature"? Thank you for sharing that. I honestly didn't know!

Shit... and while I'm at it, I best let my boss know ASAP that he's been paying me in a professional capacity to use an app that's not "mature".

It's a wonder I've gotten anything done at all!

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 07:04 -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

a forum where they can constantly bombard and belittle TheGIMP and are free to do so and the best they can pull out of their over-extended reasoning is this layers effect stuff.

I'm not sure who "they" are, but if you're referring to people in this list that are not afraid to admit gimp's weaknesses, these people have every right to point them out. You can't fix a problem if you don't even accept it. Lack of layer effects is not a problem? ...Just ask the serious graphic developers.

-Gezim

David Marrs wrote:

Since you bring it up, I was thinking just earlier today how frustrated I get when something suddenly stops working and I need to stop what I'm doing and look through the manual to find out what's wrong. The manual, btw, is always close at hand. I was wondering if it's' something I should discuss with the list or not. How can the interface be improved? What are its short comings? Does anyone else have this problem with it? Judging by Carey Bunks's FAQ section at the end of every chapter of "Grokking the GIMP", yes. It would be nice to see some discussion of the GIMP's design, or its roadmap, or to feel that one can be involved in this project other than just by submitting bug reports or hacking code.

Hey! If you think the FAQ section in (the excellent) "Grokking the Gimp" is a proof that the interface has to be improved, then you should install Gimp 2.0 or even 2.2. ;-)
Seriously, Carey Bunk's book was about gimp 1.2 (and it was even written based on the 1.1.x series, not the final 1.2). Gimp developers have worked a lot on the interface since that era. It is still not perfect (what is perfection?) but has probably solved quite a lot of the problems mentionned by the book (which was, I do not remember if I mentionned it ;) , excellent).

If you want to participate to the improvement of the interface not only "by submitting bug reports or hacking code", you can do some interface testing/surveying. Some people have presented such results in the past and they were usually welcomed and accounted by the developers:

Write a set of "typical" tasks to be performed (e.g. "removing red eyes from a photo", "cropping and rescaling an image", "opening, rotating right -or left- and saving to a new name and location") and find some volunteers to perform these tasks (classify them in several categories such as "experienced gimp user", "experienced PS user", "totally new to image manipulation", "granny / aunt Tilly"). Then observe them while performing the tasks (one volunteer at a time), take notes of their comments, frustrations, the places they expected to find the functionnality, the time they spent, everything.

Such a survey is always useful. Before launching it, present the protocol to us for comments of course.

Best regards,

Olivier

Eric P wrote:

David Marrs wrote:
I *am* very grateful for the GIMP and think it says much for the spirit of free software. I also think it has some way to go before it becomes a mature product,

Huh... the Gimp is not "mature"? Thank you for sharing that. I honestly didn't know!

Shit... and while I'm at it, I best let my boss know ASAP that he's been paying me in a professional capacity to use an app that's not "mature".

It's a wonder I've gotten anything done at all! _______________________________________________ Gimp-user mailing list
Gimp-user@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu
http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user

Refined, then.

Hi,

Gezim Hoxha writes:

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 07:04 -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

a forum where they can constantly bombard and belittle TheGIMP and are free to do so and the best they can pull out of their over-extended reasoning is this layers effect stuff.

I'm not sure who "they" are, but if you're referring to people in this list that are not afraid to admit gimp's weaknesses, these people have every right to point them out. You can't fix a problem if you don't even accept it. Lack of layer effects is not a problem?

You are perfectly right that it is important to point out weak spots. The discussions that have been happening on this list lately have however not pointed out a singleq weak spots that wouldn't have been well-known already. Bringing up stuff that is already in the bug-tracker and on the roadmap for years doesn't really help anyone.

Sven

Olivier Ripoll wrote:

Hey! If you think the FAQ section in (the excellent) "Grokking the Gimp" is a proof that the interface has to be improved, then you should install Gimp 2.0 or even 2.2. ;-)

I'm running 2.2 and still find the FAQ invaluable.

As an example, I thought I'd try toggling a selection. Bunks mentions in Ch.3 that it's easy to forget that you've toggled a selection so I thought I'd see if this is still the case:

I opened an image and used the lasoo to make a quick selection. Hmm, that's odd... no marching ants. Let's try again, making sure the start and end points overlap... nope, still isn't working. Oh well, scrap that and use the elipse select. Use control-T to toggle its visibility. Is there any indication that visibility is switched off? No, which is why Bunks has "scratched (his) head many times trying to figure out why...the GIMP no longer seemed to be working."

In trying that just now, I (genuinely) couldn't get the lassoo to work. This is an example of the sort of problem I come across every time I try a new tool, or come back to one that I haven't used in a while. Because I've been using GIMP for a little while now, I'm getting used to the idea of holding down modifier keys. So it didn't take me long to figure out that I needed to hold down shift to make the selection. With a bit more playing, I finally figured out what the default lassoo action actually does. Maybe there's a good reason for having the primary action intersect and the secondary action add. Whatever it is, it's not to aid learning. I figured it out relatively quickly, but unless a newbie cottoned on to the idea, he would probably remain lost.

I've quickly come to accept that the GIMP cannot be learned by mucking about with it and picking things up. One can't just launch the application and start making graphics with it. One needs to sit down with the manual, or a book, and learn it that way. Clearly the GIMP works well for some people, but not for me. It's an application that I'm starting to get, but the learning curve is often a frustrating one. Most people just simply wouldn't bother; they'd go use something else instead, regardless of whether or not it's free, proprietary, better or worse.

In direct contrast, I was making some pretty cool graphics in Inkscape within minutes of first launching the application. I learned to get loads out it long before I ever looked at the manual. In fact, the manual, which I eventually discovered under the help section (a place I visited out of curiosity rather than necessity), merely served to confirm many of the operations I'd already learnt by myself. Granted, it's still a new app and has a long way to go before it becomes complicated, but, no matter how complicated it eventually becomes, it will always be childsplay to make graphics with it, because it's childsplay now.

Write a set of "typical" tasks to be performed (e.g. "removing red eyes from a photo", "cropping and rescaling an image", "opening, rotating right -or left- and saving to a new name and location") and find some volunteers to perform these tasks (classify them in several categories such as "experienced gimp user", "experienced PS user", "totally new to image manipulation", "granny / aunt Tilly"). Then observe them while performing the tasks (one volunteer at a time), take notes of their comments, frustrations, the places they expected to find the functionnality, the time they spent, everything.

Such a survey is always useful. Before launching it, present the protocol to us for comments of course.

I don't think I'll be able to find the volunteers, but I can certainly document my own experiences with the GIMP, if you think they will be helpful.

Kind regards,

David

The bug-tracker serves it's purpose, but you can't expect everyone to be reading it over before making any comment about GIMP. Maybe there are GIMP users who would love everyone to drop Photoshop (or whatever) and use GIMP. If so, they will have to deal with more of this. Not everyone can spend the time to search something out, or in fact they don't care, they would rather voice it out right away.

-----Original Message----- From: gimp-user-bounces@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu [mailto:gimp-user-bounces@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu]On Behalf Of Sven Neumann
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 2:49 PM
To: Gezim Hoxha
Cc: gimp user
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] when even free advertising fails

Hi,

Gezim Hoxha writes:

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 07:04 -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

a forum where they can constantly bombard and belittle TheGIMP and are free to do so and the best they can pull out of their over-extended reasoning is this layers effect stuff.

I'm not sure who "they" are, but if you're referring to people in this list that are not afraid to admit gimp's weaknesses, these people have every right to point them out. You can't fix a problem if you don't even accept it. Lack of layer effects is not a problem?

You are perfectly right that it is important to point out weak spots. The discussions that have been happening on this list lately have however not pointed out a singleq weak spots that wouldn't have been well-known already. Bringing up stuff that is already in the bug-tracker and on the roadmap for years doesn't really help anyone.

Sven

David Marrs (David.Marrs@myrealbox.com) wrote: [Troubles getting lasso selection to work]

[...] I finally figured out what the default lassoo action actually does. Maybe there's a good reason for having the primary action intersect and the secondary action add. Whatever it is, it's not to aid learning. I figured it out relatively quickly, but unless a newbie cottoned on to the idea, he would probably remain lost.

Just to clarify what happened here: The tool options can get stored to disk, I am not sure if it is enabled by default, I'd guess so. At some point you left the GIMP with the lasso tool in "intersect" mode and Gimp faithfully restored it on the next startup...

There are "Reset" and "Save" buttons at the bottom of the tool options. You can use these to restore the default behaviour ("Intersect" definitely is not the default).

Hope this helps. Simon

Hi,

"Kalle Ounapuu" writes:

The bug-tracker serves it's purpose, but you can't expect everyone to be reading it over before making any comment about GIMP. Maybe there are GIMP users who would love everyone to drop Photoshop (or whatever) and use GIMP. If so, they will have to deal with more of this. Not everyone can spend the time to search something out, or in fact they don't care, they would rather voice it out right away.

Sure, no problem. Go ahead. Seriously, any kind of criticism should be allowed on this list and will be welcomed if it tries to be productive.

Sven

Hi,

David Marrs writes:

In trying that just now, I (genuinely) couldn't get the lassoo to work. This is an example of the sort of problem I come across every time I try a new tool, or come back to one that I haven't used in a while. Because I've been using GIMP for a little while now, I'm getting used to the idea of holding down modifier keys. So it didn't take me long to figure out that I needed to hold down shift to make the selection. With a bit more playing, I finally figured out what the default lassoo action actually does. Maybe there's a good reason for having the primary action intersect and the secondary action add. Whatever it is, it's not to aid learning.

It was you who set it up that way. The default action of all selection tools is of course to replace the existing selection. The currently active mode is always shown in the tool-options.

Sven

Hi,

David Marrs writes:

As an example, I thought I'd try toggling a selection. Bunks mentions in Ch.3 that it's easy to forget that you've toggled a selection so I thought I'd see if this is still the case:

I opened an image and used the lasoo to make a quick selection. Hmm, that's odd... no marching ants. Let's try again, making sure the start and end points overlap... nope, still isn't working. Oh well, scrap that and use the elipse select. Use control-T to toggle its visibility. Is there any indication that visibility is switched off? No, which is why Bunks has "scratched (his) head many times trying to figure out why...the GIMP no longer seemed to be working."

There is an indication that it is switched off, but only an experienced user would look into the View menu and check the state of the toggle menu items. So you are right, this is a problem, similar to http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=132204

Now what do you suggest? What kind of indication would you have expected?

Sven

Sven Neumann wrote:

It was you who set it up that way. The default action of all selection tools is of course to replace the existing selection. The currently active mode is always shown in the tool-options.

Sven

Hmm, I can't imagine when I did this, but I suppose I must have clicked on one of the other buttons at some point. It would be nice if there was a toolbar in the canvas window itself with the main tool options repeated there. That would make it easier to tell at a glance what tool and option is selected. I know this can already be worked out from the cursor icon, but those who are new to GIMP probably won't understand what all the symbols mean and might not think to look in the toolkit window.

Sven Neumann wrote:

Now what do you suggest? What kind of indication would you have expected?

A message in the status bar makes sense to me. Off the top of my head, a marching-ants outline of an irregular shape (so as not to confuse with quick mask) with a red X struck through it and a tool tip that says "selection not visible" on mouse rollover. Better still, clicking the box would make selections visible, although a status bar is possibly not the best place to toggle options.

Alternatively, rather than use the status bar, have a toolbar in the canvas window that includes this along with some other common and useful options. See my other reply for an example. I suggested a toolbar once before on this list and it's something I keep coming back to in my own mind as a possible way of solving a number of the niggles I'm having.

It would be optional so that experienced users can switch it off if they feel they don't need it, and it should be customisable so that they can make better use of it. By default, it would simultaneously provide commonly needed tasks and important visual feedback as to the state of the canvas, brush etc.

Sven Neumann wrote, regarding an indicator for selection visibility:

Now what do you suggest? What kind of indication would you have expected?

David Marrs writes:

A message in the status bar makes sense to me. Off the top of my head, a marching-ants outline of an irregular shape (so as not to confuse with quick mask) with a red X struck through it and a tool tip that says "selection not visible" on mouse rollover. Better still, clicking the

That would be really helpful! I'm forever wondering whether I have a selection or not, and the only way to find out is to go to the edit and view menus and look, since not seeing a selection might mean there isn't one or it might mean visibility is toggled off (or that there is one but it's tiny and I'm not seeing it), and if I hit ctrl-T and no selection appears, now I'm not sure whether I just toggled selection off or on, so I still have to go to the menus to check that.

Toggling selection visibility is something I do all the time, from the keyboard (is that just me, or is that common?) so being able to tell easily which state I'm in would be a great help.

Alternatively, rather than use the status bar, have a toolbar in the canvas window that includes this along with some other common and useful options. See my other reply for an example. I suggested a toolbar once before on this list and it's something I keep coming back to in my own mind as a possible way of solving a number of the niggles I'm having.

I'm sure some people would like that, but I wouldn't want to have to devote space to another toolbar to see this information. I like the statusbar idea, even if it was something as simple as another variable like %S that I could put into statusbar preferences, to say "Selection Off" or something. Though an icon with a red X, like David describes, would be easier to notice.

...Akkana

Hi,

David Marrs writes:

A message in the status bar makes sense to me.

Huh? The application is supposed to tell you all the time that your selection is toggled off? There's only one statusbar and it should be used for useful things.

Alternatively, rather than use the status bar, have a toolbar in the canvas window that includes this along with some other common and useful options. See my other reply for an example. I suggested a toolbar once before on this list and it's something I keep coming back to in my own mind as a possible way of solving a number of the niggles I'm having.

Having all possible toggles visible in a toolbar in the image window be a major waste of screen estate.

Sven

Kalle Ounapuu wrote:

The bug-tracker serves it's purpose, but you can't expect everyone to be reading it over before making any comment about GIMP.

I agree. People use Gimp (or try to) and have a problem or criticism and post their feedback here instead of filing bug/enhancement reports or looking to see what is already documented in Bugzilla, etc.

Maybe there are GIMP users who would love everyone to drop Photoshop (or whatever) and use GIMP.

You know, I'm not sure this is really the case. At least not based on discussion I've seen on this mailing list. I think a lot of frustration stems from people slamming Gimp for simply not looking, feeling, behaving, or tasting exactly like PhotoShop. It's almost like if it's not PhotoShop, it's crap. The focus tends to be on what PhotoShop does that Gimp doesn't do and almost no mention is made of the things Gimp can do that PhotoShop can't.

If so, they will have to deal with more of this.

I think constructive criticism on Gimp's UI, usability, features or missing features is what is desired much more than the "Gimp sucks cuz it can't do this obscure thing PhotoShop can" kinds of comments.

Not everyone can spend the time to search something out, or in fact they don't care, they would rather voice it out right away.

Yep, you're right on the money here. I think the bulk of the new Gimp users don't even think to look at Bugzilla or maybe even the mailing list archives before posting their comments since they are frustrated or focused on what they are trying to do with Gimp and simply post questions or comments to get "immediate" help. I know I tend to do the same from time to time but I try to search the mailing list archives before posting a question to see if it has already been discussed.

Peace...

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: gimp-user-bounces@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu [mailto:gimp-user-bounces@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu]On Behalf Of Sven Neumann
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 2:49 PM
To: Gezim Hoxha
Cc: gimp user
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] when even free advertising fails

Hi,

Gezim Hoxha writes:

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 07:04 -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

a forum where they can constantly bombard and belittle TheGIMP and are free to do so and the best they can pull out of their over-extended reasoning is this layers effect stuff.

I'm not sure who "they" are, but if you're referring to people in this list that are not afraid to admit gimp's weaknesses, these people have every right to point them out. You can't fix a problem if you don't even accept it. Lack of layer effects is not a problem?

You are perfectly right that it is important to point out weak spots. The discussions that have been happening on this list lately have however not pointed out a singleq weak spots that wouldn't have been well-known already. Bringing up stuff that is already in the bug-tracker and on the roadmap for years doesn't really help anyone.

Sven

Sven Neumann wrote:

Having all possible toggles visible in a toolbar in the image window be a major waste of screen estate.

Sven

Not being able to maximse the image window to full screen is a major waste of screen estate. All I'm talking about is sacrificing 20 pixels' worth of height. If you don't want it there then switch it off. Besides, I'm not talking about *all* the possible toggles, just the useful and important ones. I started working on this yesterday. When I've finished I'll put together a presentation for the list to consider.

Btw, does this list allow attachments. I tried sending this earlier with a screenshot of what I've got so far attached, but without success.

Carol Spears wrote:

it would be better and "easier" to insist that people work with the default gimp set up before making suggestions about where to put the information.

thanks,
carol

"Easier" for whom? the users or the developers? Since there's only one GIMP set-up anyway, I don't see how it makes a difference; any suggestion I make is going to be a direct result of the default GIMP set-up that I'm using. I'm not biased by Photoshop, PSP or anything else, I'm just acutely aware of the user interface's short comings and I'm trying to address them.

Making GIMP newbies (which I'm not, btw) learn the interface until they get used to it only means that they'll get used to the GIMP's short comings, not that they'll go away. It's just the same as how Windows users put up with their interface, all the time forgetting how restrictive it is. When it's all you can see, it becomes normal. It's only after you come back to Windows after spending months away, using a different OS like Linux+Gnome, that you suddenly realise how poor Windows actually is. If Microsoft were trying to get users to migrate from GNU/Linux to Windows, they'd be out of business in weeks.

So I think you unwittingly hit the nail on the head with regard to the GIMP's problem: it insists that its users conform to its way of doing things instead of being malleable so that different users with different approaches can tailor it to suit their needs. Its approach obviously works for you, which is why you're happy with it. Just try to remember that your way isn't necessarily the *right* way.

Hi,

I see the point of displaying the status of the selection but I don't think the statusbar will do for this. The statusbar is supposed to be used for context-sensitive information. GIMP 2.4 will also make a lot more use of the statusbar for displaying hints. I don't see how a static information such as "The selection outline is toggle off" would fit here. A toggle button similar to the quickmask toggle would perhaps do the trick. But then there are a bunch of such toggles in the view...

Sven

David Marrs wrote:

Sven Neumann wrote:

Having all possible toggles visible in a toolbar in the image window be a major waste of screen estate.

Sven

Not being able to maximse the image window to full screen is a major waste of screen estate.

View->Fullscreen (or simply F11) will maximize the image to full screen. You can also use the maximize button of the window manager to have the window maximized (with decorations, etc.)

All I'm talking about is sacrificing 20 pixels'

worth of height. If you don't want it there then switch it off. Besides, I'm not talking about *all* the possible toggles, just the useful and important ones. I started working on this yesterday. When I've finished I'll put together a presentation for the list to consider.

That is a nice thing.

Best regards,

Olivier.

It seems that some Photoshop users have this notion that GIMP was meant to be the David to Adobe's Goliath. Maybe it's just me, but I see GIMP as developing into its own application rather than being a mere Photoshop clone. I think that unfortunately, some people who slam GIMP are of the "hand it to me on a silver platter" mentality rather than simply not knowing how to use GIMP. Some don't want to tackle any kind of significant learning curve ... some do but are impatient. I've used GIMP for a long while now, and will stand by it -- especially since it's such a well-developed open-source application. Yes, there is room for improvement, and I believe it'll come, but if the basis of the GIMP-slammer's rant is that "it isn't like Photoshop", it won't matter how good GIMP gets. L8rz!

- Del'riaan

On Sun, 08 May 2005 08:12:15 -0700, Tom Williams wrote:

Kalle Ounapuu wrote:

The bug-tracker serves it's purpose, but you can't expect everyone to be reading it over before making any comment about GIMP.

I agree. People use Gimp (or try to) and have a problem or criticism and post their feedback here instead of filing bug/enhancement reports or looking to see what is already documented in Bugzilla, etc.

Maybe there are GIMP users who would love everyone to drop Photoshop (or whatever) and use GIMP.

You know, I'm not sure this is really the case. At least not based on discussion I've seen on this mailing list. I think a lot of frustration stems from people slamming Gimp for simply not looking, feeling, behaving, or tasting exactly like PhotoShop. It's almost like if it's not PhotoShop, it's crap. The focus tends to be on what PhotoShop does that Gimp doesn't do and almost no mention is made of the things Gimp can do that PhotoShop can't.

If so, they will have to deal with more of this.

I think constructive criticism on Gimp's UI, usability, features or missing features is what is desired much more than the "Gimp sucks cuz it can't do this obscure thing PhotoShop can" kinds of comments.

Not everyone can spend the time to search something out, or in fact they don't care, they would rather voice it out right away.

Yep, you're right on the money here. I think the bulk of the new Gimp users don't even think to look at Bugzilla or maybe even the mailing list archives before posting their comments since they are frustrated or focused on what they are trying to do with Gimp and simply post questions or comments to get "immediate" help. I know I tend to do the same from time to time but I try to search the mailing list archives before posting a question to see if it has already been discussed.

Peace...

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: gimp-user-bounces@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu [mailto:gimp-user-bounces@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu]On Behalf Of Sven Neumann
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 2:49 PM
To: Gezim Hoxha
Cc: gimp user
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] when even free advertising fails Hi,
Gezim Hoxha writes:

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 07:04 -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

a forum where they can constantly bombard and belittle TheGIMP and are free to do so and the best they can pull out of their over-extended reasoning is this layers effect stuff.

I'm not sure who "they" are, but if you're referring to people in this list that are not afraid to admit gimp's weaknesses, these people have every right to point them out. You can't fix a problem if you don't even
accept it. Lack of layer effects is not a problem?

You are perfectly right that it is important to point out weak spots. The discussions that have been happening on this list lately have however not pointed out a singleq weak spots that wouldn't have been well-known already. Bringing up stuff that is already in the bug-tracker and on the roadmap for years doesn't really help anyone. Sven

On Sunday 08 May 2005 16:00, David Marrs wrote:

Sven Neumann wrote:

Having all possible toggles visible in a toolbar in the image window be a major waste of screen estate.

Sven

Not being able to maximse the image window to full screen is a major waste of screen estate. All I'm talking about is sacrificing 20 pixels' worth of height. If you don't want it there then switch it off. Besides, I'm not talking about *all* the possible toggles, just the useful and important ones. I started working on this yesterday. When I've finished I'll put together a presentation for the list to consider.

Btw, does this list allow attachments. I tried sending this earlier with a screenshot of what I've got so far attached, but without success.

If you are making an enhancement request, with mock-ups of the itnerface, the correct thing to do is to open a bugzilla (bugzilla.gnome.org) entry for it, and attach your images in the bug entry.

Of course you can discuss the ideas, and invite people over to check your request for enhacment in this list and on the developers list.

JS ->

David Marrs wrote:
>

"Easier" for whom? the users or the developers? Since there's only one GIMP set-up anyway, I don't see how it makes a difference; any suggestion I make is going to be a direct result of the default GIMP set-up that I'm using. I'm not biased by Photoshop, PSP or anything else, I'm just acutely aware of the user interface's short comings and I'm trying to address them.

Making GIMP newbies (which I'm not, btw) learn the interface until they get used to it only means that they'll get used to the GIMP's short comings, not that they'll go away. It's just the same as how Windows users put up with their interface, all the time forgetting how restrictive it is. When it's all you can see, it becomes normal. It's only after you come back to Windows after spending months away, using a different OS like Linux+Gnome, that you suddenly realise how poor Windows actually is. If Microsoft were trying to get users to migrate from GNU/Linux to Windows, they'd be out of business in weeks.

So I think you unwittingly hit the nail on the head with regard to the GIMP's problem: it insists that its users conform to its way of doing things instead of being malleable so that different users with different approaches can tailor it to suit their needs. Its approach obviously works for you, which is why you're happy with it. Just try to remember that your way isn't necessarily the *right* way.

I agree 100% with this, very well stated. I think PhotoShop users "suffer" from this as well as they don't realize the "PhotoShop way" isn't necessarily the *right* way.

Great post!

Peace...

Tom

[please trim the subject line in your responses]

On Sun, 8 May 2005, Tom Williams wrote:

Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 08:12:15 -0700 From: Tom Williams
Cc: gimp user
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] when even free advertising fails

Kalle Ounapuu wrote:

The bug-tracker serves it's purpose, but you can't expect everyone to be reading it over before making any comment about GIMP.

I agree. People use Gimp (or try to) and have a problem or criticism and post their feedback here instead of filing bug/enhancement reports or looking to see what is already documented in Bugzilla, etc.

Maybe there are GIMP users who would love everyone to drop Photoshop (or whatever) and use GIMP.

You know, I'm not sure this is really the case. At least not based on discussion I've seen on this mailing list. I think a lot of frustration stems from people slamming Gimp for simply not looking, feeling, behaving, or tasting exactly like PhotoShop. It's almost like if it's not PhotoShop, it's crap.

I think most users are frustrated by the gimp and less frustrated by photoshop and the easiest way for them to express that is to make simple comparisons rather than being able to suggest better ways to do things.

The focus tends to be on what PhotoShop does that Gimp doesn't do and almost no mention is made of the things Gimp can do that PhotoShop can't.

What can the GNU Image Manipulation Program do that Adobe Photoshop cannot do? Please do tell. I have recently pointed out that the gimp allows you to have files with multiple layers in Indexed Mode and photoshop does not. I would like to be able to expand on this list of things I know the gimp can do better.

I would very sincerely be interested to know other things you can do with the GNU Image manipulation program that cannot be done with other software, particuarly things that cannot be done in Adobe Photoshop.

No need to go into the obvious well known issues of price, and Free Software which although important have been discussed to death many times before and are usually given as the best reasons for using the gimp (they are very good reasons).

- Alan H.

Hi,

David Marrs writes:

So I think you unwittingly hit the nail on the head with regard to the GIMP's problem: it insists that its users conform to its way of doing things instead of being malleable so that different users with different approaches can tailor it to suit their needs. Its approach obviously works for you, which is why you're happy with it. Just try to remember that your way isn't necessarily the *right* way.

The GIMP doesn't insist on anything. It is an Open Source project. This means that everyone is invited to help making it better. Noone insists that GIMP should stay the way it is. The developers know very well that there's a lot to improve.

That said, can we please stop this thread here and get back to doing something constructive with our free time?

Sven

Alan Horkan wrote:

[please trim the subject line in your responses] What can the GNU Image Manipulation Program do that Adobe Photoshop cannot do? Please do tell. I have recently pointed out that the gimp allows you to have files with multiple layers in Indexed Mode and photoshop does not. I would like to be able to expand on this list of things I know the gimp can do better.

Hi Alan,

* There is the possibility to use Gimp as a server like for http://www.flamingtext.com/
http://cooltext.com/
I guess this will not be considered a big plus untill google introduces some similar tool.

* The availability of three scripting languages, one of them being actually easy to understand (guess which ;) )

* I seem to remember that it was mentionned that Gimp can load some pictures with large dimensions (like 1*N N being very large) while PS fails (I am not talking about N*M, where N and M are big here). I think a scientific person add raised this point last year.

* The recent possibility to use gimp without interface.

* The possibility to use it on *nix systems. This is useful for companies using linux farms.

* 64 bits ready !

Sure, some of the points apply to niche markets. But CYMK is mostly useless for most personal use (web, home printing) and so also relates to some small market share (same for 16bits per channels and floating points).

Best regards,

Olivier.

I would very sincerely be interested to know other things you can do with the GNU Image manipulation program that cannot be done with other software, particuarly things that cannot be done in Adobe Photoshop.

No need to go into the obvious well known issues of price, and Free Software which although important have been discussed to death many times before and are usually given as the best reasons for using the gimp (they are very good reasons).

- Alan H.

Alan Horkan wrote:

...GNU Image Manipulation Program...

Ah, so I'm not the only one who writes "Cinepaint" on his CV. :) Forget that group layer effect nonsense, the biggest advantage Photoshop has over GIMP is that its name doesn't conjure images of a leather man kept on a leesh with his mouth zippered shut!

On Wed, 11 May 2005, Olivier Ripoll wrote:

Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 10:50:34 +0200 From: Olivier Ripoll
To: gimp-user@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: [Gimp-user] Re: Nobody does it better [was Re: when even free advertising fails]

Alan Horkan wrote:

[please trim the subject line in your responses] What can the GNU Image Manipulation Program do that Adobe Photoshop cannot do? Please do tell. I have recently pointed out that the gimp allows you to have files with multiple layers in Indexed Mode and photoshop does not. I would like to be able to expand on this list of things I know the gimp can do better.

Hi Alan,

* There is the possibility to use Gimp as a server like for http://www.flamingtext.com/
http://cooltext.com/
I guess this will not be considered a big plus untill google introduces some similar tool.

Running the gimp headless is definately a big deal, thanks for reminding me of this functionality.

* The availability of three scripting languages, one of them being actually easy to understand (guess which ;) )

I recognise how usefult this functionality is and I make use of it myself but sorry to be pessimistic, compared to using command line tool or the automation tools in Photoshop and the ability to record Actions/Macros/Scripts in Photoshop I cannot consider this an outstanding feature of the gimp. I had to learn the various scripting languages but even to people who already know the languages I cannot imagine that is easier than saving a list of actions from the Undo history or any similar Macro Recorder.

* I seem to remember that it was mentionned that Gimp can load some pictures with large dimensions (like 1*N N being very large) while PS fails (I am not talking about N*M, where N and M are big here). I think a scientific person add raised this point last year.

Good point. With the right configuration the tile based architecture allows user to manipulate some very large files.

* The recent possibility to use gimp without interface.

This seems almost the same as running it as server.

* The possibility to use it on *nix systems. This is useful for companies using linux farms.

This is already well known and I was hoping people would concentrate on user level features and maybe try and make direct comparisons and give reasons to use the gimp on platforms that also have Photoshop available.

* 64 bits ready !

Based on comments Sven has made I am not sure how much difference it would really make, but again with the source code freely available there is a lot more potential.

Sure, some of the points apply to niche markets. But CYMK is mostly useless for most personal use (web, home printing) and so also relates to some small market share (same for 16bits per channels and floating points).

With the recent take-over of Macromedia by Adobe I took a closer look at Macromedia Fireworks. The gimp makes many things possible but fireworks deliberately focusses on particularly tasks and streamlines the process of creating certain types of graphics.

There is not much a talented artists cannot do with mspaint, what is important is how convenient and easy a program makes it achieve common tasks, at least in my not so humble opinion.

Best regards,

Olivier.

Thanks for the information, sometimes it is all too easy to forget exactly what the strengths of the gimp are.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Hi,

can you use a MIDI input device with Photoshop? If not, we have another feature on our list ;)

Sven

PS: http://gimp.org/unix/howtos/gimp-midi.html

Alan Horkan wrote:

[please trim the subject line in your responses]

Ok. :)

I think most users are frustrated by the gimp and less frustrated by photoshop and the easiest way for them to express that is to make simple comparisons rather than being able to suggest better ways to do things.

Yeah, this makes sense. :)

What can the GNU Image Manipulation Program do that Adobe Photoshop cannot do? Please do tell. I have recently pointed out that the gimp allows you to have files with multiple layers in Indexed Mode and photoshop does not. I would like to be able to expand on this list of things I know the gimp can do better.

I would very sincerely be interested to know other things you can do with the GNU Image manipulation program that cannot be done with other software, particuarly things that cannot be done in Adobe Photoshop.

Some have already posted some features Gimp has PhotoShop doesn't and/or things Gimp does PhotoShop can't do or can't do as well. I haven't spent a lot of time using PhotoShop and I installed a trial version of PhotoShop Elements to check it out. I don't know how elements differs from the "full-blown" version of PhotoShop.

Here are some things I found I couldn't do with PhotoShop Elements and I'm sure someone will correct me if they are possible with the full-blown PhotoShop:

*) Take screenshots. I often take screenshots of Gimp or other apps, if not the desktop. The cool thing about doing it *within* the graphics app is I can immediately scale, resize, or otherwise manipulate the image without having to use one app to take the screenshot and another to do the manipulation.

*) Have a finer granularity of control over sharpening images. With PS Elements, I could keep clicking the "sharpen more" menu option to sharpen the image I had loaded. With Gimp, I can dial-in the precise amount of sharpening I want using the "sharpen" filter. I didn't think to compare the number or types of sharpening filters that came with Gimp vs PS Elements.

*) The ability to perform manipulations on multiple images at once. I was running an effects filter on a rather large image while I had 3 or 4 other images loaded. I'm running on a Pentium II 350MHz machine w/ 256MB of RAM and given my application mix, I had at least double that (if not more) allocated, meaning I was definitely using swap. I'm running on Linux. This one filter was taking its time to run, given the size of the image, and I was able to start other filters and work on the other images while that first filter was running. I was also scanning images while running the filter, etc. I don't know what kind of simultaneous multi-image processing capabilities PS has. I didn't think to try this with PS Elements, unfortunately.

Those are three things I have personal experience with, at least with Gimp. :)

Peace...

Tom

On Wed, 11 May 2005, David Marrs wrote:

Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 19:52:46 +0100 From: David Marrs
To: gimp-user@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: Nobody does it better [was Re: [Gimp-user] when even free advertising fails]

Alan Horkan wrote:

...GNU Image Manipulation Program...

Ah, so I'm not the only one who writes "Cinepaint" on his CV. :) Forget that group layer effect nonsense, the biggest advantage Photoshop has over GIMP is that its name doesn't conjure images of a leather man kept on a leesh with his mouth zippered shut!

Please let's not get into that discussion again. As you can already tell I try and make an effort to use the full name of the GNU Image Manipulation Program and get on with it.

Sven has made it clear that the name will not be changed http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/diary.html?start=144

Even if people did want to change the name the practical difficulties are quite significant. I do not think there is anything new we can say on the subject.

I was deliberately trying to change the subject and talk about the things we do like and take a more optimistic look.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org Abiword http://www.abisource.com