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GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2024 8:53 pm
Post subject: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2024 8:53 pm
Post subject: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/998793/6c8d00bd1b2a7948/

Quote:
Modernized interface

Better workflow, performance, and color management

Layers and file-format improvements


The official website of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) https://www.gimp.org/


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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2024 7:04 am
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2024 7:04 am
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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visualopsins wrote:

Quote:
Modernized interface

Better workflow, performance, and color management

Layers and file-format improvements



I used Blender for years for 3d modelling.
Then someone "modernized" the interface but didnt write a new manual.
Totally impossible to use, I wish I had an old version left.


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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2024 10:36 am
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2024 10:36 am
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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kansalliskala wrote:
visualopsins wrote:

Quote:
Modernized interface

Better workflow, performance, and color management

Layers and file-format improvements



I used Blender for years for 3d modelling.
Then someone "modernized" the interface but didnt write a new manual.
Totally impossible to use, I wish I had an old version left.


I'm not a fan of modern flat UIs; there is so much guessing involved with modern UIs: icons without labels, buttons that look like labels, low contrast labels makes everything look like greyed-out options. Functionality buried deep in far more hidden layers compared to traditional menus, with each layer using its own confusingly different design philosophy. And no manuals. It is the philosophy of learning software by forcing users to 'explore' it. As if I have time for that.

I say bring back skeuomorphism, contrasting colours, text labels, and traditional compact menus with a low layer overhead; that 'outdated mess' was actually far more intuitive to use and significantly more productive for the end user IMO.

But by far the biggest frustration for me are grey-out options (common to both old and new designs UIs). For the love of God, please provide a pop-up tooltip that explains WHY it is greyed out and help the user understand what they need to change in their workflow to enable it! E.g. something as simple as "This option has been disabled because you are working with a 16-bit image; it is only available for 8-bit images". That would save me 20 mins. of head scratching and Googling for an answer...


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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 1:06 am
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 1:06 am
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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RokkorDoctor wrote:
kansalliskala wrote:
visualopsins wrote:

Quote:
Modernized interface

Better workflow, performance, and color management

Layers and file-format improvements



I used Blender for years for 3d modelling.
Then someone "modernized" the interface but didnt write a new manual.
Totally impossible to use, I wish I had an old version left.


I'm not a fan of modern flat UIs; there is so much guessing involved with modern UIs: icons without labels, buttons that look like labels, low contrast labels makes everything look like greyed-out options. Functionality buried deep in far more hidden layers compared to traditional menus, with each layer using its own confusingly different design philosophy. And no manuals. It is the philosophy of learning software by forcing users to 'explore' it. As if I have time for that.

I say bring back skeuomorphism, contrasting colours, text labels, and traditional compact menus with a low layer overhead; that 'outdated mess' was actually far more intuitive to use and significantly more productive for the end user IMO.

But by far the biggest frustration for me are grey-out options (common to both old and new designs UIs). For the love of God, please provide a pop-up tooltip that explains WHY it is greyed out and help the user understand what they need to change in their workflow to enable it! E.g. something as simple as "This option has been disabled because you are working with a 16-bit image; it is only available for 8-bit images". That would save me 20 mins. of head scratching and Googling for an answer...


"What is skeuomorphism?
Skeuomorphism is when something is designed with extra ornamentation to make it resemble another object so it is more familiar. The term is most used in user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) designs to add real-world design cues to virtual objects to make them easier to understand. Adding purely skeuomorphic elements has fallen out of style, but using small real-world design clues to help users can still be good practice."

If it aint broke, why fix it? Why the hell does the tech industry keep going down the road of change for the sake of it? change that is done in the name of 'making it better' but in reality is pointless. For many of us this incessant race to develop and introduce 'newer and better' is actually a step backwards.

I have no problem at all with making something better or faster, new features and capabilities are always a good thing. I'm currently using some of the AI upgracdes in Photoshop and enjoying them. But they are, for me, a slow and difficult learning curve. I have dyscalculia and ADHD, Numbers are pretty much meaningless ( I'm a retired engineer Rolling Eyes ) and I spent my schooldays at the back of the class being ignored by the teachers. I'm 71 and learning is still a slow and difficult process for me, when I got my Sony A7II I spent hours, days, with my wife who read the manual and showed me how to use it. So using something like Photoshop is something I have to learn intuitively, I watch youtube videos and the guy says "alt-shift-f6" and I'me outta there - there's not a chance of me remembering keyboard shortcuts, I don't even remember my own phone number or my wifes birthday, and we've been married 50 years. So I NEED simple and intuitive menus, and I know I'm not alone. I'm using Windows 11 on a newish PC, and I'm seriously thinking of going back to my old Windows 10 machine.

The expectation of IT Developers that everyone is as savvy as they are is a disgrace to the IT industry, I spent 20 min's trying to open 'Paint' earlier today! What the f**k is that all about?


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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 3:26 am
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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 3:26 am
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As a developer I had learned UI best practices by writing and using many many computer programs, while later on my colleagues had learned by reading the multi-volume IBM tome of thousands of pages on UI design and Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming. But then I'd learned programming two decaes earlier when Don was writing his books. My interfaces always followed the non-automated workflow. I was always fascinated by watching non-programmers use the UIs I developed in ways I'd never dreamed.

The Art of Computer Programming https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Programming

IBM Common User Access https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

Unfair to GIMP 3.0 developers before seeing it folks. Smile


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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 8:01 am
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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 8:01 am
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visualopsins wrote:

Unfair to GIMP 3.0 developers before seeing it folks. Smile


tried to install but could nOt make sense how?
(Linux Mint 20.1 64 bit)


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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 11:34 am
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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 11:34 am
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visualopsins wrote:
Unfair to GIMP 3.0 developers before seeing it folks. Smile


Yes, I realised this thread rapidly took a turn for the ranting rather than commenting on GIMP 3.0 after giving it a fair chance Wink

I guess when some of us read "Modernized interface" that was a facepalm moment based on past experience re. "modernized" UI in general.


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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 6:36 pm
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 6:36 pm
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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visualopsins wrote:
GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/998793/6c8d00bd1b2a7948/

Quote:
Modernized interface

Better workflow, performance, and color management

Layers and file-format improvements


The official website of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) https://www.gimp.org/

after 20 years of using GIMP, I can say it always advanced in leaps
From Gimp 1 to 2 it was a giant leap, I want to expect the same form 2 to 3
Even though 2.10 is very nice

PS Downloaded RC1 and interface is fine, feels abotu same, but its a lot faster


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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 11:57 pm
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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2024 11:57 pm
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More info https://www.gimp.org/news/2024/11/06/gimp-3-0-RC1-released/

kansalliskala wrote:
visualopsins wrote:

Unfair to GIMP 3.0 developers before seeing it folks. Smile


tried to install but could nOt make sense how?
(Linux Mint 20.1 64 bit)


Instructions are here https://www.gimp.org/downloads/devel/
(needs flatpak installed) flatpak install -- https://flatpak.org/setup/


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Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2024 2:58 pm
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2024 2:58 pm
Post subject: Re: GIMP 3.0 — a milestone for open-source image editing
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It works fine, faster and does what I need it to do
However, many plugins from 2.10 don't work in 3.0 (I assume this will be fixed soon), especially the Resynthesizer plugins
If you figure out how to make it work it'd be appreciated

titrisol70 wrote:

PS Downloaded RC1 and interface is fine, feels abotu same, but its a lot faster


PS1: Gmic works fine, with a new build but havent yet figures out the resynth plugins


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Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 8:28 am
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Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 8:28 am
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Software engineers tend to go crazy with refactoring and features while leaving UI behind. The only thing gimp has needed for the past decade is a more intuitive UI! I mean, even Photoshop is better and I never considered it a very good UI either. The only thing they need to do is get 100 photoshop users and tell them to do x,y,z tasks and see where they struggle, then fix every single issue they find.


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Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 2:05 pm
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Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 2:05 pm
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naplam wrote:
Software engineers tend to go crazy with refactoring and features while leaving UI behind. The only thing gimp has needed for the past decade is a more intuitive UI! I mean, even Photoshop is better and I never considered it a very good UI either. The only thing they need to do is get 100 photoshop users and tell them to do x,y,z tasks and see where they struggle, then fix every single issue they find.


Sadly this (UI) is a problem with many open source software including raw editors like Darktable, Rawtherapee, and their forks.


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Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 12:08 pm
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Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 12:08 pm
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naplam wrote:
Software engineers tend to go crazy with refactoring and features while leaving UI behind. The only thing gimp has needed for the past decade is a more intuitive UI! I mean, even Photoshop is better and I never considered it a very good UI either. The only thing they need to do is get 100 photoshop users and tell them to do x,y,z tasks and see where they struggle, then fix every single issue they find.


DaveNJ wrote:

Sadly this (UI) is a problem with many open source software including raw editors like Darktable, Rawtherapee, and their forks.


Unfortunately there don't seem to be too many schools of thought as to good UI design. Users often find it difficult to express what they are struggling with. Too few UI designers are trained in interpreting why users are struggling even when they observe them struggle. Thus, all too often UI design is thought up by coders unfamiliar with the target user's profession and task workflows, taking on board only limited feedback from users, just to keep to tight development schedules. Been there, seen it, done it.

Also, developing multiple UIs is costly, hence many desktop programs for the sake of consistency and cost savings now look like they were written for a giant smartphone.

In an ideal world a good UI design should have a switchable look/behaviour such as flat vs. classic, iconographic vs. verbose text, a documented command-line interface option, a workflow arrangement suitable for the tasks to be performed, a suitable design for colour-blind users, dyslexic users, grey-out option remediation tooltips, an index, etc. etc. Then again, in an ideal world the budget for the UI design would far exceed the budget for writing the underlying functional code.


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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 3:12 am
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 3:12 am
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Not sure whether to give it a whirl or wait until bugs have been ironed out and GIMP 3.2 arrives in 2050.
I've been using GIMP 2 of various versions on and off for twenty years, and been reasonably happy with it.

I've been sailing along with Photoshop CS2, believe it or not, for ages and find it quite normal.
Even used CS5 for a while, but after downloading the camera makers' own software with their own raw processors, I'm slightly more inclined to use them. I'm fairly ok with Olympus OMWorks so far, but relatively early days.

Hell, I'm still using the first free version of Capture One that was given out as a promo absolutely yonks ago.

Otoh, there's Darktable and others, so there's no shortage of photo processing software around.

One thing I can't stand and is first thing to get dumped or changed is the insistence on Black background as default with many of these things. Just makes it harder to see and awkward in my experience.


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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 9:39 am
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 9:39 am
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Farside wrote:
Not sure whether to give it a whirl or wait until bugs have been ironed out and GIMP 3.2 arrives in 2050.
I've been using GIMP 2 of various versions on and off for twenty years, and been reasonably happy with it.

I've been sailing along with Photoshop CS2, believe it or not, for ages and find it quite normal.
Even used CS5 for a while, but after downloading the camera makers' own software with their own raw processors, I'm slightly more inclined to use them. I'm fairly ok with Olympus OMWorks so far, but relatively early days.

Hell, I'm still using the first free version of Capture One that was given out as a promo absolutely yonks ago.

Otoh, there's Darktable and others, so there's no shortage of photo processing software around.

One thing I can't stand and is first thing to get dumped or changed is the insistence on Black background as default with many of these things. Just makes it harder to see and awkward in my experience.

I've been on CS6 for ages, but finally decided to give Affinity a try, and TBH I am quite impressed. A permanent license you can install on as many computers as you want (for use by yourself Wink ), at about a 20th of the cost of what a single permanent PS licence would be now (if it existed). There's a few things to learn, but on the whole it feels fairly similar to Photoshop, without all the library management, cloud storage, or AI malarkey.

I may try GIMP at some point, but too many packages means too many different ways of doing things to remember.


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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 12:32 pm
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 12:32 pm
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I finally got fed up with gimp and went through the trouble of copying all the Photoshop CC 2015 files from my laptop and it's now running on Wine here. It was a pain to set up but it works.

The one thing I probably hate the most about Gimp is there's no real blending options like in Photoshop for adding effects like shadow and so on. A must-have when adding text to images and such.

That Affinity software looks good... I might try it. Sensible licensing too!


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Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2025 3:25 pm
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Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2025 3:25 pm
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RC3 is out, https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/02/10/gimp-3-0-RC3-released/

Also a version of resynthesizer for gimp 3
http://gimpchat.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21535

So far is faster than the previous versions and works well


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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2025 10:46 am
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2025 10:46 am
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As a newcomer to Mac, I was looking for something like Lightroom. My old Windows PC was running LR4 and I refused to upgrade to the subscription model.

I may give Gimp a go as I remember seeing the name years ago.


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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2025 3:03 pm
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2025 3:03 pm
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martinsmith99 wrote:
As a newcomer to Mac, I was looking for something like Lightroom. My old Windows PC was running LR4 and I refused to upgrade to the subscription model.

I may give Gimp a go as I remember seeing the name years ago.

The Nik Collection that was made free by Google 10yrs ago still works on the GIMP
you need the new nikgimp plugin though : https://iiey.github.io/nikgimp/


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Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2025 1:22 pm
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Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2025 1:22 pm
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Meh, skip that.

I bought a Macbook on Saturday, but it will not recognise my external drive (no matter what I've tried and downloaded) with my (amongst other things) photos on so returning it later and will look at some Windows laptops instead.


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Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2025 5:27 am
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Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2025 5:27 am
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It (UI) is actually not that different from 2.2xx

Nice that it opens rawtherapee when opening Kodak raw files, and then imports them directly to gimp. But again I am probably one of the 10 people in the world appreciating that. Very Happy


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Posted: Tue May 26, 2026 4:34 pm
Post subject: 3.2.4
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2026 4:34 pm
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Nice update the 3.2 version
3.2.4 is the latest
https://www.gimp.org/news/2026/04/19/gimp-3-2-4-released/
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