Bring out the GIMP
December 22, 2024 6:18 PM Subscribe
A short twenty years after GIMP 2, there is now GIMP 3.
"A Brief (and Ancient) History of GIMP"
Historical GIMP logos
"A Brief (and Ancient) History of GIMP"
Historical GIMP logos
Spencer Kimball is the name I haven't heard in a long time, since it got folded into Ofoto.
posted by clavdivs at 6:22 PM on December 22
posted by clavdivs at 6:22 PM on December 22
I used to work with Spencer! Great guy. These days he's the founder / CEO of Cockroach Labs, a fancy distributed database which is quite neat. Peter Mattis, the other original GIMP author, is also there. Third founder is Ben Darnell, they all worked together at Google.
The original GIMP work was done at Berkeley XCF, an extraordinarily creative computing organization with a lot of impressive projects and people attached.
(The name GIMP makes me wince now because it's an offensive term in other contexts. There's a lot of stupid flamewars about this over the years, I think the project maintainers are committed to the name. There was a serious effort to make a renamed fork called Glimpse but I think that got abandoned.)
posted by Nelson at 6:32 PM on December 22 [8 favorites]
The original GIMP work was done at Berkeley XCF, an extraordinarily creative computing organization with a lot of impressive projects and people attached.
(The name GIMP makes me wince now because it's an offensive term in other contexts. There's a lot of stupid flamewars about this over the years, I think the project maintainers are committed to the name. There was a serious effort to make a renamed fork called Glimpse but I think that got abandoned.)
posted by Nelson at 6:32 PM on December 22 [8 favorites]
Yeah, there are people on social media who are pretty harsh on their use of that word, and I can see where they're coming from. I notice that at least two Linux distros list it in their menus as GNU Image Manipulation Program, but will still bring it up if you start typing in it's acronym.
I don't think anything negative was intended when they named it. It might have been named by a non English speaker who was unaware of it's connotations?
posted by JHarris at 6:38 PM on December 22
I don't think anything negative was intended when they named it. It might have been named by a non English speaker who was unaware of it's connotations?
posted by JHarris at 6:38 PM on December 22
How would that, even if true, grant it some sort of ongoing hall pass?
posted by Earthtopus at 6:42 PM on December 22 [6 favorites]
posted by Earthtopus at 6:42 PM on December 22 [6 favorites]
The name GIMP makes me wince now because it's an offensive term in other contexts
I resolve this by pronouncing it Jimp.
posted by aubilenon at 6:42 PM on December 22 [95 favorites]
I resolve this by pronouncing it Jimp.
posted by aubilenon at 6:42 PM on December 22 [95 favorites]
Reading the history page Lemkin linked (great resource!), it seems it was named by it's creators at Berkeley, so there goes that conjecture.
posted by JHarris at 6:43 PM on December 22 [2 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 6:43 PM on December 22 [2 favorites]
I cannot find a citation for this but I have seen Gimp history pages that say the name was explicitly inspired by the "Gimp" character in Pulp Fiction. They are definitely committed to the name.
posted by egypturnash at 6:53 PM on December 22 [4 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 6:53 PM on December 22 [4 favorites]
Is it actually a significant update or did they just run out of space after releasing 2.99? I read the new features and nothing seemed super significant. If they provided CMYK support finally, that would be something.
posted by rikschell at 7:11 PM on December 22 [2 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 7:11 PM on December 22 [2 favorites]
Oh Jesus, what is sad is that if it weren't for that stupid controversial name, no one would ever talk about it at all. But it's a great graphics app that fulfills a purpose. (For me, lately, that purpose is fanart, haha.) I really couldn't discern much difference between version 2 and 3, except that 3 is buggier. Sometimes however it's difficult for a user to notice or appreciate all the under-the-hood stuff that has to be done to keep an app working.
posted by jabah at 7:19 PM on December 22 [4 favorites]
posted by jabah at 7:19 PM on December 22 [4 favorites]
It helps me avoid using software made by those thieves at Adobe, may they rot in hell forever, so I'm willing to ignore the gross name. I wonder if they ever fixed the awful printing.
posted by surlyben at 7:42 PM on December 22 [11 favorites]
posted by surlyben at 7:42 PM on December 22 [11 favorites]
Still committed to the now-in-2024 offensive name, basically because "we don't care if you don't like it."
Still committed to the even-in-2004 opaque and unfriendly UI, basically because "we don't care if you don't like it."
posted by tclark at 7:58 PM on December 22 [21 favorites]
Still committed to the even-in-2004 opaque and unfriendly UI, basically because "we don't care if you don't like it."
posted by tclark at 7:58 PM on December 22 [21 favorites]
Endlessly in this sort of quantum superposition state of being both unable and entirely able to believe they have stuck with that shitty fucking name. At a certain point it goes from being an own goal to an own municipally subsidized stadium branding.
I used it a bunch in college for the specific appeal: open source alternative to close-source corporate image manipulation software. It wasn't terrible then, though it had the same sort of underbaked UI issues that continue to greater or lesser extent even today in many otherwise-solid non-commercial utilities (I use Inkscape at least weekly, and value it greatly, but feel echoes of the old days of Linux fandom on a regular basis while I do). When I was 19 my reaction was sort of hurr hurr; it's been literal decades since I've looked back on that and been, like, man, what the actual.
posted by cortex at 8:45 PM on December 22 [6 favorites]
I used it a bunch in college for the specific appeal: open source alternative to close-source corporate image manipulation software. It wasn't terrible then, though it had the same sort of underbaked UI issues that continue to greater or lesser extent even today in many otherwise-solid non-commercial utilities (I use Inkscape at least weekly, and value it greatly, but feel echoes of the old days of Linux fandom on a regular basis while I do). When I was 19 my reaction was sort of hurr hurr; it's been literal decades since I've looked back on that and been, like, man, what the actual.
posted by cortex at 8:45 PM on December 22 [6 favorites]
On the other hand, if they changed the name they’d have to grapple with the fact that, no, really, everyone would rather just keep paying Adobe forever.
posted by sinfony at 9:05 PM on December 22 [6 favorites]
posted by sinfony at 9:05 PM on December 22 [6 favorites]
I was hoping this would be a useful discussion of a piece of software millions of us use, instead it rapidly devolved into a metafilter 'naff name moan'. If it's so offensive to so many why is it not banned on metafilter along with lots of other everyday words. Like I can't describe part of my lineage here - another G word. Metaflter is like a secular Gilead some days, all the little angels dancing to perfection.
idgaf what the name is - it's a useful product. Gimp as a word means lots of other things, here it's only an acronym, it's only a term of abuse in some countries, I've never heard it used here.
posted by unearthed at 9:39 PM on December 22 [36 favorites]
idgaf what the name is - it's a useful product. Gimp as a word means lots of other things, here it's only an acronym, it's only a term of abuse in some countries, I've never heard it used here.
posted by unearthed at 9:39 PM on December 22 [36 favorites]
Still committed to the even-in-2004 opaque and unfriendly UI, basically because "we don't care if you don't like it."
For some reason I thought GIMP was related to Gnome (to the point I thought Miguel de Icaza created GIMP). Of course, I *knew* it stood for GNU Image Manipulation Program... But for some reason they're tied together in my mind. I guess because it uses GLib.
Anyways, my point being: Yes, this is very much a GNOME attitude LOL (and ugh I just can't with the new logo/icons/excuse that "everything should be flat").
I haven't read the links yet (and I see GLIMPSE mentioned above) - have they FINALLY unified the window system into a single Application? Have they made the menus more user friendly/typical of the other players? Or is it still "GIMP" as we knew it with just more features/changes under the hood?
posted by symbioid at 9:52 PM on December 22 [1 favorite]
For some reason I thought GIMP was related to Gnome (to the point I thought Miguel de Icaza created GIMP). Of course, I *knew* it stood for GNU Image Manipulation Program... But for some reason they're tied together in my mind. I guess because it uses GLib.
Anyways, my point being: Yes, this is very much a GNOME attitude LOL (and ugh I just can't with the new logo/icons/excuse that "everything should be flat").
I haven't read the links yet (and I see GLIMPSE mentioned above) - have they FINALLY unified the window system into a single Application? Have they made the menus more user friendly/typical of the other players? Or is it still "GIMP" as we knew it with just more features/changes under the hood?
posted by symbioid at 9:52 PM on December 22 [1 favorite]
gimp is related to gnome in the sense that gtk and glib have their origin in the development of gimp (gtk was originally the gimp toolkit). this kind of makes gimp one of the most historically important pieces of linux software, since its development produced the libraries that form the basis of the most widely used linux desktop environment (gnome).
posted by dis_integration at 9:56 PM on December 22 [11 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 9:56 PM on December 22 [11 favorites]
If you're a Windows user looking for a basic Photoshop alternative and have reasons for not wanting to use GIMP, Paint.NET is not quite as robust, but is probably capable enough for most people's needs.
posted by xedrik at 10:35 PM on December 22 [9 favorites]
posted by xedrik at 10:35 PM on December 22 [9 favorites]
Still missing from GIMP
...And as to be expected, there is no AI in GIMP.
this is NOT a missing trait.
Is it actually a significant update or did they just run out of space after releasing 2.99?
the thing that was keeping it on the 2.x version was that it used gtk2 instead of gtk3. switching it to gtk3 is THE major update here and the new features are just extra. (yes, gtk4 is out.)
posted by Clowder of bats at 10:38 PM on December 22 [6 favorites]
...And as to be expected, there is no AI in GIMP.
this is NOT a missing trait.
Is it actually a significant update or did they just run out of space after releasing 2.99?
the thing that was keeping it on the 2.x version was that it used gtk2 instead of gtk3. switching it to gtk3 is THE major update here and the new features are just extra. (yes, gtk4 is out.)
posted by Clowder of bats at 10:38 PM on December 22 [6 favorites]
it Sure Is Something™ that one of the features it is getting at the end of 2024 is "non-destructive editing"
I appreciate the fact that this software exists, but every time I've tried to use it, I've been struck by this feeling that the devs would have preferred if they could have made it CLI-only
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:37 PM on December 22 [8 favorites]
I appreciate the fact that this software exists, but every time I've tried to use it, I've been struck by this feeling that the devs would have preferred if they could have made it CLI-only
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:37 PM on December 22 [8 favorites]
I use GIMP and have also used Photoshop and a few other more bespoke graphics programs.
GIMP has always struck me as a program for editing photos written by people who think writing programs to edit photos is more fun than actually editing photos. That Linux bro "but if its broken you get to fix it!" fixer-upper thing so common to open source stuff where having an actual functioning program that is intuitive to non Linux bros is secondary to Doing a Software Project.
I use it because I'm a poor person and fuck Adobe, and while I've used bootleg PS in the past I'm now in need of actual grownup workflows that don't feature questionable downloads so I endure. There are days I use Paint rather than wrestle with GIMP.
posted by Jilder at 11:59 PM on December 22 [5 favorites]
GIMP has always struck me as a program for editing photos written by people who think writing programs to edit photos is more fun than actually editing photos. That Linux bro "but if its broken you get to fix it!" fixer-upper thing so common to open source stuff where having an actual functioning program that is intuitive to non Linux bros is secondary to Doing a Software Project.
I use it because I'm a poor person and fuck Adobe, and while I've used bootleg PS in the past I'm now in need of actual grownup workflows that don't feature questionable downloads so I endure. There are days I use Paint rather than wrestle with GIMP.
posted by Jilder at 11:59 PM on December 22 [5 favorites]
I appreciate the fact that this software exists, but every time I've tried to use it, I've been struck by this feeling that the devs would have preferred if they could have made it CLI-onlyYou want ImageMagick for that..
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:03 AM on December 23 [16 favorites]
> If it's so offensive to so many why is it not banned on metafilter along with lots of other everyday words. Like I can't describe part of my lineage here - another G word. Metaflter is like a secular Gilead some days, all the little angels dancing to perfection.
There are degrees of offense. At the moment in the US there's the n-word or c-word at one extreme, and at the other there's "idiot" and "dummy" or even milder.
I'm not sure where "gimp" fits on this range exactly but if it sets people off you either try to stop offending people or decide you want to offend people. They've opted for the latter by deciding their riff on a cultural reference that was briefly a meme 30 years ago was their particular hill to die on. "The Gimp" is not a family name or a historical placename.
posted by at by at 1:16 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
There are degrees of offense. At the moment in the US there's the n-word or c-word at one extreme, and at the other there's "idiot" and "dummy" or even milder.
I'm not sure where "gimp" fits on this range exactly but if it sets people off you either try to stop offending people or decide you want to offend people. They've opted for the latter by deciding their riff on a cultural reference that was briefly a meme 30 years ago was their particular hill to die on. "The Gimp" is not a family name or a historical placename.
posted by at by at 1:16 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
The prejudicial attitudes on display in this thread are far more offensive to me than the word GIMP. Linux fans are nerds, their failings are nerd failings not bro failings, but I guess the surprisingly large contingent of trans FOSS nerds either just don't exist, or don't get to choose their gender after all.
If you're going to be cruelly dismissive of an entire demographic, at least do it accurately.
posted by Dysk at 1:27 AM on December 23 [3 favorites]
If you're going to be cruelly dismissive of an entire demographic, at least do it accurately.
posted by Dysk at 1:27 AM on December 23 [3 favorites]
if it sets people off you either try to stop offending people or decide you want to offend people
It's not a slur directed against a real person, it's a somewhat tasteless movie reference, and the reaction seems a lot like "you can't say that!" prudery dressed up in social justice rhetoric.
posted by Slogby at 1:32 AM on December 23 [8 favorites]
It's not a slur directed against a real person, it's a somewhat tasteless movie reference, and the reaction seems a lot like "you can't say that!" prudery dressed up in social justice rhetoric.
posted by Slogby at 1:32 AM on December 23 [8 favorites]
I stand my use of Linux bro. Not all nerds are Linux bros, and not all of Linux devs are Linux bros. I've met plenty of Linux nerds who are enthusiastically evangelical about whatever open source hijinx they're up to, and most of the actually use the software they're developing - it leads to bloating and feature creep at times, but there's signs at least the people on the dev team want a tool they can use. I get the impression a lot of the GIMP team don't even do much by way of graphic design - the lack of basic shape tools and the absolute dumpster fire of how it handles text are big indicators of that for me. It's a very specific 'we don't care if our product sucks, it's a you problem, we don't even care of you don't get it'. It's the same impetus that had them call it GIMP in the first place.
posted by Jilder at 1:47 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Jilder at 1:47 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
Round of applause for the GIMP team, looking forward to the new icons TBH, and continuing to get used to this smashing bit of software.
posted by bookbook at 2:55 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
posted by bookbook at 2:55 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
the lack of basic shape tools
GIMP lacks basic shape tools because that forces you to learn paths and stroking to make shapes, and once you learn that you are unstoppable...
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 3:01 AM on December 23
GIMP lacks basic shape tools because that forces you to learn paths and stroking to make shapes, and once you learn that you are unstoppable...
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 3:01 AM on December 23
I got onto GIMP and Inkscape when I decided that I couldn't justify the cost of the Adobe stuff at home, but also didn't want the hassle and moral quicksand of pirating them. (Why steal something when suitable alternatives are available for free?) I am not a heavy daily user, but I find they do the job well, once you are comfortable with them.
I do use paint.net more often for quick touchups or graphics. And Imagemagick for batch jobs.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:14 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
I do use paint.net more often for quick touchups or graphics. And Imagemagick for batch jobs.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:14 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
I resolve this by pronouncing it Jimp.
That’ll get you twenty years in the isocubes.
posted by tinlids at 3:17 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
That’ll get you twenty years in the isocubes.
posted by tinlids at 3:17 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
"Even with a kludgy interface and slower productivity than Photoshop, GIMP is still worth a bit of your attention. It is vastly capable, and can save you from buying an annual subscription to PS." - 6 out of 10
I've been assigned the loadout of a hand me down Windows PC and while the plan is to go to various websites and DL dia, GIMP, OpenOffice, gnuplot, and other things I'm gonna ask here if someone has made that a Git repo someplace so my search part of this process is simplified. A "poor" tool is better than none at all if the "poor" tool accomplishes the task. Harbor Freight works as a business for a reason.
How would that, even if true, grant it some sort of ongoing hall pass?
Some people will complain something is offensive about almost anything. 2-3 years ago someone was ranting about how air conditioners are racist.
When I 1st heard the name for the software my reaction was 'not the name I would have picked', shrugged my shoulders and moved on.
Jacklegs gonna jack and this is why Hawaiian print shirts, the OK sign, and a cartoon frog now have new meanings attached. In those cases the items had new meanings attached.
Gimp goes back to the 15th/16th century. The way I heard it before 1994 was as a way to describe a hurt body appendage. (considered an offensive usage if one hears that version these days)
If one wants to make a name change go and fork the project with the name change. Be sure to also clean up the offensive variable names and even the names of things in the program.* Stroke selection as an example of maleness and support of the patriarchy. Grow/Shrink should not be as big of a problem with the introduction of GLP1 drugs casing the healthy at any size movement to be less of a cultural influence so that might not need to be renamed. But masking is offensive to neurodivergent so that's gonna need to change. Transparency is obviously offensive to people in government so if you want the renamed project to be acceptable as a DOGE authorized replacement that best get changed. Script-fu is no doubt perpetuating Asian stereotyping so that also needs to change. Having a project exist to remove offensive language will be very rewarding and no doubt everyone involved will be happy with no pay AND getting demands for changes because of the lived experience of the offended.
That's a beautiful part of Open Source - if you don't like a feature/lack of a feature you can go an do that. Step up or Step off as the old folks say.
*Source code is considered speech so yup, best clean that up.
posted by rough ashlar at 3:41 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
I've been assigned the loadout of a hand me down Windows PC and while the plan is to go to various websites and DL dia, GIMP, OpenOffice, gnuplot, and other things I'm gonna ask here if someone has made that a Git repo someplace so my search part of this process is simplified. A "poor" tool is better than none at all if the "poor" tool accomplishes the task. Harbor Freight works as a business for a reason.
How would that, even if true, grant it some sort of ongoing hall pass?
Some people will complain something is offensive about almost anything. 2-3 years ago someone was ranting about how air conditioners are racist.
When I 1st heard the name for the software my reaction was 'not the name I would have picked', shrugged my shoulders and moved on.
Jacklegs gonna jack and this is why Hawaiian print shirts, the OK sign, and a cartoon frog now have new meanings attached. In those cases the items had new meanings attached.
Gimp goes back to the 15th/16th century. The way I heard it before 1994 was as a way to describe a hurt body appendage. (considered an offensive usage if one hears that version these days)
If one wants to make a name change go and fork the project with the name change. Be sure to also clean up the offensive variable names and even the names of things in the program.* Stroke selection as an example of maleness and support of the patriarchy. Grow/Shrink should not be as big of a problem with the introduction of GLP1 drugs casing the healthy at any size movement to be less of a cultural influence so that might not need to be renamed. But masking is offensive to neurodivergent so that's gonna need to change. Transparency is obviously offensive to people in government so if you want the renamed project to be acceptable as a DOGE authorized replacement that best get changed. Script-fu is no doubt perpetuating Asian stereotyping so that also needs to change. Having a project exist to remove offensive language will be very rewarding and no doubt everyone involved will be happy with no pay AND getting demands for changes because of the lived experience of the offended.
That's a beautiful part of Open Source - if you don't like a feature/lack of a feature you can go an do that. Step up or Step off as the old folks say.
*Source code is considered speech so yup, best clean that up.
posted by rough ashlar at 3:41 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
Software users are always at the mercy of developers but I'd rather depend on dilettante hobbyists than exploitative corporations. The pro level stuff is just as prone to bloat but you also have to worry that they will remove useful features to monetize them separately.
posted by rikschell at 4:21 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 4:21 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
(i always like to recommend affinity photo for those people who are too poor for photoshop but need more power than paint.net but can't bear the gimp interface but are too lazy to figure out if krita is an actual thing)
posted by mittens at 4:29 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
posted by mittens at 4:29 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
> it Sure Is Something™ that one of the features it is getting at the end of 2024 is "non-destructive editing"
I was curious what this meant, since of course it always has supported undo (ctrl-z) of changes you make to the image. Turns out it's the ability to have a stack of filters on an image, and the settings of the filters can be changed, the filters reordered, etc. So like layers but for filters. (Or, to this command-line afficianado, it's like version control, but for filters.) Neat.
posted by joeyh at 4:36 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
I was curious what this meant, since of course it always has supported undo (ctrl-z) of changes you make to the image. Turns out it's the ability to have a stack of filters on an image, and the settings of the filters can be changed, the filters reordered, etc. So like layers but for filters. (Or, to this command-line afficianado, it's like version control, but for filters.) Neat.
posted by joeyh at 4:36 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
For regular folks at home and random small-scale professionals, GIMP is pretty awesome. My sense is that if you had to organize a team of people to manage pipelines of tasks on a regular basis, you'd probably be a larger shop and end up paying the Adobe tax anyway.
posted by gimonca at 4:38 AM on December 23
posted by gimonca at 4:38 AM on December 23
Affinity Photo is so much better. Just pay once for a license and then never struggle with a UI designed by a Linux person again.
posted by codacorolla at 4:43 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 4:43 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
GIMP provides top-notch color management features to ensure high-fidelity color reproduction across digital and printed media.
I’d be very curious to know if by “printed media” they’re claiming the app now natively supports a professional, fully color-managed, CMYK workflow? The last time I even glanced at this, CMYK was more of a “maybe someday but probably nah” thing.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:53 AM on December 23 [4 favorites]
I’d be very curious to know if by “printed media” they’re claiming the app now natively supports a professional, fully color-managed, CMYK workflow? The last time I even glanced at this, CMYK was more of a “maybe someday but probably nah” thing.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:53 AM on December 23 [4 favorites]
so I'm willing to ignore the gross name
I think this expresses my feelings about GIMP quite well. I used to be such a Photoshop fan. Around the time GIMP 1.0 came out, I had a co-worker urge me to try it as an alternative. Mind you, he also suggested I switch to LINUX and use LaTeX. GIMP seemed like the lowest-hanging fruit for me.
It was a good choice. The learning curve was steep to switch, but once I did, there was no looking back. And the whole time, I knew I had stopped supporting the monstrosity that was Adobe.
So yes, both are true: GIMP is fantastic software, and I really wish they'd change the name. Insensitive choice on the part of the developers; as usual, compassion is the key. When you hear people are hurt by what you do, listen. But if you haven't tried switching from Photoshop, do. It's worth it, name and all.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 4:57 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
I think this expresses my feelings about GIMP quite well. I used to be such a Photoshop fan. Around the time GIMP 1.0 came out, I had a co-worker urge me to try it as an alternative. Mind you, he also suggested I switch to LINUX and use LaTeX. GIMP seemed like the lowest-hanging fruit for me.
It was a good choice. The learning curve was steep to switch, but once I did, there was no looking back. And the whole time, I knew I had stopped supporting the monstrosity that was Adobe.
So yes, both are true: GIMP is fantastic software, and I really wish they'd change the name. Insensitive choice on the part of the developers; as usual, compassion is the key. When you hear people are hurt by what you do, listen. But if you haven't tried switching from Photoshop, do. It's worth it, name and all.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 4:57 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
I find it much less impressive than Photopea, to be honest - like, Photopea's pretty good, and that was written by one person (although maybe it's become a business at this point; anyway, someone cloned Photoshop in the browser just to see if they could). GIMP has been around for ages, and its user interface and experience still absolutely sucks, and they could have fixed it at any time but simply didn't. Photopea demonstrates that what GIMP did was impressive 20 years ago but now isn't nearly as hard; it makes the deficiencies in the project all the more glaring.
posted by Merus at 5:18 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
posted by Merus at 5:18 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
Per the logo history link above, the logo mascot's name is Wilber. That could be a name that keeps an association with the existing program, while giving it a different 'face'.
I did a search on 'negative associations Wilber' and the leading links call out a group of unpopular insurance lawyers. So there's probably a downside to any name.
posted by rochrobbb at 5:23 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]
I did a search on 'negative associations Wilber' and the leading links call out a group of unpopular insurance lawyers. So there's probably a downside to any name.
posted by rochrobbb at 5:23 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]
The name is kind of an encapsulation of a certain type of nerd who doesn't like change. Yes, this was funny in your youth. Yes, the world has moved on. You can move on with it! You're welcome to come along! But no. I feel like the UI reflects this, too.
One of the ways in which the world has moved on is Krita, which was created in the 21st century and feels like it. 90% of the things I'd used Gimp for I can do in Krita instead. There's even an Android version in beta. There's a niche for Gimp, but I find I'm using it less and less.
posted by phooky at 5:33 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
One of the ways in which the world has moved on is Krita, which was created in the 21st century and feels like it. 90% of the things I'd used Gimp for I can do in Krita instead. There's even an Android version in beta. There's a niche for Gimp, but I find I'm using it less and less.
posted by phooky at 5:33 AM on December 23 [7 favorites]
Stroke selection as an example of maleness and support of the patriarchy. Grow/Shrink should not be as big of a problem with the introduction of GLP1 drugs casing the healthy at any size movement to be less of a cultural influence so that might not need to be renamed. But masking is offensive to neurodivergent so that's gonna need to change. Transparency is obviously offensive to people in government so if you want the renamed project to be acceptable as a DOGE authorized replacement that best get changed. Script-fu is no doubt perpetuating Asian stereotyping so that also needs to change.
We're really doing this?
posted by box at 5:44 AM on December 23 [14 favorites]
We're really doing this?
posted by box at 5:44 AM on December 23 [14 favorites]
Krita absolutely is better than the GNU IMP (see how easy that was?).
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 6:17 AM on December 23 [3 favorites]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 6:17 AM on December 23 [3 favorites]
You want ImageMagick for that..
Because of Erwin's messed up ideas about exporting diagrams, I end up saving an emf file, then going into powershell and running magick to convert it to a pdf.
posted by mikelieman at 6:18 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]
Because of Erwin's messed up ideas about exporting diagrams, I end up saving an emf file, then going into powershell and running magick to convert it to a pdf.
posted by mikelieman at 6:18 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]
Not being one of the people to whom The Name would have been addressed as an instrument of hurt, I can’t speak to its level of offensiveness. Have disability rights groups protested it the way indigenous rights groups protested the old sports team names? (That’s not a rhetorical question and it is not some bar needing to be cleared. I’m genuinely curious.)
If you think the word should be banned from the site, I trust you’ve already flagged the post. If you refuse to use the software because of the name, you can fork it and call it something better. If you think the project tainted down to the very code, there are other non-Adobe alternatives.
I would argue that giving money to Adobe is underwriting more real-world evil than giving no-money to GIMP to use its software. And that refusing to give no-money to GIMP is a very slow road to the revolution.
posted by Lemkin at 6:27 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]
If you think the word should be banned from the site, I trust you’ve already flagged the post. If you refuse to use the software because of the name, you can fork it and call it something better. If you think the project tainted down to the very code, there are other non-Adobe alternatives.
I would argue that giving money to Adobe is underwriting more real-world evil than giving no-money to GIMP to use its software. And that refusing to give no-money to GIMP is a very slow road to the revolution.
posted by Lemkin at 6:27 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]
TIL the other one is pluralized: The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search is GIMPS.
posted by phrits at 6:33 AM on December 23
posted by phrits at 6:33 AM on December 23
The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
Does Paul Hollywood give you a handshake if you find one?
posted by Lemkin at 6:45 AM on December 23
Does Paul Hollywood give you a handshake if you find one?
posted by Lemkin at 6:45 AM on December 23
You want ImageMagick for that..
You really want vips for that . It even has a spreadsheet to edit images, which is also getting an update.
( i do like vips as it can handle very large images with ease that imageMagick chokes on )
posted by stuartmm at 8:04 AM on December 23 [3 favorites]
You really want vips for that . It even has a spreadsheet to edit images, which is also getting an update.
( i do like vips as it can handle very large images with ease that imageMagick chokes on )
posted by stuartmm at 8:04 AM on December 23 [3 favorites]
Lemkin, I don’t know about disability rights groups in particular but this article describes some of the problems that have come up because of the name.
posted by Songdog at 8:06 AM on December 23 [3 favorites]
posted by Songdog at 8:06 AM on December 23 [3 favorites]
No one is obligated to care about who might be hurt — or just put off — by their use of language. But I’m glad when people do care, when they listen and learn and decide that it matters. Doubling down is so disappointing.
posted by Songdog at 8:16 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
posted by Songdog at 8:16 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
It's not a slur directed against a real person, it's a somewhat tasteless movie reference
It's a tasteless movie reference borrowing from directly from by-then-already-skunked slang for disabled people. The problem with the name isn't that it's a Tarantino reference. The name doesn't make it not a useful piece of software—again, I used it a bunch years back, specifically because it was a useful open source alternative to commercial editing software—but it being a useful piece of software with a long legacy is what makes it that much grosser that they've stuck with a knowingly offensive name.
That doesn't mean you can't post about it, or that the name should be banned from public use, or any other hypothetical hardline reaction beyond people being justifiably critical of the shitty name. But there's having a moment of bad taste, and then there's having decades of doubling down on that bad taste, and when a team spends decades intentionally defending and repeating a shitty decision that becomes pretty inescapably part of the brand.
And that sucks because it has nothing to do with the software. This isn't some edgelord project that is about being shitty for the sake of shittiness, it's just...an outright refusal to stop being casually, constantly shitty about a name. It's like serving a nice meal with a dollop of shit on the plate as your signature culinary flourish. I'd love to not have the first thing I do whenever it comes up be to wince and start wondering all over again what the fuck they're thinking, but here we are.
posted by cortex at 8:28 AM on December 23 [16 favorites]
It's a tasteless movie reference borrowing from directly from by-then-already-skunked slang for disabled people. The problem with the name isn't that it's a Tarantino reference. The name doesn't make it not a useful piece of software—again, I used it a bunch years back, specifically because it was a useful open source alternative to commercial editing software—but it being a useful piece of software with a long legacy is what makes it that much grosser that they've stuck with a knowingly offensive name.
That doesn't mean you can't post about it, or that the name should be banned from public use, or any other hypothetical hardline reaction beyond people being justifiably critical of the shitty name. But there's having a moment of bad taste, and then there's having decades of doubling down on that bad taste, and when a team spends decades intentionally defending and repeating a shitty decision that becomes pretty inescapably part of the brand.
And that sucks because it has nothing to do with the software. This isn't some edgelord project that is about being shitty for the sake of shittiness, it's just...an outright refusal to stop being casually, constantly shitty about a name. It's like serving a nice meal with a dollop of shit on the plate as your signature culinary flourish. I'd love to not have the first thing I do whenever it comes up be to wince and start wondering all over again what the fuck they're thinking, but here we are.
posted by cortex at 8:28 AM on December 23 [16 favorites]
For me, "the Gimp" is the tasteless usage, whereas "GIMP" is just what it is - an acronym, like NASA.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:43 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Artful Codger at 8:43 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
I would argue that giving money to Adobe is underwriting more real-world evil than giving no-money to GIMP to use its software. And that refusing to give no-money to GIMP is a very slow road to the revolution.
And I would argue that we have decades of evidence that pointlessly hostile open source software design fails to achieve any significant goal. This particular pile of unusable dogshit software with an asshole name is in fact one of the finest examples of this phenomenon.
posted by sinfony at 8:50 AM on December 23 [9 favorites]
And I would argue that we have decades of evidence that pointlessly hostile open source software design fails to achieve any significant goal. This particular pile of unusable dogshit software with an asshole name is in fact one of the finest examples of this phenomenon.
posted by sinfony at 8:50 AM on December 23 [9 favorites]
It's useful to place GIMP in the context of Linux GUI software. Open source GUIs have historically always been awful and strange. And when GIMP was first released in 1998 the situation was even more dire. They literally had to write their own Graphics ToolKit library for it, widgets for things like buttons and scrollbars. Others existed (Andrew, Motif, etc) but they were ugly and had bad UIs and code cruft.
GTK ended up being hugely influential, it's still one of the leading graphics libraries for Linux GUI software. It looks pretty good and is similar enough to how Macs and Windows UI libraries work that ordinary people can mostly figure out GTK programs.
Usability of GIMP is awkward around the edges. When it started they cloned a lot of essential Photoshop features that were not in any other open source software, it was hugely innovative. But it's been 26 years now as various people's side projects and it shows.
One other element of GIMP that was very influential was its plugin ecosystem. It was easy to extend the editor with your own code and they had an easy way to download and install plugins. I guess that fell by the wayside, the registry site seems to have gone offline in 2017. I don't know, is it now easy to find and install plugins from inside the GIMP software?
I'd offer more details but honestly I haven't even run GIMP in years. I'm talking about GIMP's innovations in the past tense because that's what it is for me, I can't even bother to download this 3.0 version to try it. I mostly use Photo.net for image editing. If I'm being honest, Google Photos' retouching is good enough for most of what I do despite being woefully inadequate in so many ways. I do not miss the old days of manual levels adjustment and unsharp masks.
posted by Nelson at 9:11 AM on December 23 [4 favorites]
GTK ended up being hugely influential, it's still one of the leading graphics libraries for Linux GUI software. It looks pretty good and is similar enough to how Macs and Windows UI libraries work that ordinary people can mostly figure out GTK programs.
Usability of GIMP is awkward around the edges. When it started they cloned a lot of essential Photoshop features that were not in any other open source software, it was hugely innovative. But it's been 26 years now as various people's side projects and it shows.
One other element of GIMP that was very influential was its plugin ecosystem. It was easy to extend the editor with your own code and they had an easy way to download and install plugins. I guess that fell by the wayside, the registry site seems to have gone offline in 2017. I don't know, is it now easy to find and install plugins from inside the GIMP software?
I'd offer more details but honestly I haven't even run GIMP in years. I'm talking about GIMP's innovations in the past tense because that's what it is for me, I can't even bother to download this 3.0 version to try it. I mostly use Photo.net for image editing. If I'm being honest, Google Photos' retouching is good enough for most of what I do despite being woefully inadequate in so many ways. I do not miss the old days of manual levels adjustment and unsharp masks.
posted by Nelson at 9:11 AM on December 23 [4 favorites]
→
Nah, it will always be netpbm for me. Yes, it's still managed by the Wikipedia “Comprised Of” guy. But if you want to move from obscure image formats to less obscure ones, netpbm has you covered. It kind of irks me that ImageMagick (who are about to deprecate all their display/convert/animate/mogrify commands, dammit) does a better job of converting MacPaint files, though.
I use - and quite enjoy - the open-source graphics package with the unfortunate name. It runs on the OSs I like, and if there's a choice between two graphics packages with horrid, over-complicated UIs, I'll go with the free one every time. I got sat in front of PhotoShop once and noped out hard at the blecchness.
posted by scruss at 9:18 AM on December 23 [4 favorites]
You want ImageMagick for that
Nah, it will always be netpbm for me. Yes, it's still managed by the Wikipedia “Comprised Of” guy. But if you want to move from obscure image formats to less obscure ones, netpbm has you covered. It kind of irks me that ImageMagick (who are about to deprecate all their display/convert/animate/mogrify commands, dammit) does a better job of converting MacPaint files, though.
I use - and quite enjoy - the open-source graphics package with the unfortunate name. It runs on the OSs I like, and if there's a choice between two graphics packages with horrid, over-complicated UIs, I'll go with the free one every time. I got sat in front of PhotoShop once and noped out hard at the blecchness.
posted by scruss at 9:18 AM on December 23 [4 favorites]
pointlessly hostile open source software design
Just for the record: Is GIMP’s interface bad (everyone seems to be in agreement that it sucks) because it doesn’t conform with Adobe’s as the industry standard or is it bad in some independent Platonic sense?
posted by Lemkin at 9:20 AM on December 23
Just for the record: Is GIMP’s interface bad (everyone seems to be in agreement that it sucks) because it doesn’t conform with Adobe’s as the industry standard or is it bad in some independent Platonic sense?
posted by Lemkin at 9:20 AM on December 23
The name has always been a shrug for me, but I've always hated the icon! On a more positive note I've used GIMP as a graphic designer (yes for real work also) on and off for years when I didn't have regular access to Photoshop, i.e. when I was too poor to afford CC and when I didn't need CMYK or could finish the work on someone else's Photoshop or something. It has been a lifesaver and also given me a lot of grief but as someone who is quite used to using it I find it slowing me down somewhat but not hugely so. Depending on what I'm doing. The window management on OS X and later macOS was / has been quite frustratingly shit and I sometimes have trouble with it not remembering settings like show layer edges and stuff. But for mostly display graphics and general photo or scan retouch etc it has been quite allright for a long while. (Nowadays for some strange reason even though I don't have an active Adobe CC subscription, Photoshop works on my M1 Mac Mini. Don't tell anyone!)
posted by fridgebuzz at 9:39 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
posted by fridgebuzz at 9:39 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
Just for the record: Is GIMP’s interface bad (everyone seems to be in agreement that it sucks) because it doesn’t conform with Adobe’s as the industry standard or is it bad in some independent Platonic sense?
I have been a dedicated Linux-on-the-desktop nerd/snob dating back to before 2000. GIMP has been my primary image manipulation program for the entirety of that time. Its interface is really bad. Platonically, romantically, any way you cut it. Indispensable, yes. But my heart sinks whenever I have to do something with it.
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:41 AM on December 23 [9 favorites]
I have been a dedicated Linux-on-the-desktop nerd/snob dating back to before 2000. GIMP has been my primary image manipulation program for the entirety of that time. Its interface is really bad. Platonically, romantically, any way you cut it. Indispensable, yes. But my heart sinks whenever I have to do something with it.
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:41 AM on December 23 [9 favorites]
Just for the record: Is GIMP’s interface bad (everyone seems to be in agreement that it sucks) because it doesn’t conform with Adobe’s as the industry standard or is it bad in some independent Platonic sense?
I.. don't know what independent Platonic sense means but the interface has had (at least on OS X / macOS) problems with mouse/keyboard focus. As I posted, I've been using both Photoshop and GIMP both in professional context and not, and the consensus seems to be that Photoshop is just a little bit better thought out and works smoother, which kinda makes sense.
posted by fridgebuzz at 9:43 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
I.. don't know what independent Platonic sense means but the interface has had (at least on OS X / macOS) problems with mouse/keyboard focus. As I posted, I've been using both Photoshop and GIMP both in professional context and not, and the consensus seems to be that Photoshop is just a little bit better thought out and works smoother, which kinda makes sense.
posted by fridgebuzz at 9:43 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
→
I've been using it at least as long (and mourn some script-fu plugins than never made it out of 1.x) and it's … a UI for a complex program. It does the job. You learn where everything is, and live with it
posted by scruss at 9:51 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
Its interface is really bad
I've been using it at least as long (and mourn some script-fu plugins than never made it out of 1.x) and it's … a UI for a complex program. It does the job. You learn where everything is, and live with it
posted by scruss at 9:51 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
Lot of people with meta-axes to grind about how no one gets to give them negative feedback about how to choose they express themselves. The suggestion of "just fork your own" that warns how tedious it would be to remove the concept from all the places it exists within the project does a good job of demonstrating the depth of the recalcitrance involved. Manipulating text files has not gotten substantially harder over time, unless I'm badly mistaken.
posted by Earthtopus at 9:52 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]
posted by Earthtopus at 9:52 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]
Not being one of the people to whom The Name would have been addressed as an instrument of hurt, I can’t speak to its level of offensiveness. Have disability rights groups protested it the way indigenous rights groups protested the old sports team names? (That’s not a rhetorical question and it is not some bar needing to be cleared. I’m genuinely curious.)
A question I have, too. Given the timeline -- how long ago that was a word in widespread use as derogatory -- I would expect the activism to be a while back. When I searched casually on this, from 1950-1980 in Google Books, I found a blend of mentions of the derogatory term and the embroidery/crafts use. Too much later than that, of course, the waters are muddied by Pulp Fiction and the debut of the software. (I did try the 80s, too, but no appreciable difference.)
My sense has always been more or less what Slogby said, though historically the word was obviously not complimentary. These days, given the persistent use of words like "deaf" and "cripple" by reclaiming activists, people who never changed their language, and those who feel the words are more accurate than the most common alternate terms, I expect to see "gimp" appearing in reclaimed version. I'd be interested to read articles and the like, if any disabled folks or disability studies scholars among us have recommendations to share.
As to the software, I use it and am interested to see this version, though Paint.NET does the trick for most of what I need that Paint doesn't do. I tend to use various apps and programs for art making or photography that seem more tailor-made for those purposes.
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:56 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
A question I have, too. Given the timeline -- how long ago that was a word in widespread use as derogatory -- I would expect the activism to be a while back. When I searched casually on this, from 1950-1980 in Google Books, I found a blend of mentions of the derogatory term and the embroidery/crafts use. Too much later than that, of course, the waters are muddied by Pulp Fiction and the debut of the software. (I did try the 80s, too, but no appreciable difference.)
My sense has always been more or less what Slogby said, though historically the word was obviously not complimentary. These days, given the persistent use of words like "deaf" and "cripple" by reclaiming activists, people who never changed their language, and those who feel the words are more accurate than the most common alternate terms, I expect to see "gimp" appearing in reclaimed version. I'd be interested to read articles and the like, if any disabled folks or disability studies scholars among us have recommendations to share.
As to the software, I use it and am interested to see this version, though Paint.NET does the trick for most of what I need that Paint doesn't do. I tend to use various apps and programs for art making or photography that seem more tailor-made for those purposes.
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:56 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
I contend that almost all open source software has bad GUIs. I think it's because building good GUIs is hard, and iterative, and requires being open to listening to the needs of others. Of testing your product and taking feedback and doing what they say. This discipline is not a strength of open source development.
But it's not all dire. I use two other open source GUI programs regularly that are the complexity of GIMP. Inkscape, the free alternative for Illustrator. And QGIS, the free alternative to ArcGIS. Both used to be awful. But these days they're both pretty good. I think the floor for GUIs has improved a lot, particularly since we have web sites and webapps as a baseline.
posted by Nelson at 10:56 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
But it's not all dire. I use two other open source GUI programs regularly that are the complexity of GIMP. Inkscape, the free alternative for Illustrator. And QGIS, the free alternative to ArcGIS. Both used to be awful. But these days they're both pretty good. I think the floor for GUIs has improved a lot, particularly since we have web sites and webapps as a baseline.
posted by Nelson at 10:56 AM on December 23 [6 favorites]
Commercial software has bad UIs too. Microsoft has stuck doggedly by its Ribbon interface to Office despite widespread complaints, and now no one hardly mentions it anymore. I think people only accept Photoshop's interface because it's now industry standard. UI is something it's easy to hate and difficult to love, because unless it's brilliant and obvious it has to be learned, and that's always challenging.
I suggest that it's not helpful to just wave hands and say "bad UI!", as if everyone knows it and is obvious, but instead, to give concrete examples of what you don't like.
posted by JHarris at 11:22 AM on December 23 [5 favorites]
I suggest that it's not helpful to just wave hands and say "bad UI!", as if everyone knows it and is obvious, but instead, to give concrete examples of what you don't like.
posted by JHarris at 11:22 AM on December 23 [5 favorites]
I'm a little surprised that the major focus of this conversation has been the name (bad, I agree, but also "whats in a name?") and the ui (every one for every product almost always sucks until you get used to it, and then nothing else could possibly be better if only because now that you've spent the time to learn it it's what you will continue to want) and just a few plaintive voices have been asking "what about CMYK?"
posted by Reverend John at 11:29 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Reverend John at 11:29 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]
Re GIMP, it took me a little while to figure out its conventions for doc windows and tool windows, and the differences from Photoshop. Like PS it's pretty deep, therefore a bit daunting to the photo-editing noob. I'm not a power user or in printing/publishing, I was mainly doing image prep and editing for online, and some light creative things. I found that I could do 90+% of the things I was used to doing in PS, and could figure out the differences, or find a workaround for the rest.
That being said, I still open paint.net first because it's sufficient and faster for many simple things.
On the whole name thing... a major version change often signals big changes... it would be the ideal time/excuse for a name change, if only to get it through the door with more schools and govt, and to put the name debate behind them.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:07 PM on December 23 [4 favorites]
That being said, I still open paint.net first because it's sufficient and faster for many simple things.
On the whole name thing... a major version change often signals big changes... it would be the ideal time/excuse for a name change, if only to get it through the door with more schools and govt, and to put the name debate behind them.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:07 PM on December 23 [4 favorites]
The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal.: GIMP lacks basic shape tools because that forces you to learn paths and stroking to make shapes
Yeah, no. I dislike being forced by software to learn a specific thing. I'll learn at my own speed and chosen moment, thank you very much. I do consider the lack of basic shape tools to be a flaw.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:11 PM on December 23 [5 favorites]
Yeah, no. I dislike being forced by software to learn a specific thing. I'll learn at my own speed and chosen moment, thank you very much. I do consider the lack of basic shape tools to be a flaw.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:11 PM on December 23 [5 favorites]
The devs made a conscious decision to pursue general use rather than the print market, but there is the Separation and Separation+ plugins.
In addition to the lack of shape tools, something that's bothered me is that, if you Save As a format, but it doesn't end with the Gimp file extension, it'll _scold_ you, and tell you what you needed to choose is Export As. It obviously knows what you want to know, but instead of just doing it, it tells you what you should have done, and leaves it to you to cancel out and pick the right option. That has gotten me many times now. Argh!
posted by JHarris at 12:19 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
In addition to the lack of shape tools, something that's bothered me is that, if you Save As a format, but it doesn't end with the Gimp file extension, it'll _scold_ you, and tell you what you needed to choose is Export As. It obviously knows what you want to know, but instead of just doing it, it tells you what you should have done, and leaves it to you to cancel out and pick the right option. That has gotten me many times now. Argh!
posted by JHarris at 12:19 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
So I wanted to try this paint.net thing that people are going on about. And I find its Windows-only. So I guess I'm not
posted by scruss at 2:11 PM on December 23 [4 favorites]
posted by scruss at 2:11 PM on December 23 [4 favorites]
If being a word used in a Tarantino film somehow makes it "not a slur" then wowee do I have a banger of a counterexample...
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:30 PM on December 23 [6 favorites]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:30 PM on December 23 [6 favorites]
I’m not a Linux nerd, or any kind of programmer. I’m an art guy and I just want to make art. Bonus points if I can avoid Adobe doing it. The view that they need to make an art creation program difficult for those of us who just want to make art seems silly and non productive. Whatev’s, I’ve still put on my old Mac. However, I’ll most likely continue to use the photoshop that my work pays for, and maybe even make use of the AI bullshit that mostly Isn’t useful to me. Thanks for making an alternative. My gf says this one is the shit.
posted by evilDoug at 2:52 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
posted by evilDoug at 2:52 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
For the record, I too will endorse the Affinity suite for getting Actual Work done, especially since it's a buy-once-per-major-version business model (and "you pay money for it in exchange for their maintenance work" is a great way to ensure that a mission-critical tool remains maintained and kept up to date). It's not 100% Photoshop-compatible, which can be a bummer if you're doing in-industry work that does require 100% compatibility (I have similar woes with my own day job workflow, which does actually require using Actual Microsoft Word because no alternative has implemented change tracking within tables yet), but depending on your needs, the Affinity suite can be very powerful and worth your while. The UI is perhaps a bit overwhelming, but it at least seems to have been, like… designed a certain way, on purpose, unlike how I would describe the GIMP. And of course, being intended for professional use, it does have native CMYK support.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:33 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:33 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
The printing implementation is probably the worst, straight out of 90s Linux when you couldn't take a functioning printing subsystem that would accept pipes from other programs for granted. That explains why it was so ugly back then, but now? When even hobbyist operating systems like Haiku have functioning printing subsystems? Yuck.
posted by 1adam12 at 4:52 PM on December 23 [2 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 4:52 PM on December 23 [2 favorites]
I think it's possible to get Paint.Net to work under WINE, but it requires a special version of Mono. I haven't managed to do it yet. It's amazing really how there isn't a quick and simple MS Paint-like program on Linux, Krita seems to be the closest thing.
posted by JHarris at 5:39 PM on December 23 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 5:39 PM on December 23 [1 favorite]
the lack of basic shape tools
GIMP lacks basic shape tools because that forces you to learn paths and stroking to make shapes, and once you learn that you are unstoppable...
This is basically what I mean when I say it was written by people who are more into writing code than they are any kind of image editing. There's at least three different ways to do Gaussian blur native to the program, presumably because writing that is entertaining enough that a dev wanted to do it. Heaps of distortions and 'art' effects. But a basic line tool? Nope. Why is it absurd to want a basic line tool in an image editing suite?
Like I use it to edit pictures. Sometimes I need a line tool to do that. It's not supposed to be a 'teaching you to code' program.
I've been using it at least as long (and mourn some script-fu plugins than never made it out of 1.x) and it's … a UI for a complex program. It does the job. You learn where everything is, and live with it.
Editing text in GIMP is so counter-intuitive that I regularly just export and do my text in Canva. I'm not talking a lot of text, just caption level stuff. This is not a problem I have with other open source software. I use Audacity, for example, to do radio plays with friends and I don't need three other pieces of software to get basic functions to work. The people who work on Audacity are clearly in love with audio and it's a complex program with an interface that can be tricky to work with if you are not an audio nerd, but once you get on a roll it's workable - and it's workable because the nerds who made it love audio editing!
I never get that feeling from GIMP. I always feel like the actual output is secondary to the code.
I'm glad someone reminded me that Photopea exists, I'd forgotten about that, and I may wind up working with it more.
That's a beautiful part of Open Source - if you don't like a feature/lack of a feature you can go an do that. Step up or Step off as the old folks say.
I mean cool, this is a way of saying 'this program is only going to be usable by a specific set of OS nerds'. Which is totally fine, but recommending it to laypeople and then telling them that they don't deserve to use it ackshully if they aren't willing to learn to code is a problem in and of itself.
posted by Jilder at 6:53 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
GIMP lacks basic shape tools because that forces you to learn paths and stroking to make shapes, and once you learn that you are unstoppable...
This is basically what I mean when I say it was written by people who are more into writing code than they are any kind of image editing. There's at least three different ways to do Gaussian blur native to the program, presumably because writing that is entertaining enough that a dev wanted to do it. Heaps of distortions and 'art' effects. But a basic line tool? Nope. Why is it absurd to want a basic line tool in an image editing suite?
Like I use it to edit pictures. Sometimes I need a line tool to do that. It's not supposed to be a 'teaching you to code' program.
I've been using it at least as long (and mourn some script-fu plugins than never made it out of 1.x) and it's … a UI for a complex program. It does the job. You learn where everything is, and live with it.
Editing text in GIMP is so counter-intuitive that I regularly just export and do my text in Canva. I'm not talking a lot of text, just caption level stuff. This is not a problem I have with other open source software. I use Audacity, for example, to do radio plays with friends and I don't need three other pieces of software to get basic functions to work. The people who work on Audacity are clearly in love with audio and it's a complex program with an interface that can be tricky to work with if you are not an audio nerd, but once you get on a roll it's workable - and it's workable because the nerds who made it love audio editing!
I never get that feeling from GIMP. I always feel like the actual output is secondary to the code.
I'm glad someone reminded me that Photopea exists, I'd forgotten about that, and I may wind up working with it more.
That's a beautiful part of Open Source - if you don't like a feature/lack of a feature you can go an do that. Step up or Step off as the old folks say.
I mean cool, this is a way of saying 'this program is only going to be usable by a specific set of OS nerds'. Which is totally fine, but recommending it to laypeople and then telling them that they don't deserve to use it ackshully if they aren't willing to learn to code is a problem in and of itself.
posted by Jilder at 6:53 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
→
Wait, are we using the same thing?
You can either use the stand print dialogue, which gives you scale, quality, etc, or you can use GutenPrint which requires some printer-specific fiddling but can get great results.
Linux in general is using CUPS. It's been more than a decade since I've had to configure a printer. A new Linux machine (and that includes a Raspberry Pi) finds all of the network printers and automatically adds and configures them.
posted by scruss at 7:42 PM on December 23
The printing implementation is probably the worst
Wait, are we using the same thing?
You can either use the stand print dialogue, which gives you scale, quality, etc, or you can use GutenPrint which requires some printer-specific fiddling but can get great results.
Linux in general is using CUPS. It's been more than a decade since I've had to configure a printer. A new Linux machine (and that includes a Raspberry Pi) finds all of the network printers and automatically adds and configures them.
posted by scruss at 7:42 PM on December 23
yeah the promise of open source was that huge communities of people would come together and collaborate to produce amazing software for the public good. the truth however is that for the most part quality open source software is produced by people being paid to build it by a company, or by people uniquely and sometimes fanatically devoted to building one specific thing, who also are able to devote a lot of time to it, despite doing it for free. either way, the direction that software takes isn’t determined by the community so much as it is by the interests of the people or the company behind it. because software is hard to build, and good user interfaces are even harder
posted by dis_integration at 8:47 PM on December 23 [4 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 8:47 PM on December 23 [4 favorites]
Mod note: Hey, so a bit of a schism between people who want to talk about the name, and people who want to talk about the software. My best suggestion is that because there seem to be interest in the topic, maybe a different post on naming issues related to products, programs, teams, or similar. Things age. Do they age well? Do they adapt? Do they stick where they are? Who decides and how? What influences that? Notable Good / Bad changes?
posted by taz (staff) at 9:52 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 9:52 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]
So I wanted to try this paint.net thing that people are going on about. And I find its Windows-only. So I guess I'm not
scruss: it definitely works in WINE, fwiw.
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:58 PM on December 23
scruss: it definitely works in WINE, fwiw.
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:58 PM on December 23
Do you have advice in getting it (Paint.Net) to work? I tried before in Linux and failed.
posted by JHarris at 12:09 AM on December 24
posted by JHarris at 12:09 AM on December 24
JHarris: It's amazing really how there isn't a quick and simple MS Paint-like program on Linux
Have you tried Pinta? It's my favourite option for simple editing, by far. The only thing lacking is a print button (no idea what's up with that).
https://www.pinta-project.com/
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:21 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]
Have you tried Pinta? It's my favourite option for simple editing, by far. The only thing lacking is a print button (no idea what's up with that).
https://www.pinta-project.com/
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:21 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]
JHarris: oh, i haven't tried it in awhile; i could swear i got an older version working? But it's possible i'm mistaken.
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:01 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:01 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]
Yeah, looks like i'm just mistaken, per the official WINE HQ. lmao, looks like it's been a lot longer than i remembered since i installed a version. (It was probably 2.7)
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:03 AM on December 24
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:03 AM on December 24
Pinta, eh? I'll give it a try, it's in my distro's repository!
As for the GNU Image Manipulation Program, I've always found people's statements about the difficulty of working with it a bit overblown, hence my request above that people be specific about the problems they had with it rather than airily stating "UI bad." I have my own issues with it (I mentioned a couple of them above), but I can still generally use it without too much trouble, and I wonder how people come to hate it so much? Evidently the things I use it for aren't the same that other people do?
posted by JHarris at 5:57 AM on December 24 [2 favorites]
As for the GNU Image Manipulation Program, I've always found people's statements about the difficulty of working with it a bit overblown, hence my request above that people be specific about the problems they had with it rather than airily stating "UI bad." I have my own issues with it (I mentioned a couple of them above), but I can still generally use it without too much trouble, and I wonder how people come to hate it so much? Evidently the things I use it for aren't the same that other people do?
posted by JHarris at 5:57 AM on December 24 [2 favorites]
I like Photofiltre.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:01 AM on December 24
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:01 AM on December 24
I use GIMP/Script-Fu for borders, but otherwise Photopea is much quicker and easier and has most of the features
posted by mrgrimm at 9:30 AM on December 24
posted by mrgrimm at 9:30 AM on December 24
Re: printing in gimp,
A few years ago, I was using Gimp to edit some art and when I tried to make a print that matched the colors of the original art, the printed colors were just washed out and terrible and the whole thing looked blurry (possibly due to the colors). It's entirely possible that I was missing something, but I couldn't get it right despite many attempts. The defaults were not even close. Eventually I figured out that Epson had a dedicated app just for printing, so I took the file from GIMP, loaded it into the Epson software and got perfect results right away.
This is possibly a CUPS issue. My printer is old enough not to be networked, and a few years ago I set up a raspberry pi print server for it, but I found the color calibration settings to be inadequate. Here again, it may be the case that I was just missing something, but setting up printers is not where my interests lie, so I went back to plugging the printer in to my laptop whenever I need to print something.
posted by surlyben at 9:41 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]
A few years ago, I was using Gimp to edit some art and when I tried to make a print that matched the colors of the original art, the printed colors were just washed out and terrible and the whole thing looked blurry (possibly due to the colors). It's entirely possible that I was missing something, but I couldn't get it right despite many attempts. The defaults were not even close. Eventually I figured out that Epson had a dedicated app just for printing, so I took the file from GIMP, loaded it into the Epson software and got perfect results right away.
This is possibly a CUPS issue. My printer is old enough not to be networked, and a few years ago I set up a raspberry pi print server for it, but I found the color calibration settings to be inadequate. Here again, it may be the case that I was just missing something, but setting up printers is not where my interests lie, so I went back to plugging the printer in to my laptop whenever I need to print something.
posted by surlyben at 9:41 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]
This is possibly a CUPS issue.
Sort of. It’s a color management issue. There was likely no Epson printer color profile to point to in your system, so the system just sends the file in a generic sRGB colorspace. The dedicated Epson software, though, speaks the correct profile to the printer, so the results look as expected.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:52 AM on December 24 [2 favorites]
Sort of. It’s a color management issue. There was likely no Epson printer color profile to point to in your system, so the system just sends the file in a generic sRGB colorspace. The dedicated Epson software, though, speaks the correct profile to the printer, so the results look as expected.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:52 AM on December 24 [2 favorites]
I was using custom profiles, and I've never had any trouble with other programs. I just couldn't get it to work right. May have been a me problem, but as the hours stretched on, the solution of using software that just worked became more and more appealing. As for the print server, I think what ultimately stopped me was that I couldn't figure out how to get it to print the manufacturers' test page, instead of the generic CUPS one. That and I decided that a more productive use of that raspberry pi was as an audio bridge to an old stereo.
posted by surlyben at 10:55 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]
posted by surlyben at 10:55 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]
These days, given the persistent use of words like "deaf" and "cripple" by reclaiming activists, people who never changed their language, and those who feel the words are more accurate than the most common alternate terms, I expect to see "gimp" appearing in reclaimed version. I'd be interested to read articles and the like, if any disabled folks or disability studies scholars among us have recommendations to share.
One of my engineering projects some years ago was a custom prosthetic for a client. He explained to me that he, and other disabled folks working to improve and customize their devices, called themselves the "pimp my gimp" movement.
Ironically, that phrase is hard to search on because all the top hits are for a "Pimp My GIMP" section of the GIMP documentation. But if you scroll past the software-related hits, you will find various examples of folks using that phrase for assistive projects.
If I recall correctly, the Doonesbury strip for September 18th 2006 helped spread this, but was itself referencing offline usage by a disabled acquaintance of Garry Trudeau.
posted by automatronic at 8:53 AM on December 25 [1 favorite]
One of my engineering projects some years ago was a custom prosthetic for a client. He explained to me that he, and other disabled folks working to improve and customize their devices, called themselves the "pimp my gimp" movement.
Ironically, that phrase is hard to search on because all the top hits are for a "Pimp My GIMP" section of the GIMP documentation. But if you scroll past the software-related hits, you will find various examples of folks using that phrase for assistive projects.
If I recall correctly, the Doonesbury strip for September 18th 2006 helped spread this, but was itself referencing offline usage by a disabled acquaintance of Garry Trudeau.
posted by automatronic at 8:53 AM on December 25 [1 favorite]
...I expect to see "gimp" appearing in reclaimed version
By that logic, white people should feel free to use the N word without any issues.
The figurative knots nerds are tying themselves into to justify continued use of a derogatory/hurtful term as the name of a piece of software is astounding.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:51 AM on December 25 [3 favorites]
By that logic, white people should feel free to use the N word without any issues.
The figurative knots nerds are tying themselves into to justify continued use of a derogatory/hurtful term as the name of a piece of software is astounding.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:51 AM on December 25 [3 favorites]
Yeah, many slurs and terms of insult are in the process of being reclaimed by the folks they refer to, and in the disability community that does definitely include both "gimp" and "cripple" -- but that still doesn't mean that they are words to be flung around by people *outside* the community?
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:51 AM on December 25 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:51 AM on December 25 [2 favorites]
It's amazing really how there isn't a quick and simple MS Paint-like program on Linux
mtpaint. i use it all the time.
posted by Clowder of bats at 8:09 PM on December 25
mtpaint. i use it all the time.
posted by Clowder of bats at 8:09 PM on December 25
I tried GIMP 3.0 RC1. It didn't go well. First time using it in several years. I was trying to do a simple thing: take a photo JPG, perspective crop out a picture of a painting I took (making the painting frame square), then save the JPG again. It did not go well.
But as a tool for editing pictures for ordinary users it's a total mess. And some of the problems are really dumb, like the DOS window or the confusing second-launch behavior of apparently crashing.
This is typical for open source software usability. Also typical for open source software: the actual edit algorithm, the perspective crop, worked very well and with no bullshit. I never did figure out how to get Paint.NET or Canva or Paint3D (lol) to do it. Google Photos can't in the web editor, although it sort of can in the mobile editor.
posted by Nelson at 12:18 PM on December 26 [3 favorites]
- The Windows installer is old fashioned and slow.
- The program launches with a DOS window in the background displaying confusing debug errors like "LibGimpBase-WARNING **: 12:02:33.699: XMP namespace url not found!". Maybe this is an RC only thing?
- I downloaded a JPG from Google Photos and imported it into GIMP. First thing is it's asking me to convert color profiles from sRGB IEC61966-2.1 to "GIMP built-in sRGB", whatever that might be. Complete with a rendering intent: relative colorimetric is the default.
- If I launch Gimp again while one copy is running, a new window pops up briefly then disappears again. I would expect either a whole new instance of the program to launch (and stay open) or else the running copy to get focus.
- Some very common UI controls in image editors don't work. Ctrl-Plus and Ctrl-Minus don't adjust zoom. Space does let you drag/pan but in a different way than the Adobe tools work
- I found a Stack Exchange page documenting what I want to do. It says "Select the Perspective Tool". So I hover over all the icons and find the tool.
- The tool icon I can click on is the wrong tool. Perspective is visible in a flyout. So I mouse down to the button in the flyout and the flyout disappears before I can get there to click on it. I finally work around it by using the displayed hotkey (Shift-P).
- The perspective crop actually worked well. It's a simple operation but one many image editors makes difficult. Although the default "linear" interpolation seems a stingy choice for a 2024 computer.
- I went to save the image. It doesn't want to save on top of the existing JPG. I'm informed "You can use this dialog to save to the GIMP XCF format. Use File-> Export to export to other file formats." (Admittedly, many other fancy editors like Paint.net have this UI problem too.
- The default JPEG exporter has a bewildering set of options. Not just the usual quality slider. Do I want smoothing? Arithmetic coding? Which DCT method?
But as a tool for editing pictures for ordinary users it's a total mess. And some of the problems are really dumb, like the DOS window or the confusing second-launch behavior of apparently crashing.
This is typical for open source software usability. Also typical for open source software: the actual edit algorithm, the perspective crop, worked very well and with no bullshit. I never did figure out how to get Paint.NET or Canva or Paint3D (lol) to do it. Google Photos can't in the web editor, although it sort of can in the mobile editor.
posted by Nelson at 12:18 PM on December 26 [3 favorites]
I disagree with some, but by no means all, of Nelson's assessments. I disagree on the importance of never showing a terminal window (not DOS, that hasn't been a thing for like 25 years now) when installing, as I've definitely seen other programs show them, and is probably related to debugging given its RC nature. Same for trying to open a second instance when it's already running: it didn't crash, it just didn't detect the already-running process before it constructed a bit of its UI, this is also not the first time I've seen software do this.
On the other hand, yeah it's save dialogs are needlessly complex (and always have been), and I already complained about how, if you pick Save As instead of Export As, it'll scold you and tell you to do it the right way instead of doing what it obviously knows you want to do.
posted by JHarris at 12:33 PM on December 27 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, yeah it's save dialogs are needlessly complex (and always have been), and I already complained about how, if you pick Save As instead of Export As, it'll scold you and tell you to do it the right way instead of doing what it obviously knows you want to do.
posted by JHarris at 12:33 PM on December 27 [1 favorite]
There's certainly a case to be made for an option in GIMP to display a simplified GUI for n00bs and common operations. But it's also capable of much more complex operations for skilled users, and With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, etc...
I personally have no problem with how it behaves re Save As vs Export. To me, the Save operations are for preserving as much as possible of the entire document - layers, settings, etc - , whereas it with an Export, you are deliberately producing an output with a different and usually lower-information format, while leaving the original file intact.
posted by Artful Codger at 1:14 PM on December 28
I personally have no problem with how it behaves re Save As vs Export. To me, the Save operations are for preserving as much as possible of the entire document - layers, settings, etc - , whereas it with an Export, you are deliberately producing an output with a different and usually lower-information format, while leaving the original file intact.
posted by Artful Codger at 1:14 PM on December 28
The export dialog already changes depending on which kind of file you're writing (as detected by the file extension), since the export requirements are so different between PNG, JPEG, GIF and whatever. There's really no reason that XCF can't be its own special case, maybe with a warning. when using those other formats, that information like layers is being lost. That's like how most other programs do it, like Photoshop and Paint.Net.
Then, since 95% of users don't change things like compression settings, the dialogs for the other formats could be standardized, with a "Format Options" box that calls out the standard settings, maybe with a message that says "Don't see the options you need? Click here!" It's been a long time since I used Photoshop, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't do a great job of hiding complexity itself?
posted by JHarris at 6:37 PM on December 28
Then, since 95% of users don't change things like compression settings, the dialogs for the other formats could be standardized, with a "Format Options" box that calls out the standard settings, maybe with a message that says "Don't see the options you need? Click here!" It's been a long time since I used Photoshop, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't do a great job of hiding complexity itself?
posted by JHarris at 6:37 PM on December 28
→
WINE doesn't work on 64-bit ARM Linux. WINE is also a mess under x86 these days, so I shun it.
posted by scruss at 5:22 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]
scruss: it definitely works in WINE, fwiw.
WINE doesn't work on 64-bit ARM Linux. WINE is also a mess under x86 these days, so I shun it.
posted by scruss at 5:22 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]
« Older A Gruesome Dietary Adaptation | Bill Labov, champion of sociolinguistics, passes... Newer »
posted by Lemkin at 6:18 PM on December 22 [5 favorites]