this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
297 points (88.8% liked)

Cool Guides

4659 readers
2 users here now

Rules for Posting Guides on Our Community

1. Defining a Guide Guides are comprehensive reference materials, how-tos, or comparison tables. A guide must be well-organized both in content and layout. Information should be easily accessible without unnecessary navigation. Guides can include flowcharts, step-by-step instructions, or visual references that compare different elements side by side.

2. Infographic Guidelines Infographics are permitted if they are educational and informative. They should aim to convey complex information visually and clearly. However, infographics that primarily serve as visual essays without structured guidance will be subject to removal.

3. Grey Area Moderators may use discretion when deciding to remove posts. If in doubt, message us or use downvotes for content you find inappropriate.

4. Source Attribution If you know the original source of a guide, share it in the comments to credit the creators.

5. Diverse Content To keep our community engaging, avoid saturating the feed with similar topics. Excessive posts on a single topic may be moderated to maintain diversity.

6. Verify in Comments Always check the comments for additional insights or corrections. Moderators rely on community expertise for accuracy.

Community Guidelines

By following these rules, we can maintain a diverse and informative community. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to the moderators. Thank you for contributing responsibly!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you mean that the menu structure makes no sense or that it's different to Photoshop, which is what you're used to? I'm not sure that what you say about shortcuts if fair either. For example, by default in GIMP you select the Move tool using M, which makes sense. In photoshop it's V... Duplicating layers in GIMP uses D, PS uses J... Clone tool in GIMP uses C, PS uses S. All of which isn't even that much of a big deal anyway, since both programs allow you to set whatever keyboard shortcuts you want. GIMP and PS are way more similar than they are different, even from a UX standpoint. Both projects have borrowed from each other historically. They will always be a bit different though and I think that's fair enough.

I was a bit disorientated when I first started using GIMP after a lifetime of using Photoshop, including at work where it's still the main piece of software I use. But like everything in life you get out what you put in and after watching a few tutorials and reading some documentation GIMP does click and make sense.

At least we agree about fuck Adobe though! It's only going to get worse as well in my opinion. GIMP is only going to get better though (as long it stays open source) but perhaps not as quickly as we'd like. I have much more faith in GIMP in the long term, so I'm behind them. BTW you can already try out GIMP's first implementation of adjustment layers in their development version

[โ€“] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Do you mean that the menu structure makes no sense or that it's different to Photoshop, which is what you're used to?

Both.

I think not only if I approach it as thinking Photoshop did it right or as a blank slate "how do I do X?" I get really confused and annoyed. Off the top of my head I won't be great with examples but here's a couple. There were a couple of very basic and common things I tried to assign a shortcut key to in Gimp which the UI wouldn't allow. Also, selection within a layer feels bonkers to me in gimp. There's like two selection modes, one is floating or something? Just feels weird and convoluted. I always feel like I'm on the verge of destroying my selection by accident.

Adobe indeed will only be worse over time from all the evidence we've seen, I agree. I have a windows install on a secondary drive but I try to never use it, even for Photoshop. But I would absolutely love a version of gimp that has the basics a bit closer to Photoshop, because:

  1. a lot of things Photoshop does are more intuitive for me. Even the move = V thing. Pretty sure they did that because a v looks like an arrow which you point at what you want to move. I never remember a moment when I couldn't remember which key it was, for that reason. Yeah M for rectangular isn't a good example but eventually you run out of letters...
  2. even if some things are not intuitive in Photoshop per se, it really pays for users to get what they expect. This has been the go to professional tool since, what, 1990? To illustrate what I mean about expectations: Ctrl v only makes sense due to its keyboard layout position (near c) but I think many on keyboard layouts, that's not even true. Conventions (logical or not) arise and get adhered to and that's a good thing. Can you imagine if paste on Mac was command P, control V on windows and Control G (glue) on Linux. Yikes I'm so glad that's not the case.