GIMP… sucks?
I was going to call this post "GIMP sucks!" without a moment's thought, but GIMP doesn't suck. I'm quick to say "XYZ sucks" but I always mean "XYZ sucks for my needs at the moment" or "XYZ sucks compared to ABC". Of the many things I've said suck, most of them are fine tools. But hyperbole is my favorite pastime, and it helps get the point across.
In any case, I decided to draw a picture yesterday. I dusted off my old Wacom tablet and thought, why not use the GIMP? Gentoo-wiki has good instructions on getting a Wacom tablet working in X windows. A few kernel modules compiled, a few edits to xorg.conf, a tweak or two to some udev rules, a quick X restart and it was all set. (It's not quite as simple as that, of course, but what is?)
Next step, get my tablet working in the GIMP. I have the very latest version of the GIMP installed at the moment, 2.4.0-rc1 release candidate. GIMP recognized my tablet just fine. There are some options via Preferences -> Input Devices that you can set to tweak how the tablet works. You can also install wacomcpl via emerge linuxwacom and it gives you further options to change sensitivity and tracking speed etc.
So off I went. I put in a good hour or so trying to draw a very simple picture for practice. Result: utter failure.
The next thing I tried was hooking up my old Windows machine that's been sitting in the corner (my cat had been using it as a perch / bed) and trying Photoshop. Result: relative success.
What went wrong? Well, my first problem was brushes. The Gimp has an extremely limited selection of brushes. 10 solid circles, 10 faded circles, that's about it. Photoshop has a berjillion brushes by default, and it's really easy to make your own on the fly. GIMP has a brush editor, but it's clunky and unfun.
Beyond that, there's just something not right about my Wacom tablet in X windows. I don't know what, but no matter what I tried, the thing was all jittery. I thought it was just me, maybe my hand isn't steady enough. But in Windows / Photoshop, I had no problems whatsoever. No matter how I played with settings in Linux I couldn't get the thing set up where I could draw a simple straight line. I turned the speed way up and/or way down, played with sensitivity, changed the tablet from working full-screen to per-window, all kinds of things. Nothing I did made it any easier to draw a simple straight line.
Another fun experience I had was that pressure sensitivity would randomly stop working in the GIMP, forcing me to restart it and then pressure sensitivity would return. This may be because I'm using an RC version of the GIMP, but who knows. It kind of kills the mood when you're trying to produce artwork.
Beta-quality GIMP doesn't explain this bug though: after using my Wacom tablet for extended periods of time, Firefox would stop responding to keyboard input until I restarted Firefox. This may be coincidental and I'm not 100% sure it's because of my tablet, but I never had a problem like that before, and I haven't had one since I unplugged the tablet.
If you do a search for "GIMP vs. Photoshop" you'll come back with a million Photoshop-people saying GIMP sucks, and then a million GIMP-people saying it's just as good as Photoshop but all the Photoshop junkies are too used to what they already know and unwilling to change. I'm from the exact opposite world. I use the GIMP all the time for basic photo manipulation and I actually like the interface. I don't know Photoshop at all beyond very simple operations. I really wanted to use the GIMP in Linux; I hate using Windows for anything. But in the end I went with Photoshop.
Does this mean anything? No, my experience is an anecdote. But this experience makes me sad nonetheless. Looking on the bright side, 2 years ago I tried to get my Wacom tablet working and only succeeded in crashing my X server. So we're getting somewhere (or I'm becoming ever so slightly less incompetent). But I think we're still not quite there.
“I actually like the interface”
:eek: *stabbing pains in chest*
In Ubuntu this was really easy. just uncommenting some lines in xorg.conf, I think the version of GIMP available didn't have XInput support, so I recompiled GTK+ and GIMP with XInput support, set it up in GIMP, and that is all that was needed.
Since you really want to use GIMP for this, consider investigating the specific differences between gentoo and ubuntu.. or just trying Ubuntu :)
the thing that sucks about gimp is no line tool wtf OK, make a path (that doesn't show you which x y
pixel, mm ,cm ,inch you started on) make second anchor get calculator mouse over first anchor get pixel value of mouse make second anchor click damn it the path isn't straight look at line that connects anchors is it straight should I brush stroke it, yes. damn it default brush is 11px, click brush to custom made 1 px brush, because gimp thinks all pics should be drawn with 3px brush as smallest size fill path wow i have a straight line and it only took me 5 minutes and 60 clicks yeah gimp you suck I think gimp developers should look at the way paint.net is setup they might learn something hey ma look at me I'm drawing with my keyboard they should change the mascot from a coyote to a real fricken gimp.
Dave:
Takes me a few seconds and a single click. I just bring up the paint tool I want to use, click at the start and shift-click at the finish.
Also, path creation tool has a ‘polygonal' option which means every segment created is always a straight line.
These things are fairly prominent in the UI.
(after you've clicked once with a paint tool, GIMP says in the statusbar ‘Try shift for a straight line'; ‘polygonal' option for path tool takes up 1/6 of the space in the tool options.)
If you like to draw a lot of (unconnected) straight lines or other simple shapes, using the GFig plugin is much more fun and effective than click, shift-click etc. For multiple connected lines, path tool or simply click for the first point and shift-click for the following points.
In 2.5 and greater, the ‘Polygon select' tool is also available, after which you can simply stroke the selection (Edit->Stroke)
GIMP sucks so much that i can´t belive it!!!!!!
It`s an amazing piece of shit! You have to work really hard to make things so bad!
The things that I wish Paint.net would have would be.. Pen Pressure and GOOD inking brushes..
Otherwise it really would be better then gimp..
And I mean pen pressure for NON vista users. >>
GIMP LOSES HARDER THAN ANYTHING I R EVAR USED!!
You can't control text, layers, or text effects hardly at all in gimp.
Is this the greatest of the open sauce legacy?
GIMP LOSES HARDER THAN ANYTHING I R EVAR USED!!
You can't control text, layers, or text effects hardly at all in gimp.
Is this the greatest of the open sauce legacy?
gimp still sucks
gimp toolbar wont stay up while i'm painting