I Hate GIMP

Author

AliceShiki

『Ms. Tree』『Magical Girl of Love and Justice』, Female
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So, I learned some basics of graphic design some years back, I quit the course long before I could learn enough to make a living out of it, but I ended up learning some basics of Photoshop and Illustrator at least.

... Well, Photoshop being a paid program is kinda annoying though, so I use the most viable free alternative... GIMP. Or rather, I use Paint, GIMP is there on the rare occasions I need to do something Paint can't handle, because I absolutely don't want to use GIMP if I can avoid it.

You see... If you know how to handle it, GIMP is probably able to be just as good as Photoshop in doing pretty much anything... The problem is the "Knowing how to handle it part".

I never saw a program that was so unintuitive and hard to use as this one, dear God... How can someone program so badly? It's like they don't know what users would generally like in an art program.

For example... You don't have a button to make geometric forms... Like, creating a circle, or a square, or a triangle... Paint has that, it's not that hard. And of course, Photoshop has too.
... On GIMP though? You need to google a tutorial on how to make a circle, because you won't learn how to make one otherwise... It's not too hard, but it's annoying.

And that's basically the issue with everything in GIMP. Once you learn how to do things, it's not too hard... But learning means googling for tutorials for every small thing... And God forbid if you used the wrong keywords and can't find the thing you're searching for, better be prepared for an hour of struggling with the program to get what you want done.

I still don't know how to use the mask function of GIMP, which should be extremely simple and straightforward to use, but I just don't get how to make it work.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to move or rotate something that is within a selection... I can move the selection itself, I can move the entire art layer, but... Moving the actual thing I'm selecting? I just can't do it.
... I ended up needing to duplicate my layer, delete everything except the thing I wanted to move from the duplicated layer, and then move the entire duplicated layer to the position I wanted... Oh, and delete the thing from the original layer as well. And then merge layers.
There has to be a way of actually doing it, but I can't figure out how, and it's frustrating to use a program when something that should be extremely obvious and intuitive is just... Not there.

Ah, and resizing the layer is also a pain... Resizing the canvas is also a big hassle... And I actually needed a tutorial to put an outline in text... Why doesn't it simply have a button for outline? Geez.

It is a program with a myriad of functions, but actually using them is absolutely horrible and you end up getting a huge headache in order to get what you want done... At least it does get it done though.

So... This is my rant after I spent some hours working on making a half decent cover for my novel on Scribbly, at least it's better than what was there before I suppose.

You, Hate, The Everdistant Utopia and 8 others like this.

Comments

    1. AliceShiki Feb 14, 2022
      @Hate That is one old blog you found! xD

      But yeah, Open Source can be pretty annoying at times, even if also useful~
      Hate likes this.
    2. Hate Feb 14, 2022
      Well that's the blessing and curse of open source software . You will get all the options but you gotta know what your doing to use it.
      AliceShiki likes this.
    3. AliceShiki Oct 3, 2019
      @Ilikeitloud I might try some of the options suggested here later on if/when I need it. I don't use GIMP often, so I don't really feel like searching atm.
    4. Ilikeitloud Oct 3, 2019
      Why don't you try mediabang?
    5. AliceShiki Oct 2, 2019
      @udonsage Well, I was fine with it not being a good alternative to photoshop... I just wish it had as much quality of life as paint has. Like... A button to make a circle would be a great start.

      I just wish it was good enough to make it become my go-to program for any kind of editing... Instead of well... Having Paint fill that role, and GIMP being the backup program I use when Paint can't handle the job.

      ... 50$ is a bit too much for me though, but it's always nice to know of other alternatives~
    6. udonsage Oct 2, 2019
      I don't think GIMP was ever going to be a good alternative to Photoshop unless they have more manpower. And I don't see that happening anytime soon.

      As for free alternatives, there is Krita but that program kept crashing on me at work. I don't know if it has improved since 7-8 months ago but maybe it doesn't crash as much. Inkscape is supposed to be good at doing vector drawing but who does vector drawings anyway?

      For me personally, I use Affinty Photo (similar to Adobe Photoshop) because I really just needed something that works and feels similar to Photoshop.It did cost me $49.99 USD but I no longer had to deal with GIMP. :blobsmile:
      AliceShiki likes this.
    7. Arcturus Oct 2, 2019
      Ah fetish wear doesn't necessarily mean clothes you have a fetish for. It just means clothes that are heavily associated with fetishes, ala leather and BDSM. So just because you don't have a fetish for it, doesn't you mean can't enjoy enjoy being bound in leather (y)
    8. AliceShiki Oct 2, 2019
      @A5G_Reaper I still use paint for everything that doesn't require a more complicated software! xD

      @Momoyuki I'd do the same if I worked with graphic design, but I only do it as a hobby, so it's not worth it for me to pay the license for photoshop.
      I might try Lightroom out next time I wanna edit something, maybe it does what I want better~

      @UnGrave @Arbelbyss Never heard of Krita before, but I might give it a shot next time, good alternatives to GIMP would definitely make me happy...

      @sufod01 *hugs* Comrade! >.<

      @Arcturus Tbh, I'm not really into any fetish that involves clothes... I mean, for me it only makes sense for people to be naked when involved in sexual stuff.

      @Havisu Paint is also free and has far more Quality of Life than GIMP! xD
      sufod01, Havisu and Momoyuki like this.