Linux - Make Gimp look like Photoshop

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21

The fallacy of your reply lay in the fact that GIMP was picked to mean General (GNU) Image Manipulation Program…which is what language? ENGLISH. So your point is moot when the abbreviation is based on English as well. If it was based on a set of Russian words, you might have a point…but its not. Additionally its roots are here in California, from the same college system I can call my Alma mater… thus English based education system as well. Its pretty obvious that that acronym was picked on purpose for having a double meaning.

So no I dont think you can write it off the way you have while having a legitimate argument. There really are no logical excuses at this point.

Basically you are staring the evidence in the face and keep denying it.

Whats seen as ironic is that is how many are viewing your (and gimp developers) actions. The number of complaints are NOT coming out of no where, yet every time they do appear you guys write them off. The complaints wont go away either because they are legitimate concerns that will keep popping up over and over and over.

Earlier when I mentioned the “boys club” mentality, and you tossed it aside…I dont think you considered the sources of that impression. The major gimp circles including the forums and developer to user discussions often promotes this image. Whether its GIMP chat or some other community thats GIMP centric. Most of the time its “if you think like we think, welcome, if you dont, get out and die” and “Gimp isnt for you”…many of the people getting the blunt end of that message are professional photoshop users or others with a background in image manipulation and editing.

I cant state how many times I have seen users and even some (claiming to be) developers state that GIMP isnt competing with PS. You denying that this isnt accurate, doesnt change the GIMP community and those developers that feel the way I described.

Again the writing is on the wall, people want a photoshop alternative, a means to move away from Adobe but they are met with a semi-unfriendly community, sometimes hostile users or egocentric developers, a program with odd design choices, and a brand that screams “dont use me professionally”.

P.S. Since the discussion seems to have spiralled down to the same old game of denials, I don’t think anything constructive is going to arise. So I think I’m done here. However, should you want to go back to constructive, I’m still around.

I dont think it has spiraled out of control or become non constructive, it seems like you dont like the content and thus become argumentative. Ask yourself, did you approach this discussion with a “I understand where you are coming from, that is interesting, we will look into it, we will take it into consideration”? Instead it looks like you started blaming everyone else and became argumentative, thus these kinds of reactions occur. They are a form of constructive feedback.

Gimp has so much potential, but is almost universally tied to the impression that the developers are just stubborn and not interested on tapping into that potential. Again if you dont like or agree with that impression then actively work to change it because it is not coincidence that it exists.

22

I think it’s pretty much summed up here with the weird and bad attitude - I haven’t said anything insulting here (I even praised the devs), just professional critisim, much of this has been said countless times before over many years on other forums - it’s the oldest story online, you can’t miss it. The typical ranting and raving, non-professional reply proves to a lot of us where we, the users sit - and it ain’t at the same table.

Oh hum :frowning:

23

What you are saying is, basically, that you (plural) are entitled to make deliberately false statements about the project, and we are not entitled to correct that. Sorry, but this isn’t going to work. Providing hard evidence with prooflinks is nowhere close to “tossing aside”. It’s your choice to be hostile, and I’d rather not contribute to this kind of discussion.

Would you like to go back and reread my first comment in the thread?

24

They really want to put frozen Wilber: :stuck_out_tongue:


One question, is it really so problematic the “gimp” word in English?
There is much, very much work out there regarding documentation, tutorials, videos that use the word “GIMP”. If you renamed GIMP, all this work of years literally be lost, because users will not find results when searching Google with the new name.
I know, English speakers are huge numbers of GIMP users. But all agree that the word “gimp” is so bad? Anyway, non-English speaker users may be much more than English speakers. Then, we must analyze pros and cons here. Is it worth losing all that documentation and good fame achieved by GIMP in the non English-speaking world, to meet English speakers?
Please be honest. Perhaps you can accept that GIMP is not the best word in English, but could consider living with it.
By the way, what exactly mean “gimp” in English? Lame?. Is “gimp” a common word that is used for mean that?

I do not know, I think that assuming the decision to change the name of it, the less harmful would be a name that includes the GIMP word, separated from other words. GIMP-mage. GIMP-magic, for example. In this way, there had been forks with cool names and they have not been very successful anyway.

25

I like how you ignore the entirety of my post to focus on one piece and then go off in another direction without backing it up. Borrowing words you used earlier, it is “both amusing, disturbing, and, above all, incorrect.” I am not making “deliberately false statements”. I am giving an opinion based on observations and experience. You can either be defensive and argumentative about it or you can be constructive. Is it lost on you that nearly every poster in this thread is saying the same thing you seem to be in denial about? But its ok…its not you or anyone else…its clearly “us” (plural).

No one is being hostile either, just frustrated at your beating around the bush comments and dismissive behavior. It’s painfully obvious you dont consider our concerns as valid or legitimate, so the result is our frustrations at GIMP dev behavior is confirmed…sadly. If you dont want to contribute to making people like you less, then why post at all and in the fashion you are responding in? Im not sure I follow the logic.

Would you like to go back and reread my first comment in the thread?

Except you responded to specific comments using words such as “amusing, disturbing, and, above all, incorrect.” to write off valid concerns. But thats ok, its just “us” not you. Right?

26

I’m not sure it would be good, either. As long as that “GIMP” part is there, certain people will argue no matter what.

Personally I’m not totally opposed to changing the name. So far I haven’t seen compelling substitution ideas, though. And, like you said, there’s a lot of drag with websites, books etc. Handling all of that is simply a burden that’s too heavy, and I’m not surprised that a lot of team’s members are not interested in this change, especially since they are perfectly capable of understanding the difference between an acronym and a word.

All of this has been discussed many times. I’ve seen (at least) 10 years old gloomy predictions for GIMP because of “unfortunate choice of project name” etc. Nothing happened. (Nor Photoline has become dominant with its “fortunate choice of a project’s name”.)

I was kinda expecting this thread to provide some useful insights about layout preferences etc. and asked some very specific questions. Judging by how part of the BA community totally ignored them and instead started another boring rant about how clueless we are, perhaps users here are not all that interested in providing actionable feedback after all?

P.S. Nice render. Maybe we could use it for the next development splash screen :slight_smile:

27

Although I’m all for open-source programs, I still use Photoshop because I’m familiar with it and its toolset. I don’t care about GIMP looking like PS, but when I tried to use it, the UI was just a cluttered mess in my eyes. In fact, I’d rather use Krita.

As for constructive feedback, OMGUbuntu recently had an article with GIMP flat icons, which would totally push GIMP in a nicer direction away from the multicolored icons it has now. Removing the cartoon character from the drawing view would be nice as well. A slimmer toolbar to the left in a mockup that looks similar to Jay’s in the OP (which is heavily influenced by PS mind you) would also be nice.

I haven’t made a mockup because for one, I don’t think GIMP devs would make any changes, and two, it’s not the type of art I’m good at. I’d like to help, and hopefully this gives some feedback that you’ll take as constructive, as I have nothing else to add.

However, if the devs and other artists believe GIMP doesn’t need any type of overhaul or change, then majority rules.

28

There’s plenty of that if you are honest to goodness interested in hearing it. There is a lot of interest in giving such feedback as long as we know the interest from the development side isnt just posturing and for lack of a better word, make believe. Of course you have to be prepared for layouts and feedback to fit fairly close to what Photoshop has done so far.

As for why Photoline hasnt taken off… that should be obvious. No marketing, lack of polish from both website and software, presentation and location. The market is over saturated with generic photo manipulation software, though not all hit every major OS or are built with professionalism in mind.

As for GIMPs name, it could easily be some word with a “a GNU image manipulation program” attached, or split into two types (see Krita sketch) with GIMP acting as a more simple and streamlined app and G-image or what not being the professional bigger brother.

Look at what Wacom just did…while its a bit silly in my opinion, its also brilliant business wise… they turned their “bamboo” line up (brand name) into the Intuos by changing their name… its technically the same digitizer hardware but now its associated with the professional line “intuos”. The older “intuos” is now “intuos pro” and they took the Bamboo brand and applied it to a simpler new fisher price like tablet. In short they took the old bamboo and make it professional while moving the name and how others perceive it down to a more simple variation of the same tech. This means more people will buy the old bamboo with the intent of using it professionally now as an intuos model and eve pay more in the process. The bamboo name wasnt lost, but repurposed with target audience in mind.

29

Gees, someone open the door in here, it’s gettin’ pretty heated, phew! :wink:

Maybe it’s a language barrier thing for those posters that are getting so over-heated?

I started this post as a means to help bring more users over to Linux and Open Source - so that those that use Photoshop and are more familiar with it, could feel more at home with Gimp – also so that it wouldn’t be so daunting for them (I was one once not long ago).

I also wanted current Linux users to feel that they could be part of a more pro look for their software – you never know it might even encourage them to use Gimp more and be more creative?

With a layout tidy, a little spring clean of the splash and new icons, moving the brushes out of the way of the tools panel over to the panels where it should be. All of a sudden (in my opinion), Gimp looks like something more worthy and something I’d recommend to friends (not necessarily designers either).

Most people smirk at the name ‘Gimp’ (at least in the posts I’ve read over the years Gimp has been around), I have no idea whether other languages have the same issue. On seeing it for the first time, my wife wanted to know what the hell it was that I was using!

Over the years we’ve seen Gimp-Shop which tried to do a more Photoshop style layout, but it never really took off, least not that I know of. The title “Gimp-Shop” though to most English speaking users would suggest a place to buy S&M gear, surely the last thing an enterprising and inventive Open Source development team want.

Additionally it says nothing about what Gimp actually is, unless you unravel the abbreviation.
“PhotoMagic”, “PhotoMagix”, “Magic-Photo”, “Photo-Designer” etc, etc are much more keenly titled – you could even involve the community to suggest a name? I’m sure they’d like that – we like to be included :slight_smile:

The name could be changed, and personally I doubt it will effect anything that’s been done before - tutorials etc. People will know easily with an online search - the website could easily say “… formally known as Gimp”.

It would probably also be a great boost for Gimp, as interest will be shown in hundreds of news sites across the net and people talking about it too - free advertising is a good thing, especially when Open Source doesn’t have the advertising revenue.

Offering users the chance to design the splash would help add interest – I’d love to take part! Blender does this and it gets a lot of interest.

Creating a layout similar to Photoshop similar to what I did at the beginning here would be advantageous to new users from PS If the change was too much for them. Give users the option and instructions to switch either with a simple menu drop down choice, or something similar to what we have above in clearer detail (although I didn’t do a bad job, did I?)

Also I’ve focused on Linux here, but I didn’t forget about Windows users of Gimp which there are many - they should be included too of course.

Non of this requires slanging matches, anger or upset in posts – we have a good community and should remember the important things, we’re together for the same goal.

Jay.

30

Flat (symbolic) icons are scheduled for 3.0. We already have a lot of them done by Barbara Muraus (those are for both Inkscape and GIMP)

Yep, I take it as such, thanks :slight_smile: Also, a slimmer toolbar is among the plans.

31

Guys,

Please consider this post on OMG! Ubuntu that I mentioned before:

Those tool icons really didn’t go down well in the post, monocrome icons?? it’s 2013 guys! or is Gimp going to help the visually impaired now too now?

Here’s the history of PS - Gimp’s going backwards!


and the new proposed style:

http://gnome-stereotype.tumblr.com/post/28474777410/les-jeux-symbolique

Where’s Homer with a big Doh! today?

:frowning:

32

Yes, I read that thread. May I also draw your attention to the fact that the “history of Ps toolbar” screenshot is outdated by nearly 10 years? Photoshop has a much flatter icon set now. Check any Photoshop CC screenshot for a reference. Here’s one:

http://photos.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Shapes.png

So that would be GIMP and Photoshop hand in hand going backwards in time really :slight_smile:

Here’s Inkscape with that symbolic icon set:

?????? ?????? ?? 2013-09-27 19:32:22.png1024×600 70.5 KB

I’ve been using it for about a year on pretty much daily basis. It’s also all over Inkscape’s G+ page, and while there certainly are people who don’t like it, I’ve seen a lot of users drooling all over these simplified icons.

Also, I don’t think they are perfect: quite a few things could be done about the contrast, for instance. But more detailed shapes on a dark background is unlikely to be a winner in the long run, and the dark theme is also to be a feature of GIMP 3.0.

33

@ prokoudine - Thanks for communicating with people.

@ Jay - I’m confused. What icons are you suggesting for GIMP? The newest PS has flat icons.

Edit: Pro beat me to it.

34

I’ve used the Inkscape ones for a while myself and they are much better than the originals, which are normally coloured icons (generally unfashionable these days) - but I think there is confusion about what monochrome is in this example, they are gray aren’t they? when highlighted they are nicely shadded in Inkscape.

The Gimp ones look black, or white against the tool background according to the shots I’ve seen:

gimp_icon_theme__flat_by_android272-d679s6z.png1131×707 217 KB

These don’t look the same and look like what I imagine could be called “Hi-Contrast” icons - normally associated with Universal Access - I don’t trip on them, and seeing that post on OMG! Ubuntu I was not the only one who disliked the look.

I realise what the current PS looks like, and I know it doesn’t have a shaded background anymore - but they certainly aren’y just black on white. Maybe that depends on the GTK theme you’re using, but it’s all semantics in the end - I didn’t like them.

I’ve been reminded before that Open Source isn’t a democracy - sometimes I get carried away hoping otherwise.

Clearly it ruffles a lot feathers this topic - you can use Open Source, but don’t suggest or critise it - as an end user, myself and many others obviously should just zip it.

35

I typically agree with this; however, since there’s a dev in communication, I feel it’s almost worth suggesting things.

36

Maybe it’s natural, but I think when people develop software, they feel like it’s their baby, they spend so much time on it, plenty of stuff we never see behind the scenes and generally have an idea of their road-map for the next few years at least.

For me if I had the ‘power’, for the sake of all those Adobe users that wan’t to move away from commercial software, and those that have already and need similar pro software. It’s simple, out-of-the box I’d give them Open Source Photoshop (at least in layout).

PS is the biggest and most well known software in the world next to Windows and OSX - people even know it even when they haven’t used it. Gimp is the only sencible choice for Photo Editing on Linux, Please make Gimp more like PS - and let us users get more involved :slight_smile:

37

Oh wow, I’m looking forward to those, thanks for posting that. I really like the Inkscape screenshot also. Will the GIMP icons also be monochrome? I love how they reduce visual clutter while still being discernable. Great work!

38

My common sense says that an icon should have a very representative shape of what it does. But also my common sense says that if each icon (or group of icons for things that do the same thing, such as “Selection Tools”) have a different color than the others, will be much easy and intuitive to locate them. Could be colored backgrounds.
Anyway, if monochrome is fashion today, good for it :slight_smile:

39

Oh man, I wish I had known about this a month ago when I desperately was looking for ways to make gimp look and behave like PS. I tried Gimphoto and Gimpshop but none of them worked. In the end I just gave up and installed Photoshop via Wine, which kinda worked but not quite so good x)

Thanks for this, will try it out soon, I hope it will work on Linux Mint :slight_smile:

40

Photoshop should work better in a virtual machine if you have a Windows disc to install.