Photoline is what I think GIMP should be. It doesn’t exactlly have the best UI/UX around, but you can’t argue with its speed and feature set. It can do almost everything Photoshop is capable of, so it’s easier to excuse some of its rougher edges.
GIMP doesn’t even have that going for it. It’s not as capable, and it’s overly obtuse. Using it just makes me want to punch something.
lol… I used it for years. But I did finally get used to it. When I bought Photoshop I was so happy to be out of that hell.
The UI thing is my problem in Photoline. Since I need it so rarely I keep forgetting how to do really simple stuff. I hope this will be different in Affinity because it is supposed to be so intuitive.
Regarding GIMP i was plesaently surprised when I had to make a texture seamless (for the first time in probably 8 years) and it was just a single button press. Man, i didn’t know that kids these days get around doing all the annoying image shifting/high pass/clones stamp process. And in fact GIMPs automatic solution was better than anything I could have done.
One of those many little things that Gimp has that are very cool.
The GIMP team’s decision to create a proper UI out of the box probably saved it from falling into total obscurity though, that and how they have kicked development up a notch with more progress reports and builds and less silence.
The big headwind though is that the relatively low price of some competing apps. give people less of an incentive to really support GIMP and help in its development (as the cost of entry into 2D is not that high compared to 3D). Now of course Godot found success despite other free solutions, but mainly because the competition’s insistence on keeping to well worn workflows allowed for room to try other approaches. I don’t see GIMP having the same ability to try to create a unique approach, because for the bread and butter tools at least, the best approaches have already been done.
For an alternative to take hold it would have to emulate and mimic so many of Photoshop’s features and shortcuts and workflows. At that point you might as well be honest and just admit you want a cheap or free version of Photoshop.
What “shortcuts” in Adobe’s 1990-baggage-wares? 
What? Photoshop and “Workflow”? 
To many professionals or dabblers - including lucky me with speedy internet
Cloud = ANTI workflow.
Evidently
Maya Max C4D users didn’t come to Blender because “free”
cheap/ free does not equate 80% functionality
BE HONEST.
Blender is not a free/cheap version of Maya Max
DaVinci is not a free/cheap version of Premier
Affinity Serif, Krita, GIMP are not free/cheap Adobe suite.
Cloudwares-for-rent = anti-innovation, ANTI-WORKFLOW.
I’m fine with companies making money, I dump Apps-for-Rent. Why, because small fries like me don’t have a team, I need my WORK to FLOW. I bye bye Adobe in 2017, never looked back, happily so.
Adobe is still standing because
I predicted EA-owned Maxis will kill cloud Simcity5 at birth.
I just didn’t expect Maxis to go down with it.
I also didn’t expect Cities Skylines to supplant Simcity within 3 years.
Maxis devs claimed they love Simcity, like ABC devs claim they love Substance.
No Simcity fans believed arrogant Maxis devs for one second.
So, basically…
Corps will continue to dumb down AAA tools and kill innovation
Lazy prosumers will continue to normalize cloud-rentals
EA-Maxis unholy marriage killed a golden egg laying goose
Good luck to behemoth-owned “creative” companies
Feel free to sneer at “cheap free versions” of Photoshop/ Premier/ Maya
Blender Krita devs will live, grow and shine
as Affinity/ DaVinci blossom into the next Cities $$$$$kylines
because?
These indie devs actually LOVE. THEIR. CREATION.
And their users LOVE THEM BACK.
This, 100%. Exactly why I still have to use their programs. I don’t use Adobe products for personal projects anymore, but since 80% of my work comes from advertising agencies I’m forced to use Adobe programs for work, and when it comes to motion graphics there’s really nothing else other than After Effects…
I’ve tried every single program out there that claims to do what AE does and all of them fall short or are not even close. So I have to use it, even if it’s slower and buggier than ever. They know this, and that’s why AE is the program with the least useful updates on the whole suite on each release, they just don’t care because their users have nowhere else to go.
Do I have an option? For Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere yes, I do, but even then, clients always expect me to deliver files in these formats so there’s really not much to do. 
(Worst thing about it is that I know that these clients don’t even pay for the licenses! 
)
About the Substance apps, well I just hope they don’t decide to suddenly remove the Steam version, the new icons and splash screens look pretty bad but that really doesn’t matter as long as the programs are still the same and continue to grow independently. 
*this was a reply to the Adobe person above but I messed up the quoting.
I see a lot of “for the people!” posts from you substance guys and I am sure your intentions are well but actions speak otherwise.
For example I own designer and painter perpetual licenses on steam. I have absolutely no way of accessing/owning sampler aside from going and subscribing to a product bundle where I already own the other two software. There is literally no reason to not have sampler available on steam other than some business guy going “hold on guys we HAVE to distinguish our offerings somehow”
I love painter and designer and the reason I bought the perpetual ones is because I trust Adobe as far as I can throw them.
There is nothing wrong with sticking with photoshop. Being used to it is the only excuse you need to use it. All I can say is that if its been a while since you’ve last tried gimp, its worth talking another look at. The last stable they released 2.10 made a lot of improvements that bring it more in line with what you would expect from something people call a “photoshop alternative”. For example it uses a single window by default now, and some of the basic shortcuts are the same as in photoshop (like using to decrease and increase the brush size). The main thing missing atm is adjustment layers, and they plan to add that by version 3.
Krita might be worth taking a look at then since it does support opening multilayer exr files. I don’t get whats going to with the exposure settings when you import one though. Probably something I’m doing wrong.
Surely programs like Nuke are at least on par with AE, no?
Ok, good to know. Will test it.
I use gimp for work sometimes (they don’t want to pay adobe licenses for the rare times they need images done), and I’ve tried to use it at home too, but it’s clunky and I will forever resent that they won’t let me just save as… [format], because they really want you to use the GIMP format, so you have to export instead. Which works, but why add extra hassle? I’ve tried to make the switch so many times over the last decade, but as long as my old CS5 is still functional, unless I’m on Linux, PS really is just better 90% of the time. Every other imaging software uses a far more standard Keymap than GIMP too - Krita is a good choice for digital illustration.
And since discovering Photopea is a thing I use GIMP even less. Basically GIMP is okay if you’re a passionate about FOSS as a matter of principle, want a free software that resents being a knock-off photoshop to most people, or just hate Adobe, but even being two of those, I really can’t force myself to make the switch. I don’t think anyone uses it because it’s better than PS. I’m probably going to try quixel mixer instead of substance painter given that it’s adobe though, even though I can afford substance.
I’m hopeful though, so I do periodically check out what’s going on in GIMP. And there are a few features that are pretty cool.
Care to give some examples? I tried to use designer as a raster painting tool and had my gripes. Id love to hear yours.
Yeah the main issue with Mixer now is it still is missing basic functions and just completely lacking in advanced features we need. So we stick with Substance.
It really isn’t an option yet. Yet…
I have always thought, that of all the options out there Gimp had the potential to raise to the occasion. Just seems like a missed opportunity.
About the Substance apps, … as long as the programs are still the same and continue to grow independently.
Stuck in my day job using Adobe I was hoping the opposite. Substance would be part of the regular Creative Cloud and the tech would filter into other Adobe programs. I wasn’t expecting another pay wall nested inside of the pay wall.
For compositing yes, Nuke and Fusion are ages ahead of AE.
But unfortunately not for motion graphics, in that department there’s nothing even close to AE, and there’s also a huge plugin/template market around it that’s hard to beat.
I see. That is unfortunate indeed. Poor mographers have to work with layers…
The layer workflow isn’t that bad for stuff like animated texts and lower thirds, I kinda prefer it for motion graphics. The main issue is performance, in each release AE feels slower, it has a new annoying bug, or it comes with a new feature no one asked for and it’s half finished (are they looking at Blender now…?)
Same reason I still use my old CS5. I’m a hobbyist for the most part, largely started with 3D through modding The Sims, and still used to texturing over UVs in photoshop (not a fun workflow!) with a little experience texturing in Blender, so for me for now, it just needs to be better than texture painting in Blender. If it sucks though, I might give Substance a shot.
While I loath to use it in its current state, GIMP’s recent development looks encouraging. At a minimum, it needs the equivalent of adjustment layers before it can replace PS though, and thankfully that’s on the roadmap, but it looks like it’s going to be a while.
If that is the case, then I would say give mixer a shot. It might be a good start in the right direction for you. And it has a promising future.