GIMP is hot garbage compared to classic Photoshop (I haven’t used the rent-seeking versions so I wouldn’t know about those). The UX has been utter shite and will remain utter shite because they like it that way. PhotoGIMP has been a godsend.
In general though, I find the UX to just be worse across the board. Too many steps. Non-intuitive defaults. Bad keyboard shortcuts. and so on.
To be honest, I have successfully avoided using bare GIMP for enough years now (not sure how old PhotoGIMP is, but I think it’s been around at least 5 years) that the specific bad memories are fading.
I do think GIMP has objectively bad UX in the sense that it’s definitely not just “I was used to Photoshop first so I automatically think everything else sucks.” Probably the last ~20 years of flamewars started by people pissing off the devs by saying the exact same thing is some evidence of that. But I’m not a UX expert and haven’t sat down to do a side-by-side comparison… honestly, that’s something I’d really enjoy reading/watching if somebody did do it.
If such a thing existed, it’d be coolest if they did it with one of the “good” versions of classic Photoshop, like version 7 or whatever was made by pirates into a portable app in the 2000s. I have no idea how far the UX has evolved in Adobe’s rent-seeking era because I stopped using even portable Photoshop when I switched to Linux as my daily driver for good in 2015 or so. Then suffered with GIMP for a few years, hating every nanosecond of it, til PhotoGIMP came along.
GIMP is hot garbage compared to classic Photoshop (I haven’t used the rent-seeking versions so I wouldn’t know about those). The UX has been utter shite and will remain utter shite because they like it that way. PhotoGIMP has been a godsend.
What did you try to do that you found confusing or difficult? I’m genuinely just curious.
Exhibit A: the text tool.
In general though, I find the UX to just be worse across the board. Too many steps. Non-intuitive defaults. Bad keyboard shortcuts. and so on.
To be honest, I have successfully avoided using bare GIMP for enough years now (not sure how old PhotoGIMP is, but I think it’s been around at least 5 years) that the specific bad memories are fading.
I do think GIMP has objectively bad UX in the sense that it’s definitely not just “I was used to Photoshop first so I automatically think everything else sucks.” Probably the last ~20 years of flamewars started by people pissing off the devs by saying the exact same thing is some evidence of that. But I’m not a UX expert and haven’t sat down to do a side-by-side comparison… honestly, that’s something I’d really enjoy reading/watching if somebody did do it.
If such a thing existed, it’d be coolest if they did it with one of the “good” versions of classic Photoshop, like version 7 or whatever was made by pirates into a portable app in the 2000s. I have no idea how far the UX has evolved in Adobe’s rent-seeking era because I stopped using even portable Photoshop when I switched to Linux as my daily driver for good in 2015 or so. Then suffered with GIMP for a few years, hating every nanosecond of it, til PhotoGIMP came along.