How I really feel about GIMP, now the dust has settled

GIMP 2.0 was released 21 years ago in 2004. Facebook had just launched (but only inside Harvard), George W. Bush was reelected president in the US, and “Mean Girls” had just opened in theaters. Oh, and we still had movie theaters because we didn’t have streaming yet, or smart phones. My point is, this was a very long time ago. And what have we gotten for that wait?

As many of you know, this isn’t our first look at the latest 3.0. The various beta pre-releases have been available for many months and I have written about my experiences with them all along the way. I’ve also been clear that I came to the experience with a clear bias. That being I wanted GIMP 3.0 to be great (and live up to its inclusion in the best digital art software guide). I hoped it would be great. I craved it to be great. So they had to work pretty hard to get me to say some of the many negative things I have written about the pre-releases.

But I have vowed to come to this final release with an open mind once again. So I deleted my copy of GIMP 2.X from my Windows computer. Then I deleted my copy of GIMP 3 RC2, a pre-release, as well. And I installed a clean copy of the final GIMP 3.0.4 Installation went just fine, and I was soon looking at a wholly new interface of GIMP.

What? Had they completely changed the interface between the RC (release candidate) and the final version? It was so much improved and logical. And it gave me hope for finding more unexpected improvements. Alas, no. It turns out that, at least on Windows, GIMPs uninstaller doesn’t remove older preferences files. So I was looking at a customisation I had done myself months back.

With my hopes for happy surprises were now dashed, I decided that the next most important thing was to see if the many quirks and bugs I had experienced in the pre-releases where still plaguing the final release.

I will remind readers that I found the Linux version of GIMP to be a far better product than their Windows port. But the reality is that the overwhelming majority of its users are Windows based. The best I could determine, based on now old stats I found, was that Windows represents something like 80% of their downloads.

I would have liked to confirm this with the developers, along with other questions. But try as I may across the past year, they never responded to my attempts to connect. (By comparison, see the video interview we were given by the lead of the Krita project, Halla Rempt).

Anyone have Bug Spray?

And right away, problems began to show up. I went into the preferences to reset GIMP to its default UI, as I was not given an option to remove preferences at any point of uninstall or fresh new install. I opened the Preferences (EDIT > Preferences > Interface > Window Management).

The first thing I wanted to do was save the current UI window positions before reverting to the default. So I clicked on the button “Save Window Positions Now”, which has a DOWNLOAD icon indicating that a dialog should open up and let me choose where to save a window position prefs file. But try as I might, no dialog ever opened.

So I moved on and clicked the next button, “Reset Saved Window Positions to Default Values”, in order to restore the interface to its default. It didn’t work the first few times, but did later on. Or did it? While it displayed a “Changes will take effect on restart” type dialog, upon restart I got the same non-default UI, so no, it did not work. Grrrrr!

But hey, it’s not like you use those item much, right? I mean, it’s not as if you couldn’t open a file, right? And here we go, I kid-you-not. Go to FILE > Open… and an open dialog box does indeed open. But there is no path input to be seen. In other words, if I had copied the location of a document that I wanted to open, as I often do from an open desktop folder, there is no file-path to paste it into.

Yes, the dialog does offer the DRIVE selections on the left (missing any custom “Quick Access” links), and the crushingly simplistic navigation at the top. And navigation key commands sometimes worked. But for power-users on either Windows or Linux, we expect the standard interface that allows a faster workflow. This dialog is similar to what the MacOS offers and thus Mac users may be satisfied.

But sometimes, that upper navigation, as minimal as it is, doesn't even appear. And at those times I have also been unable to get any navigation key-commands to work. So we are left trying to navigate by going UP using the links on the left, and then from there go DOWN to the desired folder. (No, this is not "The Onion". But I would understand your confusion.)

Having said that, they did fix an Export... dialog box problem in the pre-release versions, where the drop-down menu for choosing the format would open half off the bottom of the screen. On my screen, preventing me from seeing or selecting any formats from “P” on down. Which of course included Photoshop, PNG, Postscript, etc.

Camera Ready I/O

Let me dissect a few more input/output (I/O) issues. While GIMP will open (i.e. import) a wide range of files, it will only “Save” or “Save as…” into its own XCF format. For any non-native format you need to use the “Export” option. While surely not a huge deal, it’s the type of thing that may slow some production workflows. And at least the keyboard commands for it work.

Speaking of production work, if you are working in advertising, publishing or any other industry that relies on Photoshop, you may encounter more than a few issues opening and saving from Photoshop’s PSD format. There are a few reasons for this, mainly to do with features that are in one application and not in the other. For example, Smart Layers that are in PS will have issues being opened in GIMP, which has only just added non-destructive editing, but not “Smart Objects” per se. (See our Photoshop vs GIMP comparison here.)

This is not particularly GIMP’s fault, and the same issue can be seen in Krita and other programs. Interestingly, the online alternative to PS called PhotoPEA claims full PSD comparability. That said, a quick hunt online shows a few complaints, so your mileage may vary.

In my world, as long as I can deliver a PSD file that opens properly in Photoshop at the ad agency or publishing house, I'm good. Nobody will care that I am not using PS. In fact, they would never even know. But until we get a PS alternative that can deliver flawless PSD files, replacement of PS or other Adobe programs may remain an issue.

There are some ways to work around these issues, but I do implore both GIMP and Krita to work towards near 100% PSD compatibility, as this will open the door for their use in many industries. (See our Photoshop vs Krita comparison next.)

The other issue is RAW image file support. GIMP has added a program called Darktable to its installation package. It is an open source Lightroom alternative that can open a wide range of RAW file formats. Adobe Camera Raw is also an add-on/plugin for PS, so I see no issue there. However when I tried to open a Lumix RW2 raw file in GIMP, its Open dialog could not recognize or even show it in the folder. Forcing me to drag and drop the RW2 file into GIMP, which prompted Darktable to open. I could see no obvious way to then tell it to open in GIMP, but perhaps that is just my failing for now.

Painting On…

Here is an issue I have complained about before, and seen others complain about as well. As seen in the accompanying image, when a painting tool like the Brush is selected with both Cross Hair and Brush Outline enabled, the cross hair will not be centered. And how far off-center it will be will depend on the size of the brush.

As a painter or retoucher, we need to know where the brush is going to paint. This offset can be mentally compensated for, but...WHY? After trying a number of settings in the Preferences, I was still unable to remove this offset. I did find one excellent solution to this: Use Krita. Its brush options and capabilities blow GIMP’s away. Maybe even PS’s too.

No CHOPs

As I mentioned in a previous article, GIMP has a weird way of displaying its RGB channels. Actually displaying them in their colors, rather than the grayscale that they truly are. This, unfortunately, has not been fixed in the final release of v 3.0.

The reason this is a problem is because the RGB channels are “components” of the RGB color file. But they are not color themselves. For example, when devoid of any image, GIMP displays the Red channel as a full deep red. This is quite different than the full white that is displayed in Photoshop or Krita, or other image manipulation apps. Since the displayed red has a significant density, we can no longer see the full dynamic range (usually 256 steps) of the channel. Thus GIMP needlessly makes doing very powerful channel operations (aka “CHOPS) very difficult, if not impossible.

If you ask this old pro Photoshopper, that alone removes GIMP from being considered a professional tool. So, maybe don’t ask me. Krita also isn't perfect here, but I am confident it still allows a few additional options for channel operations. More on that in the future.

The Return of ReSynth!

No, this isn’t a reference to Star Wars Jedi. Resynthesizer is a plugin for GIMP that adds the ability to synthesize texture or image segments. Essentially like Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill and similar tools. While it isn’t quite at that level of AI, it is an important tool that has finally been updated to be compatible with GIMP 3.0.

Not only is this an important tool in general, it is also important because GIMP’s version of the PS Healing Brush, which GIMP calls the “Healing Tool”, is a joke. It delivers results that are only slightly better than the 25 year old cloning tool. Resynth can, to some degree, help fill that void. This is particularly important for retouchers, who may be much better served by Krita, where you will find a better version of the Healing Brush (though still not as good as PS), and a massive brush selection.

Wrapping it Up

So now that it’s official, was it worth the wait? Sorry, no. Both Photoshop and Krita blow it away. But let's be fair, PS is way too costly for many, and not available on Linux. GIMP's typography is better than Krita's, as are its image selection tools, and its significantly larger selection of filters. (However Krita is re-writing their typography tools. And they have added the huge G'MIC suite of filter to their default install.)

On the other side of the fence, Krita has way better layers controls, non-destructive editing mostly on par with PS, a UI that is easy to learn, use and customise, a better healing tool, brushes that blow GIMP away, more predictable and user-friendly deformation tools.

Plus, with a couple of free plugins, Krita has actual AI tools that can use libraries like Flux that runs rings around the GIMP/Resynth combo. And another plugin that even let’s you merge your work from Blender into Krita. The list goes on, making it very hard to recommend GIMP.

But, for what GIMP is better at, and there are a few things, we're glad to see it finalised.

Explore more photo editing software here, and our GIMP vs Krita comparison, too.