Is there really no viable alternative for Photoshop on Linux?

I’m starting this off by saying that I’m looking for any type of reasonably advanced photo manipulation tool, that runs natively under Linux. It doesn’t have to be FOSS.

I switched to Linux, from Windows, about three years ago. I don’t regret the decision whatsoever. However, one thing that has not gotten me away from Windows entirely, is the severe lack of photo editing tools.

So what’s available? Well, you have GIMP. And then there’s Krita, but that’s more of a drawing software. And then…

Well that’s it. As far as I know.

  1. GIMP

Now, as someone migrating from Photoshop, GIMP was incredibly frustrating, and I didn’t understand anything even after a few weeks of trying to get into it. Development seemed really slow, too. It’s far from intuitive, and things that really should take a few steps, seemingly takes twenty (like wrapping text on a path? Should that really be that difficult?).

I would assume if you’re starting off with GIMP, having never touched Photoshop, then it’d be no issue. But as a user migrating, I really can’t find myself spending months upon months to learn this program. It’s not viable for me.

No hate against GIMP, I’m sure it works wonders for those who have managed to learn it. But I can’t see myself using it, and I don’t find myself comfortable within it, as someone migrating from Photoshop.

  1. Krita

Krita, on the other hand, I like much more. But, it’s more of a drawing program. Its development is more focused on drawing, and It’s missing some features that I want - namely selection tools. Filters are good, but I find G’MIC really slow. It also really chugs when working with large files.

Both of these programs are FOSS. I like that. I like FOSS software. But, apart from that, are there really no good alternatives to Photoshop? Again, doesn’t need to be FOSS. I understand more complex programs take more development power, and I have no problem using something even paid and proprietary, as long as it runs on Linux natively.

I’ve tried running Photoshop under WINE, and it works - barely. For quick edits, it might work fine. But not for the work I do.

So I raise the question again. Are there no good alternatives to Photoshop? And then I raise a follow-up question, that you may or may not want to answer: If not, why?

Thanks in advance!

hollyberries,
@hollyberries@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Can it be a web one? If so, I’ve used Photopea in the past.

TheWonderfool,

+1 for Photopea. I found it extremely friendly coming from Photoshop, has a lot of functionalities and works great on computers where I can’t/won’t install Photoshop. YMMV though, since you want to use it as a full replacement and I used it only for simple retouching/modifications when I’m not on the desktop

incognito_15,

Surprised I had to scroll this far to see Photopea. It’s a fantastic alternative to Photoshop, and it’s accessible on nearly any platform since it’s web-based.

carlytm,

Another +1 for Photopea from me. I had been on-and-off wrestling with Wine to get Photoshop to run since I had switched to Linux, but since discovering Photopea I haven’t felt the need to bother with that. In addition to the website version, if you aren’t religiously anti-Electron, there’s a desktop app for it on Flathub.

Antiques,

Photopea is amazing and I think it’s made by a single developer who is crazy good.

Doll_Tow_Jet-ski,

Gimp is really powerful. What are you missing from it?

rzlatic,
@rzlatic@lemmy.ml avatar

habit and practice. op himself said he believes gimp can do wonders, but he’s migrating from adobe and is accustomed to photoshop’s shortcuts, ui and workflow.

imho, people go wrong expecting same experience in different application. yes, gimp works very differently but when migrating, one should count on different ui and logic. afterall, ps also have learning curve in the start and none complains.

it’s similar to users migrating from windows to linux, expecting same windows ui and workflow, blaming linux bad.

accideath,

When all my experience with image manipulation programs was paint.net and I wanted something more powerful I tried gimp. I hated it. I saw it was powerful but the ux just isn’t great. It’s really complicated and unfriendly for new users. When I then tried using photoshop, it was really easy to get into. And that’s a general problem with foss. Most big closed source programs had millions spent on ux research. Most foss programs never think about the average user but are instead by professionals for professionals.

taladar,

I don’t think it is UX research so much as that user interfaces for people using a program every day for hours are genuinely different in the optimization space than user interfaces that are easily discoverable for new users and the occasional user.

rzlatic,
@rzlatic@lemmy.ml avatar

habit and practice. op himself said he believes gimp can do wonders, but he’s migrating from adobe and is accustomed to photoshop’s shortcuts, ui and workflow.

imho, people go wrong expecting same experience in different application. yes, gimp works very differently but when migrating, one should count on different ui and logic. afterall, ps also have learning curve in the start and none complains.

it’s similar to users migrating from windows to linux, expecting same windows ui and workflow, blaming linux bad.

InvaderDJ,

They did list one specific example of text wrapping which is apparently a two step process on Photoshop and twenty steps in GIMP. Probably an exaggeration, but the sentiment seems to be that it isn’t just different, its worse.

Dealing with differences is fine, but things that are more difficult or require more steps is a problem that should hopefully be fixed.

BrooklynMan,
@BrooklynMan@lemmy.ml avatar

yeah, having 30 years of Photoshop experience and then being told I have to learn a whole new tool that looks and works completely differently? it took a very long time to become a master of this one tool. now I have to completely re-learn and re-master a new one?

no thanks.

not to mention that GiMP is just a pain in the ass to use.

llii,

But then you cant complain? Just use Photoshop then with Windows or Mac OS and pay the subscription. Problem solved.

BrooklynMan, (edited )
@BrooklynMan@lemmy.ml avatar

I’ve used Photoshop for 30 years and have never - not once - paid for it.

pay for it, HA!

But just because I have the option of running Photoshop doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to have an opinion on GiMP, lmao. Enough with the gatekeeping.

gortbrown,

While I get your point about not expecting all software to have the same workflow, keep in mind that learning a new one isn’t always in the cards. The reason people don’t complain when learning Adobe is because they are probably starting with it. But if they complain when switching to GIMP it’s because they have to spend the time to learn a new system instead of getting their work done. And especially in a professional environment, that just ends up causing problems.

gortbrown,

While I get your point about not expecting all software to have the same workflow, keep in mind that learning a new one isn’t always in the cards. The reason people don’t complain when learning Adobe is because they are probably starting with it. But if they complain when switching to GIMP it’s because they have to spend the time to learn a new system instead of getting their work done. And especially in a professional environment, that just ends up causing problems.

Soundhole,

Bad UI aside, Gimp has some basic issues.

One example, the paint bucket tool does not anti-alias correctly in certain circumstancess so no matter the tolerance setting, you get either white outlines around your fill, or the fill explodes outside the lines and gets everywhere.

This is something solved by other software in the nineties but Gimp still hasn’t bothered to fix.

Is this a niche problem? Yes. But when trying to do professional work, lots of detail issues like this can add up.

Offlein, (edited )

If this comment isn’t the perfect distillation of the frustration people have with GIMP, I don’t know what is.

OP makes a very even-handed, consciencious treatise to gather more info about alternatives to GIMP based on the UX issues they themselves have been struggling with and which are commonly recognized throughout the community, with at least one example, while acknowledging how incredible and powerful an undertaking a piece of software GIMP definitely is, and…

… The same cookie cutter response on every single GIMP discussion since 1998: “IT IS VERY POWERFUL. WHAT FEATURE IS IT MISSING?”

Similar to GIMP itself: You’re not wrong you’re just… Not being anywhere near as helpful as you could be.

HamsterRage,

I dunno. The title was “Are there really no viable alternatives to PhotoShop on Linux?”. I think it’s fair to say, “There’s GIMP”. It’s viable. People use it successfully and happily. 'Nuff said.

Offlein,

Ha, well, yeah this pretty much tracks.

To paraphrase: “if we only pay attention to the most fundamental requirements and ignore any nuance and subtlety that’s added, the implementation is perfect. What’s the problem?”

Or: “Why care about the body of the post when there’s at title?”

IronKrill,

Since no one else seems to actually be answering you, I’ll give you one. Smart Objects AKA linked layers. I use these in just about every single PSD and it has saved me rediculous amounts of time and effort undoing or redoing edits and avoiding destruction of a raster image by rotating or scaling it multiple times.

There has been a feature request open for this for 10 years and it is still not implemented. I first found out about the intention to add linked layers several years ago but I quickly gave up when I realised how much time it was taking.

I couldn’t tell you other features as I have not used Gimp much beyond trying it out for some light projects and to make use of some of it’s better-than-Photoshop color to alpha tools. But this one feature combined with all the UI, behaviour, and shortcut decisions is enough to keep me stuck on Photoshop for Windows for a long while yet.

Doll_Tow_Jet-ski,

Fair enough. I guess it depends on what you're used to. I never used Photoshop and I've been using Gimp for over a decade now. I do a lot of visual editing for my work and there isn't anything I haven't been able to do with Gimp. But yes, some stuff do take hours of work. I also work with FOSS music production software and while I know the commercial ones are easier to use, everything I've wanted to accomplish using FOSS music production I've been able to get it done. I guess it all depends on what your reference point is

beejjorgensen,
@beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I had the same experience moving from GIMP to Photoshop. 😂

Neil, (edited )
@Neil@lemmy.ml avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Soundhole,

    It’s true but programmers will tell artists that we’re just too lazy to learn a new UI lol.

    priapus,

    The other comments here just explained two simple ways to do it in GIMP, so it kinda sounds like the programmers are right

    Reva,

    … and “artists” apparently are so incompetent in their own art that they cannot fathom learning their own tools.

    BirdLawyerPerson,

    If I want to erase the white around an object

    Funny, this is literally one of the primary examples of something that GIMP did better than Photoshop (at least back when I was actively using GIMP a lot). GIMP has the "color-to-alpha" tool that allows for backgrounds to be faded into transparency (including converting the border of that object into translucent pixels that don't have the hint of the old background), which I remember being the easiest way to remove sky or other background from an object, and to place that object into a new background or other image.

    I'm guessing that in the 10 years since, Photoshop has a bunch of those AI tools that can do that specific function almost automatically. But GIMP does do that specific task pretty well.

    xenspidey,

    Erasing the white around an object is crazy easy in GIMP. select color, delete. done. That's one task that is easier in GIMP then in Photoshop in my opinion.

    atomkarinca,

    the frustration is awfully familiar, i must say.

    the thing about gimp and krita is: gimp is an image manipulation software and krita is a drawing software, and as far as i can see from my so’s work, photoshop is a somewhat mixture of those two. from the jump, we’re not comparing apples to apples, unfortunately.

    but you already answered your own question, i think.

    see, foss programs aren’t there to be a drop-in replacment for their closed sourced alternatives. they emerge from a need from the community. what is more, usually you will have multiple programs encompassing a single workflow of their closed sourced counterparts; meaning they are modular.

    so even if there was some other program apart from these, it would have a learning curve, unless adobe open sources photoshop. so there is a viable alternative (which i know from experience) but there is a learning curve, albeit a steep one for someone coming from photoshop.

    you shouldn’t limit yourself, but it would immensely improve your understanding of the software if you try to recreate simple pieces of your workflow using gimp, once in a while.

    hitagi,

    Other than Affinity, I don’t know who else is competing against Photoshop in the professional space. Neither have native Linux builds.

    There’s also PhotoGIMP which patches GIMP to make it look like Photoshop. You can also try installing Photoshop or Affinity via WINE.

    If not, why?

    Neither Adobe nor Serif see Linux as a potential market. As for the open source ones, I’m guessing it’s because their funding and development team isn’t as big as an industrial giant like Adobe. I’m happy Blackmagic Design supports Linux to some degree and I get to have DaVinci Resolve on Linux natively. I wouldn’t be on Linux if DaVinci Resolve did not work natively tbh.

    humancrayon,
    @humancrayon@sh.itjust.works avatar

    I love Affinity, moreso than anything Adobe makes. I also work in the creative suite all day as a designer. If Affinity would expand to linux, I’d suggest the switch whinin our department immediately.

    At least Affinity doesn’t screw around with Pantone support. They have that figured out.

    BrooklynMan,
    @BrooklynMan@lemmy.ml avatar

    Davinci Resolve originally ran on SGI and Sun graphic workstations, which ran IRIX and SOLARIS respectively, both System V UNIX-based OSs. It’s pretty cool that they’ve maintained *nix-based support all of these decades.

    moritz,

    I’ve recently read that Affinity programs now work through Bottles, though I haven’t yet tried it myself.

    cygnus,
    @cygnus@lemmy.ca avatar

    They do, but I find them very laggy compared to Windows.

    architekt,

    where have you read this? I’m interested!

    bledley,
    @bledley@lemmy.world avatar

    After some time living with Gimp/Krita etc. you will learn to do the things you did with Photoshop. It does takes some time and research/learning. I was real comfy with PS and do miss it but the more I’ve gone without, the more I’ve found ways to tackle the things I need to do with alternatives.

    ApeCavalryArt,
    @ApeCavalryArt@kbin.social avatar

    I want everyone who says "just use GIMP" to draw a box in gimp

    Swexti,

    Looking past your downvotes, this is another good example of why I find it difficult to learn GIMP. As far as I know, you need to use a box selection to draw a box? Like border that selection or something? In what way is that intuitive from any perspective? It feels more like a workaround, rather than a solution.

    RS888,

    The process for a box is rectangle select tool>(right click)>edit>stroke selection.
    If I remember correctly it used to be worse. It was Rectangle Tool, Edit, Selection to Path, Stroke Path

    I love/hate gimp but I've used it for years because it's faster and easier than cracking photoshop on a new device.

    Swexti,

    I see. That, in my opinion, is too many steps to draw a box. What if I wanted to draw a triangle? How would I do that? There’s no triangle select.

    CallumWells,

    You can draw a box with the paintbrush tool, though. That also fixes your thing about triangle. Or if you want the lines to be totally straight, use the Paths tool, then when you’re done marking the lines you want (with or without curves) you click “stroke path” and get a window to select how you want the stroke to be.

    That’s either selecting the paintbrush and drawing directly (1 click and drawing) or selecting the paths tool, making the path, and choosing the line style (1 click + however many points needed + 1 click + selecting parameters (I just went for the default to test) + 1 click to confirm).

    But then again; GIMP isn’t meant to be a drawing program, it’s Image Manipulation Program. Use the right tools for the right things.

    CallumWells,

    That’s easy, I just tried it and I haven’t used GIMP that much in total and not at all in the previous year and a half.

    You can draw a box with the paintbrush tool. Or if you want the lines to be totally straight, use the Paths tool, then when you’re done marking the lines you want (with or without curves) you click “stroke path” and get a window to select how you want the stroke to be. And I figured this out very quickly as a user not very well versed in GIMP.

    As I also wrote in this comment; GIMP is meant to be an Image Manipulation Program, not a drawing program. You generally don’t use a screwdriver to drive nails into wood, you’ve got a hammer for that. Sure, you can use a screwdriver for it in a pinch, but it’s not going to do it well. Use the tools most appropriate for the thing you’re actually trying to do.

    toikpi,

    I use GIMP rarely but a quick search shows that you can use Shift-click to force straight lines or Shift-Ctrl-click to limit both the angle as well. thegimptutorials.com/how-to-draw-rectangle-square…

    I half-remembered the Shift-click.

    ClickToDisplay,
    @ClickToDisplay@lemmy.world avatar

    Web based, try Pixlr. Very similar

    geoff,

    A long time ago, when I was broke and decided I couldn’t afford Photoshop, I decided to invest the time in learning GIMP.

    Even though I’m a UX professional, and the barely okay UX does bother me, that has turned out to be a wise investment because no matter what, GIMP is always there for me. Always!

    The price never goes up. It never gets paywalled by a subscription. It never has shady license changes. It changes slowly and deliberately. I never have to convince a new boss to pay for it. I never have to wonder if it will be available for a project.

    That was like 20 years ago. I don’t how much value I’ve gotten out of that initial investment, but I bet it’s a LOT.

    coffeetest,

    I work with a small nonprofit that years ago was donated Photoshop. Over the years as upgrades happened, the org received new donations in one way or another to keep it current enough that it was still helpful. Even with a legit corporate donation of the software the license for it was a pain to deal with. At one point when it needed to be reinstalled it was no longer possible and I told the org to just forget about it. Last time I talked with Adobe to try to get it working, which they refused to do, I ended up telling them I would never use an Adobe product willingly again. I personally learned Gimp at that point and while I only use it from time to time it does the job and as you say, it is always there, always works, has plenty of online help and does anything that I need it to do.

    Just like beingoff corporate social media, I try to use FOSS as much as is reasonable because while it may have rougher edges at times, it can actually be more reliable. I manage some servers as part of my job and over the years the licensed stuff, Windows server, Exchange, VMWare at some point will bite you back with a dead end or major costs where as Debian...

    BiggestBulb,
    @BiggestBulb@kbin.social avatar

    I learned Gimp alongside Photoshop ~10 years ago and it's my preferred image editor. It does have some silliness sometimes, but overall I adore it.

    One of the best things they ever did was making it one-window by default.

    CarlosCheddar,

    Is there no way to run PS on Wine? Seems like that would be a compromise but I’ve never tried it.

    xenspidey,

    Adobe software, at least semi modern versions do not work through wine. At least last i checked a few months ago

    BitingChaos,
    @BitingChaos@lemmy.world avatar

    Of all the design decisions in GIMP that seem to make it so weird or different to someone coming from Photoshop, Adobe has put in 2X the amount of design choices into their software simply to try to thwart piracy.

    The amount of stupid libraries and processes it loads and “requires” to run is just crazy.

    A lot of it became apparent when Apple dropped 64-bit support a few years back.

    Developers had a decade to update everything to 64-bit. All the fancy (and expensive) Adobe apps were 64-bit, but all their licensing dependencies and anti-piracy libraries were strangely still 32-bit.

    People with legit copies couldn’t run anything after upgrading macOS. Only those with cracked/pirated versions (that didn’t load the 32-bit libraries) could actually use the software.

    I have no doubt that the mess of libraries and copy protection that Adobe “requires” would prevent their software from working under WINE.

    Swexti,

    There is a Photoshop CC installer for Linux hosted on Github. I’ve tried it - it works. It’s just not a great experience. Saving files is a pain, because the export option does not exist. You need to use Save As, and that only works with a hacky workaround.

    The UI doesn’t update until you do something that forces it to re-draw (like zooming or panning), which is a real pain when transforming or moving layers - for example. Plus, the UI doesn’t scale. You need to use Photoshop in complete fullscreen otherwise parts of the UI will be missing.

    AI filters do not exist, for obvious reasons. However, most other filters work fine.

    And most obviously, performance has an extreme degradation. It’s really slow.

    But yeah, would probably get a “Bronze” rating on WineHQ, which is better than not working at all - I suppose. It’s progress?

    CarlosCheddar,

    Oh wow, that doesn’t sound like a nice experience at all. I wonder if older versions of PS work better with Wine since it could be an option if you don’t need the latest features.

    Swexti,

    CS6 may work better, but I haven’t tested it. I may give it a shot sometime, though.

    coppercatter,

    And there’s the issue of tablet pressure! As an amateur artist I was ok with most of the peculiarities of Ps on Wine (even the weird full-screen deal that you mentioned), but even after extensive tinkering it would only register my Wacom pen strokes as single spots or full-pressure lines. Apparently this bug is pretty old, and the underlying problem is way more difficult to solve than it first seems (esp to a linux noob like me). I’ve heard photoshop cs2 can avoid this bug (and it worked fine for me) but that version of Ps looks very different than what I’m used to, having been a longtime cs6 and cc user.

    I ended up mainly using SAI on that system–which ran very well on Wine–but it has fewer bells and whistles and there are certain tools like liquify that don’t offer the same degree of control in Krita or GIMP (as far as I could tell). If my laptop hadn’t been struggling so much, I think I probably would’ve shifted more towards Krita but somehow it ran much worse on the linux system than the previous windows system, regardless of which version I tried. It’s a difficult problem to troubleshoot if you don’t know tech stuff very well - . -

    epocsquadron,
    @epocsquadron@kbin.social avatar

    It might be more web design leading but my company’s designers have switched to Figma, which is web based and has allowed me to work with their files for dev on Linux.

    Swexti,

    Not exactly what I’m looking for, unfortunately. Thank you, though. For UI/UX, I prefer Lunacy as it’s native and pretty much the same thing as Figma. Penpot works good too, though it’s still very much in development.

    BitingChaos,
    @BitingChaos@lemmy.world avatar

    GIMP is made that way on purpose.

    It can do lots of magical things, but it seems like the developers tried to make it as different as possible just for the sake of being different.

    I’m sure that if you bring up something to a developer of GIMP that “isn’t like Photoshop because it’s buried under 4 menus”, the only thing the developer will do to address the issue is release an update that then buries the feature under 5 menus.

    They got their weird software with its weird name and they are PROUD of how weird it all is.

    All I can suggest with it is to keep searching Google or YouTube on how to do things with it.

    I’ve mostly used Affinity and GIMP over the years. Although my work just got me Photoshop so that I can explore some of its “smart” AI stuff to help with some things.

    DaveX64,

    but it seems like the developers tried to make it as different as possible just for the sake of being different.

    They might actually be trying to avoid getting sued by Adobe.

    HumanPenguin, (edited )
    @HumanPenguin@feddit.uk avatar

    I use krita plus darktable. Together they give me everything I need.

    You are correct that Krita is not a photo editor on its own. But it is also not designed to be. Linux developers have less of a one tool for every job ideal. Due to not needing to compete the same way commercial developers do.

    Adderbox76,

    GIMP has its share of issues, just like any other software. but it’s biggest issue is that somewhere down the line general users got this idea in their head that it was supposed to be a Photoshop clone.

    So they go into it with certain expectations and then get frustrated when it doesn’t work that way. People like me, who actually learned GIMP before PS, obviously didn’t go in with the same bias and therefore have a much better grasp on it.

    Gimp is not a Photoshop clone. it’s its own piece of kit with it’s own design and feature decisions that some may like and others may not. That’s life. The developers have no obligation to follow any other software design scheme any more than Sony is obligated to follow LGs TV UI. They’re not clones, they’re alternatives.

    if you think Gimps only function is to copy Photoshop, you’re in for a bad time. If you want to use gimp as an ALTERNATIVE and go in without the bias, you’ll likely learn your way around a LOT faster.

    I’m not excusing Gimps failings. far from it. but I AM saying that half the issue is the Photoshop users thinking that gimp only exists to copy everything from their precious Adobe daddy. And that’s simply not true.

    bahmanm,
    @bahmanm@lemmy.ml avatar

    People like me, who actually learned GIMP before PS, obviously didn’t go in with the same bias and therefore have a much better grasp on it.

    Speaking for myself, I can say that’s true. To the point that even if I’ve got access to both, my default would be GIMP.

    infotainment,
    @infotainment@lemmy.world avatar

    Honestly I feel like this attitude is the reason GIMP’s UX suffers. They’re so determined to be “not like photoshop” that they’re unwilling to fix some of their more boneheaded UI decisions out of fear that they’d be seen as copying photoshop.

    ProtonBadger,

    That's not exactly my impression from following the design conversations through the years. They're more approaching decisions from the angle of what they think is best, their philosophy is to plainly ignore what others do and follow their own direction. Of course taking inspiration from Photoshop might sometimes be a good thing, if it doesn't conflict with the GIMP way of doing things.

    I've noticed in recent years some newcomer devs have had discussions on how to design their contributions, mentioning Photoshop and other alternative ways and there were just conversations about the merits of the different approaches that could be taken and what would fit the GIMP best, without bias.

    Anyway, I wasn't aware that GIMP UX suffers, I've never used anything else and am happy with it. It seem logical to me, obviously with fewer features than Photoshop but how much can a couple of guys do and they've had to refactor most of the GIMP for 3.0, but that'll open up for a lot of functionality being added moving forward..

    infotainment,
    @infotainment@lemmy.world avatar

    Anyway, I wasn’t aware that GIMP UX suffers, I’ve never used anything else and am happy with it.

    My argument here is that by never having used anything else, you wouldn’t necessarily realize how much better other UX choices could have been.

    That said, I do have to give the devs some credit, as they have fixed two major issues, by adding single-window-mode and unifying the transform tools. Having each transform be its own separate tool was just awful UX IMO.

    The biggest remaining UX problem, in my opinion, is the way GIMP forces layers to have fixed boundaries. Literally no other layer-based image editor has fixed layer boundaries, because it makes very little sense as a concept. Layers should solely be defined by their content, not by arbitrary layer properties set in a dialog box.

    eyolf,

    Amen to everything you’re saying.

    bouh,

    In terms of UI sometimes you think something is better merely because you learnt this way. The best example would be windows style desktop versus macos style desktop. I can’t use another desktop than a windows style one, which is why I always used kde and I always hated gnome.

    Now I don’t know whether gimp is good enough or not, but it must be said IMO.

    displaced_city_mouse,

    If you want to use gimp as an ALTERNATIVE and go in without the bias, you’ll likely learn your way around a LOT faster.

    I think this is the key phrase – do you want an alternative (where you might have to learn new ways of doing things), or do you want a clone? GIMP is not a clone, but an alternative.

    I also think this gets to something I was told loooooooooong ago, when I was a young lad asking what was the best computer to buy. Someone told me, “Find all the software you want/need to run, and get the computer that will run it all.”

    In other words, if you need to use Photoshop, then maybe you don’t use Linux – maybe stick with Mac or (shudder) Windows.

    Vinnyboiler,
    @Vinnyboiler@feddit.uk avatar

    I always love it when Linux users recommend going back to Windows as a option. It takes real maturity to admit that everything is a viable option, and sometimes especially in a professional workplace that Windows and MacOS should both be considered if Linux is limiting your workflow.

    CliffsEsport,

    @displaced_city_mouse @Adderbox76 yeah I'm fairly OS agnostic, I hate them all...just hate Windows more which I think you might agree with considering the shuddering induced by mentioning Windows 😏 I use ChromeOS, Mac, & iOS daily bc for my uses they are least problematic. Use Win 10 for gaming but looking to switch to Linux not W11 for that and have been dabbling/learning Android & Linux. Honestly it's a good time to be a nerd IMHO.

    Swexti,

    Agree, partly.

    I’ve migrated to a lot of different programs since switching to Linux: Premiere to Resolve, 3DS Max to Blender, to name a few. And I never expected the switch from Photoshop, which I so dearly love, to whatever good alternative that exists - to be easy. I’m willing to put in the time to learn GIMP, if only it hadn’t such glaring and prominent issues that make it really difficult to use.

    I’m not expecting a clone. I’m not expecting the UI to be the same. And, I’m willing to learn this program from the ground up. But I want a consistent experience - an app that works. For me, GIMP gets in the way a lot; making things unnecessarily difficult just for the sake of being “different”.

    I don’t mean to hate on GIMP. It works very well for people who like it. But we all have different preferences when it comes to software, and in the end - It’s just, not a good alternative for what I prefer. I’m willing to learn something new, but from my experience, GIMP will have (and has) a lot of icks that I just need to “put up with” to be usable. Especially efficiency. GIMP does not feel efficient, like at all. Might be because I haven’t learned it, but even Resolve felt efficient the first time I used it.

    I don’t have the same experience with Krita whatsoever. And sure, maybe Krita is a little closer to Photoshop than GIMP is, but I much prefer Krita’s overall experience much more than GIMP - even if it’s missing some more advanced features.

    I will stick to Krita, most likely, as that’s what I find myself most comfortable with. But it’s been interesting to hear what everyone else’s experiences are.

    djmarcone,

    I once heard it explained that gimps programmers goal was to make a program that can edit pictures. Their goal was not to edit pictures.

    mexicancartel,

    Photogimp is a plugin for people coming from photoshop but still may not be the exact clone

    whodoctor11,

    I know there’s a config file for GIMP that make it more like Photoshop, called PhotoGIMP. It’s on GitHub.

    Bipta,

    Wow that actually looks usable. I've always written GIMP off as unusable for me as a Photoshop user.

    IanM32,
    @IanM32@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s not a perfect clone, but it definitely eases the transition. I gave it a try and found it quite usable.

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