Re: [Gimp-developer] Asking for a Miracle !?

2015-07-30 Thread Gez
El jue, 30-07-2015 a las 11:52 +0100, C R escribió:
 
 It seems to me, the real problem is not that it doesn't have the same 
 UI as
 Photoshop, but rather that people forget how long it took them to 
 learn
 Photoshop in the first place.
 I've found that showing people the power of the software, more often 
 than
 not, rekindles that essential flame of curiosity, which is essential 
 to
 learning anything new. The rest is patience, and realising that the 
 time
 investment pays off tremendously in the end. Even if you can not 
 replace
 Photoshop entirely in your working environment, you have one more
 standards-compliant tool to produce graphics, and this tool is usable 
 by
 everyone in the world at no charge. That's an enormous advantage over
 Photoshop, and well worth the time it takes to learn the software.

I concur.
I have similar stories about people complaining about how bad,
incomplete, uncapable and clunky GIMP is, until they actually see it
working for real.
Most of the complaints come from a brief look at the UI and trying to
do something the same way they'd do with the other application. When
they fail then the tool sucks.
When you switch to a new tool you have to spend some time with it
learning how to use it. It's curious that so many people who moved from
Corel Draw to Illustrator forced themselves to learn the new tool
despite its differences with the latter, but they tear their clothes
when somebody suggests that they have to learn something when they move
from PS to GIMP.
I think it's a status thing. Moving from one software to another
which is some sort of industry de-facto standard, costs money, regarded
as better, etc. that's perceived as an improvement, so the effort
needed to learn the new thing seems justified.
However, moving from THE de-facto industry standad to a free
application made by a group of volunteers is perceived as a downgrade,
so people puts the burden on the application.

It's not fair at all, but it is what it is. The only way to fight that
is with education, showing people what can be done with the tool.
Results matter and the process matters too.
Your gif is a nice example because it show that complex things can be
done.

Maybe it would be a good idea to post some breakdowns and timelapses of
complex work done in GIMP as an example of what can be done with the
tool. Not tutorials, real world examples of good work made with GIMP,
so new users get to know what results to expect once they master the
tool.

Gez.
___
gimp-developer-list mailing list
List address:gimp-developer-list@gnome.org
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-developer-list


Re: [Gimp-developer] Asking for a Miracle !?

2015-07-30 Thread Andrew Pullins
I truly have never understood the argument that Photoshop has a better UI
then GIMP and that GIMPs UI is ugly or sucks. I never understood GIMPshop,
all it does is rearranged the dialogs to be in the same default
configuration as Photoshop and changes the hot key settings to be more like
Photoshop... That's it.. Does not do anything the user could not do them
selves.  In my opinion Photoshop and GIMP pretty much have the same UI.
Don't think so? Let me break it down.

Both Photoshop and GIMP have the ability to be multiple window mode or
single window mode.

Photoshop by default has a toolbar to the very left, GIMP has by default a
toolbar to the very left.  The user has the ability to move the toolbar
where ever they want in both programs. In both programs the toolbar can be
floating or apart of the window. Both Photoshop and GIMPs toolbar generally
contain the same tools.

In the middle of the UI both Photoshop and GIMP have a canvas. Not too
exiting here, its where all your work is done. You have rollers, scroll
bars, and a status bar to give you information about what you are currently
doing.

Photoshop does have what GIMP calls the tool option dialog as a toolbar at
the top of the canvas(which I believe GIMP should have the option to do as
well). This is the only noticeable difference when you first load up GIMP.
After that people will find other differences.

To the right of the UI both Photoshop and GIMP have dialogs. They both act
very much the same, except Photoshop has the ability to collapse there's.
GIMP does not have all the dialogs that Photoshop does but it has the most
essential ones. Each dialog has a menu to give you options that only apply
to that dialog in both Photoshop and GIMP.

There is a menu above the invite window that for the most part is the same
in both Photoshop and GIMP. You can modify the image, layer, and filters
here. That's pretty much all people use the menu for.

Everything that Photoshop has that GIMP does not is mostly just fluff and
not really needed. Most everything you can do in Photoshop can be achieved
in GIMP. You just might need to work harder to do so.

The only thing I see as a true problem for people is GIMPs theme. The theme
gets in the way and distracts people from creating art. At least this is
what I have heard from many people and is my own experience.  I think I
have spent more time thinking about how the UI could be better, and wishing
for a flat theme then I have creating art in gimp.  And I know of many
others who say the same. That is why i created The Flat GIMP Icon Theme
[1], to let GIMP get out of your way and let you create art.

[1]
http://android272.deviantart.com/art/Flat-GIMP-icon-Theme-V-2-1-375010811
On Jul 30, 2015 6:52 AM, C R caj...@gmail.com wrote:

 On a positive note, I was able to answer some GIMP questions last night at
 the London Linux meetup.
 These questions came from a long time Photoshop and Corel Draw user, who
 has tried GIMP and was stumbling as many do when coming from Photoshop as a
 primary photo-editor. However within minutes, he had completely changed his
 mind about GIMP. This is not the first time I've seen this happen. In fact,
 it seems to be the default reaction when I show them this GIF I made of the
 process of photoediting a paintbrush and wall for a charity website:


 http://www.opendesignstudio.org/gimp/quickref/fresh_paint_new_orleans_500px2.gif

 It seems to me, the real problem is not that it doesn't have the same UI as
 Photoshop, but rather that people forget how long it took them to learn
 Photoshop in the first place.
 I've found that showing people the power of the software, more often than
 not, rekindles that essential flame of curiosity, which is essential to
 learning anything new. The rest is patience, and realising that the time
 investment pays off tremendously in the end. Even if you can not replace
 Photoshop entirely in your working environment, you have one more
 standards-compliant tool to produce graphics, and this tool is usable by
 everyone in the world at no charge. That's an enormous advantage over
 Photoshop, and well worth the time it takes to learn the software.

 -C


 On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 12:28 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine 
 alexandre.prokoud...@gmail.com wrote:

  On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 5:55 PM, Webdrifter wrote:
 
  First of all, I realize you are passionate GIMPshop/GIMP user and I do
  appreciate that. But you seem to be making a horrible lot of debatable
  assumptions.
 
   Downloads of Gimpshop really skyrocketed, thus proving the viability
   and deer need for a product like this.
 
  With free software that has no phone back feature you have no way to
  estimate if downloaded software is used at all or if there's a hype
  going on. Hence viability of GIMPshop is merely a speculation. The
  same applies to GIMP as well.
 
   A product that not only can knock Photoshop off it's throne, but that
   could get rid off Photoshop's dominance and arrogance alltogether.
 
  I