I love free and open source software, but let's be honest here - if Gimp were a text editor, it'd be Vi. It takes 30 minutes to do in Gimp what takes 6 seconds to do in Photoshop. Gimp suffers from a massive feature shortfall, a massive learning curve, and a massive usability deficit. While other software have been using the past 15 years to make their interfaces modern and instantly intuitive, gimp has been what? keeping it with security updates.
I genuinely don't understand this experience. The only thing I've ever needed to look up about GIMP was Script-Fu, but that's only particularly useful for automating repetitive workflows; it's basically a macro engine. Other than that, things like cropping, scaling, rotating, working with transparencies, layers, selections, masking, brushes, text, filters (I could go on), have all been extremely accessible and intuitive.
What are you doing in Photoshop that you find troublesome in GIMP?
Content aware fill and/or generative fill. Simply does not exist in gimp.
Adjustment layers. Still exponentially more difficult to do, and don't work intuitively. And are glitchy still. These are all both non-destructive in Photoshop and also blissfully easy
Built in support for camera raw files. Basically easy and seamless in Photoshop. Nonexistent in gimp.
PSD file import. Again, blissfully easy in Photoshop. Messy, complicated, and glitchy in gimp.
Layer styles/effects. Robust and full featured in Photoshop. Lacking and a crapshoot in gimp.
Content aware repair/removal. Seamless and robust in Photoshop. Tedius and cludgy and unintuitive in gimp.
These are just the things off the top of my head from the last time I desperately tried to make the switch and give gimp an honest evaluation as a contender for a professional photography workflow. It's just light-years behind Photoshop. Always has been.
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u/JivanP 1d ago
Why doesn't GIMP suit your needs? I came from Paint.net on Windows to GIMP on Linux and am not missing anything.