The notion that a program can improve artistic skills is heavily and typically misleading. An artist can put together excellent works with any tool he chooses to use. For instance, Microsoft Paint is responsible for some of the best creations at pixeljoint.com.

On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 11:04 AM, Rob Antonishen wrote:

If it's the latter, then a new download of Gimp might just give you a drawing program that will improve your skills - as it has with mine.

2009/4/9 Mirai Warren :

The notion that a program can improve artistic skills is heavily and typically misleading.  An artist can put together excellent works with any tool he chooses to use.  For instance, Microsoft Paint is responsible for some of the best creations at pixeljoint.com.

Exploring any new means of creation, digital or physical, can obviously improve technical skills relating to arts. "Artistic skills" in general are harder to comment on, but from my experience exploration is always beneficial.

Back on topic, I had always heard how bad GIMP's interface is, despite the fact that I was using it perfectly fine. Although GIMP's UI is far from perfect, I think at a certain point that opinion has become something many people trust in without even trying the software for themselves, and what they've heard about it makes it easy to mistake its differences with other tools for poor quality.

Henk

This seems to run as a general response to software that challenges another with a major market share/user base, and particularly free software like blender and the gimp. I myself was sceptical of both of those projects earlier on due to prior experience with Maya and Photoshop. Many who use these professionally or regularly (I did not) are much more apt to complain to others; for example, a teacher to his students, a friend to friends.

On 4/10/09, Henk Boom wrote:

Back on topic, I had always heard how bad GIMP's interface is, despite the fact that I was using it perfectly fine. Although GIMP's UI is far from perfect, I think at a certain point that opinion has become something many people trust in without even trying the software for themselves, and what they've heard about it makes it easy to mistake its differences with other tools for poor quality.

Henk

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 5:10 AM, Mirai Warren wrote:

The notion that a program can improve artistic skills is heavily and typically misleading.  An artist can put together excellent works with any tool he chooses to use.  For instance, Microsoft Paint is responsible for some of the best creations at pixeljoint.com.

So first you say that artist puts works together, but in the end it's still Microsoft Paint that does the job? Looks like you have to make a tough choice to stop contradicting yourself :)

Look, it's really simple. Application is a toolbox that you use to get things done. Each tool is unique and usually implies a particular use (while combinations are infinite). You can't substitute a saw with a hammer or a screwdriver. Each new tool, when designed with love, care and reason, either broadens artist's horizons or helps to get things done faster, or both. Of course it will help one to improve skills, because being able to do things faster and have time to experiment just like being able to do completely new things does bring you on a new level. If you are open to learn.

Alexandre

Ach. Sorry, but my meaning was simply that an artist can create art with any tool. mspaint was only an example.

Looks like you have to make a tough choice to stop contradicting yourself :)

I wasn't contradicting myself. By "was responsible for" I meant "was used to create". It is still the artist that creates.

While it is technically possibly to create dither patterns like this using a tool like MS-Paint (which it wasn't in this case - it was Gimp), it is my opinion that an artist would have to either be masochistic, have way to much time on their hands, or just be stubbornly trying to make a point to use such a tool rather than a more suitable one...

I can do those patterns with mspaint rather easily, and I am not a masochist.

--MW

On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 5:11 AM, Mirai Warren wrote:

Ach.  Sorry, but my meaning was simply that an artist can create art with any tool.  mspaint was only an example.

Looks like you have to make a tough choice to stop contradicting yourself :)

I wasn't contradicting myself.  By "was responsible for" I meant "was used to create".  It is still the artist that creates.

While it is technically possibly to create dither patterns like this using a tool like MS-Paint (which it wasn't in this case - it was Gimp), it is my opinion that an artist would have to either be masochistic, have way to much time on their hands, or just be stubbornly trying to make a point to use such a tool rather than a more suitable one...

I can do those patterns with mspaint rather easily, and I am not a masochist.

I can do them easily (in GIMP, and probably in mspaint). But it takes more time, and is meaningless grunt work -- I already know exactly what is wanted there, so the method I used was to generate a sample of the dithering and then clone it. With the advent of the 'clipboard pattern' feature in GIMP, this would be even easier -- I could draw the ditherpattern sample directly onto the image before copying that section and cloning from Clipboard Pattern. Tool use allows you to forget about the meaningless and spend more time on the meaningful.

The time that you can choose to spend rendering such things manually, subtracts from the time you have to attend to other parts, and to the picture as a whole. As long as there is an efficiency gain, tools are worthwhile to use. I do not use a cloning method for small amounts of dithering, as it is more efficient to just render them with pencil tool.

Yes, I'm the artist of that picture :)

If you're not very practiced at dithering, it might be good to spend time doing it manually despite available tools to automate it. With the understanding of what you want that comes with experience, this is only rarely needed.

David

On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 12:04 -0400, Rob Antonishen wrote:

Just wanted to share some (positive) feedback from a person I had been pushing to try gimp:

[...]

My conclusion is that either the scare stories are wrong, or the latest version of the software is much easier to use than earlier versions.

This is really positive, and it's fabulous and kind of you to have shared it. I'm not sure why people started to jump in and criticise. Let's just be pleased about good feedback!

Thanks for sending that!

Liam