BGP wrote:

I'm sure you folks are all experts at GIMP but I've found it to be a very hard to learn how to use. But how many hundreds of hours did it take you to learn how to use it?

GIMP is a very powerful and complex tool, and thus you cannot master it in a few minutes. But its learning curve is such that you should be able to do interesting things in a few hours.

For example- the "tutorials" are mostly out of date and they usually tell you to click something that isn't even present in the latest version. What a PAIN.

Since GIMP is continuously improved, it is impossible to maintain all parts of the interface in the same place, used in the same way. And people who made tutorials years ago may be occupied elsewhere now.

There has to be an easier way....they has to be.

The easiest way is to buy and use a recent book. Depending on what are your main usage of GIMP and your budget, you have some choice, and new books are in preparation. Give a look at the first five entries on

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=GIMP&x=0&y=0

On 1/22/10, BGP wrote:

I'm sure you folks are all experts at GIMP but I've found it to be a very hard to learn how to use. But how many hundreds of hours did it take you to learn how to use it?

Learning is something you never stop to do. If you stopped learning, you are dead and the coffin with your body is about to be put six feet underground.

For example- the "tutorials" are mostly out of date

Did you read *all* tutorials on GIMP? Really? I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

Alexandre

On 01/22/2010 09:58 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On 1/22/10, BGP wrote:

I'm sure you folks are all experts at GIMP but I've found it to be a very hard to learn how to use. But how many hundreds of hours did it take you to learn how to use it?

Learning is something you never stop to do. If you stopped learning, you are dead and the coffin with your body is about to be put six feet underground.

For example- the "tutorials" are mostly out of date

Did you read *all* tutorials on GIMP? Really? I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

Alexandre

While the responses to the original poster are surely technically correct, the original poster _does_ have a legitimate point.

It might actually be easier for a person to learn Gimp if they have never used another image editing program.

However, for people who grew up on Photoshop, it is a particular challenge to learn Gimp because one must learn substantially new techniques, methods, terminology, concepts, and workflows.

And the OP is correct that there is some out-of-date documentation being presented as if it were current. This is especially a problem because many aspects of the UI have changed in the last couple years. And this problem is only going to be much _worse_ when the single-window possibility is available -- the docs will really be behind.

The first step in increasing broad acceptance, support, and development of Gimp is to _accept_ its shortcomings and to honestly recognize the challenges that new users face.

While long-time users and the developers of Gimp may not feel like Gimp should be treated as a "product", the reality is that any new user looking at Gimp is going to make choices and decisions that are "product choice" decisions. Denial of that fact is complete denial of reality.

It is my opinion that many in the open source / free software (OS/FS) arena have long ago forgotten that truism. In my experience the OS/FS world pretty much tells new users that if they are not patient enough or smart enough to figure out the secrets of whatever software, they don't deserve to use it.

I feel that is completely backward. The OS/FS community should focus on (as much as software development) the education of new users and bringing them into the community.

As an example, while I have not looked for it, I am sure that there must at least be some book or maybe a website here or there that specifically addresses "How to smoothly migrate from using Photoshop to using Gimp -- the benefits, challenges, and differences of using Gimp". Such content should be right up front in the whole Gimp documentation, Gimp websites, etc., etc.

Every successful organization (and the Gimp community IS an organization of a sort) gets new users/customers by telling potential users/customers how/why their "product" is better -- and then making the conversion to using/buying their "product" as easy as possible. The Gimp community could do a lot better at this. And if somebody says "we don't care about getting more users", I would ask them "then, why make Gimp at all?"

How about this as an answer to the OP:

"It took me twice as long to learn to use Gimp as it took me to learn to use Photoshop. I agree that the documentation is behind the curve and needs to be improved. There are a great many things that I still do not know how to do in Gimp and a great many things about Gimp that annoy me to the point of being incredibly frustrated. While Gimp has many incredibly wonderful features, there are still major features missing that significantly hamper my own productivity. However, when I add up and try to balance out all the pluses and minuses, I have come to the conclusion that I would rather use Gimp than Photoshop and that I would rather support Gimp's development than to fund the arrogance of Adobe's/Microsoft's management."

When a new user complains, I would rather we say ...

"Gee, there is a lot of truth in what you are saying and I understand that _has_ been your experience so far. However, there are many great resources available and I hope that you will pursue using those resources so that you can fully benefit from what Gimp has to offer."

====

As an aside, I really think that the documentation issue is going to become critical in the next couple of years. As I understand it (and please correct me if I am wrong), anybody can contribute to the documentation effort, but it takes significant training and skills in the special process involved with maintaining documentation versioning, etc., etc., etc. I don't begin to understand all of that and I DON'T WANT TO have to become an expert in all that stuff -- I just want to help improve the documentation.

What I DO want to do is be able to contribute if I see a small problem or have a suggestion as a better way to provide a bit of information, etc.

I think it is time to seriously think about putting the documentation in a real Wiki environment where we don't have to worry about all this complex version stuff, etc. I _assume_ (I hope I am correct) that a Wiki's HTML pages can be exported into a package of HTML pages of some sort so that a NON-live version can be supplied with the Gimp program for those who do not have constant/cheap Internet access. However, otherwise, the Wiki should be used live and a much larger part of the community can contribute, improve, and keep it up to date. I admit that I am not sure how to "branch" the documentation when different Gimp versions require differentiation of documentation, but there must be a standard way to manage that sort of thing. The key here is that 99% of the community is _not_ contributing to the documentation whereas I think that we could get that down to 95%, resulting in massively better and more current documentation.

Jay

On 1/22/10, BGP wrote:

Learning is something you never stop to do. If you stopped learning, you are dead and the coffin with your body is about to be put six feet underground.

Never heard that one before.

Now you have :)

For example- the "tutorials" are mostly out of date

Did you read *all* tutorials on GIMP? Really? I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

I never said "all"- you did.

You were asked several times what tutorials out of hundreds that exist you refer to, and you never replied. So when you say that tutorials are mostly out of date, there is no way you can be sure of that unless you've read *all* the tutorials. Basic logic.

If you have an excellent tutorial for ver. 2.6.8 then please refer me to it.

What kind of tutorial? Drawing? Painting? Color correction? Retouching? FX? Please understand that by refusing to provide details you don't help us to help you.

Alexandre

On 1/22/10, Jay Smith wrote:

While the responses to the original poster are surely technically correct, the original poster _does_ have a legitimate point.

It might actually be easier for a person to learn Gimp if they have never used another image editing program.

However, for people who grew up on Photoshop, it is a particular challenge to learn Gimp because one must learn substantially new techniques, methods, terminology, concepts, and workflows.

And the OP is correct that there is some out-of-date documentation being presented as if it were current. This is especially a problem because many aspects of the UI have changed in the last couple years. And this problem is only going to be much _worse_ when the single-window possibility is available -- the docs will really be behind.

The first step in increasing broad acceptance, support, and development of Gimp is to _accept_ its shortcomings and to honestly recognize the challenges that new users face.

Jay,

It has been said by GIMP developers in public several times that tutorials at gimp.org are out of date and need reworking. There is no problem accepting the fact, see? There is a problem of people not having spare time to work on that. It's really *that* simple. There's no conspiracy.

Alexandre

I'm sure you folks are all experts at GIMP but I've found it to be a very hard to learn how to use. But how many hundreds of hours did it take you to learn how to use it?

For example- the "tutorials" are mostly out of date and they usually tell you to click something that isn't even present in the latest version. What a PAIN.

There has to be an easier way....they has to be.

I sympathise with you, GIMP is complicated but then, so are lots of applications. The darkness was lifted from my eyes when I discovered www.meetthegimp.org This is a series of video tutorials which is so helpful without being over complicated that even an oldie like me can understand. Give them a try, and tell me what you think.

Norman

2010/1/22 BGP :

I'm sure you folks are all experts at GIMP but I've found it to be a very hard to learn how to use.  But how many hundreds of hours did it take you to learn how to use it?

For example- the "tutorials" are mostly out of date and they usually tell you to click something that isn't even present in the latest version.  What a PAIN.

There has to be an easier way....they has to be. _______________________________________________ Gimp-user mailing list
Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user

It didn't take me long at all to become productive in GIMP and I'm still learning! I'm in no way a professional, I mainly do web design using GIMP (which can be a pain at sometimes because it doesn't have layer groups like Photoshop).

Try out different things, click stuff you have no idea about what they do. At least that's what I did... Tutorials helped me very little.

On 1/22/10, Jay Smith wrote:

While long-time users and the developers of Gimp may not feel like Gimp should be treated as a "product", the reality is that any new user looking at Gimp is going to make choices and decisions that are "product choice" decisions. Denial of that fact is complete denial of reality.

And who denies it? :)

It is my opinion that many in the open source / free software (OS/FS) arena have long ago forgotten that truism. In my experience the OS/FS world pretty much tells new users that if they are not patient enough or smart enough to figure out the secrets of whatever software, they don't deserve to use it.

How does it relate to GIMP?

I feel that is completely backward. The OS/FS community should focus on (as much as software development) the education of new users and bringing them into the community.

Agreed.

As an example, while I have not looked for it, I am sure that there must at least be some book or maybe a website here or there that specifically addresses "How to smoothly migrate from using Photoshop to using Gimp -- the benefits, challenges, and differences of using Gimp". Such content should be right up front in the whole Gimp documentation, Gimp websites, etc., etc.

Not a book and not a website, but something I started a while ago in Russian and haven't finished translating into English yet.

http://wiki.libregraphicsworld.org/doku.php?id=migration-ps-to-gimp

Basically it covers status of support for file formats (needs updating a bit), table of tools and their keyboard shortcuts mapping, table of functionality mapping

I'll see if I can finish it this week.

could do a lot better at this. And if somebody says "we don't care about getting more users", I would ask them "then, why make Gimp at all?"

And does anyone actually say that?

As an aside, I really think that the documentation issue is going to become critical in the next couple of years. As I understand it (and please correct me if I am wrong), anybody can contribute to the documentation effort, but it takes significant training and skills in the special process involved with maintaining documentation versioning, etc., etc., etc. I don't begin to understand all of that and I DON'T WANT TO have to become an expert in all that stuff -- I just want to help improve the documentation.

I understand your feelings, but GIMP documentation is a single-source effort that isn't well supported by current wiki engines.

Alexandre

On 1/22/2010 9:48 AM, Deniz Dogan wrote:

It didn't take me long at all to become productive in GIMP and I'm still learning! I'm in no way a professional, I mainly do web design using GIMP (which can be a pain at sometimes because it doesn't have layer groups like Photoshop).

Try out different things, click stuff you have no idea about what they do. At least that's what I did... Tutorials helped me very little.

That's how I learned how to use GIMP. I don't like tutorials myself. They tend to be rather specific, even though they are trying to teach generalized techniques. I just experiment until I find something I like and than I try to remember what I did so I can do it again. My favorite tool right now is the fractal explorer. I have a good notion I'll never become an expert at using it but boy, do I have fun[0]!

(:

[0]: http://adragonstale.joseph-a-nagy-jr.us/art/digital/

On 1/22/10, Programmer In Training wrote:

My favorite tool right now is the fractal explorer.

Don't forget to write a tutorial :-P

Alexandre

On 1/22/2010 10:12 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On 1/22/10, Programmer In Training wrote:

My favorite tool right now is the fractal explorer.

Don't forget to write a tutorial :-P

I've thought about it. I was going to start doing so for Renderosity (they have nothing for GIMP users there) several years ago but never got around to it. I'm not really sure where to begin as I really don't understand the settings. I just click and slide and adjust until I find what I like. No skill there! :p

On 01/22/2010 10:57 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On 1/22/10, Jay Smith wrote:

As an aside, I really think that the documentation issue is going to become critical in the next couple of years. As I understand it (and please correct me if I am wrong), anybody can contribute to the documentation effort, but it takes significant training and skills in the special process involved with maintaining documentation versioning, etc., etc., etc. I don't begin to understand all of that and I DON'T WANT TO have to become an expert in all that stuff -- I just want to help improve the documentation.

I understand your feelings, but GIMP documentation is a single-source effort that isn't well supported by current wiki engines.

Alexandre

On 01/22/2010 10:44 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On 1/22/10, Jay Smith wrote:

It has been said by GIMP developers in public several times that tutorials at gimp.org are out of date and need reworking. There is no problem accepting the fact, see? There is a problem of people not having spare time to work on that. It's really *that* simple. There's no conspiracy.

Alexandre

I'm breaking this out into a new thread.

In a couple of his responses Alexandre said:

"but GIMP documentation is a single-source effort that isn't well supported by current wiki engines."

and

"There is a problem of people not having spare time to work on [updating documentation]".

Alexandre's second point can be solved by a Wiki. A Wiki would allow and encourage more people to become involved.

However, I am ignorant of exactly what the input / output requirements of the "single-source effort" are exactly. If possible, can somebody point me to a reference which describes how the documentation project/work itself is being done and what the inputs/outputs are and where they live?

For example, are the docs such as http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/gimp-concepts-usage.html buried inside Gimp itself as comments (as some programs do)?

For example, are the multiple languages offered here http://docs.gimp.org/
all maintained in single multi-language "documents" or database records (for each respective topic page)? And how are they kept in sync and annotated as to what new/changed/removed text needs translating, etc.

Sorry if this is a newbie kind of question, but I have not previously run into a discussion of it.

I agree that Wikis are _not_ good at: - Multi-language versions maintenance of the "same" subject page - Output to print
- Output to structured documents
- Databases as Wikis (but I don't think that applies here, but it is a subject of extreme interest to me if anybody else is interested)

Jay

On 1/22/10, Jay Smith wrote:

Alexandre's second point can be solved by a Wiki. A Wiki would allow and encourage more people to become involved.

However, I am ignorant of exactly what the input / output requirements of the "single-source effort" are exactly. If possible, can somebody point me to a reference which describes how the documentation project/work itself is being done and what the inputs/outputs are and where they live?

IIRC wiki is offline now (that ism the potential documentation host :-P), so I can't point you to the page.

We use DocBook/XML for storing original content in English and PO files for storing translation. This is great for translating, because you don't need to manually look for updated pages or watch them all the time. You just see what messages in a PO file are marked as fuzzy (changed) and edit them.

The workflow is:

Someone edits the original XML file. Translators run a command that updates their translations (in PO files). Then they look at changes (easy to do in any PO editor), apply changes and commit them to Git repository.

As a side remark, I'm genuinely not impressed by wiki based documentations. They are not exactly as manageable as I'd like them to be. I'm judging by wiki.scribus.net for example.

FLOSS manuals is another example: we actually have a problem figuring out who does what in the Inkscape manual, because despite of being told to people silently edit something somewhere and never introduce themselves or tell about their plans, so clashes are inevitable.

Alexandre

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 8:41 AM, BGP wrote:

I'm sure you folks are all experts at GIMP but I've found it to be a very hard to learn how to use. But how many hundreds of hours did it take you to learn how to use it?

It depends what you mean by "learn how to use it". GIMP is just a tool, what you can do with it depends on your creativity and skill as well.

In other words, do you want to know "Where can I define a layer mask?" or do you want to know "What is a layer mask and why would I want to use one?"

If the latter, then you don't necessarily need a GIMP tutorial as much as basics of digital image manipulation which would apply to almost any similar programs.

Also, one option for dealing with tutorials that assume you're using an old version is to use an old version. You may be able to learn GIMP 2.4 and then make the transition to GIMP 2.6 more easily.

I'm guessing that there are very few people who know how to use every feature of GIMP. And probably even fewer that actually use every feature of GIMP in whatever task they do.

You can learn what you need to do with a little work and not a lot of time once you get the idea of layers and channels sorted out. That would be the first thing to figure out IMHO.

Then just learn what you need to do as you need to do it.

Jay Smith wrote:

On 01/22/2010 09:58 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On 1/22/10, BGP wrote:

I'm sure you folks are all experts at GIMP but I've found it to be a very hard to learn how to use. But how many hundreds of hours did it take you to learn how to use it?

Learning is something you never stop to do. If you stopped learning, you are dead and the coffin with your body is about to be put six feet underground.

Paul Hartman wrote:

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 8:41 AM, BGP wrote:

I'm sure you folks are all experts at GIMP but I've found it to be a very hard to learn how to use. But how many hundreds of hours did it take you to learn how to use it?

It depends what you mean by "learn how to use it". GIMP is just a tool, what you can do with it depends on your creativity and skill as well.

I'm actually tempted to suggest something like "Gimp - the Zen Way" or something like that! ;-) At times, I just play around with the features, just to see what's possible - and sometimes with surprising results. I came up with things you probably won't find in any tutorial.

Just my 2 cents,

Claus

I can't read the original message. I'm posting from gimpusers.com and it's not available from there. But if I'm not mistaken the complaint was that GIMP was hard to learn and part of the problem was tutorials being out of date.

There's plenty if you know where to find them. I posted this earlier but might as well post again.

http://gimp-tutorials.net/ http://www.gimp.wisdomplug.com/
http://gtuts.com/
http://youtube.com/gimptricks
http://youtube.com/jxtutorials

The last two are video tutorials. GIMPtricks is me.

Gimp wisdom plug is a site that gathers links to gimp tutorials from all over the internet. You can stumble on good and recent or bad or old tutorials, but there are a lot there on that site. There is lots more on youtube. Unfortunately there are a lot of videos where people are babbling and mumbling and being plain unclear or worse, telling you the wrong way of doing something. But there are lots of excellent videos as well.

Gtuts doesn't have many tutorials, but they are all excellent.

If you're willing to spend money I can recommend the VTC training videos for the basics (on gimp 2.6). But I found it covered GIMP from a photoshop point of view.
More thorough is Akkana Peck's book. Also for beginners but you learn much more for half the price. It's on gimp 2.4 but I found it easy to follow since 2.4 and 2.6 aren't that much different.

GIMP is very intuitive if you play with it. Watching videos help. The desk top could do with more reference points (e.g. the text box reflecting the size of the font...adding text to the right size id taking a lot of fiddling for me at the moment)

From: gimp-user-bounces@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU [mailto:gimp-user-bounces@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU] On Behalf Of Claus Cyrny Sent: Saturday, 23 January 2010 8:29 AM To: Paul Hartman
Cc: gimp-user@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Complaint

Paul Hartman wrote:

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 8:41 AM, BGP wrote:

I'm sure you folks are all experts at GIMP but I've found it to be a very hard to learn how to use. But how many hundreds of hours did it take you to learn how to use it?

It depends what you mean by "learn how to use it". GIMP is just a tool, what you can do with it depends on your creativity and skill as well.

I'm actually tempted to suggest something like "Gimp - the Zen Way" or something like that! ;-) At times, I just play around with the features, just to see what's possible - and sometimes with surprising results. I came up with things you probably won't find in any tutorial.

Just my 2 cents,

Claus

On 1/22/2010 9:48 AM, Deniz Dogan wrote:

It didn't take me long at all to become productive in GIMP and I'm still learning! I'm in no way a professional, I mainly do web design using GIMP (which can be a pain at sometimes because it doesn't have layer groups like Photoshop).

Try out different things, click stuff you have no idea about what they do. At least that's what I did... Tutorials helped me very little.

What might work for one doesn't always work for someone else. To say: "This works for me" or "this doesn't work for me" is setting a standard that cannot apply across the board. Tutorials are needed for the masses in general because for many, a starting point is needed.

That's how I learned how to use GIMP. I don't like tutorials myself.

I love tutorials as they tend to be rather helpful in realizing the potential of a plug-in, filter, or script. Sure, experimentation is strongly recommended, but to say what helps you should help everyone else, is a bit over the deep end.

They tend to be rather specific, even though they are trying to teach generalized techniques. I just experiment until I find something I like and than I try to remember what I did so I can do it again. My favorite tool right now is the fractal explorer.

My favorite thing is when someone else shows me what I can accomplish from using various tools. Again, experimenting is a necessity, but I can admit getting lost in GIMP for hours on end being in the "experimentation" mode.

I have a good notion I'll never

become an expert at using it but boy, do I have fun[0]!

I'd go out on a limb and say that for most us "beginners", GIMP SHOULD be FUN.

And again, why not make it into a tutorial? I can honestly tell you that thousands of GIMP beginners will appreciate your input in the form a tutorial. And I am not being facetious about this.

(:

[0]: http://adragonstale.joseph-a-nagy-jr.us/art/digital/

Hi Jolie,

I like your tutorials, just found them on the mailing list. Much better than the stuff I saw up to now on YouTube.

I am making "Meet the GIMP", a (more ore less) weekly video podcast about GIMP and other Open Source graphics software. I am doing this for 2 1/2 years now and still have fun.

I would love to have you on the show. Are you interested in a cooperation?

Rolf

Hi Jolie,

I like your tutorials, just found them on the mailing list. Much better than the stuff I saw up to now on YouTube.

I am making "Meet the GIMP", a (more ore less) weekly video podcast about GIMP and other Open Source graphics software. I am doing this for 2 1/2 years now and still have fun.

I would love to have you on the show. Are you interested in a cooperation?

Rolf

Hi Rolf,

I sent you an email to the address on the Meet the GIMP website.