Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2015 17:50:39 -0400 From: Jay Smith
To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Comments on GIMP Message-ID:
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On 08/07/2015 05:28 PM, George Misdary wrote:

I'm not certain if this is the right place for this, but here goes, A few weeks ago I was on a mission to find a simple, yet effective, image editing program for a project I'm working on.After several frustrating experiences with a bunch of 'complete duds' and 'nice trys', I finally came across the GIMP. Within a few minutes of using GIMP, my reaction was simply WOW! Over the few weeks since I've been using it, that reaction has only continued to flourish and expand.In every step, so far, I've found GIMP to be unbelievably intuitive, logical, stable, capable, powerful, and simply brilliant to use.It is far and away one of the best programs I've ever used, not only as a graphics program but period!For every function that I thought "Hmm, it'd be nice if ...", within a few seconds/minutes of poking around on the hyper-intuitive interface; I've not only found exactly what I was looking for, but something-like a dozen other ways to expand upon what I was looking for. Rarely do I find this level of... maturity in a program and for a program that is released for free none-the-less, I'm simply blown away!!I'm not exaggerating when I say that on a practically daily basis, that I've used GIMP, I find myself saying "I really love this program". I'm sure you hear things like this fairly regularly, but I still wanted to send this email to give a HUGE shout-out to the developers, contributors, and all involved with making this such a kick-a## product! Kudos and THANK YOU!!!
Regards,GM

George,

If I did not know better, I would think you were a friend of one of the developers. :-)

Seriously I do have a question: What other image editing program(s) do you have experience with? (Not just "tried them", but actual significant use.)

My reason for asking is that Gimp is sometimes more intuitive for people who don't have a lot of experience with another image program (because they are somewhat expecting things to be like that other program).

You are a bit special -- in my experience, most people have a more difficult learning curve than you seem to have had.

Jay

Hi Jay,

Lol, nope not a friend of the Devs, but I wouldn't mind being one ;)

I've used several graphics apps in the past. One of the most notable was Paint Shop Pro. Which I actually really liked. Before Corel got their claws on it, it was a really good program. But even it was a bit of a bear to use a lot of times and was not anywhere near as intuitive as GIMP (in my opinion). I've used Photoshop. And while it is without a doubt incredibly powerful, it's also incredibly cumbersome and burdensome to use. If I had a need for all of its extra stuff (and beaucoup $$$) I might feel differently. But I did not find my experience with it nearly as pleasant, or at all. During my recent search I've downloaded Krita and found it to be an unholy mess to use. It has a lot of potential. But it was just... well anyway this is not the venue for that. But my experience with it was a large reason for prompting me to write my email above :)

Plus I've used other similar apps, on and off over the years. But you are right, I definitely don't have a lot of experience with using image programs extensively. Usually I get one, use it for the process/project/etc I want, then will likely not access it again for a while.

My current project, however, I've used GIMP extensively. And I will be using it for some time yet to come. And I continue to be pleased with its ease of use, vast array of usable options, and overall versatility and stability. My only criticism (of GIMP) is the ability, or lack of, for batch image processing. After spending some time poking at the program itself, and coming up empty handed, I looked at GIMP's scripting language. For everything GIMP is, the scripting language is most decidedly NOT. It's not intuitive, practical, or even usable unless you're one of the coders that wrote that particular function, lol. I'm sure it's very powerful, but I have yet to make any headway with using it; finding it to be unnecessarily obtuse. I did fortunately discover BIMP and I am once again doing the happy GIMP dance t want to see what *that* looks like, but at least it is happy :)

GM