The GIMP, the famous free photo and image editing software dinosaur is agonizing, if it is not already dead by arrogance and immobility. It is very sad to write that, but let's face the truth, and to understand why i am saying that, let's get back in the past, 15 years ago for few lines.
I have discovered The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) around the year 1998 or 1999, it was the only free photo and imaging application which was able to do almost the same kind of photo and image editing or retouching with drawing abilities as Photoshop, and back in the days Photoshop was so expensive that it was just unbelievable, plus my hard drive was partitioned half for Linux (Mandrake distribution) and half for Windows, so for Linux i needed GIMP.
The Gimp image editing software was very popular during those days, and the big popularity have leaded to have a lot of developers which maintained gimp and upgraded it very often, where nowadays if you got an update or a bug fix per year you got very lucky.
When you see the competition of this sector which is the photo and
images editing nowadays and what they are offering, you can only think that GIMP is dying if it is not already dead... Why?
Just ask yourself ... Who is using Gimp nowadays? Almost nobody, or just some odd dinosaurs that know very well GIMP and cannot adapt themselves to something else !
The GIMP didn't evolved (at least it's user interface didn't evolved ... At all!), some developer might have spend more than 15 years on GIMP and for them just thinking to restart from scratch is unthinkable, sad... it is, because GIMP need to go back to the foundry and reshaped from scratch with a modern programming language to become more efficient and a lot faster!
The thinking way of the GNU open source free software and the non moving hierarchy problems and their hidden "do not touch my code because i spent too much time on it" have made the GIMP dying slowly but surely.
Just look at some free photo or graphic editor nowadays, those are impressive and make GIMP look like or run like a Neanderthal application.
Some of you will tell me : "but GIMP is also a drawing application"; indeed, i agree, but did you see some free software like FireAlpaca or Krita ? those are also drawing application...
Those are also Free and Open Source, and they are a lot more powerful and faster than GIMP plus their user interface are a LOT more user friendly than GIMP.
The GIMP community know very well that it's main problem it's its user interface, i cannot count how many people over the web complain about it, even the those specialized website who review software complain ALL about it's unfriendly user interface and what did GIMP about it ? NOTHING !
Why ? because the users have no right to say something, when i asked them to improve the UI, their answers was always "if you are not happy develop it for yourself
!", it means a lot about what they think about the us, the users ...
When i am looking at Photoscape X and it's very friendly user interface or Fotor or even On1 Perfect Effect Free 9, it's night and day compared to GIMP !
Can you do image manipulation with those free software ? Yes and if i want to draw something i will use Krita or FireAlpaca or MediBangPaint Pro which are also free applications!
If i want the same abilities as Photoshop, i will go online with PixlR or ToolPic and Sumo Paint ... not any more with GIMP, anyway GIMP is not able to open RAW files.
Seriously ... GIMP is NOT able to open a RAW file where some online free photo editor can do it like Polarr !
Sadly GIMP became a farce with the lure of the update or upgrade once a year but visually there is no change nor in the performance and it is still very glitchy inside on any operating system.
The sad part of this story is that i might also be one of this odd dinosaur that became The GIMP.
If you like this page let me know it in a comment below (read the rules) and don't forget to share it now on your favorite social media.
Thank you for your support.
Write a comment