Idk about the rest of the software on this list, but presenting gimp as an "alternative" to photoshop seems disingenuous to me.

Gimp is an alternative to photoshop in the same way that a 56K modem is an alternative to a 1 gig fiber line. Yes, they technically do the same job. But to suggest that your experience is going to be comparable to photoshop is a stretch.

Important one:

Adobe acrobat: fork to the eyes. (Jokes aside, I'm using Stirling pdf viewer right now, it's nice)

GIMP is also a massive pain in the ass. Paint.net is the one piece of software I still miss after moving to Linux.

Da Vinci Resolve is great though. Crazy that it's free and Linux compatible.

Yeah GIMP is shit. Anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they’re talking about. Inkscape is better than gimp but still suffers from UI issues.

I'd suggest Krita before Gimp, and even Affinity (although I'm sure there's a gotcha coming with that one)

Photopea is pretty good for casual use

I use this site a lot

It tends to be pretty straightforward about what an alternative can and can't do. The tags work well for searching so you can exclude paid or freemium apps.

Figma? No, I won't fall for that again!

Surely there's something better than Gimp.

figma is not free software, and neither is davinci resolve. use penpot and kdenlive.

"Not much, what's figma with you?"

It’s figmover

Try PenPot instead.

Free as in beer, not as in speech, and DaVinci Resolve at least has a $295 upgrade for additional features, although last time I looked that upgrade is included with certain hardware purchases from Blackmagic.

Gimpshop i think it's called at least tries to make the GIMP workflow and UX (including keyboard short cuts) not completely, well, gimped.

The GUI/UX is shit. If you wanna design automated workflows from the shell, it can be quite flexible and powerful.

Like they used to have a website that would generate tags or like styled text. They used GIMP for the backend image generation. I thought that was a pretty impressive use case.

OpenShot is also a remarkably capable and easy-to-use video editor - https://www.openshot.org/ . I use it almost daily for editing screen capture videos.

Imagemagick.

Krita, definitely, though it's still not as complete in capability it's a much better analogue

This year i first saw an ad for Photoshop, i see this as a sign of them losing. Keep up the good work folk!

Yea it's not free but it's a once off, keep for ever price.

I'm happy with that

Seconded. Krita is significantly easier to use then GIMP.

Depends what you are doing. If you are drawing-krita, if you are manipulating images-gimp, making svg stuff-inkscape. I've been using gimp long enough that the newest photoshop makes me want to crashout.

Quality features often confuse people.

This image is crusty

I still like the traditional model for paid software where you pay once, and then future major upgrades can be purchased for a discount; it seems like a fair way for the developer to support continued development while allowing the customer to decide if they prefer to stay on an older version.

Figma ballz

Nah, pretty sure it was the ai jammed in everything.

So then you admit that pre-AI Photoshop was significantly better than gimp. Thanks

Oh. Hands down. I miss the old creative suites. But the current product? Glitchy pos. Fuck em. Once you use gimp for a few years the pain dulls. Now how you think inkscape is comparable to illustrator is baffling. Is illustrator also a shitshow now?

I wouldn’t actually know. I don’t use Adobe Products.

But if you exclude the AI features, and don’t make “anti-ai” your entire personality, gimp is pretty shit

...?? Gimp is what it is. It doesn't hold your hand-and there is admittedly an element of bootstraps. But once you are used to it, it will do what most people need it for.

Why have such aggressive opinions on software you apparently don't even use?

Why do you have such aggressive opinions on Photoshop if you don’t use it?

I think our conversation is over, don’t you think?

I'm not sure it could be defined as a conversation.

I wish you the best of luck working out whatever it is you are going through. Hang in there buddy 💪.

I've been using Photoshop for 24 years and I gave Affinity a try. Affinity still has a lot of kinks to work out. Cross compatibility wrt brushes and tools is spotty at best, unusable at worst. UI and workflow/workspace definitely needs improvement. No right click to adjust brush size and no saveable workspace option was a dealbreaker for me.

How good is it in comparison, feature wise?

Isn't krita for painting and photoshop for photo editing? Does krita do RAW, color grading and such?

You know, just hanging with Candice

https://rawtherapee.com/

edit: RAW image editing

Is there anything to sort of replace InDesign? I am doing cruel, time consuming, and unspeakable things with latex atm.

But is Gimp Affinity's Gimp? Or is there competition there?

Isn't that the best way to spend time with latex, though? .. oh. oh wait, you don't mean bdsm...

honestly, it does not feel dissimilar.

Not a good product name 😬

Wow that was a RISKY click based on that URL

Not much what's updog with you?

Gimp is apparently great if you start with it, but it is not a substitute for Photoshop.

Whenever I open GIMP I always feel like an 18th century taxonomist's first time seeing a platypus and assuming it's an elaborate hoax cooked up by someone with far too much time on their hands. Surely this isn't software made by humans to do useful things!? This must be a joke!

Don't forget about FreeCad!

They had an update earlier this year that really closed the gap on a lot of features and tools they were missing compared to other more established cad packages.

Same with Inkscape IMO. Anyone have a different alternative?