The biggest problem I have with GIMP is that it's not intuitive. Every time I open it I have to stop and think how I am supposed to do what I am trying to do, my work never flows.
This has such an impact on my productivity that I'm desperately looking for alternatives that don't involve purchasing Photoshop - now looking at Pixelmator. Other members of the team have switched to Paint.NET or other simple editors, but they are too simple for me.
Another problem that I have is with focus - sometimes the picture window loses input focus to one of the tool windows and then the keyboard shortcuts stop working. I have to click on the window and then use the shortcut, but when clicking the current tool will execute its action (such as paint a black blob in the middle of the layer), so I have to click outside the picture area (might be hard to do) or hunt for the title bar.
Furthermore, when the tool windows have focus they control some of the widgets in the tool window, popping up subwindows or changing settings by accident.
Yet another issue is text editing and selection. GIMP does not allow me to do live text-editing, instead it pops up a dialog box and I have to adjust the actual text rect in the background. Every time I click the text rect to adjust it the tool windows flicker into view for 0.5 seconds, very annoying. Selections are significantly harder to control compared to Photoshop, where you can do pretty much anything to a selection just by using the mouse and one or two keys.
General UI problems:
* dialogs that are too small
* dialogs popping up over other dialogs
* many dialogs that cover the image when shown and I have to move them out of the way
* dialogs that sometimes remember their position, sometimes show up at apparently random locations
* tool windows exiting the screen
* tool fields that just look like they were thrown together without any thought to spacing, grouping and alignment (check out the rectangle select or the almost invisible spinner arrows for the layer transparency)
* the layers tool window is especially difficult to use with a mouse (dragging & dropping, ordering, linking)
* tools that reset their settings (e.g: move tool rests to pick a layer to move instead of move active)
* general disregard for UI design that makes the UI look crowded (e.g layers tab icons)
* the design choice of clipping layers to the visible image area, forcing you to resize the canvas and the layers unnecessarily
I could go on and on and on. I can't remember using GIMP even once without being annoyed by something in the UI that breaks my work flow.
The features I miss the most are adjustments layers, layer grouping (this is so painful when working with a lot of layers).
Great! A list of problems with a description of _why_ it's a problem. Can I ask if you have put this list anywhere near the GIMP developers - mailing lists or bugzilla?
Totally agree. I would like to add one think that is bugging me: layer size. It sucks. Move a layer 50 pix. to the right and suddenly you can't draw in the left 50 pixels because the layer has moved.
But perhaps some issues are they because of patents. I can image they cannot copy every part of Photoshop. But infinite layer size would be nice.
thanks - I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. GIMP completly breaks your photoshop habits, because it's so similar yet makes tiny little differences along the way. either embrace the photoshop design philosophy fully - or build your own, distinct and intuitive GUI - now it's just confusing to the point of being useless, whenever I have to quickly edit a picture on linux.
I understand what you mean, since i feel the same way every time i use gimp. However, I don't think you can blame it for breaking your photoshop habits. It is, after all, not photoshop.
The problem I've had (and the most common one I've seen) is that people use gimp 15% of the time and don't learn it's flow, then get frustrated because it's not photoshop's flow.
I've done full-time in both gimp and photoshop and decided, for now, to stick with photoshop. Too many niggly UI issues (like the GP mentioned) in gimp (not that photoshop is great, but it is at least reasonably consistent). Same reason I'm on a Mac instead of Linux (after doing full-time Linux, too).
Another problem that I have is with focus - sometimes the picture window loses input focus to one of the tool windows and then the keyboard shortcuts stop working. I have to click on the window and then use the shortcut, but when clicking the current tool will execute its action (such as paint a black blob in the middle of the layer), so I have to click outside the picture area (might be hard to do) or hunt for the title bar. Furthermore, when the tool windows have focus they control some of the widgets in the tool window, popping up subwindows or changing settings by accident.
Yet another issue is text editing and selection. GIMP does not allow me to do live text-editing, instead it pops up a dialog box and I have to adjust the actual text rect in the background. Every time I click the text rect to adjust it the tool windows flicker into view for 0.5 seconds, very annoying. Selections are significantly harder to control compared to Photoshop, where you can do pretty much anything to a selection just by using the mouse and one or two keys.
General UI problems:
* dialogs that are too small
* dialogs popping up over other dialogs
* many dialogs that cover the image when shown and I have to move them out of the way
* dialogs that sometimes remember their position, sometimes show up at apparently random locations
* tool windows exiting the screen
* tool fields that just look like they were thrown together without any thought to spacing, grouping and alignment (check out the rectangle select or the almost invisible spinner arrows for the layer transparency)
* the layers tool window is especially difficult to use with a mouse (dragging & dropping, ordering, linking)
* tools that reset their settings (e.g: move tool rests to pick a layer to move instead of move active)
* general disregard for UI design that makes the UI look crowded (e.g layers tab icons)
* the design choice of clipping layers to the visible image area, forcing you to resize the canvas and the layers unnecessarily
I could go on and on and on. I can't remember using GIMP even once without being annoyed by something in the UI that breaks my work flow.
The features I miss the most are adjustments layers, layer grouping (this is so painful when working with a lot of layers).