Last time I used gimp it wouldn’t save a file in different format - I had to export it. For someone that just wants to grab an image, touch it up and resave it, gimp just irritates. There’s at least another 50 of these kinds of small annoyances that add up to one large dealbreaker for me. Of course none are bugs - it’s likely just intended behaviour that the developers think is great.
For what I need to do Krita is much better. I haven’t used photoshop for over a decade.
They really should not do that. Saving implies that you can save the entire state of the image in a file, including layers, etc. Exporting implies saving a file as a different format that may not be 100% faithful to what you see in the app.
Disallowing saving follows the principle of least surprise, because when an application reports a successful save, users would expect the application state they see to actually be saved.
That's really only true if your mental model is saving the state of the project or program. Most people want to save the state of the image, and exporting layer, guide, and other data is secondary to that.
To put it another way, all the data you want "Save" to save isn't actually important to most people who want to use the "Save" button, and if it is they're most certainly aware of which image formats preserve that information.
Having three different ways to save something depending on what you want to preserve is an odd way to do things that I'm bitten by every time I use GIMP.
We should enforce clarity in thought through the UI. Muddling up ten different concepts because 'that's how people think' is a quick way to (1) wide adoption and (2) generalized confusion.
That's more a question of wording rather than an issue. In gimps export is for formats with which you lose information (your layers for example), save is for formats allowing you to re-open you file as you let it and continue working on it
I do this all the time with Corel Painter. Any work in progress gets saved in a way that opens with the layers (corel's format). When I'm done, I can simply collapse the layers and save in a number of formats. No big deal. I understand that some formats simply don't allow the layers. That shouldn't be an issue, though. All it takes is a popup telling the user about this.
Why? I don't understand this. You're not "saving" what you see on the monitor by storing the information to a .png file; the moment you "save" you'll lose some information decided by an algorithm you do not understand, so it really is not "saving" anything, it's "exporting" what you see on the monitor to a different format. When you actually click the "save" button in gimp it stores the content in a format it can recover 100% of the information you'll need tomorrow. These sort of terminological differences between Photoshop, Paint.NET, Gimp, Krita etc... do not point a deficiency in Gimp, rather just a cultural difference decided by rational arguments. I think people should be more thoughtful about what are the targets of Gimp Project, Gimp does not want to be a Photoshop clone, they're trying to make a great image manipulation program; and as software engineers they make their own decisions how to structure/name their program.
Simple save does the same function in Corel in general. It isn't that it isn't a photoshop clone that is an issue, though for a slew of folks, they are using it as an alternative.
When x is standard workflow for many of the other such programs (and things like word processors) and it isn't such in Gimp, that very thing drives people away. Most artists aren't going to care what the software engineers want in the program: Instead, they are going to care about things like this. When added up, it just makes for a frustrating experience. It doesn't really matter what the technicalities are if you are the artist.
Yes, you do lose some information depending on the format. Heck, I notice loss simply looking at an image on different screens. The fact is, though, that folks actually need to save in different formats. Sure, I keep my layers and information in tact while working, but folks also need to be able to share their work, print it, and things like that. For that sort of thing, you need the different formats. The exact format depends on what one is doing: PNG works for facebook and instagram. Some sites have file size limits, and with some printing you have a bit more leeway.
I'm not even a photoshop fan myself: I chose my software based on both if it was easily integrated with a Wacom pen display and how well it mimicked traditional artwork flow and styles. Hence my use of Corel. Photoshop is basically a renting program now, and I generally welcome alternatives. Gimp has always been somewhat frustrating because of little stuff like this.
Your definition of "save" is not the common, user-centric one.
As a user, I think about "saving" as a process to persist my work. If there might be technical fine-grained issues, show me a warning sign in the save dialog, but don't come up with a process that "makes me think".
> As a user, I think about "saving" as a process to persist my work.
PNG is just a compressed pixel-to-colorspace format. It does not and cannot contain most of the information in your work. When you save a .png you're basically doing something similar to compiling C to machine language. You permanently lost all the high level information, possibly in a way you cannot track back (in the case of .JPG). This is not saving, your work will not persist, the format you're "saving" is specifically engineered in a way it doesn't persist any more information than it needs. I hope we agree thus far. As I said above, it's merely a terminological difference, in gimp this process is called "exporting" and I can't understand why this is such a big deal. You literally wouldn't be able to navigate Gimp or Photoshop or Blender etc without having basic knowledge about the program (i.e. looking at the manual) like where menus are etc, and this is just one instance.
> If there might be technical fine-grained issues, show me a warning sign in the save dialog, but don't come up with a process that "makes me think".
Is this a joke? You literally have to just click the very next button under "Save" which reads "Export As". What "makes you think"?
"Export As" vs "Save As" ... Almost any program that can "export" to multiple formats uses "Save As" for the display. This is just one example. And while I appreciate the nuanced nature, and frankly in this case could go either way. When you combine all the options/features Gimp is by far the hardest image ui I've used.
My favorite was probably PaintShop Pro before 10, and second is probably Paint.Net (if it had a few more features). A simple, easy to use interface with the majority of features really accessible. Gimp offers so much more, though frankly, it's about 10x as hard to use. I only do so when I want to do something that's difficult in Paint.Net or Krita.
I want to like it, I want to use it... that said, If you had a few users who like other software use it, nobody I know would choose Gimp over other tools as a preference. I don't always like changes that are made to an application I've used for a while, and can understand resistance from Gimp developers and users. It doesn't matter, sometimes convention should win, sometimes making things easier means change, and sometimes making things consistent means an inferior technical choice.
Not, it's not. It's a question of getting work done vs fighting your tools.
As someone that edits PNGs and JPGs often with Photoshop I double click the file in the Finder (mac) or Windows Explorer (win) and suddenly I'm editing the PNG or JPG. I make some edits, if I add layers or features that can't be saved back to those formats I flatten the editing (Cmd-Shift-E, of course also on menus in 2 places). I then just press Cmd-S/Ctrl-S to save. No questions asked, no dialog pops up. Click->Edit->Save. If you have to edit often it's a huge difference with no interrupt in workflow.
It is, it's a design choice. You can do exactly the same with gimp. You can even do non destructive saves using the classic save shortcut and export it using the export shortcut (which must be cmd+e on mac i guess) when you want without messing with your current work.
I personally find this more convenient than having to do a first non destructive save, save as a destructive format and reopen the first save again if you want to continue working, but it's a bit different than other tools yes
I open a file, edit it with changes and save it. If it’s lossy then the application should say so.
But as I said this just one annoyance of many.
I have no intention of logging these as bugs because from my perspective they are implemented as per the developers’ vision.
But not mine. So I use other applications because I find them faster. And again, I’m not a photoshop guru so don’t think this is about comfort and learned keybindings or other muscle memory.
GEGL on the other hand is something I’m going to investigate further. Being able to use that for workflow would be very useful.
For what I need to do Krita is much better. I haven’t used photoshop for over a decade.