I remember when i first started using GIMP the thing that threw me the most was that there was no 'safe default' state that you could get to by pressing escape, like 'select' is for other programs.

If you think this is a small thing consider that escape/back is one of the only 3 default controls on phone UIs. It's super important and Gimp doesn't have it.

GIMP feels non-intuitive sometimes.

For example, layers.

I expect that GIMP internally has a list of all objects that I added to the file. Like, text, brush drawings, pasted images. Instead, I cannot find that list anywhere.

Because updating dependencies after a long time breaks most of that code anyway, so you have to do a lot of work just to get things working exactly how they were before, only now your code probably has a bunch more bugs that you now have to fix, and it's still not utilising enhanced features that updated dependencies may offer.

Rewriting can take more time, but if your alternative is to slowly upgrade code originally written in the nineties, you're actually saving time by using your experience to rewrite something.

UI is dated, for one.

range inputs can't be scrolled, dragged around the screen, and are absurdly small on high DPI screens.

There's a load of UX issues, such as how pasting content will create a new layer that is for some reason more limited than a typical layer.

Feature discoverability is poor. Most features are buried in years-old dropdown tabs that aren't kept up to date with UI/UX expectations.

Some features are incredibly obtuse in how they explain themselves: selecting a brush dynamic selects stuff from a massive scrolling list with nothing but a title to explain what they do.

UI is inconsistent. Some elements are clearly older than others even after ""recent"" (years-old) updates.

There's way more, btw. But honestly if this years-long push to get GIMP to GTK 3 has told me anything, it's that the project should've canned the update years ago and written an entirely new app from scratch, dropping the technical debt, the archaic choice of language and UI toolkit, and they still would've come out with a new version faster than they have now.

I'm just looking through this entire thread, and call me crazy, OP, but you seem angry not more people are using GIMP. You're quite aggressive about it, attempting to shut down legitimate UI and UX concerns at every corner, and it is genuinely fatiguing to see.

To pick one example: Shift + Middle-click used to be free zoom, but is now rotation. This is not just frustrating - it's nauseating. I have a very strong stomach. I don't get seasick, I don't get VR-sick, I don't get regular sick. The last time I threw up involved food poisoning on another continent. But god damn, is it unpleasant having your whole perspective spin while trying to get a little closer to an image.

I asked one of the GIMP devs about this on reddit and was told it was impossible to make optional. Got some genuine ass-ache for pushing against the idea that anything was impossible, in software, especially when the desired functionality could just be... not. A checkbox would suffice instead of arbitrary reconfiguration. I'd be okay with the mess of arbitrary changes since GIMP 1.6 or whatever I'd been rocking, if one of the central adjustments hadn't been reconfigured to make me physically ill.

I think it's all about use case. I'm not 100% sure but the way I use GIMP probably wouldn't work in Krita. I use GIMP mainly for removing backgrounds so they are transparent, as well as converting raster images to paths so I can make dxf's of them. This is very easy and fast in GIMP. I think it all just depends on use case.

I can never put my finger on why I don't stick with GIMP. I install it on every machine I own, and occasionally use it to open a file and export to another file format.

From time to time, I tell myself I will finally sit down and just only use GIMP. Finally learn the tool. Envitably I find myself googling to find every tool, and then I will come across something simple, like making a red rectangle, and I end up having to google how to do it, and then get frustrated that I can't just draw a box and quit.

There are probably legit reasons for the decisions, but if it kills my workflow, I can't afford to use it.

I tried it last year in a failed attempt to get of ps, which I to every few years.

I can't name specifics, but ps is just more intuitive, more user friendly, faster, more stable, gives you more for formats... I don't even think ps is all that. Even if we forget Adobe owns the pro space here, it's just not viable to use gimp professionaly. I never understood why gimp doesn't just copy all the user flows from photoshop when it's clear that not only they work, but all users are familiar with them from other software.

It's not what the buttons look like, it's what they do. In Krita, making an ellipse involves clicking the ellipse button and dragging it somewhere. You now have an ellipse, and you hold shift if you want to make it a circle instead.

In GIMP there is no direct ellipse tool, there's only an ellipse select tool, likewise you hold shift to make it a circle. Then you use a menu item to select the border of your selection, getting a popup to let you determine how much pixels you want. And then, you use the fill tool or fill menu item to fill it. That's a surprising amount of clicks to accomplish what's most likely the single most common task for anyone opening a screenshot in an image editor. I'm not aware of any easier/faster method to do it. Feels like it should exist, but this is also what you get if you search for how to draw a circle in GIMP, so if it exists everyone's missing it.

GIMP's method gives you more power, but you rarely ever need that power. But when you do, Krita also has ellipse select, border select and various fill tools that can be strung together in the same way.

As others have mentioned, it's simple things takes alot time finding/figuring out.

I use GIMP within Ubuntu MATE few times a week to edit pictures. Simple edits nothing major.

One of the thing I need regularly is to highlight certain part of the picture.

Now in Microsoft Paint I can draw a rectangle, choose its border thickness, and color in 2 seconds.

I have learned how to do the same in GIMP few times but it took alot of time and I still forgets after few weeks.

So now I just reboot the PC and log into Windows or use Windows virtual machine and draw rectangle in 2 seconds in Microsoft Paint.

Mine is extremely simple use case, so I can only guess how difficult or how time consuming it would be for actual professional to create artistic work in GIMP vs Photoshop (or in similar commercial software).

Just my 2 cents.