The thing is that, while Photoshop may not be the pinnacle of UX, it's familiar to everyone in the space. It has issues in the UI, but nothing that can't be overcome fairly quickly and nothing that is a gamebreaker.

For design wanks, yeah, you could probably improve it. You then lose the overtraining, though. You also might screw up. You end up trying to develop a moving target.

For a productivity tool, I don't want imagination. I want excellent execution of a proven design. Only in magical fairy pixie land does it pay to reinvent the wheel to be slightly rounder on a tool everyone already knows well.

As I mentioned elsewhere: don't let the best be the enemy of the good-enough.

> I agree that GIMP will always be a bizarre of features

> For design wanks...

> Only in magical fairy pixie land...

Sorry, but need to ask - are you trying to troll here?

I've used The GIMP for about a decade now and it fits perfectly into the UNIX methodology: A sharp tool that does its frigging job. There is no reinvention of the wheel and people who say that without pointing to anything but the single-window/multi-windows difference should really find better use for their time.

Actually, in your original post, you didn't even mention that. Your verdict was: "The filters and procedural image generation stuff was awesome, but everything else was at best hard to use. Eventually I switched to Photoshop because it was a (comparatively) clean, tight tool with all the bullshit removed.".

Any software has a learning curve, The GIMPs curve not being much different from Photoshop, just in a slightly different direction. I don't find any of the tools hard to use and that was from within a month of using it - not just because I've gotten used to it over the years. Actually, if anybody argues GIMP vs. Photoshop with me, they mostly try to convince me that GIMP lacks features, so I really have no clue whatsoever what you mean by "all the bullshit" that is supposedly in there.

No more than GIMP has trolled me. : )

First, look at the toolbar. Instead of folding the tools into categories as PS does, they throw it all out there. This is clunky and dumb. There is no reason to have 30+ icons on the toolbar. Photoshop has many more features, and yet doesn't manage to clutter up the interface with them ( see http://www.designlessbetter.com/blogless/wp-content/uploads/... ).

Second, if I close the toolbox pallette, GIMP closes. What the hell is this?

Third, right-clicking on the canvas gives me the same tools as the menubar. This tells me that one of the two is superfluous. Oh, and some of the options are duplicated yet again on the toolbox pallette. So, make that three. Huh. I can also click the upper-lefthand corner of the canvas to get the same menu. Four. Four ways.

Fourth, at least the tool options are layed out--oh, no, no they aren't. There isn't a fast-access tool menu along the top of the screen, and the dialog is coded to not reflow reasonably when positioned there.

Fifth, the goofy mascot is leering at me over the top of the toolbox pallette, as if to dare me and try to make sense of the tool.

Sixth, the scrollwheel doesn't seem to be used, so why not have it zoom in and out? Nope, not done. Instead, it scrolls up and down. Useless. The devs let us drag the canvas with middle-click, but no scroll zoom.

Seventh, color tools are duplicated (yet again) between the Colors menu and the Tools->Color tools menu. Derp.

Eigth, there is both a Layer->Transform menu and a Image->Transform menu. Acessible from something like three different places. So, six redundant menus? I don't even know what the fuck.

Ninth, why are Edit and Select different menus? Even PS doesn't do this.

Tenth, why do Colors->Map and Filters->Map have different mapping options? They're the same? I think they used to be together?

I could go on, but it's giving me brain cancer.

~

I'm not just trolling. The GIMP is an accidentally useful sprawl of bad design. The fact that you have managed for a decade to use it for anything is much more a credit to your skill/persistence/stubborness than any redeeming qualities it has.

It's had a good run, but now we need to move on.

Second - This is a limitation of the Operating System, where closing the root window closes the application.

Third - No, it just gives you shortcuts to the most important menu. What else would you want there?

Fourth - So have it on the side! It's not like horizontal screen real estate is the rare commodity these days. Also - really? Saying "this horizontal menu is not vertical" is criticism now?

Fifth - I guess you also complained about the "eye" in Photoshop before they replaced it with the "Ps" sign?

Sixth - Scrolling scrolls. It just... scrolls. Not sure what else to say here. Also, Ctrl+Scrolling Zooms, Shift+Scrolling scrolls horizontally. Seems pretty frigging straight-forward to me.

Seventh - Oh boo-frigging-hoo, there is two ways to the same end. There are also keyboard shortcuts, you know? Three ways!

Eigth - Are you trying to be adversary here? Transforming the entire image or just the layer are obviously separate, justified entities. And again - offering them somewhere else doesn't make them less useful, just easier to access. Not sure where else than in the menu (or the right-click copy of the menu) you've found them, though.

Ninth - I'm starting to be lost for words here... How about: Because they are two separate things? Are you even aware of their functionality?

Tenth - These are unfortunately named the same, but I would say this is in the nature of the beast - A color map is a justified concept and a filter that has 'mapping' behavior is a justified concept. So your criticism is more one of the English language.

I was really prepared to debate some of the more reasonable complaints (like color management, somewhat clunky plugins etc.) you could have with GIMP, but sorry - this is just noise.

"This is a limitation of the Operating System," is not actually a limitation of the operating system. All you do is create an invisible root window that handles events for your application, and then all your visible windows are children of it. Or any of several other solutions.

Most of the rest of your points go back to defending duplicated functionality. This is bad design. There is no reason to apologize for that--it's just a failure. It should be redone.

As for the mapping--at least for "alien map", those used to be in the same plugins menu. This is a regression.

I could probably write or find a list of equal length and severity on the shortcomings in Photoshop. I simply fail to see even the sum of your claims support the strong statement that you made in your original post.