this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Man, after decades, why does GIMP still have a marketing problem?
Just visit https://www.gimp.org/ and compare it to https://www.adobe.com/ca/products/photoshop.html
Just assume both did exactly the same thing and cost the exact same amount (free or otherwise). Which would you choose based on their website?
Why does GIMP (and pretty much all FOSS) have to be so secretive about their product? Why no screenshots? Why not showcase the software on their website?
It's so damn frustrating that every FOSS app appears to be command line software, or assumed that the user knows everything about it already.
Devs, you might have a killer piece of software, but screenshots go a long way to help with gaining interest and adoption.
I don't know man, I think the Photoshop homepage reeks of corpo crap, whereas the Gimp homepage does a good job at cleanly presenting the program in a quick way. Maybe I'm just used to FOSS, or already too allergic to corporate software, but going by the homepage design, my preference is obvious, there's not even a contest
I think my point was missed. I wasn't saying that GIMP should copy what Adobe does (I can't stand Adobe and their “business model” spyware bullshit.
My point was more to show that Adobe showcases the features of the software, so a potential user knows what it does without needing to go through the trouble of downloading it. It may not be what the user wants, and that's ok, at least they know!
But GIMP is so vague in their description and offers no insight to what the app does or looks like. There's no need to be mysterious.
the gimp one displays normally, while the adobe one shows a blank white page.
the choice is obvious
I mean, tastes are different, but I really did not like the photshop page design.
Taste aside, you can easily see what features Photoshop has, rather than guessing, right?
I should have used a FOSS example, since Adobe is just bad in general (users saying the page has pop-ups, etc.).
All I see is "Ooooh look, we use AI!" which actually repels me quite a lot. The page leaves the impression that photoshop is a toy, not a tool.
Ok, let's get off Adobe for a second... here's a FOSS example: https://www.rawtherapee.com/
Easy to understand exactly what it does, screenshots are excellent. Surely, you can agree that this is better than how GIMP presents itself, right?
Great updated example and I look forward to hearing the arguments against this just like Adobe.
The photoshop page doesn't even have a download link.
0/10 would not download.
Agree, however on clicking the photoshop link was first hit with 2 popups before I could see the page.
Be the change you want to see.
Unless 3.0 has solved it, the gimp has a steep UI problem and a learning curve such that mass appeal on the website would be inappropriate anyway. I love it but I love it because I've been using it my whole life and know it very well. Foss in general struggles with useability due to a lot of hard to overcome problems - mainly, that by the time someone is ready to contribute to any given foss project, they're already intimately familiar with its foibles and probably have strong opinions about what UX elements are sacred cows and should not be fixed.
Well, it has solved it in large part, yes. Tablet pen buttons are correctly recognized on Windows at last, GTK3 allows panels to be dockable pretty much anywhere, the interface looks generally sleek.
Now perhaps you could specify what aspect of the UI you find problematic, otherwise it's hard to respond to such a vague statement. Imagine you're a developer, and you read a piece of feedback that says "the gimp has a steep UI problem". Where do you go from there ?
I mean, I could make a list of things I think are problems, but I've been using it since a bit after 9/11 so I dont think my guesses would represent new user experiences. I am mostly going off what people tell me when they try to learn it.
I wasn't writing advice for the devs, I was making a general statement about why foss stuff doesn't tend to suit glitzy, highly marketable front facing stuff, using gimp as an example
I'm not involved with Gimp development, I've been watching it from the side, so I can't tell if there's an actual lack of contributions related to UX design -but so far I have only seen the public respond with the same sort of vague feedback : "the UI needs work". Unfortunately that's as unhelpful as it gets. Spending some time designing interface mockups, or writing up descriptions of how such and such feature should work, now that's helpful, and is something pretty much any user can do.
Yea, I believe that's true. And it is always a resource problem, because with limited resources, developers focus on making the thing work first, look nice second
Krita.org does a nice job of showing off their work and so does Blender
They're not flashy, but they definitely make me want to download them and check them out.
How is Krita? I’m on a Mac and my biggest problem with Gimp and Inkscape has always been lack of MacOS integration. Mostly with the UI but even shortcuts were wrong when I tried it. And the mouse/trackpad gestures were the dealbreaker.
I use Pixelmator, which hopefully continues to be a well developed pay once app, even though Apple just bought them. That and Sketch get me all the design tools I need for 2D and web.
Your first problem is you're using a Mac. But beyond the obvious trolling, Krita excels at painting and is getting better at text as well -so far text tools have left to be desired but they've been working on a revamp for some years now, probably coming rather soon. What I find lacking as a daily user (I do illustration in Krita, animation in Blender) is the general image manipulation tools. Transforming, snapping, transform masks... are often either lacking in flexibility or poorly performing. I use Affinity Publisher on the side for compositing my illustrations with text for print or web, I wouldn't be able to rely on just Krita for that. But for painting, it's absolutely fantastic -performance wise, usability-wise, the shortcuts are so well thought out it's a joy to use. It's really made with painting in mind. If you like using filters, they have a good G'mic integration with hundreds of builtin filters. I can't comment on their mac builds though, you'd have to try them yourself.
Have you checked out Affinity? They support Mac and iPad, and are comparable with the core Adobe suite. Its a buy once scenario (per major version release). My only problem is they don't support Linux.
Of note, they were purchased last year by Canva, but it has been stated they will keep the Affinity products separate for purchase.
It's more of a paint program, and it's great if you have a pen and tablet. I haven't tried out gimp for while, but it was more of a photoshop alternative at that time. I think Apple's version of Krita would be Procreate, but Krita is free.
I actually like the GIMP website homepage more than the one for photoshop.
Its simple and efficient. If I want to know more I would go to documentation or tutorials.
The photoshop site just looks like a random squarespace template with a bunch of stock photos.
See, that's not normal, though. You shouldn't need to "dig deeper" to find out what a product is or what it does.
The well-designed homepage should simply tell you that within seconds of visiting. Any additional clicks should only be to "learn more", but not to learn about.
If this was an analogy, imagine a street lined with restaurants.
On one side you've got "Vinny's Italian Pizzeria", "Joe's Burgers and Fries", and "Mary's Bakery and Treats". Each has posters of what they sell posted on the windows, and a QR code to their online menu.
On the other you have "Sal's Food", "Frank's More Food", "Sal's". The windows are either covered in brown paper, or have stock images of "food", but nothing specific about what they actually make. To learn more, you have to go inside, ask someone for a menu, wait for that menu, then have a look. But the menu lacks photos! You either have to know what they are describing to you in the menu, or you would have to have already dined there before.
Does the latter experience sound good? Because that's how too many open-source projects present themselves, and it's to the loss of the volunteer devs and their potential user base.
Dig deeper ?
Homepage text :
Man, that text does the app no favours. "Image editor" could mean that it crops photos. But GIMP does a hell of a lot more. It's been "the open-source photoshop" for decades, and they're really selling themselves short. Screenshots would have made it so much easier to see what the software does.
You're welcome to contribute your experties.
I wish I could, but this is a systemic problem, not a problem with one individual project.
Is the mindset that anyone looking for open source, FOSS, or Linux stuff is already tech-savvy enough to know exactly what they are looking for based solely on a text description?
What? There are hundreds of thousands of FOSS projects with great presentation. GIMP is the exception these days, not the rule.
For sure, I don't mean to blanket all FOSS projects under the same observation. But I've seen some projects where the idea is brilliant, and it fills a gap that no other software can, but they have piss-poor instructions (or none at all) and hardly describe what the project is or does. You only learn about them by chance, which is a real shame.
Here's another example: Navidrome (https://www.navidrome.org/) is an awesome, self-hosted music streaming software.
But their homepage doesn't have a screenshot, so you have no idea if the UI is just command prompt, ugly, unintuitive, or the best thing ever. Even the "learn more" page has no screenshots unless you really go digging.
Compare that to another FOSS self-hosted music streamer: https://ampache.org/
Simple website, but at least you can see exactly what to expect from the UI. Huge advantage even if they two apps do the exact same thing (both based on the Subsonic backend).
I think it's more so that the kind of people contributing to these projects are on balance not that interested in doing the marketing work.
You can if you wish. You just choose not to. Like so many of us. If more did volunteer, the problem would disappear. It's that simple.
Actually I would pick GIMP.
Really think only thing I would like to see is some screenshots and examples of using the tool, rather than just info on what it does. But the Photoshop page barely has this, just a few examples of the AI tools.
FOSS projects are often labors of love.
Nobody who isn't completely deranged loves marketing.
Idk if GIMP has a marketing problem but I definitely agree that FOSS projects should add screenshots and a description of what the program does to their website and repo. It really annoys me when someone links a piece of software and it just doesn't say what it does and there's no screenshots that would make it easy for me to see what it looks like and how the UI is structured. When there's no screenshots I'm rarely even interested in trying it out because, even with a description, I don't really know what it is. Like, I wouldn't be interested in a car based on only a description, I'd have to see a picture of it too.
I mean, the name is a bigger problem than anyone seems to want to admit...
Which is why I use Krita and recommend it to other people... telling them to use GIMP would get too many laughs and weird looks
Majority of area in the world does not recognize it as negative thing.
Even for English, English itself is diverse language. Singaporean English, Indian English, Asian English, definitely not negative in all of them.
Forcing one standard of language as a universal is a bad precedent for language diversity.