It really depends on which features you are looking for. If you just want a solid editor with layers and plugins then gimp is pretty good. You can also try Krita for something a little less cumbersome.

Unfortunately most of the really nice editors are closed source and only mac/windows

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Krita is heavily oriented for digital painting. But it is a very solid editor too. The interface took some time to get used to. Though I like it.

But absolutely, good is subjective. It really depends on your needs. If you're looking to edit spicy memes anything could work. If you're looking for non destructive workflow GIMP and krita are starting to implement that. And if you're looking for traditional publishing specific support, good CMYK, gamut, etc. Not so much to my knowledge? If you just want familiarish.... Gimp these days can imitate the classic Photoshop interface okay.

[–] NathanUp@lemmy.ml 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Krita has CMYK, and very good non-destructive editing these days. It's my preferred photo editor, including for the occasional magazine ad work I do. It also has great support for PS files, including smart layers, etc, plus it has layer effects, masking, filter layers, GPU accelerated canvas, and G'MIC support covers a lot of the fancier pbotoshop stuff like content-aware fill. IMO, for the workflow and interface alone, it's leagues ahead of G***.

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I was unaware of the CMYK support. So sounds like maybe apart from gamut tools etc. It's getting fairly close these days which is good to hear. I've generally just been using it for drawing and painting with a little bit of editing. Though I still feel more comfortable editing in Gimp at this point.

[–] NathanUp@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yea, it really is very good. I'm not sure what you mean by gamut tools, but there are out of gamut warnings, gamut masks, histograms, etc.

[–] NathanUp@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

Generally, I'll do RAW editing in something like Darktable, and then do actual retouching work in Krita.