when it comes GIMP that is. I downloaded GIMP a few months ago to try it out and because I needed something to make simple graphics for a class I was taking in XNA.
I wanted to draw a circle with some sort of automated device to point click and drag out the size of what I needed.
I never figured out how to do it. I spent about 15 minutes (yeah I'm impatient, bite me) looking for some kind of plugin to do so, nothing was immediately apparent, or easy to install for that matter. So I gave up and downloaded paint.net, which fulfilled all my needs instantly.
I'm pretty new to trying to get deeper into computers but this was not a good start for me, and instantly dropped this sort of venture down a few points in my eyes.
I might however give this book a try, maybe I'll find a gem within this tangled mess yet. However this book may be too little to convince those looking for simple functionality. I think that too many people have been infected with the need for everything they want to be there right away. At least in regards to simple functions, if I want to make a stick figure I shouldn't have to read a readme file, I should have line and circle drawing tools immediately apparent.
This is the part where you all say "Stupid Hoyty1, the button you needed was right there."
This seems like about twice as many steps as it should be.
Is there a technical reason for making it be regarded as creating a path from a selection and then filling it, rather than say something like this:
1) Ellipse tool (optional checkbox to force ellipse to be circular, brush size, hardness, etc) 2) Click on center point of ellipse, drag out to desired dimension, release 3) Ellipse gets painted with whatever color you have in the palette
I had the same problem with GIMP at first. Then I realized that by using the "Paint along Path" or "Stroke Selection" options you can draw your ellipse (or rectangle or whatever) with _any_ of the available painting tools and brushes. You're not limited to just a simple colored shape, like you are if you use something like MS Paint. In typical GIMP fashion, it's a couple of non-intuitive steps that give you a great amount of flexibility.
While I love GIMP for my home use of cropping, rescaling, and general minor editing of images, it's these kind of ridiculous UI complexities that drive many professionals right back to photoshop. I don't know how difficult it is to implement a click/drag approach to drawing a circle or a straight line, but it's something that should be on the priority list for the development community, along with a "Photoshop Compatibility Mode" interface option to ease transition of professionals who's experience is entr
GIMP isn't really made for creating images. It says right there in the name it's for manipulation, not drawing/painting. Use the right tool for the job and you'll be happy with the results. Try to change a tire with a banana peel and you'll have just as much frustration.
It says right there in the name it's for manipulation, not drawing/painting.
Granted. However, considering how often I see people claim that GIMP can replace Photoshop for most users, I find this to be an issue. I know of lots of people who use (read pirate) Photoshop, and sometimes combine it with Illustrator, for drawing on a computer. You could argue that Photoshop is also not the correct tool for this, but many actually prefer it over Corel Draw and Illustrator because the use the image manipulation functions in process. I don't know what percentage of users only use Photosh
It says right there in the name it's for manipulation, not drawing/painting.
Neither was Photoshop, and it's in the name too, "photo". Photoshop was first programmed by a programmer who was an amateur photographer and wanted a way to edit photos.
If you can't figure out how to use paths or selections to make strokes in GIMP, you can use inkscape to make the shapes etc (if you need raster operations edit the result in GIMP).
I personally would never use a "draw circle" button in the GIMP and I wonder why people are having so much trouble with it. It took me about five minutes to figure out how to stroke a selection back when I first started, and now that GIMP has the insanely great selection handles I don't see where a tool like the ellipse thing fro
There is a Photoshop Compatibility Mode.. To draw a straight line, select pen and then press SHIFT.. To draw a circle use this or else a script someone produced..
I don't know how difficult it is to implement a click/drag approach to drawing a circle or a straight line,
Well, technically it's already in there. You see, with GIMP you are always performing an operation on a selection. So it's more logical (but longer) to select what you want to edit, and then transform that selection with whatever other things you want. Essentially "drawing" a line is really (from a low-level point of view) performing a selection on those pixels, and then doing a color transformation. The "line" tool you use in Photoshop just hides this process from you.
using the ellipse select tool, draw your circle. open the paths dialog click 'selection to path' click 'paint along the path'
Your post is quite informative, but it doesn't help me, for reasons that are very typical of Gimp.
My Gimp installation is in Brazilian Portuguese language. There are 25 entries in the Dialogs menu, but none that even remotely resembles anything like "path" translated to Portuguese. There is no option in the Preferences menu to change the language to English.
the original post i responded to was written in english, so i went with it. had it been written in portuguese, i probably would've passed.
After looking through all the menu items, I found the sequence of commands you mentioned, under the "EDIT" menu, so your post actually helped me after all, thanks again.
But still, this is a problem with Gimp. There's no denying it, the user interface *IS* confusing. *AND* the (very little) existing documentation is not translated to other languages than English. *PLUS* th
It is like getting into Airbus 380's cockpit and complaining that you cannot find the gaz pedal. GIMP is a complicated software for doing complicated things. If you want to give a child possibility to draw circles find something simpler.
Don't feel bad, The Gimp is notoriously hard to get used to. IIRC, to make a circle you have to make a circular selection then tell it to make a line around that, or something along those lines. "Draw a straight line" is another common task that newbies often fail at.
I'm so glad to finally be back in Photoshop. I've got more total time in The Gimp by far, but Photoshop's still easier to use and gets in my way less often (though it is buggy as hell, which is something I've never had a problem with in The
1. Select a part of the image with a selection tool. 2. Click and drag the selected part. 3. You probably thought the selected part will be moved? Nope. It's the selection which got moved. 4. OK, let's try to move it with CTRL or ALT. No, it still does something else. 5. Ah, the 'Move' tool. Finally you can move those tricky pixels! Wait, the whole layer got moved instead, oh shi... 6. ??? 7. F**k it, fire up Photoshop.
If you are on windows, give Paint.NET a try. It doesn't cost anything, so make sure to use the official download (there are 'opportunists' that charge for it):
Not as feature laden as Photoshop, but a lot more similar to Photoshop than the Gimp (there are silly redundant path tools right on the default toolbox).
I'm sorry you had that experience (for the record, I did too, and I'm nuts about the GIMP) - but GIMP, like Photoshop is for photo manipulation - not drawing. If they put all the buttons relevant to drawing up the front, it would infuriate those who are wanting to use it efficiently for photo manipulation (ie, the target audience). It's much like how a big rig is for moving cargo - although it'd work as a car in a pinch, it's far from ideal. Try using MS Paint/Scribbles(or whatever OSX has)/Krita/XPaint/Kol
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
-- Isaac Asimov
Call me gimpy... (Score:1)
I wanted to draw a circle with some sort of automated device to point click and drag out the size of what I needed.
I never figured out how to do it. I spent about 15 minutes (yeah I'm impatient, bite me) looking for some kind of plugin to do so, nothing was immediately apparent, or easy to install for that matter. So I gave up and downloaded paint.net, which fulfilled all my needs instantly.
I'm pretty new to trying to get deeper into computers but this was not a good start for me, and instantly dropped this sort of venture down a few points in my eyes.
I might however give this book a try, maybe I'll find a gem within this tangled mess yet. However this book may be too little to convince those looking for simple functionality. I think that too many people have been infected with the need for everything they want to be there right away. At least in regards to simple functions, if I want to make a stick figure I shouldn't have to read a readme file, I should have line and circle drawing tools immediately apparent.
This is the part where you all say "Stupid Hoyty1, the button you needed was right there."
Re:Call me gimpy... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
This seems like about twice as many steps as it should be.
Is there a technical reason for making it be regarded as creating a path from a selection and then filling it, rather than say something like this:
1) Ellipse tool (optional checkbox to force ellipse to be circular, brush size, hardness, etc)
2) Click on center point of ellipse, drag out to desired dimension, release
3) Ellipse gets painted with whatever color you have in the palette
I wanted to draw a circle ... (Score:1, Flamebait)
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As is yours, gimp apologist (See, i can make baseless accusations too)
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Thanks, that's pretty much the kind of answer I was looking for.
I use Gimp/Photoshop primarily for editing photographs rather than creating graphics so I'm less familiar with that end of it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It says right there in the name it's for manipulation, not drawing/painting.
Granted. However, considering how often I see people claim that GIMP can replace Photoshop for most users, I find this to be an issue. I know of lots of people who use (read pirate) Photoshop, and sometimes combine it with Illustrator, for drawing on a computer. You could argue that Photoshop is also not the correct tool for this, but many actually prefer it over Corel Draw and Illustrator because the use the image manipulation functions in process. I don't know what percentage of users only use Photosh
GIMP isn't really made for creating images. (Score:3, Interesting)
It says right there in the name it's for manipulation, not drawing/painting.
Neither was Photoshop, and it's in the name too, "photo". Photoshop was first programmed by a programmer who was an amateur photographer and wanted a way to edit photos.
Falcon
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As someone who has a hobby interest in creating images, what other free option do I have?
I'm holing out hope for Krita, but that even has some stubborn stupidities that need sorting out (like Qt dropping old tablet events).
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I personally would never use a "draw circle" button in the GIMP and I wonder why people are having so much trouble with it. It took me about five minutes to figure out how to stroke a selection back when I first started, and now that GIMP has the insanely great selection handles I don't see where a tool like the ellipse thing fro
Re: (Score:1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en-GB&v=s4z7f2_BpBA&gl=GB [youtube.com]
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/lwcon/gimp/script-fu/draw-circle-point.htm [virgilio.it]
http://www.gimpshop.com/ [gimpshop.com]
Re: (Score:0)
I don't know how difficult it is to implement a click/drag approach to drawing a circle or a straight line,
Well, technically it's already in there. You see, with GIMP you are always performing an operation on a selection. So it's more logical (but longer) to select what you want to edit, and then transform that selection with whatever other things you want. Essentially "drawing" a line is really (from a low-level point of view) performing a selection on those pixels, and then doing a color transformation. The "line" tool you use in Photoshop just hides this process from you.
Basically what you are asking for is a
Thnaks, but it still doesn't work... (Score:2)
Your post is quite informative, but it doesn't help me, for reasons that are very typical of Gimp.
My Gimp installation is in Brazilian Portuguese language. There are 25 entries in the Dialogs menu, but none that even remotely resembles anything like "path" translated to Portuguese. There is no option in the Preferences menu to change the language to English.
So, thank you for your helpful
Re: (Score:2)
the original post i responded to was written in english, so i went with it. had it been written in portuguese, i probably would've passed.
Re: (Score:2)
After looking through all the menu items, I found the sequence of commands you mentioned, under the "EDIT" menu, so your post actually helped me after all, thanks again.
But still, this is a problem with Gimp. There's no denying it, the user interface *IS* confusing. *AND* the (very little) existing documentation is not translated to other languages than English. *PLUS* th
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Don't feel bad, The Gimp is notoriously hard to get used to. IIRC, to make a circle you have to make a circular selection then tell it to make a line around that, or something along those lines. "Draw a straight line" is another common task that newbies often fail at.
I'm so glad to finally be back in Photoshop. I've got more total time in The Gimp by far, but Photoshop's still easier to use and gets in my way less often (though it is buggy as hell, which is something I've never had a problem with in The
How to move a part of the image (Score:0)
1. Select a part of the image with a selection tool.
2. Click and drag the selected part.
3. You probably thought the selected part will be moved? Nope. It's the selection which got moved.
4. OK, let's try to move it with CTRL or ALT. No, it still does something else.
5. Ah, the 'Move' tool. Finally you can move those tricky pixels! Wait, the whole layer got moved instead, oh shi...
6. ???
7. F**k it, fire up Photoshop.
Re: (Score:1)
If you are on windows, give Paint.NET a try. It doesn't cost anything, so make sure to use the official download (there are 'opportunists' that charge for it):
http://www.getpaint.net/download.html [getpaint.net]
Not as feature laden as Photoshop, but a lot more similar to Photoshop than the Gimp (there are silly redundant path tools right on the default toolbox).
Re: (Score:0)
I'm sorry you had that experience (for the record, I did too, and I'm nuts about the GIMP) - but GIMP, like Photoshop is for photo manipulation - not drawing. If they put all the buttons relevant to drawing up the front, it would infuriate those who are wanting to use it efficiently for photo manipulation (ie, the target audience). It's much like how a big rig is for moving cargo - although it'd work as a car in a pinch, it's far from ideal. Try using MS Paint/Scribbles(or whatever OSX has)/Krita/XPaint/Kol