[unfocussed_mike]

> GIMP is great but until they can implement Adjustment layers it will never be a good alternative to Photoshop.

GIMP is not great until it has adjustment layers.

In the meantime, nobody on a budget should be using Photoshop when Affinity Photo is so inexpensive (and significantly better than Photoshop in a couple of important ways).

[120photo]

Affinity is great but there is also not as much training as PS, but for the price it is worth having. One thing that Affinity and PhotoLine can do that PS can't is make curves adjustments in the Lab color space without having to change the entire document from RGB to Lab. I am sure there are plenty of other things XYZ apps do better than PS, but I will say this again, PS has so much training and tutorials out there which save you time.

To be fair to GIMP, I used PS back to when adjustment layers were not a thing. The work that team does is amazing and I give them props (though I still would love to see adjustment layers).

[unfocussed_mike]

> One thing that Affinity and PhotoLine can do that PS can't is make curves adjustments in the Lab color space without having to change the entire document from RGB to Lab.

Yeah, this is super-useful. Also the layer blend curves are amazingly useful, particularly combined with live filter layers. And it can do LUT inference (e.g. from HALD CLUT images). I use that all the time.

> To be fair to GIMP, I used PS back to when adjustment layers were not a thing.

So did I, but GIMP has existed for almost as long as adjustment layers in PS! And for all that time they've refused to prioritise something that IMO is transformative in photoshop; it's the basis of non-destructive editing.

[120photo]

I look into what it going on from time to time, they are in the process of moving from GTK v2 to v3. Apparently it is not a easy transition but when it is done (GIMP v3) implementing adjustment layers and other new features should not take as much effort. I am going off memory so don't quote this as fact.