Huh, I wasn't aware Krita was a thing. As a software engineer that rarely needs image editing Gimp was my go to software. Why there is a second open source image editing software now?
I think it's totally fine and normal for multiple OSS tools existing in the same space.
Krita is almost 20 years old and is more focused on painting than on image editing – but personally, I use it for both, liking the UI much more than that of GIMP.
Back in those days, GIMP was just barely usable for painting, and Krita was mainly good for crashing. Both have come a long way since then. GIMP is still mainly an "image manipulation" program. It got better at painting, too, but you probably want to give Krita a try for that.
As a software engineer and artist, Krita feels more focused on drawing/painting with a pen, while GIMP has always felt to me as more focused on photography/editing.
Obviously they both manipulate images so there's lots of overlap in features, but the idea of painting or drawing in GIMP seems really alien to me. I'm sure the interface and pen support was even worse when the Krita project was started.
Gimp has a notoriously unusable UI. I think that's honestly probably the main reason.
I'm actually more confused by the converse: why do people keep using and recommending Gimp when Krita has existed for decades and is so much easier to use?
It took me a while to switch to Krita, because I used to think it was mainly for painting/illustrating. It took me being unbearably frustrated with Gimp's UI to give Krita a go for basic editing. Never looked back.
For simple image editing with an easy UI, I use Pinta. If I need more advanced features, I need GIMP. I've never really found a use case for Krita personally.
> Why there is a second open source image editing software now?
Because it's possible and someone wants to. Same reason why we have multiple Linux distros, multiple databases, multiple browsers, multiple text editors.
Are you surprised that open source software in general is duplicated? Or is this specific just to image editing software. If yes, what makes image editing software special so that having a second option is surprising?
Yes, open source promotes collaboration. It also promotes forking and starting new projects.
It's much closer to how photoshop generally works, with an extra focus on drawing. Gimp is not a good replacement for photoshop for artists. It's quite popular for this.
Krita is actually quite old. The reason you haven't heard of it is probably that it's more focused on digital painting than on general image manipulation.
Krita is almost 20 years old and is more focused on painting than on image editing – but personally, I use it for both, liking the UI much more than that of GIMP.