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by exDM69 5153 days ago
I knew someone would bring that up. Drawing boxes and circles is easy, first make selection, then fill it. That's hardly a blocker for designer productivity.

Sure there's an extra selection and a tool change but this way it's a lot more versatile than having a simple single purpose draw-me-a-box tool. Learn the keyboard shortcuts and get over it.

Need a pattern filled box? Do the selection and use pattern fill.

Need a box with a circular hole in the middle, with fill and outline stroke. Select a box, then select a circle with difference selection. Then fill with outline color, shrink selection by few pixels and fill with pattern. Or first fill with pattern fill and do an outset/inset selection.

I'm sure Photoshop has a super versatile tool for doing boxes and circles. A real swiss army knife that rounds your corners and does drop shadows. And that's fine. But it's a different design choice than GIMP did.

In my opinion, GIMP is nice because it has simple tools that are composable, repeatable and scriptable. Kinda like the unix philosophy gone GUI.

If you don't grok it, it may be difficult. If you do and don't like it, that's your choice. But don't be impolite about it then.

1 comments

Photoshop implements these features using vector masks, which mean you can scale your shapes after creating them without any resampling/pixelation. How many steps would it take to do the same in GIMP? It's not just about not grokking it, it's about having tools to get shit done.
GIMP has a similar vector paths feature if that's what you want.

But the question above was about having a simple tool to draw boxes, just like Mouse Paint on the Apple ][ had.

I'm pretty sure GP was talking about being productive as a designer, which means being able to do things really, really fast, with next to no effort, while retaining as much flexibility as possible. I think it's great that GIMP exists and is free and open source, but for people who actually have deadlines the GIMP workflow just doesn't cut it a lot of the time.
I think you are wrong, a designer who is used to GIMP will have a faster workflow with GIMP, it's that simple.
If you take a GIMPdesigner and give them a weeks training in Photoshop will they still be faster in GIMP? Will the additional speed offset the cost of a weeks course? Are there many professional designers who aren't already familiar with Photoshop?

Farmers who plough there land with an ox may initially be faster then when they get their first tractor but that won't last long.