The downsides to FOSS for digital painters.

[Clockwork Frog]

I thought i'd be a good idea to create a thread to discuss what is missing from these FOSS(Free Open Source Software) for digital painters.

The two main known softwares would be GIMP and MyPaint, but also one which i haven't tried but looks really promising is Krita. Hope we can get some good points which may make it to the developers of the softwares.

Ill give some points which i've found. I hope other join in, if something is states which has been implemented please correct us. Maybe its been updated or just not commonly known.

GIMP:
-Brush engine
The brush engine imo just doesn't flow as nicely as PS for digital painting. The blending lacks as well as brush dynamic options.

-UI
Horrid UI for digital work, when using a stylus is often clumsy and everything gets in your way.

-Plug-ins(more technical than for painters)
this may be something i got wrong, but when i looked i couldn't find info on it. the plugin seem to be limited to filters and for a open source project im surprised it doesn't have more openness for plug-ins. I tried looking for away to extend on the basic brushes to create a better one for painting, but looked as if i could only do with major changes to the main source code.(im lazy dont feel like learning how GIMP works and its inners)

MyPaint:
-Obviously first thing lack of select and transform tools
Biggest thing imo, is the lack of selecting and manipulating the area. The biggest advantage of digital work is this, i dont see why its not in.

-Limit the size of the canvas
As a sketching format the open canvas is awesome you can sketch endlessly, but major downside when working on a piece to be finished. You need a specific size, but you can limit the area of the canvas.

-Slow on high res
Visibly sluggish, i think its due to not having hardware acceleration(not sure). But on a piece i loaded as a jpeg at 3500-2500px caused screen tear.

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I also think both don't have a 64bit version for windows, a must imo.
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[spaceman]

GIMP
I looked at this a while back - the biggest thing for me was not able to work on 16 bit images and then save as a 16 bit image file (psd, etc) - working with alphas for 3d programs one use for a 16bit image. With 16bit would be able to paint textures for detailed work for 3d programs.

BTW any free open source software that does not open, let work and save 16bit would not be as good as with one that does

[AlstonA]

I thought i'd be a good idea to create a thread to discuss what is missing from these FOSS(Free Open Source Software) for digital painters.

The two main known softwares would be GIMP and MyPaint, but also one which i haven't tried but looks really promising is Krita. Hope we can get some good points which may make it to the developers of the softwares.

Ill give some points which i've found. I hope other join in, if something is states which has been implemented please correct us. Maybe its been updated or just not commonly known.

GIMP:
-Brush engine
The brush engine imo just doesn't flow as nicely as PS for digital painting. The blending lacks as well as brush dynamic options.

-UI
Horrid UI for digital work, when using a stylus is often clumsy and everything gets in your way.

-Plug-ins(more technical than for painters)
this may be something i got wrong, but when i looked i couldn't find info on it. the plugin seem to be limited to filters and for a open source project im surprised it doesn't have more openness for plug-ins. I tried looking for away to extend on the basic brushes to create a better one for painting, but looked as if i could only do with major changes to the main source code.(im lazy dont feel like learning how GIMP works and its inners)

MyPaint:
-Obviously first thing lack of select and transform tools
Biggest thing imo, is the lack of selecting and manipulating the area. The biggest advantage of digital work is this, i dont see why its not in.

-Limit the size of the canvas
As a sketching format the open canvas is awesome you can sketch endlessly, but major downside when working on a piece to be finished. You need a specific size, but you can limit the area of the canvas.

-Slow on high res
Visibly sluggish, i think its due to not having hardware acceleration(not sure). But on a piece i loaded as a jpeg at 3500-2500px caused screen tear.

--------------------
I also think both don't have a 64bit version for windows, a must imo.
--------------------

When I am inking, I use MyPaint, I love thie inking tool on the program. The only problem I have with it to is that you cannot save to PSD with out downloading Gimp and getting the plugin to convert there extesion to gimp format. So, what I usually do is sketch in corel painter, save the finals of that sketch and a PNG, load it up in photoshop, and paint in paint tool Sai.

p.s. yeah I know, I'm a bit of a graphical software XD.