Ctrl + Shift + A

These people who hate GIMP didn't really practice with it all that much. I use for my day job, editing photos and making content for marketplaces. It works very well. The workflow may be different to PS, yes, but that does not make GIMP bad. Also, for those who hate the UI, two things. First, why don't you help the dev team? And second, we'll have GTK3 support soon (finally).
- I tried. I really tried to like GIMP. The main reason I don't like it is because it's trying so hard to be a professional picture editor and the UI.
  Why can't I deselect things? Why does something need to be selected at all times? Let me just click a button and remove the selection outline and deselect things.
  No. I won't help the dev team because I can't code to save my ass. I turn wrenchs and fix things for a living.
  I use other, simpler pic editors. Why should I learn to fly a Boeing 747 when a Cessna 172 will get me where I need to go? I'm making a shit post once every three months, not professional art.
  
  You can deselect all with CTRL + SHIFT + A and deselect a specific part by changing the selection mode from replace or additive to subtract.
- GIMP is bad. If the problem was simply that it was "different to PS" then other apps like Krita and Affinity Photo would have the same reputation.
  If a user goes looking for a tool or feature and it's not in the first place they look, that's a problem of "didn't really practice that much". If experienced people need to look up how to do basic operations and their reaction is "that's fucking stupid", then the software is bad.
  To then say "well why don't you help the Dev team then" is insane. I'm not spending hundreds of hours digging GIMP out of bad design decisions when I could just use better software and I haven't seen any evidence that my PR would even be accepted.
  Nobody needs excuses and apologism, they need Blender for image editing and GIMP just isn't that.
  
  I mean, I've been using GIMP as my primary photo editor for...over a decade. When I use other programs, nothing is where I expect it to be and I think "well, that's fucking stupid"
- 'help the dev team' is a lunatics response. I use Linux but fuck the users man.
  
  It's a bit lunatic, but it's arguably the only way forward. GIMP doesn't have a multi billion dollar company behind - only volunteers.
  Expecting the developers to have the capacity and skill to emulate the features and looks of Photoshop (and quickly, please) - in their free time - is even more lunatic.
- I'm just glad they added non destructive editing in the latest version. I've tried to rotate/resize something in gimp before and it was a chore to keep quality acceptable.
  
  That is great indeed. And it's nearing 3.0!
- I think what burns people the most is that after Photoshop 5 or so, GIMP stopped keeping up with all the improvements in the later Photoshop versions. People making the jump from 2024 Photoshop to 1996 Photoshop UI/UX are gonna have a bad time.
  Edit: as a software developer I can say that I've never seen a user more frustrated, sometimes even irrationally so, when they are forced to re-learn muscle memory to perform a familiar task. I've also seen people practically riot at the mere suggestion that this will happen. If you wish to curry favor with your userbase, never ever, remove keyboard accelerators, move toolbars around, break workflow, etc.
- Had to learn Gimp in 4th or 6th grade, not sire which one it was, pretty comfortable with it, though I admit, it can be frustrating sometimes.
- Please teach to how draw good circles and eclipse And how to resize sollection by corner
  
  good circles and eclipse
  I assume "eclipse" is a typo of ellipse? Anyway, just use the ellipse select tool (keybind: e) to make a selection in the shape that you want, then fill it in with the bucket tool (b). Hold shift while using the bucket tool to fill in the entire selection, ignoring anything that's drawn inside it. If you want to draw a ring rather than a completely filled circle, use the "border" command from the "select" dropdown menu to replace the ellipse/circle selection with its border.
  how to resize selection by corner
  I'm curious, what is your usecase for this? I've never had to do it myself. But if I had to, here's how I would do it: first, convert the seleciton to a path. Make sure the path is visible from the "Paths" dialog (you have to explicitly show the paths dialog using the "window > dockable dialogs" option. From then on, you can use any of the usual transform tools (perspective, resize, roate, etc) on the path. You just have to select the path icon under "Transform: " in the "tool properties" dialog to make sure you're transforming the path, not a pixel layer. Once you've transformed the path to your liking, you can turn it back to a selection, fill it with color, or stroke it with a brush by right-clicking on it in the "layers" dialog.
  Also, bonus tip: never use the dropdown menus, it's a huge waste of time. Just press / to pull up for the command palette and search for the tool you need.
  EDIT: I love lovingly ranting about gimp, I can do it four hours on end. I'm not some sort of gimp guru, but I know a thing or two. If anyone has any more questions, feel free to reply to this comment and I'll do my best to give advice.
  
  Use the select tool to create an ellipse selection and go to Edit->Fill with foreground colour
- I know it's a consequence of open source development, but I just absolutely despise the file picker. Everything else is dreamy.
  
  Everything else is dreamy.
  Gimp spolied me. Now every time I'm forced to use a GUI app with lots of dropdown menu items, I get irrationally angry that I can't just hit / to search through them like I can in gimp lol.
  
  Why? Genuinely curious about what is wrong with it.
- Nice
- help the dev team
  And we wonder why people don’t like using Linux or FOSS software.
  
  That's their prerogative. FLOSS is a communal effort of equals. Users are not customers; not entitled to anything as it's donated freely. If you want to be bannied and not contribute, there's proprietary software out there but they'll exact a price (currently more than just financial).

I have no idea how selection works anywhere else, since I only ever used gimp.
For me, I don't understand this meme, selection seems to work very intuitively, it seems to do what I expect it to do.
- work very intuitively
  I only ever used gimp
  
  Lol, all these GIMP haters who don't seem to understand the goal was being on par with Photoshop when it was a desktop application. It works exactly like Photoshop always did. And I agree, selection makes sense. There were many apps that worked the same.. Paint Shop Pro as well.
  I guess the kids have all grown up with some other tools and would rather call things they don't understand stupid than try to grasp where the tool came from.
  I'm not sure how Krita is different but then again I haven't used it. I installed it, saw it looked like a fork of GIMP, and stuck with what I knew. Which is probably what anyone who hates GIMP should do.
- I've used other stuff almost daily and I still don't understand this meme.

Taking the time to learn gimp is worthwhile. Its really powerful once you know how to use it IMO
- counterpoint, learn nondestructive editing and you can use any image tool you want that supports it. IMO this is a far nore useful skill than investing time into one app that can’t even do nondestructive🥲
  
  https://youtu.be/t0bpGdpBvvw?feature=shared

I have used Gimp for years and I actually do not understand this meme. Like, do you not understand how image selection and/or layers work? What tf did you think would happen except for exactly what happens?
- maybe its because of the thing where you select something and try moving it and it moves the whole layer? thats the only thing ive ever had a problem with in gimp
  
  Ooohh, okay, I get how that could be unintuitive. Thank you.
  It's better to separate it to another layer so I do it without realizing. If you have trouble with outlines forming then use copy instead of cut.
  
  I've just encountered this yesterday. Need to change the target of the moving tool in the toolbox or Toolbar or whatever it is called .
- Well, in GIMP you need to do the "float selection" before you can manipulate what you've selected properly. In Clip Studio Paint, for example, you select, press ctrl, and just drag whatever you clicked on to move. Way more intuitive (until you do it expecting to interact with active layer and instead move something in the overlay or behind).
  I do love how GIMP allows you to work with transparency though.

I'm confused. Just tried the selection tool in GIMP and Krita on my PC and sketchbook on my tablet. Works the same way as far as I can tell. Just select, draw in there, copy/paste, ctrl-shift-a to unselect. Moving is more convenient in Krita and Sketchbook, true, but like that can't be it right? I'm at a loss.
- That's because you know that "select none" is the correct tool to use in gimp most of the time. For lots of new users, "select all" seems like the more obvious option as opposed to "select none". The reasoning is something like "I want to be able to edit the entire picture, so I should select all". It doesn't help that "select all" has the simpler keyboard shortcut of the two. So they press "select all", then use a transformation tool like Scale or Rotate, and instead of simply transforming the layer like they would expect, it funnels them into the lovecraftian abomination of confusing UI design that is Floating Selection.
  
  GIMP's layer system is definitely unique, sadly it hasn't much in common with the selection tool. In that sense, yes, it is unintuitive when migrating from other apps. I'd argue it's not that complicated, as gimp even highlights the buttons you should be pressing like a mobile game, but it is a complete non sequitur so back on topic...
  If you use "select all" in any program to cancel selections, I don't know what to tell you. Like ok, GIMP is the jankiest of em all if you do that, no contest, but the rest doesn't behave correctly either if your expectation is that it'll work just like it did before you did any selecting. The flashing selection line around the whole page should be a pretty strong indicator of something being different.
  Honestly, many GUI program, doesn't even have to be a raster art program; vector art like illustrator, 3D modeling like maya, some music programs, our custom spreadsheet stuff at work, even many file explorers, as far as I remember they all have the ctrl-shift-a shortcut and all would behave quite differently if you used ctrl-a excepting the same result. I'm genuinely at a loss where you'd get the idea to use ctrl-a to cancel a selection. Like I understand the intuition you proposed, but at what point do you just forget everything else you ever did on your computer?
- Wouldn't Inkscape be a more similar tool to Krita?
  These programs are tools you have to learn to use. A hammer is pretty simple to use but it'll take some time before you've curving a marble statue.
  
  Inkscape is a vector art program, it is fundamentally different to any raster art program. Like just download it and try to make just about anything with it, if you never used a vector art program, you'll be absolutely lost. If you know GIMP, Krita or Photoshop you at least have a basic understanding of the others.

I dont really know photo editing, could someone explain?
- It takes a while to figure out how selections in Gimp work.
  It whenever you select you have created a mask and when you combine it with layers it can get very confusing.
  If you accidentally select a small bit you cannot edit anything else. I think that is what OP is referring to.
  There is a tool that shows you what you have selected that can help.
  IMO Gimp isn’t very well documented so you can get stuck for a while before you understand what is going on.
  
  Oooh, wait, that isn't how it works in other programs? I really like that behaviour in GIMP to be perfectly honest, have used it in editing stuff deliberately.
  
  It is annoying not to have a button on the UI, but once you learn the hotkey this becomes a non-issue unless I'm missing something? I suppose this is an issue, but for a piece of free software like this it sort of feels like making a mountain out of a molehill.
  
  Thanks!

Doesn't Ctrl + A deselect?
- yeah, that's the point of the joke. You'd think that the "default state" should be "select all" -- I want to edit the entire layer, so I should select all of it. But no, "select all" has a bunch of weird obscure behaviour, "select none" is what you want most of the time, even though it gets the shortcut with more keys.
  
  Wait... what does select all and select none do?

Don't try to draw a circle either

Yes, people are handicapped and entrapped by using Adobe products.
- My man GIMP is the only software I've ever seen that doesn't use CTRL+D for deselect
  
  Blender uses Alt+A.
  It consistently uses Alt as a modifier to execute inverse operations. I to insert a keyframe, Alt+I to delete it. Ctrl+F to set a text filter/search, Alt+F to clear it. Ctrl+P to set parent, Alt+P to clear it. H to hide selected objects, Shift+H to hide unselected objects, Alt+H to unhide all. {G,R,S} to move/rotate/scale, Alt+{G,R,S} to reset transformations. It's not exactly industry standard, but internally consistent that makes learning it easy.
  Ctrl+D to deselect is stupid.
  
  Vim?
  
  krita?
  
  you guys dont just get the selection tool and click outside of the selection?
  
  Calculator?
  
  Bash? quits
  
  You don't use much software, huh?

guys don't try to resize the canvas by eye in paint.NET
even ms paint is better in this regard
- lemmy is stupid and made that a URL, do not click it
  
  Not on jerboa. Also it shouldn't be URL. URL should be schema://[[user@]host[:port]]/path?query
  
  lemmy is stupid and made that a URL, do not click it
  this is like when aerith told me not to look up at the sky in rebirth

Crtl shift a it's so obvious right... Right?!
- I never knew about it until now and I've used GIMP often enough, but if I was going to assign a keyboard shortcut, that makes sense. Ctrl +A select all. Ctrl + Shift + A select none.
  Shift is the oppositer (reverser?). Tab goes to next field, Shift + Tab goes in reverse order. Ctrl + T open new tab in browser, Ctrl + Shift + T reopen last closed tab - OK that's not exactly opposite but close enough.
- Customizable keyboard binding is a major and widely overlooked aspect of accessibility For example checkout this thread on mozilla forums about keybinding customization in firefox
  https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/customizable-hotkeys/idi-p/4979
  https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/hotkeys-yes-please/m-p/59929/
  This along with modifiable context menus and the ability to share control schemes would greatly improve most software for multiple tasks.
  
  Key bindings and a good GUI aren't mutually exclusive.
  Key bindings are great for people that use the app a lot and want to be more efficient at the tasks they do most often in it. But most people aren't going to be learning keyboard shortcuts the first time they use an app. And if someone uses an app a few times and find it frustrating to use, they never use it enough to want to learn keyboard shortcuts to improve their efficiency with the app.
- i always just left clicked far away from the selection
- No

why don't people use krita? Gimp may be the most famous photoshop alternative, but I almost never hear anyone talk about others that may potentially be better.
- Krita is better for some things but I find Gimp's workflow easier for me in a lot of things
  Krita's Wacom tablet support, though, was way smoother and easier to get working with Krita, which is the main reason I even tried it out

Meanwhile me using Corel draw:

Context?

In an alternate timeline Fireworks MX went open source and people might use one or the other but everyone's happy. Lol
- I had to fight my old company to purchase Fireworks since it had the absolute best jpeg compression engine. I still miss the "export selection" tool...

try photogimp

I know, its so hard to press F1 and change the keys to be whatever you want; even copying adobe's keybindings. It takes a whole 15 minutes of setup, the horror.

Gimp sucks. That's why people on Linux rather use krita to edit photos and it wasn't even built to do that.
Gimp is a horrible mistake that should literally be killed off and it should be put into a failure museum to serve as a warning and a reminder how Foss can take a wrong turn and many free development hours are spent towards building the wrong things and continue to disappoint any user that tries it.
- I'm so sorry that you feel the $0.00 you've spent on GIMP's development were not well spent
  
  Just because something’s free doesn’t make it immune to criticism.
  
  I have the best wishes for all the developers and what they make after gimp experiment ends.
- No idea what you're on about. GIMP works fine, it's just not a drop-in replacement for Photoshop. People need to use layers more.
  
  Gimp works fine.. but it's not intuitive and the UI/UX is horrible.
- I like GIMP :)
  
  Yeah... I know. Me too, in a weird and twisted masochistic way. Still, I'd like it a lot more if ux improved.
- I've used GIMP to create all of my memes. It's just fine, even if the UI can be unintuitive.
  It lacks features compared to Photoshop, which is a reference to the fact that 2 developers maintain the core features of it.
  
  The fact that gimp is run by two people is indicative of the massive grift of Adobe.
  
  Memes ok. Still, there is better stuff out there for memes.
- skill issue
  
  That most users rather use a painting program to edit photos?
  Sorry but there has to be something there...
- I literally use GIMP every day at my job. It's a very powerful application that makes my life easier.
  
  My condolences.
- Gimp needs fixing. It's definitely not beyond it. But sure go simp for Microsoft some more (yes I remember you from other threads)
- Absolute you problem. GIMP is some of the best and most powerful FOSS ever made, and better than most proprietary applications. But this is probably just bait anyway.
  
  Not a problem at all for me. What I said is true. The proof is that people rather use krita.
- Have an upvote. I’d pay double what Affinity is currently asking to have their products on Linux. Gimp is the opposite of intuitive.
- You don't get it.
  If you're not spending hours trying to figure out how to do the most basic shit then it's not for you, pal. Ever heard the expression pressure turns coal into diamonds?
  That's right.
  That's because we're not bitch ass pussies. Last night I spent five hours trying to merge some layers, and you know what? Worth it! I read the docu, had a back and forth with the developers and after they threatened to kill my family I got it. I'm now a proud member of the Gimp Club Tm (choker and gag ball not included).
  Ya gotta give to get some, Shirley. Now move over, I need to block out the rest of the day so I can figure out how to export a PNG.
  
  so I can figure out how to export a PNG.
  File > Export As
  Under 'Select File Type' choose png, or name the file anything ending in .png
  Click Export. Leave the settings as-is or tweak them if you know what you're doing
  Confirm
  I spent five hours trying to merge some layers
  Right Click the Layer
  In the context menu, click Merge Down
  Your examples suck. Got any real examples?
  
  Got to love it when people think they’re making a statement when they’re really just exposing themselves.
  Merging layers? There’s a button on the layer window that does just that. You can also right click -> merge.
  Exporting PNGs? File -> Export -> File Type at bottom of the window -> PNG
  Not that hard unless you’re somehow incredibly inept.
  
  lol this person can't merge layers in gimp. there's at least 3 obvious ways to do it, e.g. right clicking on a layer.
  
  That's fucking stupid. What are you even doing in this community? It seems like you're completely against the idea of investing time. Gonna guess you are a fan of Windows
  
  Haha
  
  How stupid must you be that merging layers takes you hours? It is a single button press. Exporting PNGs is a matter of under 10 seconds. It is clearly labelled in the dropdown menu.
  
  :)
  Gimp is for Chads only I guess. :D
  I'm soft with my UX requirements and time constraints.