GIMP 3.0 is over 96% complete! The GIMP team got sick at the Libre Arts conference over the summer, hence the setback to the release schedule but they are now back making good progress.
Along with non-destructive editing and a colour overhaul we’ve all been waiting for, longstanding critics of the UI/UX will be pleased to hear that GIMP are setting up a UX repository and are looking to build a dedicated team of designers to develop this.
All of these things look set to make the GIMP project feel a lot more current and dynamic. I can’t wait!
And if anyone wants to help out it looks like testing/reporting, donations and updating the help manual are all welcomed by the project at the moment.
How about Krita? I am not a graphic designer but I thought it’s easier to adopt for adobe users. And I use it sometimes.
I understanded krita more like a artist tool for draw than a photo editor.
That’s how it started, as more of a replacement for Corel Painter, but today it’s a very competent photo editor too, personally I find it much better than GIMP.
It’s not free of pain points though - text editing sucks compared to Photoshop, (it’s similar but better than GIMP though, both input text into dialog prompt then render it, GIMP is one and done, you need do it again if you want to edit, Krita lets you edit) no WYSIWYG on the canvas.
Also getting used to the UI will take a bit from PS.
It can do a lot, for example some people use it as a PDF editor.