Re: [CinePaint] cinepaint vs Gimp

Kai-Uwe Behrmann wrote:

> there are various standards for useablity; 

I don't know what you mean by standards. There are ways people expect to 
operate a new machine and there are metaphors people have learned which 
is usually what they apply first (drag and drop, menus, keyboard 
shortcuts etc.). Diverting from these metaphors or failing to apply them 
in the way a user expects them to work in a new context is usually what 
makes for bad interfaces. And there are lots of details one can get wrong.
That's the broad strokes.
After that, there are lots of details one can get wrong.
E.g. when to use a group of radio buttons vs. a menu button, how to 
align labels of dialogs, how floating windows behave, failing to proper 
capitalize menu entries, not providing menu accelerators or providing 
bad menu accelerators, coming up with all new shortcut keys instead of 
using a well learned standard set, &c. &c.

But all that aside, Cinepaint, like Krita and Gimp are imaging 
applications. Gimp and Photoshop are very similar in functionality.
However, in interface they are not; whatever people say.
I am a TD, I'm fine with both apps's interfaces. I learned Photoshop 
inside out when I was 15 and when I was 16, I was already doing 
professional retouche for advertising agencies to make model's faces 
look spotless on glossy magazine covers to make some money beside school.
The reason I learned it so quickly then, was that I have backgrounds in 
/both/ arts & computer science/maths (or one could say I was reasonably 
familiar with both already, when I was a teenager). And both were and 
are well balanced in my skill set.

But lots of people who are 'just' artists take years to learn an app 
like Photoshop.
Even after 5 years, some of those users will not have grasped a simple 
concept like pre-multiplication.
Yet they produced great images.

Taking this steep learning curve for the main target audience of a 
digital imaging app into consideration, I totally fail to understand how 
on could /not/ copy Photoshop's interface to start with for any 
layer-based imaging app. Improve after that, but copy first (and copy well).
Fail to do so and you are saying "Yeah you are an artist, but I don't 
goive a bl**dy f*ck how much time you spent learning the de facto 
standard imaging app. This is Gimp/Cinepain/Whatever and you have to 
learn our interface or stay away." (and the latter is what people are 
doing). All excpetions I've seen so far merely proove the rule. While 
this might not be intentional, this is how it is perceived by the users.

We have some really kick ass artists at RSP, but none of them would 
touch Cinepaint with a ten foot pole and while Gimp does have most of 
the functionality, it's interface just alienates people. Why would you 
have a different interface on that app??? It does exactly the same as 
Photoshop. If it was node based, fair enough. But it's a plain layer 
based comp app. Making something different for the sake of being 
different doesn't attract people.

Imagine the tab in your bathroom. Which way do you turn it to close it? 
You can't tell? Because you learned it such a long time ago that you do 
it automatically. Now if you reversed how the tab worked, what would 
your experience be the next time you wanted to do something as simple as 
wash your hands?
Now imagine someone with 3 years Photoshop experience. They press '1' to 
set the current layer to 10% opacity. They do that in the 'new ' imaging 
app they use. Nothing happens...
You get my point: Value user experience.

GimpShop is exactly what Gimp needs for any artist using Photoshop, that 
I know (and I know a shitload, believe me), to /only/ consider switching.
Gimp is not and neither is Cinepaint. Krita is reasonably close. Someone 
comfy in PS will feel right at home.
PS has an installed base of 5 million users and an estimated pirated 
base ten times that. By coming up with a Photoshop incompatible (or 
different enough to feel alien) interface for one's digital imaging app, 
one basically excludes 50 million potential users (assuming 10% are 
skilled enough to not care, which is a bold assumption, imho). And 
what's more, those are the users that give you the best feedback about 
your app and help you improve it as they have prior experience with 
image editing.
Ask yourself if that is a clever move.

 From that pov, there are no different interface standards. There's only 
one. "The standard". In terms of 2D digital imaging that happens to be PS.
Once you got the users over to use your app, you can change the 
interface -- if the change is an improvement. Not before.

Just my 2c (and sorry for the long rant). :)


Cheers,

Moritz

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