>Better than GIMP in so many ways (does GIMP still not have adjustment layers for non-destructive editing?), and was created by one person

This makes total sense. GIMPs problem was never feature quality or quantity, it was mostly focus and coherence.

A single person brings that.

The main trouble with GIMP (and Inkscape) is lack of first-class CMYK, making it irrelevant for any print-targeting activity. Otherwise the features have advanced in the last few years and the coherence is not bad, the photoshop crowd being in the same ballpark for me.

You know what's more than little depressing? That each time any similar topic comes up you don't have to scroll down very far to find someone in the comments that will bash GIMP for some random thing.

You're comparing an ad-supported/subscription web service making a good part of 6 figures per year with software maintained largely by volunteer work for the past 20+ years.

I apologize - I truly don't mean to bash GIMP and I appreciate all the work the volunteers have done. It has come a long way and appears to be getting better with every release.

My reliance on adjustment layers and non-destructive workflows probably doesn't represents the majority of GIMP's user base, and that's ok. I can't really use it seriously for photographic retouching until it does have that, but I'm glad other people get a lot of use out of it, and the other features that have taken higher priority surely make sense for a great number of those people that do use it regularly. I hope that drives more usage, donations, and development.

The takeaway is that a large community of volunteer can be beaten by a single full-time software engineer.

Nomen est Omen, with a name like GIMP what can you expect. I mean, the software name is literally slang for a disabled person.

Why don't they start from changing the name I don't understand.. Open Source projects have these odd ways of just sticking whatever somebody came up in the late 90s and rolling with that.

GIMP is an acronym (GNU Image Manipulation Program).

Yeah I know that. But do the people looking for a professional photo editing program know that. I'm just saying if you want to make it big or attract developers, maybe naming your software Gimp is not the best thing either..

A lot of the best software is made by one person. Large codebases and organisations have significant inertia that make producing good stuff hard. You’ll also get greater deviation from the mean in a single developer (so a lot of the worst software is also made by one person).

Yes, GIMP layers are still in limited and a pain to use. I'll definitely try photopea next time.