It's the same thing with Photoshop I guess; You invest heavily in the tool chain -- I know basically every keyboard shortcut there is by tactile memory -- and suddenly your definition of usability in image manipulation becomes 'The inverse of the squared distance to Photoshop'.
I'll download it and give Gimp another go.
You didn't. I am sorry if I implied you did. I was referring to the average stereotypical art student gone internet troll who are often quite vocal in bringing out their dislike of free as in freedom tools vs. their favorite free as in pirated proprietary software.
> I'll download it and give Gimp another go.
You do that and tell us if you felt it was better. Tell the GIMP devs too, they get too little positive feedback.
I'd like everyone to do this but this just isn't going to convert you to GIMP overnight. If you are as invested into the Photoshop tools as you say you are you will just get frustrated at the UI differences and give up within a few days. After all why should anyone struggle with a free software if you've already paid a thousand bucks for Photoshop and memorized all the shortcuts that make you a Photoshop machine.
Having said that, if you were ever in a bind and you had to give GIMP a try for a prolonged period of time, it would be capable of everything you ever wanted to do in Photoshop.
The only way that would make the GIMP an alternative to photoshop would be for your time to be worth NOTHING.
The interface may be a little weird (or it used to be), but it's really powerful when you get into it. Sure, being effective in GIMP requires you to learn a few keyboard shortcuts but what software doesn't?
I was completely blown away once when I saw a hacker/artist friend of mine do some amazing artwork with GIMP (this was circa 2001). One hand on the keyboard, one hand on the mouse/wacom tablet. Sure, he was a hacker, so the interface may be a little more intuitive from that background but the artwork he produced spoke for itself.
I don't listen to pro-photoshop people's arguments any more. The interface may seem weird but it gets the job done. The 8bpp color was a major stumbling block but now it's gone. As are many other sources of complaints about GIMP.
You (and everyone) should really give GIMP another go, the improvement has been HUGE in the last 10 years. This is what a lot of people don't get about open source software. It improves constantly, if you did not like it 10/5/1 years ago, the chances are it's been improved during that time. And if you feel that something needs a change, you have the option of doing it yourself or helping the community put it together by whatever means you have to contribute.
Or just shut up and pay the license for Photoshop, but please don't come bashing people who are doing hard work to make GIMP/Blender/Inkscape better.