I'm starting this off by saying that I'm looking for any type of reasonably advanced photo manipulation tool, that runs natively under Linux. It doesn't have to be FOSS.
I switched to Linux, from Windows, about three years ago. I don't regret the decision whatsoever. However, one thing that has not gotten me away from Windows entirely, is the severe lack of photo editing tools.
So what's available? Well, you have GIMP. And then there's Krita, but that's more of a drawing software. And then...
Well that's it. As far as I know.
1. GIMP
Now, as someone migrating from Photoshop, GIMP was incredibly frustrating, and I didn't understand anything even after a few weeks of trying to get into it. Development seemed really slow, too. It's far from intuitive, and things that really should take a few steps, seemingly takes twenty (like wrapping text on a path? Should that really be that difficult?).
I would assume if you're starting off with GIMP, having never touched Photoshop, then it'd be no issue. But as a user migrating, I really can't find myself spending months upon months to learn this program. It's not viable for me.
No hate against GIMP, I'm sure it works wonders for those who have managed to learn it. But I can't see myself using it, and I don't find myself comfortable within it, as someone migrating from Photoshop.
2. Krita
Krita, on the other hand, I like much more. But, it's more of a drawing program. Its development is more focused on drawing, and It's missing some features that I want - namely selection tools. Filters are good, but I find G'MIC really slow. It also really chugs when working with large files.
Both of these programs are FOSS. I like that. I like FOSS software. But, apart from that, are there really no good alternatives to Photoshop? Again, doesn't need to be FOSS. I understand more complex programs take more development power, and I have no problem using something even paid and proprietary, as long as it runs on Linux natively.
I've tried running Photoshop under WINE, and it works - barely. For quick edits, it might work fine. But not for the work I do.
So I raise the question again. Are there no good alternatives to Photoshop? And then I raise a follow-up question, that you may or may not want to answer: If not, why?
Thanks in advance!
Is there no way to run PS on Wine? Seems like that would be a compromise but I’ve never tried it.
There is a Photoshop CC installer for Linux hosted on Github. I've tried it - it works. It's just not a great experience. Saving files is a pain, because the
exportoption does not exist. You need to useSave As, and that only works with a hacky workaround.The UI doesn't update until you do something that forces it to re-draw (like zooming or panning), which is a real pain when transforming or moving layers - for example. Plus, the UI doesn't scale. You need to use Photoshop in complete fullscreen otherwise parts of the UI will be missing.
AI filters do not exist, for obvious reasons. However, most other filters work fine.
And most obviously, performance has an extreme degradation. It's really slow.
But yeah, would probably get a "Bronze" rating on WineHQ, which is better than not working at all - I suppose. It's progress?
Oh wow, that doesn’t sound like a nice experience at all. I wonder if older versions of PS work better with Wine since it could be an option if you don’t need the latest features.
CS6 may work better, but I haven't tested it. I may give it a shot sometime, though.
And there's the issue of tablet pressure! As an amateur artist I was ok with most of the peculiarities of Ps on Wine (even the weird full-screen deal that you mentioned), but even after extensive tinkering it would only register my Wacom pen strokes as single spots or full-pressure lines. Apparently this bug is pretty old, and the underlying problem is way more difficult to solve than it first seems (esp to a linux noob like me). I've heard photoshop cs2 can avoid this bug (and it worked fine for me) but that version of Ps looks very different than what I'm used to, having been a longtime cs6 and cc user.
I ended up mainly using SAI on that system--which ran very well on Wine--but it has fewer bells and whistles and there are certain tools like liquify that don't offer the same degree of control in Krita or GIMP (as far as I could tell). If my laptop hadn't been struggling so much, I think I probably would've shifted more towards Krita but somehow it ran much worse on the linux system than the previous windows system, regardless of which version I tried. It's a difficult problem to troubleshoot if you don't know tech stuff very well - . -