[HN Gopher] Krita 5.0
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Krita 5.0
Author : raghukamath
Score : 361 points
Date : 2021-12-23 10:23 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (krita.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (krita.org)
| geokon wrote:
| Is this a good choice for drawing vector graphics? (Inkscape is a
| bit clunky.. or maybe I'm just not good at using it)
| hallarempt wrote:
| Krita has vector layers, but it's not the absolute focus: the
| purpose of vector layers is adding frames for comic books,
| text, speech bubbles and the occasional other bit of clipart.
| danShumway wrote:
| I feel like a number of basic pieces are in place for Krita to
| be really good for this, but it's not quite all put together
| and hasn't been expanded out into a really usable form yet.
|
| I think they did a bunch of overhauls a while back (through a
| Kickstarter) where they specifically rebuilt and beefed up the
| core vector engine, but if I remember correctly other features
| ended up getting more votes during the campaign than some of
| the followup user-facing vector tools/systems they were
| thinking about, and they ended up prioritizing the other stuff
| that got more votes.
| geenat wrote:
| Krita has a lot of the right pieces but suffers from this
| snapping accuracy issue: https://imgur.com/g5yMFvp.mp4
| geenat wrote:
| Nice. A line-height adjustment was added to the text tool. Non
| destructive layer styles. Layer previews.
|
| Krita is honestly fairly competitive for design now since last
| time I've used it.
| danShumway wrote:
| Lots to be excited about in this release, particularly with
| animation.
|
| I've been using Krita as a daily driver for a while. It's been
| slowly working through its list of features that are "technically
| there" but that are either very narrow or just kind of cumbersome
| to use, and broadening them out and making them more competitive.
| That effort really shows. So in this release the animation tools
| go from being mostly suited for basic frame-by-frame animation to
| now having storyboards, and being able to do tweening, cloned
| frames, and having a bit nicer UX; it's a big jump forward.
|
| I say this whenever Krita comes up on HN, but I see a huge amount
| of potential in this project because of how its development team
| approaches development; they pay a lot of attention to the artist
| community and they're not just developing features in isolation,
| it feels like they have a sense of direction about the project,
| they put a ton of effort into UX. Krita has gone from technically
| sort-of usable as a daily driver, to basically good enough to be
| a daily driver, to actually just feeling quite nice to paint in
| where you'd probably have it installed on the side even if you
| were already accustomed to other programs and even if you didn't
| care about the OS aspect at all.
|
| The closest comparison-project I can think of is Blender, and I
| mean that as a high complement. If you're coming out of the Clip
| Studio world, it's worth taking a look at. There are some
| features I miss, particularly around the vector tools and being
| able to redraw line widths, but there's also some stuff that
| Krita just does better now: I think it has a much cleaner
| interface than Clip Studio and is just overall more pleasant to
| use with touchscreen devices.
|
| It's linked in the release notes, but dropping a second link to
| their funding page (https://fund.krita.org/). If you want to have
| a competitive Open Source drawing/painting tool on Linux that can
| rival some of the more traditional painting tools in the same
| vein as projects like Blender, then I think Krita is pretty much
| the singular best project to back/fund. It's already good enough
| to use as a serious tool, and more than that I just feel very
| optimistic about their entire development process and trajectory.
| This is a good project for the OS community to just throw
| resources/money at.
| raghukamath wrote:
| Full Release notes here - https://krita.org/en/krita-5-0-release-
| notes/
| rbanffy wrote:
| I love that, if you are on Windows, there are official paid
| versions that help support the development of the app. IIRC, it's
| on the Microsoft and Steam stores.
|
| And, of course, you can donate too.
| cturtle wrote:
| > With in-stack transform, the blending modes and overlapping
| layers are composited on top of the transform preview. This was a
| feature funded by the Blender Institute.
|
| Great improvement, and it's wonderful to see support from another
| open source project.
| geenat wrote:
| Hate to say it but grid snap still seems to be broken:
| https://imgur.com/g5yMFvp.mp4
|
| Why is the handle not straight with the grid?
| udbhavs wrote:
| How does it compare to Photopea for beginners? Is it similar
| enough that I could follow along tutorials meant for Photoshop?
|
| Edit: It looks like it's oriented more towards painting than
| photo editing
| Grakel wrote:
| Photopea is a perfect replacement for Photoshop, it's a shame
| you can't just buy it, he started a subscription model too. I
| don't want to pay a sub and I don't want ads.
| [deleted]
| unixhero wrote:
| I don't find your blanket statement accurate.
|
| It is suitable for both applications, painting and photo
| editing. I have used it strictly for photo editing
| professionally and privately and it works flawlessly. Highly
| recommended. I use the knowledge I have from my Photoshop days
| and apply them in Krita, no issues there. For me it is a
| Photoshop drop-in replacement.
| pxc wrote:
| Before Krita was 'marketed' as a digital painting app, it was
| described and used as an alternative to GIMP and Photoshop.
|
| At some point (in the 2010s?) there was a decision to refocus
| on digital painting, I think maybe because of the difficulty
| of keeping up with the expansive featureset of something like
| Photoshop or GIMP (and maybe the additional difficulty of
| still keeping a focused, pleasant UI).
|
| But it's not like the developers removed a bunch of
| functionality. It's cool to hear that Krita remains capable
| of handling some heavy duty photo editing use cases.
| hallarempt wrote:
| Nah, the change was mostly because painting is what I'm
| most interested in, and I was -- and am -- the maintainer
| :-)
| pxc wrote:
| Thanks for the correction. :)
|
| And wow, you've been the maintainer for a very long time!
|
| Thanks for your work. Imo Krita's design is a model for
| KDE productivity apps.
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| This is really good to know. Years back they decided on
| making the program a painting app first and foremost so, not
| being an artist, I didn't really follow its progress. Knowing
| now that it does a solid job at photo editing tells me it is
| time to give it a second look.
| ognarb wrote:
| Congrats for the release! Krita is one of the most awesome KDE
| apps and it's really nice to see so much new features in this
| release.
| pxc wrote:
| Even though I don't have much use for it now that I'm out of
| school, Krita and the Calligra Office suite make up one of the
| reasons I've been a KDE user forever. The most prominent KDE
| apps have long done an amazing job, imo, of making tons of
| functionality accessible in a way that feels orderly and
| approachable rather than chaotic and cluttered.
|
| Amarok was this way, which made it just incredible when the
| most common way to listen to music was local collections.
|
| When Dolphin came out, it seemed like a harmonization of
| Konqueror's massive featureset along the same lines.
|
| Some apps are a little bit messier (Kate, Konsole) but are
| still way more orderly and easy to explore than popular
| alternatives on Windows despite matching or beating them on
| features.
|
| I feel like this aspect of KDE apps is often undersold. Outside
| of KDE, I hardly ever find anything as powerful as a mature KDE
| app whose UI isn't just an overwhelming hodgepodge of menus.
| Krita seems like a leader when it comes to this approach to
| adding features but in a thoughtful way.
| scriptproof wrote:
| I looked at the script language, SeExpr. Look like PHP with math
| functions. Is this really better than what we have in HTML
| Canvas?
| hallarempt wrote:
| It's completely unrelated? SeExpr is a language for generating
| pixels in interesting ways, originating with Disney. Generic
| scripting is provided through Python, but SeExpr is fun for
| fill/generator layers.
| jpm48 wrote:
| SeExpr is great and used a lot in animation / shader
| development in things like Renderman from Pixar, it was great
| to see it in Krita https://wdas.github.io/SeExpr/
| dagmx wrote:
| For reference, SeExpr is only used for a certain amount of
| scripting (usually around pattern generations etc). It's an
| industry standard in visual effects and animation workflows and
| was created by Disney; http://wdas.github.io/SeExpr/
|
| It is not used for general purpose scripting, for which Krita
| allows you to write Python scripts instead.
| jph wrote:
| Krita release notes are superb studies in how to create software
| product pages: lots of context, plenty of examples, clear
| explanations, both features and benefits, thanks and credits, and
| call outs to real world users.
|
| https://krita.org/en/krita-5-0-release-notes/
|
| Kudos to the Krita team for the great upgrade.
| jasfi wrote:
| Those release notes are a project in their own right. You need
| a team just for that!
| hallarempt wrote:
| They were written by pretty much one person, who also fixes
| bugs, maintains the manual and help out the maintainer -- me
| -- with any tasks needed. We usually start the release notes
| for the next major version right after we released a major
| version, and try to keep up with what happens.
|
| Upcoming Krita 5.1, that what's currently in the master
| branch on invent.kde.org, already has a bunch of new stuff...
| jasfi wrote:
| What about all the YouTube content?
| hallarempt wrote:
| We sponsor Ramon Miranda, a professional digital artist and
| art teacher, to create the content for the Krita youtube
| channel.
|
| (Not sure why that post didn't have a reply link...)
| ploxiln wrote:
| (meta: replying to a comment is disabled for a short
| period, which increases depending on depth of discussion
| or something like that, in an attempt to reduce
| unproductive back-and-forth argument)
| jasfi wrote:
| That's great that your Open Source project can sponsor
| contributors!
| archerx wrote:
| I love Krita it is a great free open source photoshop replacement
| and does photo editing better than Gimp. People will say Krita is
| a digital painting program but it still goes photo editing in a
| much less frustrating way than gimp.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I agree it's less frustrating than Gimp, but as someone who did
| a lot of photoediting in the latter, Krita's abilities do not
| really compare with Gimp's. Last time I checked (admittedly
| years ago), there was no equivalent of Liquid Rescale in Krita.
| Nor was there smart object removal capability. I think the
| options for dealing with noise were quite limited, as well.
| uneekname wrote:
| Krita with a Wacom tablet on Linux is more plug-n-play than any
| other setup I've seen. I never had to "learn Krita," just the
| occasional Google to get me back on track. Thank you to everyone
| who makes these projects happen!
| 01walid wrote:
| How does Krita compare to Gimp at this point?
|
| (Since someone on the comments here said it can be a Photoshop
| drop-in replacement)
| oAlbe wrote:
| To me, the thing that brings me back to Krita over and over is
| that fact that it's intuitive to use. I've been trying to use
| GIMP for the past 10 years and still have no idea how to resize
| an image/canvas or where the heck the crop tool is. In Krita
| those things are exactly where I end up looking for them.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Wife still uses Photoshop CS 2 on Windows, and I've basically
| told her that when her computer dies, she's getting Linux and
| open source software, or she's gonna have to figure out
| Windows 11 by herself and pay the subscription for Adobe.
| "Fine with Linux" she says, since it's installed on other
| computers in the house, "... but what can I use instead of
| Photoshop?". "Use Gimp, of course!" I say, and install it on
| her computer. Then I watch her get increasingly frustrated
| for an hour before rage quitting. It's not lack of features,
| it's UI, UX, workflow.
| otherme123 wrote:
| There are a lot of paths that are unique to each of them. I
| bet the reverse (from Gimp to PS) feels the same. My wife
| asked to make a logo and a leaflet, and I never offered
| other thing than Inkscape. She ended up using it for almost
| anything. After a couple of years I bet that she will find
| Illustrator frustrating.
| yyyk wrote:
| It shouldn't be difficult to set up a VM for Windows +
| Photoshop CS2.
| nicoburns wrote:
| You can run older versions of Photoshop (CS2 is almost
| certainly old enough) surprisingly well in wine. If she
| doesn't like something like Krita, I'd try installing the
| exact version of photoshop she's used to under wine.
| wott wrote:
| You'd better test if her Photoshop works fine with Wine. If
| it does, nobody get frustrated, there is no need for her to
| relearn everything from scratch if she is satisfied with
| that tool and her workflow established over more than 10
| years, and you don't have to pay for a new tool.
| bitbang wrote:
| Seriously? I can understand people having trouble adapting to
| a different layering model, but cropping? If over 10 years
| you haven't been able to figure out
|
| Image -> Crop to selection
|
| then either it's a real accomplishment they you can cloth
| yourself in the morning, or this is just willful ignorance.
| archerx wrote:
| Maybe Gimp has one of the worst UI/UX ever made? I still
| stand by my theory that gimp was made as a troll program to
| see how far people will defend opensource no matter how
| objectively bad it is to use.
| pessimizer wrote:
| As somebody who uses Photoshop for a living, I prefer the
| GIMP. The GIMP falls down on a few major features, not on
| usability. I can also see how Photoshop as the standard
| has broken people's brains so much that the concept of
| "intuitive" becomes entirely lost. It's not as bad as
| Illustrator, but features are just randomly thrown
| everywhere; the only reason I'm fast at it is from hard-
| won experience.
|
| It's impossible to paint "Image -> Crop to Selection" as
| hard to find. The menu is at the same place it is in
| almost every other program one uses, at the top of the
| window.
| zhte415 wrote:
| I'd hesitate to call Photoshop or GIMP intuitive.
|
| What was intuitive was Paint Shop Pro at around v3 and
| v4. I compliment Krita for being almost as intuitive as
| PSP.
| depereo wrote:
| I've never used Photoshop and gimp confuses the hell out
| of me. I installed krita a year ago for my simple editing
| tasks and never once had to search online for 'how do
| I....'
| Shared404 wrote:
| I've used all three, and the amount of searching from
| least to most goes Krita -> PS -> GIMP for me.
|
| PS was the first I used, but I still had to search things
| for the entire time I used it. GIMP I just start by
| looking up how to do something, and Krita I just do it.
| billfruit wrote:
| As someone who never used Photoshop before I find Gimp's
| UI functional and nothing worth complaining about.
| Especially I like the MDI interface with each widget
| being a seperate window.
| pxc wrote:
| It's been a long time, but when I was in high school I
| chose to use the GIMP rather than Photoshop for my photo
| class, which was the first time I used any photo editing
| software. I found it to be more or less fine.
|
| (At that time, Photoshop was also MDI, IIRC.)
| jcelerier wrote:
| > then either it's a real accomplishment they you can cloth
| yourself in the morning, or this is just willful ignorance.
|
| no, this is what the average user looks like. Most people
| had trouble with TV remotes until they started making them
| with 4/5 buttons at most.
| prokoudine wrote:
| > I've been trying to use GIMP for the past 10 years and
| still have no idea how to resize an image/canvas
|
| The tool is right in the toolbox for interactive resizing, or
| Image > Scale Image for blunt numeric input.
|
| > or where the heck the crop tool is.
|
| Also right there in the toolbox.
| Kliment wrote:
| There's exactly one thing I still prefer to do in Gimp -
| splitting a single image into multiple images, one per RGBA/HSL
| channel. There's also some image formats that Gimp supports
| that Krita does not. But that's it. There's nothing else I
| miss, and Krita is just incredibly far ahead on usability.
| hallarempt wrote:
| Layer->Split Layer got some love for this release, too, but
| I'm not sure whether it even made it into the release notes.
| raghukamath wrote:
| I think they are talking about Image > Image split
| CanceledAccount wrote:
| Krita's Python API should have everything you need to do this
| automatically.
| raghukamath wrote:
| > splitting a single image into multiple images
|
| There is Image menu > Image split in Krita
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| It depends gimp have more photo editing features but is a mess,
| and krita is more of painting app who have features of photo
| editing( more than not professionals tends to need)
| whatshisface wrote:
| Krita has an amazingly frustrating text handling experience.
| It's the one major thing that makes me open GIMP. The font size
| never seems to stick.
| johnny53169 wrote:
| They fixed the font handling in this release
| whatshisface wrote:
| They fixed a font size bug that made it inconsistent
| between computers, but did they change the user interface
| for font styling? It's the second that makes it annoying -
| I never got far enough to notice the bug.
| BeetleB wrote:
| In terms of photo editing, Gimp is far more featureful. I give
| some examples here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29664606
| dagmx wrote:
| Krita is a better painting and animation program than GIMP. It
| also has much better scripting and color space support.
|
| GIMP is easier/better at 8 bit image editing though.
| lmm wrote:
| The things I noticed: Nicer UI. Better colourspace support.
| Less good tablet support.
| sharikous wrote:
| I think the only real advantage of GIMP at this point is its
| age and stability. Gimp was around 20 years ago and it is more
| likely to be there 20 years from now than Krita. EDIT: my error
| - Krita is much older than I thought.
|
| Moreover stability is important if you access it
| programmatically.
|
| And yes, even that is not guaranteed by any means. It's just
| the area where Krita does not beat Gimp totally.
| hallarempt wrote:
| Krita was started in the previous millenium, too. I've been
| Krita's maintainer since 2004... If I have to think about
| what I did with my life, https://krita.org/en/about/krita-
| releases-overview/ comes to mind :-)
| fault1 wrote:
| Wow, this guy really sounds like a winner: https://de.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Freiherr_von_Grave...
| hallarempt wrote:
| Heh,those were "fun" times, and they even predate my own
| involvement!
| Shared404 wrote:
| Any chance you could drop a tl;dr for those of us who
| don't read German?
|
| Poked around a bit at Wikipedia, but didn't find
| anything.
|
| Also, thanks for all you do with Krita! It's one of the
| programs that I don't think I've ever not had installed
| on my daily driver.
| hallarempt wrote:
| I'm sorry, but it's untranslatable... Both for language
| and for custom.
| mschuetz wrote:
| I've never been able to do anything meaningful in GIMP, but
| Krita is relatively nice to use. It's much more intuitive than
| GIMP, and even things you have to look up and learn are easier
| to get used to and remember, because the UI actually makes
| sense.
| chobytes wrote:
| When I tried Krita a few years ago I couldn't imagine using it
| over things like Clipstudio yet. I am really rooting for Krita
| though, so Ill probably give it another shot soon.
| hallarempt wrote:
| Clip Studio still has a number of features we don't have yet,
| but we're regarding it as our main competitor. Now 5.0 is out,
| we will start looking at fun features again, and we've already
| made a little list of things CSP has that we want for Krita,
| too...
| aceazzameen wrote:
| Keep up the awesome work! I'm rooting for you guys too.
| Shared404 wrote:
| > We already had our own resource bundle format, but now we also
| support photoshop layer style libraries and brush libraries.
|
| This is great to hear!
|
| I had to reach for The GIMP a few times to make D&D maps using PS
| style brushes, glad that I can stick with Krita now!
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(page generated 2021-12-23 23:02 UTC)