Looking at feature lists is one thing. Actually using the software and seeing what it’s really capable of doing is quite another, sadly. So feature lists are nice, but not definitive. As a stupid example, I looked at Cinepaint feature list a long time ago and thought “Oh, great, that can replace PhotoShop and in the process avoid some issues with PhotoShop processing”, but that turned out to be laughably wrong.
As far as free/libre software not having an all-in-one generic software that’s as convenient as for example PhotoShop creative suite for photographers, IMHO this is a true statement. I qualified “for photographers” because it seems many digital artists prefer Krita not only because it’s free (in either or both senses of the word) but because it meets their needs better.
From my perspective, from the point of view of my own workflow using GIMP as my primary image editor:
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I don’t care that GIMP doesn’t have its own built-in raw processor. Even when still using Windows, the ACR raw processor just wasn’t as good as other raw processors. But I don’t have a high-volume workflow, which makes switching between programs considerably easier than it is for photographers who must meet deadlines and churn out many images all at once.
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GIMP lacks adjustment layers and for me this is a drawback that makes editing considerably more difficult. I never used a version of PhotoShop with the smart layers, so I don’t know what I’m missing.
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GIMP color management still has issues - LAB editing is rudimentary at best. CMYK is missing. There are color space “TRC” errors in decomposing to LAB/LCh or extracting LAB/LCh channels. Support for “any rgb and any trc” is missing though “any rgb” is in progress - I currently use multiple prefixes to work around this “any rgb” issue, which is not an option for a high-volume photographer or someone who doesn’t know how to modify and compile software.
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GIMP lacks the ability to easily record individual import/editing/export/etc steps in some equivalent of PhotoShop macros, and this is something that’s very important for high-volume output and also for less volume-intense users.
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GIMP has excellent LCh support, which I use all the time. I’d use Krita considerably more often than I do if it also had LCh support. But GIMP totally lacks CIECAM02, which fortunately RawTherapee has a wonderful CIECAM02 module.
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GIMP lacks fourier-based algorithms such as lens blur, which fortunately Krita offers.
Hmm, wow. I think I just made a case for Affinity, if it really is as all-encompassing and high quality in terms of editing algorithm output as it presents itself, and if one really does need the convenience of an “all in one one-stop-shopping” image editor. In other words, if it’s as good as or better than PhotoShop and at an affordable price, and putting considerations of “free as in free speech” to one side as perhaps not that compelling to may people.
But I’ve never had a workflow that demanded the convenience of using a single application. And as time goes on I find I do value using “free as in free speech” software.