The Rect Select Options though is a feature that few designers need in a menu - it would be better to use a custom Color swatch tool - which is invaluable.
The Colormap utterly baffles me.
But in general, this version is /much/ much more intuitive.
Erm.... how do you add a layer mask? I usually add a layer mask simply by selecting Layer mask while i'm working with a layer - no need to select it with the Move tool or the Selector tool. This one baffles me - and will annoy designers.
I'm glad to see a menu across the top of the image as well - this was a big problem for designers before. I actually prefer one element of the GIMP to Photoshop: that there is no background to the GUI - this gets in the way of designing and i often minimise Photoshop to avoid it (although if you have a nice desktop image it can be distracting - I often set it to a plain color when working in any case.
I'm actually (sadly) testing the ;atest Winblows version (Win ME) - at the moment there's not enough room on my laptop to run both GNU/Linux and winblows - and I have to use Flash and Fireworks for my work. But perhaps thats a good thing - there are a few bugs. I had a crash on my first go... it had to do with TTF fonts, but I wasnt using the Font tool, and all my fonts are ttf except those installed by Adobe Illustrator - so it should have read them in correctly. The message was **WARNING (recursed)**. Couldn't load font "MS Sans Serif 8" falling back to "Sans 8" aborting... - yet i was trying to move a layer down. Can you move a layer underneath the background? This is what caused it....
Perhaps a font selection tool might be helpful - although in GNU/Linux Mandrake you can do this through the Drake wizard - but that usually crashes too ;P.
Perhaps this occured because Ghostscript isnt ported to Winblows? I have to use Illustrator at present - and I'll have to in the future, to be compatible with other designers and for export to print. I also have to be /very/ careful with my fonts - if one corrupts then my other work is destroyed (although I back up my collection of around 1000+ fonts).
Speaking of which - there's no option for CMYK color when starting a new file, although you can up the resolution to print levels (300dpi - 600dpi). CMYK is the only format used for print - which would be the only case where you'd need 300dpi - so I don't understand why this option is there, without CMYK color.
Default opening tool should be set to the 'move/select' tool - opening with the selector tool can often cause dangerous mistakes, moving sections when you dont want to!
One feature I'd love to see is drag and drop from one image to another. I use this frequently, rather than cutting and pasting layers. I also couldnt layer two images together and then add a layer on top, which I paint white and then move underneath so I can see what the layer effects are doing. Yes, there's been layer effects since 1.2, and those are lovely. They form a major part of my work.
This is just a first impression - unfortunately with the crashes I couldnt get any further with what I wanted to do... but I'll keep trying.
Best,
Miriam.
-- 99% of aliens prefer Earth --Eminem
www.iriXx.org www.copyleftmedia.org.uk
