is there any program for graphics / image manipulation for Linux that's a bit more featureful than "pinta" but isn't an ungodly FOSS excrescence like the GIMP #askmastodon
@charlag ok, I'll try that
@charlag hm. it might do, but a cursory test shows me it's a bit less useful than Paint.NET, which is what I was using on Windows.
@kara whaaat. People do painting for a living with it. What is it that you need that is not there?
@charlag the specific functionality I'd like to use is "magic wand" selection. Krita implements this, but both the UX and the quality of the selection itself seems markedly inferior to Paint.NET's implementation.
@kara check out https://www.peppercarrot.com/ and @Krita
@kara gimp 2.10 is a lot cleaner now if you'd like to reconsider. then again, i've been using gimp for years so i've gotten used to it at its "worst", so what do I know?
@trwnh mm, might be worth a shot. I guess I've nothing to lose but time and my wits
@kara Krita or MyPaint are good. Blender for 3D. AZ Painter is as close as you're getting to SAI at the moment. But, GIMP for Linux has easy ways to add themes and plugins through the package manager and you can move around the items and lock them down. Don't forget about the single window mode either. Need more brushes? There's a crap ton of them. https://www.deviantart.com/project-gimpbc/gallery/ Photoshoppers be hating when you FOSS like a boss. https://twitch.tv/theouterlinux
@kara And if you're into Animation, there is OpenToonz which is the open source release of what Studio Ghibli uses. Pencil2D if you're just messing around. Synfig Studio is decent for adding armature to 2D drawings so you manipulate things that way.
@kara And I almost forgot about Inkscape and Scribus for doing Illustrator and Publisher work. Some things I've done: https://theouterlinux.artstation.com and https://sketchfab.com/theouterlinux. All I use are that "ugly" FOSS stuff people complain about. It's not like SAI or Clip Studio Paint are any more visually attractive and yet they're being used a lot, so I usually just call bs on the complaints and shrug it off as some people think that expensive means better.
@TheOuterLinux it's not that. I find in my own experiences that the UX (not so much the visual appearance, there's been superficial improvement in polish at least) in free software varies between adequate and hideous. a feeling of amateurishness pervades the Linux world and every time I've tried to run Linux for any significant length of time I've usually given up after at most a couple of months because of the number of tasks that are suddenly very very annoying to carry out.
@TheOuterLinux I am, however, determined to claw back some control over my machine, so Linux is my best option for now, and I just have to learn to master it.
it's the only way I'll ever learn to destroy it, eventually, which is my ultimate goal
@kara not to be a constant broken record, but I recommend MX Linux. I've tried everything and it's been the best so far. https://youtu.be/QhQT7Aws_yk. Lots of cool tools and doesn't use much resources at all. I've thrown everything at it and keeps on acting indifferent. So, you shouldn't have to configure much if anything at all. You can use the program Aptik to very easily back things up, including if it can't find the package in your manager, themes, settings, etc.
@TheOuterLinux hm! I'll keep that in mind. I've plowed through a number of distributions, right now I'm making a go of Linux Mint
@TheOuterLinux oh, you _should_ know that my general attitude towards FOSS hovers between "cheerful contempt" and "hatred that burns with the fire of a million suns". it is, however, free.
@kara Krita is popular and seems easy to use. I keep forgetting I installed it and continue struggling with Gimp.
@kara Krita? Depending on what you need