Yes, we know many of these apps are not directly comparable.

--jeremy

I use Kolourpaint. It's not perfect but it is easy and functional. I should try some of the others to compare. The polls give me a chance to see what is available.

I have almost all of these (not for professional reasons ... Just to mess with) and I have to say, I use GIMP the most. If I had an actual need for any of the others, It may have went a different way. But it didn't ... So GIMP

Inkscape - i use it most.

GIMP by far, then Inkscape. However GIMP needs an interface overhaul.. Better window management. Im not an expert, only casually use it, but I miss the photoshop window management.

I used gimp once - accidently, and now it is something I cannot live without.

GIMP , No other choice !!

Hi,

GIMP without a doubt.

Kind regards,

Eric

That is right, those are not comparable. Especially GIMP cannot be compared to Inkscape, since they are as different as a spreadsheet and a word processor. So preferring GIMP over Inkscape is a nonsense statement.

Talking about vector editors, I think Inkscape is growing towards an extremely versatile and useful tool. But a typical Unix tool: it provides a powerful set of no-too-advanced tools with little pre-programmed actions. With those primitives you can do almost anything if you know how to use them properly. Compare mallet and chisel with a dovetail jig for a router. Given enough workmanship with a mallet and chisel any dovetail can be cut and much more. With the jig anyone can cut dovertails effortlessly, but just those standard dovetails.

An important feature of Inscape is that it writes human-readable SVG text files. You can edit them outside Inkscape if you like. Great for program-generated graphics. Inkscape has an XML editor so objects can be edited by their properties. None of this breaks the normal GUI interaction, they play in concert.

Little-known is the Inkscape's command-line interface which can be used to query or export objects to PNG or other formats without starting the GUI. This option is great to export batches of objects using a bash script. Much faster than export objects one by one from the GUI.

This year I have been creating a number of presentations of which half of the slides consisted of graphics, diagrams etc. Without Inkscape I would not have been able to create them.

jlinkels

Any chance that RawTherapee can be added to the list?

RawTherapee has been added.

--jeremy

Nothing can beat GIMP on Linux.

Thanks for that!

How about adding CinePaint to the list of choices? Version 1.0 was finally released in 2011.

CinePaint has been added.

--jeremy