I know we're not supposed to reference Gimp 2.10 features...but I will say the downscaling algorythm in Gimp 2.8 and under compared to photoshop did produce inferior results and was a major issues with me. I'm really looking forward to the new scaling algos coming with 2.10
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Love the earlier referenced idea of putting the grow (and even shrink) options as a slider for the selection options.
I know photoshop is really excited about their new-deblur algo. There are gimp plugins that dabble with this, but they are out-of-date and we really need something integrated into main install.
IMO what gimp needs to work on the most is their selection options.
The design of the basic gimp selection tools imply almost a one click process, when in reality selection is a multi-stage process and selection tools should reflect this. eg You need magic wand/select by color options to controll a minimum and maxim selection areas (radius of say 10px to 50px). This allows you to select the body...then at a smaller radius the hands...then at a smaller radius the fingers...etc. You can then remove selections the same way. So imagine filling a car with balls. Your fill space would be everywhere a ball would fit of that size (size of your magic wand). If you want to get down under the car seat, then you would have to decrease your ball size. This is very important for selecting man-made objects that don't need random selection distributions.
There has to be a contiguos selection blob option and remove holes option.
Put another way...gimp needs photoshop's quick selection tool! Youtube this if you don't know how it works.
There also needs to be a better mechanic for selecting fine/complex material (hair/branches/etc). PS does a much better job on this front.
In fact, I would love to see selection templates...where you had selection algos that are specifically custom tailored for certain types of common objects. eg a "hair select tool". Or a "sky select"..."tree select", "cloud select", "face/body/skin select". Maybe a nature select vs manmade. So a sidewalk and car with their artificial simplicty might be selected while grass and trees are not...or vice versa.
Would love to be able to grow/shrink selections but for just some parts. So the lamp pole going into the sky might need X feathing...while brush backlit against the sky might need another.
There needs to be more threshold options too. I look at a picture and can definitely see the edge...so if I can see it an algo should too...and I should be able to quickly dial through my threshold options to find that "glove that fits".
Need more text manipulation items. I know you can do some of this in round-about fashion, but it would be nice in the text editor if you could stretch fonts, fatten them, give them simple 3d and other effects right from the text options.
Lastly, I would love to see the shortcut system revamped for "grid layout". Starcraft players know what I'm talking about. So basically instead of memorizing oodles of shortcuts...you display the icons like a keyboard. So third down first over would be a. Forth down second over would be x. You can then rearrange your favorite tools over this virtual keyboard and that's the order you'll see in the toolbox. The benifit is that a lot of are right handed, so can put a lot of our favorite shorts on the left side of the keyboard to we can keep our hands on the mouse. Yet because the icons correspond with the grid of the keyboard (see Starcraft!), then it is super easy to learn and use complicated key/tool assocations.