Making GIMP feel less like punishment

GIMP has always had an interface problem. I’m not blaming the GIMP team (they’ve built something powerful on a shoestring). They’ve been clear they’re not interested in copying Photoshop wholesale; their FAQ argues that designing around actual user research beats imitating someone else’s interface decisions. Fair enough in principle, but coming from years as a Photoshop user, that design still feels hostile to me. I’m just one user story out of many they’ve had to design for, but it still expects me to learn its own way of doing things rather than offering a config closer to what I’m used to out of the box. PhotoGIMP is a config pack that reorganises the UI to feel more like Photoshop (a compact single-window layout, a sensible brush picker, keyboard shortcuts that don’t need a cheat sheet). It also swaps in a custom splash screen and icon. The kind of changes that felt overdue by about fifteen years. It’s available for Linux, Windows and macOS. I’m on macOS, where installation takes…