I’ve been migrating from photoshop to Krita, It’s been amazing so far. But I think I’m facing a problem that would force me to use photoshop from time to time. And the cause is text tools.
As a designer, I use tons of text, and often I need to wrap them around a circle, while keeping them editable. However, the solutions I can find online all require rasterizing the text layer. I’ve assumed using Krita’s equivalent of smart objects would solve the problem, but once I’ve tried file layers, I’ve noticed that I can’t use filters on them.
I know that Krita is more drawing oriented, but there’s plenty of potential in it for a designer’s workflow if we tweak some of the features a little.
My suggestion: file layer smart filters. or alternatively, more features for text objects.
Sorry: I was too fast! The text-tool is on the way, not file layer smart filters! But this is of interest for you anyway because text is in your request too.
This is known and on its way, but will need time to be completely implemented because of the small team of not even ten developers. Currently, @wolthera is the only developer working on it, and she is doing a great job, from what I’ve seen so far! Maybe you want to take a look at the current state of the upcoming changes?
A forum-search, with help of the magnifying glass icon you’ll find in the top-bar of the forum, for “text tool” and other useful search-terms may reveal more information on this for you.
But, if you want to eschew Photoshop as much as possible, maybe you give Inkscape a try to create textual content the way you like it to be? It may not allow anything what you could achieve with Photoshop, but it is far more capable than Krita’s text-tool in its current state.
Michelist
Thank you @Michelist
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve tried inkscape, and I actually had the website open on another tab. Got a bit distracted by the recent changes in Krita and how it have became a viable alternative to photoshop.
Come to think of, it would be great if Krita could open inkscape files as layers. And create a bridge after double clicking that layer. We could delegate some of the vector work to inkscape that way, without much of disruption in our workflow.
Who knows?
The idea is a good one. Maybe someone comes up with a plugin, for a Krita-Inkscape-Bridge allowing those things, like the Krita-Blender-Bridge from earlier this year?
As far as I know, Krita’s vector tools are also something that the developers plan to revise and improve sooner or later. But now first the “bug fixing” for the release of Krita 5.2 is on the plan, before that certainly no “new construction site” will be opened. And whether the vector tools will be this construction site then, I cannot predict. Krita is unfortunately plagued by the scarcity of financial resources that would allow more developers and thus move Krita forward faster.
The missing money you need to pay the bills is the big issue if you offer software for free. Imagine Krita has a fourth of the financial resources to work with, that Photoshop has, then it would probably have everything you’re asking for.
Michelist
The funding of a free product is always the toughest part. But I’m sure as the feature set of Krita grows and if they’re catered towards professionals, many will be happy to ditch their monthly subscription and donate to the free alternative instead.
All Krita developers have to do is to ask about their user’s workflow, cater to the ones that make money, and remind them how much they’re saving.
Since Krita is more targeted at painters there will always be things missing for designers, even in the future.
Sorry for being off-topic:
Correct, this is a misinterpretation of many. This impression is probably due to the fact that Krita is compared to Photoshop by quite a few magazines, bloggers and YouTubers, since many capabilities overlap or are needed in both apps.
But Krita’s vision is not to be or become a second Photoshop. Krita’s main field of activity is in the area of digital painting, illustrations and concept art, less in the area of photo manipulation and stitching of photos, collages. And so Krita occasionally lacks features that would make this much easier and require more effort to execute. Things that, from the outside, are often considered trifles and whose lack is not understood or even considered unacceptable. Analogously, this is also stated in the introduction of the Krita manual.
I like to compare it with cars and trucks, with both one can make a family trip or transport 20 m³ of sand, but usually one uses “the specialist” in each case, because it makes the tasks easier.
Michelist