Newbie: Designer Looking to Build Graphics Editor (PS/AI)

[Michael Torrie]

On 10/02/2015 02:23 PM, Kenneth L wrote:
> No don't tell me what to do. I joined the military 3 years ago. You
> wouldn't believe the stuff I wasn't able to do before but now I am.
> You can keep your advice to yourself. I wasn't asking for something
> simple. I was asking for a starting point. The 3d was to show you
> I've learned hard stuff and it didn't scare me. I was building web
> pages when I was in grade school late 90s. I had no idea how to build
> an iPhone app but I created one, lol.
> 
> I want to build a graphics program or even a prototype. Maybe I can
> pass it over to a expert and hire then to build it. I have a dozen
> degree and certificates on my wall. And I didn't get that by going
> basic. Keep your advice Bartc.

No one is insulting your intelligence, so there's no need to get snippy.
It's easy to take offense in an environment like this as things sound
much harsher in our own heads than they were likely intended.

The reason that you're not getting the responses you want is because
what you are asking for involves so many different things it's hard to
know how to respond. I have no doubt you may be able to do much of what
you want, but it will take a lot of time and a lot of googling of
various things.  Sounds like you need to search for information concerning:
- Python programming in general (tutorials, mini courses, etc)
- GUI programming in Python. There are many options here including
tkinter, PyQt (or PySide), PyGObject (GTK+ 3.x), and also Kivy.
- Vector drawing libraries (PyQt has support, Cairo is another library,
maybe a python-based svg library)
- bitmap graphics engine of some kind, probably GEGL, which has Python
bindings
- linear algebra

I'm sure you can learn all this, but you aren't going to be able to come
here and simply ask about how to put everything together: there's no
turn-key solution we can point you to.  Fire up your browser and start
learning about each of these things.

Take heart, though.  One man created this all by himself using the C#
language:
http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

Tearing down the GIMP is an excellent idea, though that will also be
very daunting.  GIMP is a huge program, written in C. On the subject of
GIMP, I find it interesting you dismissed it out of hand. GIMP is
certainly deficient in many areas, but to say you can't use it because
it's so different from Photoshop strikes me as, well, a cop out.
Photoshop is intuitive because you learned it.  As you are fond of
talking about how much you enjoy learning, so learn how to use the GIMP,
and as Laura said, hack on it using Python to make add-ons.