No one said this is a rule but you.<p>Why? Because of the UX. It completely breaks the creative workflow if you have to save two [or several] versions of an image and switch to another app to compose them together to see an effect applied locally. And then go back and repeat, if the strength is not to your liking.<p>Besides, Gimp doesn&#x27;t support floating point image editing, so there is a also data loss involved if you use this app for compositing your RAW samples.
Krita &amp; Natron seem the only alternatives on Linux unless I miss something.
On OSX, you could use Krita, DaVinci Resolve, Fusion, or Natron. Or pay for Photoshop.
In any case, switching apps sucks. :]<p>DT&#x27;s authors understood this and added support for masks and module instancing. Plus a ton of blend modes.
That&#x27;s what sets DT apart from the competition when it comes to &#x27;how&#x27; you work.
As for the &#x27;what&#x27;: there is very little that the toolset of DT leaves to be desired. Even for professionals. :)