Gimp

[echoback]

I was just wondering if anybody here uses Gimp? I can't afford Photoshop lol, and this has a lot of the same features. Has anyone had any problems with it? It seems really nice, and it's free, an added bonus, Thanks!

~Sam

[swmdrayfan]

I was just wondering if anybody here uses Gimp? I can't afford Photoshop lol, and this has a lot of the same features. Has anyone had any problems with it? It seems really nice, and it's free, an added bonus, Thanks!

~Sam

I've got the GIMP site bookmarked, but haven't downloaded it yet. I plan on trying it though.

[Franglais]

I was just wondering if anybody here uses Gimp? I can't afford Photoshop lol, and this has a lot of the same features. Has anyone had any problems with it? It seems really nice, and it's free, an added bonus, Thanks!

~Sam

I have The Gimp on the portable that my client gives me to work on. The version I have certainly isn't like Photoshop. I've never been able to do something as simple as resizing the image. I've never had any time to look at it seriously, however.

Charles

[masdog]

I was just wondering if anybody here uses Gimp? I can't afford Photoshop lol, and this has a lot of the same features. Has anyone had any problems with it? It seems really nice, and it's free, an added bonus, Thanks!

~Sam

I've looked at the GIMP, and its nowhere near ready to be used by anything but the most casual photographer. When I tried it, it lacked the ability to edit in layers, it still has trouble with CMYK, has no good color management system, and was missing several other features that made photoshop worth using.

Check out this review or this.

If you can't get photoshop, there is photoshop elements which is less expensive (by about $700 USD). There are also other photo editing programs like Paint Shop Pro and PictureIt.

[echoback]

I've looked at the GIMP, and its nowhere near ready to be used by anything but the most casual photographer. When I tried it, it lacked the ability to edit in layers, it still has trouble with CMYK, has no good color management system, and was missing several other features that made photoshop worth using.

i just downloaded the latest version, and I think they've added some stuff since those reviews. It has the cloning tool, ability to edit in layers, all the sharpness/brightness/saturation stuff, and although I haven't really messed around too much with the coloration, it does have CMYK and RGB options. I guess I will play around with it a bit more but I will also look into photoshop elements or paintshop pro. thanks for the info!

[cyberlord]

I've used The GIMP on my FreeBSD desktop computer. I had used Photoshop exclusively for years and found finding my way around in GIMP a little difficult.

Supposedly there is a version that has a menu structure akin to Photoshop, I need to try that one out.

To say GIMP is not up to par with Photoshop is not true. I have seen digital art made with GIMP (from scratch) and they have been very professional looking right along the lines of any Photoshop digital art. Maybe the windows version has a lot less features or are difficult to find in the standard menu system, I dunno.

I'll have to give the windows versions a try myself soon.

Tim

[greghalliday]

GIMP is very easy to download and install. Using it, however, is a very different story. Having played with it to a modest degree, I can say that is not user friendly and has a very steep learning curve. Most of the features are there, but the toolbars are set up in a strange way and are not very easily customized. You can't argue with the price though!

But in accordance with some previous posts, Photoshop Elements may be a better reccomendation, as it's work flow and ease of use is similar to the more advanced Photoshops. It can be found for less than 100 USD, and thus is not a huge burden on the bank account.

I disagree that it is only functional enough for casual photographers, as it is sufficiently cryptic in its operation to be frustrating for the "casual photographer." It will require a concerted effort to get to know this application, but it's capabilities are rather robust (but not like CS). It will work for advanced photo manipulation however.

There is another GIMP thread somewhere else on this site. Perhaps if you can find it, I posted the link to Sourceforge to download the GIMP windows version.

[Mr Yuck]

if you're a student/teacher you can get Macromedia suite (Fireworks, Dreamweaver, flash, and something else) for about $150, or just individual for $100ish

I think Photoshop is the same story.

But gimp is worth trying. I never got it because I learned fireworks and got the education version as a gift about 3 years ago....why use free when I have something that costs $100? ;)

[cyberlord]

Also I forgot to mention there is a GIMP hack that changes the menus to look more like Photoshop. It's called Gimpshop.

Version 2.2.4 is the latest installer for windows, but I'm sure 2.2.11 will be available as soon as someone compiles the newly release 2.2.11 source.

Tim

[echoback]

I disagree that it is only functional enough for casual photographers, as it is sufficiently cryptic in its operation to be frustrating for the "casual photographer." It will require a concerted effort to get to know this application, but it's capabilities are rather robust (but not like CS). It will work for advanced photo manipulation however.

yes, I agree that it is a bit hard to figure out how to use, it took me a while just to figure out how to use the cloning tool! (that could also be just b/c I'm not familiar with PS either though, lol). I'm going to give it a shot though, for my level, (beginner) it should be ok.

Mr. Yuck, I hear you there. Gifts are the best! hmmm, i think I have a birthday coming up in the near future... hehe. I'll add PS elements to the list.

[Frans]

I have used both Gimp and Photoshop and frankly I can’t see much difference between the two, particularly, if you you only want to fix up photos. The one thing I have noticed is that take a certain amount of time to get use to Gimp when I have spent a lot of time working on Photoshop, they just think about resolving the problem in a different way. To resize, straighten, curves, crop, clone, perspective and most other thing is just as easy on Gimp as it is on Photoshop. Both program, have a multitude of different methods to come up with the same results. If you need a program to fix the mistakes in your photos you really can’t go past Gimp. I believe there are a number of tutorials on the web to help you use it or from the money you save you can buy “The Gimp” by Phyllis Davis it cost about $20 US. Just a note, I use Gimp on Fedora as I am sick of getting viruses on XP over the web. I have used Gimp on my work computer under XP and haven’t notice any problems.

[mwfanelli]

I use Gimp on Fedora as I am sick of getting viruses on XP over the web. I have used Gimp on my work computer under XP and haven’t notice any problems.

I have Gimp on my Ubuntu Linux 6.06 laptop. The interface is a mess. No, not just different from PhotoShop (as Picture Window is) but flat out bad. This is what happens when techies design imaging software! The biggest failure in Gimp is the complete lack of color calibration. Yeah, it can use a beta of a free CC system that no one else uses but that just isn't helpful.

FWIW, I have not had a virus or adware on my Windows machines since Windows 95 SE many years ago. Lots of virus stuff around, only a rare few make it onto rare numbers of machines. I like Linux, it has improved quite a bit, but it just doesn't stand up next to Windows or Mac on the desktop.

[Frans]

It sad to hear that you have had such a bad experience with Gimp. I suggest the problem maybe that your computer graphics in not setup correctly or you are expecting too much from your laptop. The quality of graphic engines and monitors on laptops are a compromise and are not meant for critical photographic work. All the laptops I have come across don’t allow colour temperature and gamma control, have poor resolution and poor contrast ratio.
I have never been required to do an colour calibration, apart from the initial printer installation, as the colours are accurate enough for my likings. This is true both for Photoshop as well as Gimp.
When placing the same photo along side each other, one on Gimp the other on Photoshop, I can’t tell the difference nor the people I have asked.

I think your criticism is a little unjust. If Photoshop was so easy use, them the thousands of people who derive their income from providing courses and text books would be unemployed. Graphic programmes are complex and difficult to use, no matter who writes them.

Gimp is different and does not have some of the bell and whistles that Photoshop has, but it certainly does a good job and has proved it self in the commercial world. (See the Gimp site on who is using it).

I think the old adage “ The more you spend the more you get”, or “It cost heaps it must be good”, doesn’t apply here. It maybe such criticism is a justification that some people use to spend as much money on a programme as on a Canon 350D.

[mwfanelli]

It sad to hear that you have had such a bad experience with Gimp. I suggest the problem maybe that your computer graphics in not setup correctly or you are expecting too much from your laptop. The quality of graphic engines and monitors on laptops are a compromise and are not meant for critical photographic work. All the laptops I have come across don’t allow colour temperature and gamma control, have poor resolution and poor contrast ratio.
I have never been required to do an colour calibration, apart from the initial printer installation, as the colours are accurate enough for my likings. This is true both for Photoshop as well as Gimp.
When placing the same photo along side each other, one on Gimp the other on Photoshop, I can’t tell the difference nor the people I have asked.

I think your criticism is a little unjust. If Photoshop was so easy use, them the thousands of people who derive their income from providing courses and text books would be unemployed. Graphic programmes are complex and difficult to use, no matter who writes them.

Gimp is different and does not have some of the bell and whistles that Photoshop has, but it certainly does a good job and has proved it self in the commercial world. (See the Gimp site on who is using it).

I think the old adage “ The more you spend the more you get”, or “It cost heaps it must be good”, doesn’t apply here. It maybe such criticism is a justification that some people use to spend as much money on a programme as on a Canon 350D.

FWIW... I don't use PhotoShop. My application is Picture Window which costs about $90 and runs rings around the gimp.

I have often heard people say that color calibration is not necessary. I just don't buy it. Yeah, on an uncalibrated monitor, images may look almost the same regardless of the app being used to display them. Printing is where the ink hits the fan. Without color calibration, what you see on the screen is rarely, if ever, what you see on the print. No amount of manual guessing can make up for a color profile.

Be very careful about "user lists." When I worked for several major corporations. It seemed that every time I downloaded something word would eventually get around that "BigCorp 2000 uses our product." In fact, I and others were just bored and/or looking at things we would never recommend for our companies. Remember the inflated Firefox stats of last year or so? Every download counted as a "new user" even though every upgrade was the same user. Luckily, the updates and downloads are separate now and the stats show a large "decrease" in users, not realy true, just a reflection of poor counting in the first place.

What really counts here is how much effort are you willing to put into post-processing images? How much time are you willing to put it climbing a steep learning curve that is different from anything else? Sometimes, free is can be too expensive.