Have you tried The GIMP ?
- Thread starter AFB
- Start date
Well all in all Photoshop spanks GIMP in my opinion, but then again it costs $XXX more than the free GIMP. It's kind of an apples to oranges comparison really, especially if you're paying for it.
I went legit, so I can't use/afford Photoshop anymore. In my opinion, The GIMP sucks compared to PS. Too bad I can't afford it
Kerouactivist
Diamond Member
- Jul 12, 2001
- 4,665
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I have been using the gimp for over 3 years and since I don't do heavy-duty editing, I dont feel the need for Photoshop.
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
While it's not nearly as full-featured as Photoshop, for my purposes which consists of retouching my personal snapshots and the occasional photochop, The Gimp is more than adequate and you get a nice warm feeling you're not using pirated software (or saved a few hundred dollars).
gimp at home, photoshop on the job. (even if i were a pirate or rich, i couldn't run photoshop at home: no compatible OS)
I'm not a Photoshop guru, but I use it enough for my photography hobby/obsession that I have the keyboard shortcuts memorized for most everything I do.
GIMP would be nice, but for the lack of Adjustment Layers, RGB/16, color profiles (or did that stuff come in GIMP 2 or whatever the latest version is?), and other important stuff. Of course, getting up-to-date Photoshop versions isn't too hard, when one has rich relatives who work in the graphics arts industry.
GIMP doesn't suck, it's fine for what it's designed to do, but it can not yet take the place of Photoshop for serious digital darkroom work.
GIMP would be nice, but for the lack of Adjustment Layers, RGB/16, color profiles (or did that stuff come in GIMP 2 or whatever the latest version is?), and other important stuff. Of course, getting up-to-date Photoshop versions isn't too hard, when one has rich relatives who work in the graphics arts industry.
GIMP doesn't suck, it's fine for what it's designed to do, but it can not yet take the place of Photoshop for serious digital darkroom work.
Gimp 2 is a nice improvement UI-wise over the first gimp.
RGB/16 is overrated, realy. Most people don't use it, even when doing high-end photography work. It just isn't used much. It's definately nice to have though. It was suppose to be a new feature in Gimp2, but it didn't make it in time, and the developers didn't feel it was important enough to delay the release.
If you realy realy need it and want to use gimp with it, there was a fork in the project that is now called "cinepaint". It was created so that you could do higher-end movie editing were 48bit colors are much more important.
What does hurt Gimp is lack of CYMK support. That means that Gimp is unsuitable for Pre-printpress work. There are plug-ins for it, but it's not standard.
Adjustment layers are fine in Gimp. You have histogram and all that fun stuff.
You can setup masks and do the fancy "make selection" the "run filter" things.
All in all there realy isn't anything that more "serious" with Photoshop vs Gimp.
What comes down to is things like user interface (photoshop is still a bit slicker and people are much more used to it from years) and it's easier to use it with other tools. (it's CYMK support, ability to deal with the 58 or so different formats that call themselves "tiff", import/export into and from programs and things like that(which is why I like PNG's vs Tiffs).)
See what sucks is that there isn't any comparable paint program to go with Gimp that is free. People are starting to develop vector based graphic programs seriously, but you don't have anything like Fractal Painter that is free. No illistrator, or good layout programs like Quark Express.
Stuff like that hurts Gimp more then anything. A good photo editor is just one part of the puzzle you need for good professional results. That and people have been using Photoshop for years now. Change is difficult, and Gimp still isn't as nice.
But as far as PSP vs Gimp, paintshop pro is just a toy. It's something to play around with and is easy to use. Gimp is "serious", it's not as user-friendly definately but is much more usefull/flexible.
RGB/16 is overrated, realy. Most people don't use it, even when doing high-end photography work. It just isn't used much. It's definately nice to have though. It was suppose to be a new feature in Gimp2, but it didn't make it in time, and the developers didn't feel it was important enough to delay the release.
If you realy realy need it and want to use gimp with it, there was a fork in the project that is now called "cinepaint". It was created so that you could do higher-end movie editing were 48bit colors are much more important.
What does hurt Gimp is lack of CYMK support. That means that Gimp is unsuitable for Pre-printpress work. There are plug-ins for it, but it's not standard.
Adjustment layers are fine in Gimp. You have histogram and all that fun stuff.
You can setup masks and do the fancy "make selection" the "run filter" things.
All in all there realy isn't anything that more "serious" with Photoshop vs Gimp.
What comes down to is things like user interface (photoshop is still a bit slicker and people are much more used to it from years) and it's easier to use it with other tools. (it's CYMK support, ability to deal with the 58 or so different formats that call themselves "tiff", import/export into and from programs and things like that(which is why I like PNG's vs Tiffs).)
See what sucks is that there isn't any comparable paint program to go with Gimp that is free. People are starting to develop vector based graphic programs seriously, but you don't have anything like Fractal Painter that is free. No illistrator, or good layout programs like Quark Express.
Stuff like that hurts Gimp more then anything. A good photo editor is just one part of the puzzle you need for good professional results. That and people have been using Photoshop for years now. Change is difficult, and Gimp still isn't as nice.
But as far as PSP vs Gimp, paintshop pro is just a toy. It's something to play around with and is easy to use. Gimp is "serious", it's not as user-friendly definately but is much more usefull/flexible.
Not to nitpick, but I wouldn't say that most people don't use it because they don't need it. Often it's impractical to work in 16 bit, when you've got to get results now. The same reason that most press photographers won't be found shooting RAW... if you get JPEGs exposed correctly, they're good enough to produce a decent end result. RGB/16 does help when you need to do extensive corrections or modifications to an image, and some people use it "just because" they want the highest quality possible, even if most people couldn't tell a difference.
The key there being "want to use GIMP..." Since I have access to Photoshop CS, why would I want to learn another whole set of keyboard shortcuts and ways of doing things, for a program that's inferior in various small but important ways to what I have now. Where I can see GIMP doing well is in the area of amateurs who don't have access to Photoshop. Most professionals probably can afford Photoshop, so the choice is mainly on what works best and is most compatible, and usually that's Photoshop. (btw I'm not a pro, just an amateur with connections)
Can't say anything there, I don't deal with that kind of stuff. Doesn't matter to me.
Didn't know they had adjustment layers... Most of my stuff has at minimum levels, curves, and HSL adjustment layers, sometimes multiple ones with masks.
Plus the plugins... When we get NeatImage for GIMP (heck, they don't even make it for MacOS X Photoshop, last I checked) then I may consider switching more seriously. iCorrect Editlab is another one of my favorites (does GIMP have white balance correction built in?).
I've not tried the various OSS layout programs recently, but the last time I tried one, I was left with a bad taste from it. InDesign is just so much better (some would argue QuarkXPress is better - that used to be very true, but nowadays the difference seems to be mostly in which one you're more comfortable with, and what file format your clients or printer demands), plus I could never get my printer to work right in Linux (it's an Epson, so it should... supposedly, but I'm just stupid, I guess). The whole Adobe suite works together well (let's see a Free page layout software that will natively handle GIMP image format, and keep consistent keyboard shortcuts, palettes, and ways of doing things, where applicable).
Oh well, I'm just rambling now... so a summary of my GIMP experience: tried it a long time (few years) ago. It seemed horribly limiting for photos, looked more like it was designed to make buttons and crap for websites. Tried a newer version for Windows (probably a year ago), it had more features, but since I was already getting into Photoshop, and GIMP seemed.... well, unpolished by comparison, I didn't bother to pursue it further.
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