anyone use GIMP?

B192734 · May 16, 2008

I was just wondering if anyone out there uses GIMP for their editing, or not. I have it installed on my 'puter, but it's so far not really user friendly to me. If anyone has used it, how does it stack up to PS? It's supposedly close, but I haven't had a chance to get hold of PS yet, and wanted to hear what people thought between the two before I purchased it.

rufus5150 · May 16, 2008

I used gimp up until about 2 months ago. The multi-window interface takes some getting used to, but overall, it's comparable for many, many things.

It doesn't do PANTONE or CMYK color which may or may not be important to you. Photoshop does a better job implementing how a tool behaves compared to how you expect it to behave. It's hard to describe, but it often seemed like I was using a backhoe to dig a small post hole and with photoshop, it's more like you're using the appropriate tool all of the time.

Plugins are generally free for it. Many lack documentation and many are not production quality.

It does its job, and does it quite well, but between the two, photoshop is more refined and geared more toward the way an artist/photographer thinks about an image.

Photoshop has more online and public support -- there's tons of tutorials. Some of those translate well to gimp, others do not.

I've also not found a RAW converter that compares with Adobe Camera Raw that works with GIMP. Things like correcting white balance and such in ACR I find much easier.

GIMP's scaling engine for on-screen display is superior. With photoshop, things can look downright weird unless you have at at 25% or 50% or 100% view. GIMP's works at just about any setting between 20 and 100 -- no pixelization. I also found it faster to get my images, once in gimp, to production. I spend more time on the resize process with Photoshop, but I'm more pleased with the results.

I used GIMP for about 6 years. I loved it, but I'm never going back unless I'm in a situation where I've no other option. I like having the skill set available to me if I'm working under linux and such. You can't beat it for 'free', but elements might be worth the investment.

B192734 · May 16, 2008

Well, thanks for all the info. I've been messing around with it for a while, but I don't have the instructions for it so that's been a porblem. Either I didn't download them, or they didn't come with it. I'll have to see what kind of tutorials there are and get set up. I was hoping that it would be useful enough and good enough to take PS's place until I had the cash to go and get it.

JimmyO · May 16, 2008

It came on my school computer (HP tc4400) and im not able to put photoshop on tit, so i use it exclusivly on here (which i use to hold all my pics, backed up in and external HD also of course). Once you really get into PP there are limitations with gimp, but for being free its an amazing program.

MacJohn · May 17, 2008

I've used GIMP for a month, but after trying Photoshop Cs2 I've changed right now.. however it's a very good software for being free.

B192734 · May 19, 2008

Now this MAY be a silly question, but does it have the capability of creating HDR images? I know PS does, but I haven't seen anything in Gimp that makes me think it does. But there are a lot of things in Gimp that are a little more cryptic than needed...

saltface · May 19, 2008

You might be interested in Krita if you're looking to do HDR.

jerry 1 a b · May 21, 2008

I just did an HDR with Gimp, and thought it was pretty easy. I used a tutorial of course, but it only took about 15 minutes to come up with something. You guys can be the judge of wether or not it's any good, but I'm pleased with the outcome.

I haven't used any other photo editing software though, so I have no reference to compare it with.

Chewbecca · May 30, 2008

I use gimp for any and all photo adjustments. But that is not saying much considering I'm a newbie with all of this and don't need or know to make HUGE changes to any of my photos (though I did discover "curves" today which helped a few of my pictures out).
It was in my Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon OS directory, so I installed it.

Rhys · May 31, 2008

I tried the Gimp and didn't like it as much as Photoshop Elements. Now I have Aperture and am trying to get to grips with it.

JimmyO · May 31, 2008

jerry 1 a b said:
I just did an HDR with Gimp, and thought it was pretty easy. I used a tutorial of course, but it only took about 15 minutes to come up with something. You guys can be the judge of wether or not it's any good, but I'm pleased with the outcome.

I haven't used any other photo editing software though, so I have no reference to compare it with.

You didnt do HDR, you did exposure blending.

JimmyO · May 31, 2008

jerry 1 a b said:
I just did an HDR with Gimp, and thought it was pretty easy. I used a tutorial of course, but it only took about 15 minutes to come up with something. You guys can be the judge of wether or not it's any good, but I'm pleased with the outcome.

I haven't used any other photo editing software though, so I have no reference to compare it with.

You didnt do HDR, you did exposure blending.

rom4n301 · May 31, 2008

I've used both gimp and ps...all I can say is that I hated gimp, I couldnt figure it out and after a week or so I got cs3 advanced and its not even comparable ps is very user friendly

Rhys · May 31, 2008

rom4n301 said:
I've used both gimp and ps...all I can say is that I hated gimp, I couldnt figure it out and after a week or so I got cs3 advanced and its not even comparable ps is very user friendly

This is why Linux is such a complete failure - the OS is OK but the software is complete and utter tripe.