Why would I pay exorbitant prices of Adobe products when!

391615 · Jan 5, 2008

There are comprehensive freeware products out there that do a superb job. I'm using "The Gimp" Its free, its got scripting, its always being updated, and at no cost, as soon as Adobe come out with a new feature I'm sure it will be taken up by The Gimp. I thought about buying Photoshop but why?

Alex_B · Jan 5, 2008

My feeling is, that with some algorithms PS has a slight edge over the Gimp still.

But you are right, I am familiar the Gimp for almost a decade, and it has improved enormously!

THORHAMMER · Jan 8, 2008

for basic image editing/resizing and minor touch ups its tolerable, above that how could anyone realistically compare the 2 ?

Pantone and CMYK support
compatability with PSD documents
WACOM tablet pressure sensitivity support
can't size brushes,

Basically Gimp is worthless in a commercial printing environment, but
you can do mundane tasks if your not shooting professionally.

yeti · Jan 9, 2008

Yeah, GIMP is great. It is open-source software, so it is free. I am a software developer and I can give you a few things to keep in mind about open-source software in general that you might not be aware of:

Open-source software, particularly the GNU-licensed one, is free for everyone to extend and contribute. This is the best thing about such software. The worst thing about it is that it is free for everyone to extend and contribute.

Development on its own produces code, not software. When developers develop there has to be someone to make sure they stay on track. Software development tends to be very very detail-oriented business, so there has to be someone to keep the big picture in mind. When there is little or no overseeing happening, there is nothing to enforce quality and testing standards, as well as that the resulting software addresses the needs of its users. This problem only gets worse (much much worse) as the software grows and open-source software tends to grow very rapidly.

This is not to say "don't use open-source software", I myself use GIMP and it is one of the applications I love, just keep in mind that you are using the product from someone's hobby and it might not have followed a proper software life-cycle to ensure coding standards. Very often you will see open-source software today that sports TONS of features, some useful, but many useless, very few of which are properly tested and written in an architecturally-sound manner. I don't know about GIMP, but I know that the Linux kernel suffers from that a lot. This is "you get what you pay for" in a whole new way.

That said, there ARE open-source projects out there, especially some of the bigger ones, that DO have on overseeing body of some sort and it is those that produce the best code, even if it is not the most feature-rich one.

Photoshop costs a fortune because its developers probably only spend 1/3 of their time actually developing new code. The rest is read/writing internal documentation so that every piece of code can be maintained, writing automated tests, which no user ever gets to see, review architecture to make sure it is future-proof etc. And, of course, there is this special allocated time which is 100% dedicated to fixing bugs and every piece of code has an owner - someone to fix them. Code doesn't make it out on the street until many many months after it is actually written.

dklod · Jan 13, 2008

Can GIMP change the shape of objects in photos?? EG, you see on those makeover shows how the sergeons ar able to use software t change the shape of someones nose or chin, I know photoshop can do this to a degree using the liquefy tool, can it do something similar?? I'd hate to have to download a cracked version of photoshop as that would be against the law.

NateS · Jan 13, 2008

Some people need to look at the latest version of the gimp. They've fixed a lot of the little quirks like changing brush sizes, cropping is much easier, etc....

Gimp will do 95% of what Elements will do (plus many things that elements can't do) and probably most things that you'd need comparable to CSx. The problem....UFRaw which works with Gimp....flat sucks in my opinion. For example.....

I open a file adjust everything in UFraw and save......open a different file (from a different type of shoot) and it applies all the settings from the previous file which screws the raw file up bad. This makes you spend forever to get the settings right on each file.

Gimp is great and I use it alot, but I'd never be left without something seperate as my raw editor (Caputre NX)

Alpha · Jan 13, 2008

Gimp has got nothing on CS3. It leaves a lot to be desired for the advanced PS user, or anyone who works in a professional printing environment. There is a lot of open source software that is comparable to commercial counterparts. PostgreSQL, for example, or Linux if you don't mind its hideous GUI, or Joomla, or SugarCRM, or OSCommerce, etc etc. But Gimp isn't one of them. If Gimp and PS were true equivalents, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

Sideburns · Jan 13, 2008

If The GIMP was as good as CS3, we'd all be using it. Trust me...I'm sure some people would love to save 900 dollars.

The truth is...it's not the same. I've used it before, and it's horribly limited compared to photoshop. Just the fact that I can't adjust brush sizes the same way is horrible...

ScottS · Jan 13, 2008

There is no comparison at all really.

shorty6049 · Jan 14, 2008

i would like to know what percentage of photoshop users paid for it....

having said that, i think going from photoshop to using the gimp, you'd probably switch back pretty fast. Its kind of like how we were all fine with VHS... until DVDs came out...

skieur · Jan 14, 2008

If Photoshop is too expensive for you, consider Paintshop Pro X2. It has more Photoshop features than Photoshop Elements at a cheaper price of about $70.

skieur

Alpha · Jan 14, 2008

The price of CS2 I just saw in my university bookstore is $169. I mean, really, it's not that expensive.

skieur · Jan 14, 2008

MaxBloom said:
The price of CS2 I just saw in my university bookstore is $169. I mean, really, it's not that expensive.

In Canada, I have seen CS2 and CS3 at $700 plus.

skieur

nicfargo · Jan 14, 2008

Because I use a writing tablet (one of my best investments ever hands down) I have to use Photoshop. Gimp just doesn't have pressure sensitivity with my WACOM Intuos 3, and for me that's the deal breaker right there. Plus from what I've heard...it's great for free, but if you can afford CS3 you'll never think twice.

Sideburns · Jan 14, 2008

nicfargo said:
Because I use a writing tablet (one of my best investments ever hands down) I have to use Photoshop. Gimp just doesn't have pressure sensitivity with my WACOM Intuos 3, and for me that's the deal breaker right there. Plus from what I've heard...it's great for free, but if you can afford CS3 you'll never think twice.

Yes, that's basically it. If you can afford CS3, there's no reason you should use the GIMP...really no contest in terms of ease of use, documentation, and features.