Has anyone ever heard of gimp?

It works like photo shop but its free
i downloaded it the other day
i guess it will take some getting us to.

 

The gimp will only take you so far. Photoshop needs to be in your hands whether you pay for it or not. Except it's wrong not to pay for it.

 

The GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) is an open source, free application built from the ground up for web based image manipulation. It lacks the print oriented stuff that Photoshop is so famous for, but print targeted images are not needed for the web anyway.

See the book Grokking the GIMP, to read online, or buy the dead tree version at Amazon.

cheers,

gary

 

I used GIMP before but Photoshop is better. If you don't want to pay for license then GIMP is ok

 

Never used it, but a friend of mine which uses Linux says it is quite amazing.

 

I only use Linux and GIMP is a viable competitor to Photoshop in some areas. You can still run Photoshop in WINE.

GIMP operates on many different levels than Photoshop and in areas it is better and others it is worse. Don't compare it to Photoshop if you've used Photoshop the entire time. It isn't fair.

That's like comparing Windows to Ubuntu and saying Ubuntu sucks because it is different (and better).

 

BS, unless you work in print. GImp lacks CYMK colours and 2.2 lacks anything greater than 8-bit PNG (dunno if 2.4 has 24/32/etc bit png, I thought it did). I do think the Lanczos looks like crap too... but likely I'm just using it wrong.

It has a, uh, unique user interface, which I have no problem with but if you've used anything trying to imitate Photoshop, you'll have to get used to it (or use GimpShop, which sets it up in a single window like PS and everyone else does).

Multiple monitors gives Gimp an advantage I think, since each part of Gimp is its own little box.

If you work for web and send stuff to print, you might notice the printers always want an .eps file (ours will also take .ai but I'm not shelling out that kind of money for something that isn't much better than Inkscape) and while you are supposed to be able to view .eps in GIMP (I haven't gotten Ghostscript to work on the Windows machine no matter what, but most people seem to get it working no problem) and possibly save to it, that will be a problem as you first set up GIMP. I've been getting around this using Flash as a crutch, but it's not a very good one.

Other than than, GIMP does everything Photoshop does (there are some algorithms that Photoshop has made propriatary, so GIMP uses other algorithms in place of those) plus whatever extras people around the world feel like adding to it (someone somewhere thought it was a great idea to add Python scripting to it... dunno why) like new filters (thousands) and additional effects.

Gimp sure started out a little gimpy, but currently it's a professional tool.

 

Its probably the best free alternative to PS you could get. I'm sort of getting my head around Photoshop so will probably not give it a look in but for free its pretty awesome.

 

Gimp maybe it's free but it's not photoshop!

 

Gary mentioned Grokking the Gimp. For an updated Gimp tutorial, there's a nice book called Beginning Gimp by Apress... author: Akkana Peck. It's good for when you're just starting out with GIMP and want to know what those stupid symbols mean and why when you tried something with a tool, nothing happened. : )

 

I had gimp and then went to photoshop and never looked back

 

To follow up on Stomme's comments:

There is little, if anything, GIMP can't do for web images. Unless you need cmyk separations for print, GIMP will do. My graphics person, a very experienced PS user, has no issues with GIMP when working in my office. She picked up on the interface from the get-go. Personally, I prefer the modular UI approach for this application.

The ImageMagick convert utility will, um, convert any image format to eps or ai.

Speaking of AI, again from the graphics pro, Inkscape is slightly superior to Illustrator. I haven't used AI, so can't compare, but I do find Inkscape very easy to use, and it's very easy to edit source.

@mspider: Photoshop may cost a young fortune, but it's not GIMP. PS for print, is superior. GIMP for web images, is the better application.

cheers,

gary

 

It is YEARS I use GIMP.

 

i tried using it .. It was hard using it

 

It's still nice to take an .eps and open it in GIMP and make sure it was sucessfully exported from Flash or some other programme (like, I recently discovered that while the text Objects remained in the file, the actual font does not. I lost my Cooper Black!!!). If I could just get Ghostscript working on the Windows machine... grrr. Gimp should come default with postscript abilities anyway imo.

 

...exactly for web images PS is better! Gimp canot handle some things...is just not for pro use. If you design sites for busines its worth to buy PS. If you need just for your own creativity again PS...you can get it free, trial, ... Too much time for low result with gimp!

 

If you are getting a "low result" then that means you don't know how to use it. PICNIC.

 

Its good while working on Linux..

 

Apparently you have trouble reading. Try again

Judging by your spelling, that's understandable.

It's a poor craftsman that blames the tool for his lack of skill in using it.

gary

 

I'm not using gimp but for simple task i will used it but rarely.