GIMP, not me!...the software

[Steve_Stafford]

Anybody using this instead of Photoshop these days? Looks pretty good but I've not played with it yet. Any comments?

[Jeffrey McGrew]

I use it a lot for day-to-day stuff. We've got Photoshop 7 on a shared computer, and I'm too lazy/busy to leave my desk, so unless I need to do something complex I just use GIMP instead. :)

It's fine for image resizing, image level & hue adjustment, simple photo touch-up, and simple color correction. The Windows version doesn't have pressure-sensitivity with tablets however, something I make extesive use of when touching-up photos.

If you're a Graphic Designer, do a lot of rendering touch-ups, or heavly use a pen tablet like I do, then it's gonna lack some features (complex color corrections & pressure sensitivity).

But, like most open source software, it does about 80% or so of it's commercial counter-part, has a complex interface (everything in GIMP is based upon the right click), but then has the ability to do geeky things that it's commercial counterpart can't (GIMP has some wicked scripting abilities, crazy filters, and talks to just about every format you can think of, including Photoshop .psd's), and is free.

Since it's free, just download it and try it. Here's the link to the Windows version (if you don't have it already):
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/

[Steve_Stafford]

I installed it today, that's why I was asking...going to get familiar with it. We have Photoshop 5.5? on a single PC too and it's always getting used so, it's pretty common to see people hovering. I figured if Gimp does what I need it for it would save me the trips.

I've got the Wacom Graphire II now, thanks to your salesmanship, did they send you your commission (COMPUSA)? I told em you sent me. :D But the sales guy gave me a blank look.

[Jeffrey McGrew]

Steve, if I got paid from both AutoDesk Revit & Wacom I'd be a happy happy man... heck I'd settle for getting some of thier stuff for free! ;)

anyways, yeah, GIMP works with a tablet, but no pressure sesitivity. If you wanted to boot to linux, and run GIMP there, you could regain that feature. But then you'd have to set up your tablet under linux, which I've been too scared to try :).

Just remember that *everything* in GIMP is done with the right-button click menu *or* with a keyboard shortcut (which are all different than Photoshop's... grrr... I still try to hit 'ctrl-shift-L' for auto-levels in gimp, and wondering why nothing's happening...)

[PeterJ]

I'm with Jeffrey. I have Photoshop 6 on my main machine but don't get time to use it much. On my laptop and on Mrs J's machine I have the Gimp installed. Somewhere in their preamble, maybe on the website, maybe in the readme, they explicitly say that if you are looking for a Photoshop killer then look elsewhere but since I barely scratch the surface of Photoshop's functionality most of the time the Gimp is fine for me.

Halfway between the two is PaintShop Pro. I haven't loked at it for a long time but it only costs about one hundred of your American dollars so that may be worth a spin.