Photoshop, or the GIMP?

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Before anyone posts, this is not an attempt to start a flamewar. Just want to make that clear


Ok, ive been into photography for years but am just now getting into digital photography and editing. I know most people usually recommend photoshop, but ive used the GIMP for such a long time im just more comfortable in it. Yet I know sometimes when im using it there are things that I miss that I do have in photoshop (magnetic lasso tool more than anything) but photoshop just seems so overwhelming when im using it. I purchased the photoshop cs2 for photographers book, and recently the GIMP2 for photographers book from oreiley (havent yet received) so hopefully that will help.

Can I live in a world where both equally co-exist on my computer and work together? I dont know.

What are your thoughts? What do you use?

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Each to their own mate

There are two podcasts done by friends of mine that use each respectivley

www.photowalkthrough.com by John Arnold

www.meetthegimp.org by Rolf Steinort

Met both of them through www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com awesome resource for any digital photographer

One thing I can recommend though, pick up a Wacom Bamboo! or any pressure sensitive tablet for that matter, makes PP a dreamy experience!

 

Yeah, I have a buddy who uses a tablet combined with Corel PSP to draw manga with, he loves it!

 

Does your friend publish his stuff online? Would love to see it!

 

Being a Linux fan I really want to say the Gimp, but it in all honesty it has one of the most obtuse interfaces I've ever used. I'm sure it's very powerful in the hands of an expert. It's pretty useless in mine though.

 

LOL. I've never used Photoshop as it is much more expensive than anything I'd ever buy for my needs, but I have used Gimp and Paint Shop Pro, Blender, Irfanview, and a couple of Sigma's photo processing tools.

To tell the truth I've never found any tools of this nature easy to use. I find them all a little incomprehensible unless I use them every day with a specific purpose in mind, i.e. I have a bunch of digital photos to process. I've just always figured that this was just an extension of my total lack of artistic skill though. I mean, the limit of my artistic skills with paint brush, pen, pencil and paper is a stick figure so why would graphical anything else be any different?

That said, I've never found Gimp to be any more difficult than any of the other tools I've used. To me it's just a matter of learning what does what, and with my lack of artistic skills that's not so easy to do.

 

Whats GIMP ive used Photoshop through most of its changes from 4 upto cs3 but GIMP I feel ive missed out on something

 

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It's an open source, cross-platform image manipulation software package. Just do a Google search for Gimp if you want to learn more.

 

Got to agree the interface of the Gimp is a nightmare for me. Again though ffreeloader is right these types of tools are all hard to use for the average joe bloggs.

One thing to think about is the cost Gimp = free Photoshop = selling a kidney

 

I've used both Blender and GIMP and they both are difficult at best (especially Blender). GIMP 2.4 is out and 2.5 is on the way. Hopefully, the developers are working on a more intuitive interface.

 

Yeah, Ive used blender as well. Talk about a steep learning curve!!! That program is near impossible if youve never used anything like it before. I saw the stuff people had made with it and wanted to try it myself. But dang dude, its freekin unbelievable how hard that program is to use!!!

To be frank, I dont find the GIMPs interface that bad, but ive been using it for so long now I guess im just used to it. The only thing I dont like is that its broken up and not all together like photoshop.

 

I have to agree. I played with Blender for a week one time and got to where I could do a very few simple things because I used a step-by-step tuturial. Most software I can play with and in a few days pretty much pick it up without any tutorials. Blender? No way. It has one of the steepest learning curves I've ever experienced.

Gimp, PSP, Irfanview, and the rest aren't even in the same league of difficult-to-learn as Blender.

 

I just unistalled gime yesterday as a matter of fact because I now have photoshop cs3. Gimp was just to me. Not that I know much about photoshop at the moment, but I just like it better personally. People will say that Gimp is not as strong as PS. But that does not mean it is not a power house within its own right, and I hear they imporve it with every update. Gimp is a great app. If that is what you like I say stick with it specially since you know so well and just save ps for those few things it can't do.

Now I need to go google blender. I know I have heard of it, but I just can't remember what it is.

 

Now I need to go google blender. I know I have heard of it, but I just can't remember what it is.[/QUOTE]


I would suggest you grab your headache medicine of choice before you dive into that nightmare

 

I would suggest you grab your headache medicine of choice before you dive into that nightmare

 

EDIT:Crap, how did that happen. I tell ya, I gotta finish off this new allergy medication, I swear its making me higher then a kite!

 

hehe. I have saved it to fav for down the road some day. I have the CS3 web premium suite to master first before I even start to think about learning any more software.

 

There's PhotoGIMP for people who can't stand the traditional GIMP interface.

What is GIMP missing?

16-bits per channel would be nice. Not having it makes it useless for me right out of the box. The rest of the world stopped using a 256 shade tonal pallette five years ago. You have to install cinepaint or krita to get that right now.

Non-destructive layer effects.

Something comparable to the shadow/highlight tool from PS.

Photomerge.

HDR capabilities.

A good, built-in RAW converter (JPEG is for uninformed chumps and people who are to cheap to buy a real camera).

I could go on, but I won't. I don't know a single advanced photographer who has tried GIMP and considers it useful for anything beyond quick fixes on family snapshots.

 

Forgot to add resizable brushes. Having to maintain a pallette of five gazillion separate brushes for touch up work is just plain stoooooooopid.

 

I make over fifteen thousand dollars per year from fine-art print sales. A lot of my photography has a specific look that can only be achieved through a program like Photoshop, or incredibly expensive darkroom work. If I didn't have Photoshop I would have gone at least $20,000 into the hole in materials alone each year trying to process images in the fume room. That doesn't even include the time it would have taken (up to a week per image versus being able to "shop" 50 images in one day with PS).

This means I can turn out more saleable photos in less time with fewer wasted materials and practically no environmental impact.

For me Photoshop is a bargain. But I'm a professional and I'm willing to pay for professional tools that make me more productive. That's why the average cost of a lens for my cameras starts at around $1800.00. I don't use cheap tools that slow me down and produce inferior results.

Photoshop is an astoundingly good tool developed by professionals for professionals. And, as professionals, we ignore the general public's whining about the price of the product in the same manner that most people in the armed forces ignore civilians or anyone else who generally doesn't have a clue.

If you're a hobbyist and don't know any better, GIMP is probably okay and you'll be happy with it.

I'm way beyond being a hobbyist and well into territory that can only be described as pathological. Should I ever win the lottery, I'll be heading off into the hills with my cameras and leaving behind a note for Bill Gates that says: "@#$% you. You get to clean up your own messes from now on."

I'll happily change my tune if GIMP ever grows beyond what it is right now. I prefer Linux to Windows because I like things that just plain work like they're supposed to. Photoshop works, and right now it's king. I'd put Lightroom in second place and GIMP in third. (I've not used Aperture and can't offer an opinion on it.)

Is this post flame bait? Maybe. While I admit that I'm behind many of the others here in terms of I.T. experience, the fact is that I absolutely own this topic and I don't intend to give an inch. Especially since I'm right.