Photoshop vs. GIMP

[bigdave]

If you ask me i don't really care that much.
once i got use to everything in Gimp i could do a decent amount of things in it i could do in Photoshop the Big difference between them are options and customizable additions.

like the nifty save for web isn't on a Gimp

and if u want to animate ur name or something for a sig u can do it in both programs. Its just that in one it has the tools to do it easily, while the other also can do animation but its a strenuous task. but in the end u still end up with the same animatoin.

I'd say if ur more a hands on kind of guy use gimp, if ur not use to it and how u have to figure out how to do something the same way in Gimp as in Photoshop then just use photoshop.

personally i didn't mind Gimp. actually a good deal of my more older sigs and the c4d ones were made using Gimp. After i finally got myself a PS it kind of felt harder to readjust back to it. And there are some pretty neat things u can do for gimp too.

like u can find a script to do a lot of things in the click of an action.
and there are color options in gimp which are similar to those in PS but i actually preferred gimps for watever reason.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by lsley

Theres a reason why gimp is free and ps not

Yes, because the GIMP was written by volunteer programmers who have chosen to share their work with you in return for your promising that you'll submit any improvements back to the project under the same licensing terms. Photoshop is written by salaried programmers and is owned by a corporation, Adobe, that expects to make a profit from the product.

Please don't suggest that the collaborative development model used for the GIMP is somehow incapable of producing software that competes effectively against proprietary products. The list of contrary examples is too long to detail, but I'd start with Apache, BIND, and CUPS if I were making an "ABC."

The GIMP is probably somewhat less full featured than Photoshop because it does rely on voluntary labor, and also because it's taken a while for developers to join in. I think it's come remarkably far in the past five years or so.

why all professionals use ps and not gimp.

That has little to do with the comparative merits of the two programs and much more to do with how the market for high-end professional image editing software has developed. Adobe established its dominance at a time where there was no competition from open-source, only from other software companies like Corel and Aldus who fell by the wayside as time went on.

Adobe's market is the professional users and the companies they work for who will pay top dollar for Photoshop because it's the "industry standard." Paying thousands of dollars to Adobe is just a normal cost of doing business in that world. I doubt many design houses have ever invested the effort to determine whether they could adopt the GIMP and drop Photoshop.

I also doubt Adobe cares that Photoshop is so widely pirated. They know that most of the people with illegal copies aren't capable of paying for the program. In fact, Adobe probably benefits from this piracy since it reinforces its brand in the minds of upcoming designers like many of the people here at AnimeSuki.

All that said, if you don't like GIMP's interface, try using GIMPshop, a modification of the GIMP interface to make it more like Photoshop. And, like WanderingKnight, I'd say that if you're thinking about downloading a copy of Photoshop from some warez site, try the GIMP first. I know that might sound weird on a forum where everyone is more or less an admitted copyright infringer, but I see a big difference between watching Japanese television programs that I'll never be able to obtain in the US and making an illicit copy of a program that I can buy from dozens of retailers.

Both Microsoft and Adobe owe a portion of their dominance worldwide to software piracy. In the long term it's all about marketing and keeping the brand in the customer's mind.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Before I go cluttering up my system with something that I may find unusable

Really, Ledgem, the GIMP isn't all that large. It's probably around 200 MB or so looking at its footprint on my system. And I doubt you'll find it unusable, but it might take some time getting used to.

In answer to your original question, I've never used Photoshop since I couldn't possibly justify spending hundreds of dollars on a program to play with pictures, nor could I justify pirating it either. A few years ago I tried using the GIMP to do some simple photo editing. At first found it difficult to use, but that was mostly because I had never used a graphics editor before, and I really had little idea what I was doing. Nowadays I can make a fairly decent animated avatar using the GIMP (and mplayer for frame capture) in under an hour.

My guess from what I've read is that novices with no Photoshop experience would do just fine, but people converting from Photoshop will have to do some relearning. Maybe GIMPshop would make the transition simpler. I've only ever used the GIMP since that's what I started with, and it works for me. I'd also imagine that "intermediate" users, on your scale, would be fine with it, too. Whether "professional" users could adopt the GIMP is clearly a subject of intense debate here, and one well outside my competence.

[WanderingKnight]

Too bad I can't cookie you, Seiji, but that was all I wanted to say and then some.

[Solace]

I suppose this could have been a nice thread for fielding questions about GIMP features versus Photoshop features but instead it's been derailed about piracy comments that weren't even the topic of the original post.

I'd be happy to discuss the merits of piracy as a form of free advertising or the resulting effects of piracy on open source software but this really isn't the place for such discussions. Could GIMP be better if Photoshop was harder to get, due to more interest in improving the open source software? Perhaps, but it's not exactly relevant to the original question either.

We do have quite a few users who do use GIMP (and other free programs) instead of Photoshop for doing image work, and there really isn't a central place to discuss that in Fan Creations...perhaps we should try to steer this thread in that direction instead?

[Potatochobit]

if you are just cutting out pictures you can use safety scissors and elmer's glue to do the same job.

once u get into the advanced features of photoshop there is no comparison. most professionals use illustrator, btw. (or quark express if thats still around, I think another company bought them)

basically this thread would be like comparing virtualdub to final cut pro. its not exactly the same thing.

[KiNA]

Originally Posted by bigdave

If you ask me i don't really care that much.
once i got use to everything in Gimp i could do a decent amount of things in it i could do in Photoshop the Big difference between them are options and customizable additions.

like the nifty save for web isn't on a Gimp

and if u want to animate ur name or something for a sig u can do it in both programs. Its just that in one it has the tools to do it easily, while the other also can do animation but its a strenuous task. but in the end u still end up with the same animatoin.

I'd say if ur more a hands on kind of guy use gimp, if ur not use to it and how u have to figure out how to do something the same way in Gimp as in Photoshop then just use photoshop.

personally i didn't mind Gimp. actually a good deal of my more older sigs and the c4d ones were made using Gimp. After i finally got myself a PS it kind of felt harder to readjust back to it. And there are some pretty neat things u can do for gimp too.

like u can find a script to do a lot of things in the click of an action.
and there are color options in gimp which are similar to those in PS but i actually preferred gimps for watever reason.

save for web in GIMP

AND

Get the best of both world (GIMPShop)

[Ledgem]

I think I'll try out GIMPshop, thanks for the mention (and thanks KiNA and SeijiSensei for the link). It sounds like for the majority of day-to-day things I do in Photoshop, GIMP would be more than able to handle it. I'll have to see whether it supports my camera's RAW format (.ORF) and what sorts of features it has. I know most people here do tons of advanced filter business, but the most advanced feature of Photoshop that I touch is probably the "HDR Merge" feature.

Someone already mentioned that GIMP supports automated/scriptable actions, which is a relief. I'll post back here with my own impressions when I get a bit of a better feel for it.

[KiNA]

Actually, SeijiSensei gave the same link too in his post, but I've must have missed it in the initial glance

[Ledgem]

Er, I might have to go with GIMP alone actually. It seems that the latest GIMPShop is based off of GIMP 2.2, but based off of a forum post I found two or three people remarking that GIMPShop doesn't work with OS X 10.5. GIMP 2.4 is required for 10.5 support. Curses! The admin replied back and said that a recompile based on 2.4 would be coming soon, but that was made back in October of 2007. Sadness.

[WanderingKnight]

It doesn't work? Have you tried downloading the source and manually compiling it?

I suppose you should have available in some form or the other the basic C compiling tools under OS X, but I'm not sure how.

[Solace]

Just did some quick perusing and it appears GIMP can handle .ORF, but I wasn't able to find out if it was native or if it required a plug-in. This might be of use for you though: UFRaw.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

It doesn't work? Have you tried downloading the source and manually compiling it?

Neither, this is based on hearsay. I found another person claiming that it doesn't work, posted in February 2008. The general issue is that anything before GIMP 2.4 won't work with OS X 10.5 because Apple modified something about their X11 implementation. From the screenshots I've seen, GIMP's default interface doesn't look too different from Photoshop, or at the very least it shouldn't be too hard to figure out. I'll just go with it and learn something new

[lsley]

Originally Posted by Setsilya~

And how many professionals do you know? ROFL.

about 30 people from advertisement and the police since my half family works in these two fields. (yes not even the police uses gimp even though they are supposed to save money wherever possible)

@Ledgem If you want to have use the newest version no matter what maybe you could use an emulator / Windows for mac thingy there? (I guess you know more about that than me )

[Miko Miko]

Photoshop Is Better.

GIMP is so hard for me to use, I cant even crop things at all.
The tools are too weird so I am a PS fan :]]]]]]

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Solace

I suppose this could have been a nice thread for fielding questions about GIMP features versus Photoshop features but instead it's been derailed about piracy comments that weren't even the topic of the original post.

Well, since price is one of the key competitive advantages of the GIMP over Photoshop, and since widespread piracy of Photoshop renders this advantage moot, I'd argue that this is relevant to the discussion.

As for comparing features between the programs, a quick Google search brings up dozens of articles: http://www.google.com/search?q=gimp+...res+comparison. This one is quite informative.

My reply was mostly in reaction to the rather ignorant suggestion that free software is per se inferior to proprietary products, and that the widespread use of Photoshop represented an active choice by users after careful comparison. The first of these is definitely false, and I suspect the second is false as well.

[xxmimixx]

Originally Posted by KiNA

save for web in GIMP

AND

Get the best of both world (GIMPShop)

Mai hero XD.

Didn't even know if that was a real option. Now the problem is, how to get that on GIMP :/.

[WINGZERO619]

I've been skimming through this thread and decided to put in my two cents lol. I currently use the new iMAC 24in and running OSX Leopard plus CS3. In the past, I used to be a dual user with Gimp as well. Around here, I'm know for my c4d style sigs and achieved positive results on both programs. On top of that, I'm also known for making vid tuts for end users on sig creations for both PS and Gimp. I've been a PS user for centuries and since there were end users who only have Gimp, I decided to cross over and help them out. I proved to everyone you can achieve similar effects in both programs.

Granted that my forte is not in Gimp, but learned it in a couple of minutes in how to utilize basic functions. Once you get up and running, it's like Photoshop. Of course it's not mainstream or anything, but it will get the job done none the less. Although I have to admit that Gimp does have better functionality in brushing and their brush packs are better as well. Below you'll find some of my Gimp work:











At the time I was learning Gimp, I wanted to see if I can output the same kinds of results in Gimp that I can do in PS. As it turns out by looking at these raw sigs, I can output similar results. I'm actually quite impressed with Gimp after giving it a chance.

Honestly, it comes down to the end user and their preference. There's no right or wrong with either depending on what you want to do. I wouldn't write off that Gimp sucks because it's not famous as PS or because it's free... I thank the development team who created Gimp in order for those who wanted a chance to join the gfx world. I'm a PS user to heart but I can't ignore the fact that I do like Gimp as well.

[BearShare]

One of the only things GIMP has over PS, an unlimited undo function.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Well, since price is one of the key competitive advantages of the GIMP over Photoshop, and since widespread piracy of Photoshop renders this advantage moot, I'd argue that this is relevant to the discussion.

Right, it is relevant when someone doesn't rule out pirating Photoshop. However, Ledgem did rule it out. WanderingKnight is the one who brought up the piracy angle, with an honest question that had a good point but one that wasn't meant for a thread where the original poster makes a pretty clear intent that GIMP being free was a selling point to him.

As for comparing features between the programs, a quick Google search brings up dozens of articles: http://www.google.com/search?q=gimp+...res+comparison. This one is quite informative.

Yes, and I'm sure he did some research before coming to a community of people who use such programs on a regular basis, to get more "hands on" opinions. There's lots of articles and tutorials for Photoshop spread around the internet and we still have a sticky topic about it here too.

My reply was mostly in reaction to the rather ignorant suggestion that free software is per se inferior to proprietary products, and that the widespread use of Photoshop represented an active choice by users after careful comparison. The first of these is definitely false, and I suspect the second is false as well.

I agree with you. And I'd cookie you for the post if I could. Still gotta spread some around first.

[Kakashi]

Without going into technicalities, I can use both GIMP and Photoshop. Reason being because I initially started out not expecting to go beyond doing basic avatars and sigs. So I learned how to use GIMP. It's good, but be wary that if you want to go into complicated graphic design and such your only option will be to learn how to use Photoshop. Meaning you'll be faced with no option but to go through the process of learning again.

But it depends. I became keen to learning everything after I knew the basics. You may be content just to master GIMP, you can make some awesome stuff with it. *IMO the best sig I ever made was with GIMP. Really knowing how to do flashy stuff with photoshop won't make you a great graphic designer.

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

Not to say anything against any of you--but how many people exactly pay for Photoshop, considering its price?

Not me. *Google - Youtube - Download Photoshop CS3 for free

Spoiler for Not relevant but:

I don't do much nowadays, I only make stuff for myself and if someone I like asks me. It's not so intresting for me anymore. I did random sigs which seemed to just raise criticsm on another forum, so I lack motivation to go into the requests thread. Although I do like to make a ton of requests myself. Since I'm amazed at what people can do sometimes.