gimp worth the hype?

Abakadoosh

Abakadoosh

Smiling 'till death
ive read a lot of posts about people using gimp, and i finnaly stumbled upon their website through Versiontracker. so i was surfing www.OpenOSX.com and saw it. i read about it, and it sounded pretty cool. "open source alternative to Photoshop" sounds good to me! so before i go hunting for it (yeah yeah, dont give the bs), what i would like to know, is does it live up to its self-proclaimed profecy of being better than Adobe, or should i just wait for Cocoa Photoshop??? thanks ahead of time for input.
 
I hate Adobe and photoshop (see some of my other posts) but GIMP has a long way if you are a die hard photoshop user (like graphic designer or web developer), but... If you need it just to manipulate images, do some cropping and rotating, maybe play around a bit, GIMP has a large learning curve but can be a lo t of fun. I have it installed and play around with it quite a bit, but when I need to get work done, I have to revert to Acrape Photoshop (Photoshopo is an excellent product, I think adobe is evil)
 
Originally posted by Abakadoosh
does it live up to its self-proclaimed profecy of being better than Adobe...
Click to expand...
Short answer: NO.

the GIMP is fine for making some graphics for your website, but doesn't stand a chance at competing with Photoshop for publication purposes.
GIMP does fine at just pushing pixels around, but is severely lacking in its color handling routines. IIRC, it doesn't even support CMYK colors. There is no color/print calibration for ensuring that your image looks just as it will print.

Use GIMP for fun, but I doubt you could make a living using it.

FaRuvius
====================
"Flush Hard to Stay Strong"
 
Hmmm...
If I were doing images as a hobby and had no other "free" tools then GIMP would be my choice, but since I get photoshop free though my department and I can do a lot with it (irregardless of teh fact that I dont :p) I choose to use photoshop (for now). GIMP has some way to go before it even starts to even think about competing on the same level as photoshop :)
 
WTHD IIRC M? ISIALOT, BICNFOWIM.

(What the hell does IIRC mean? I see it a lot of times, but I can never figure out what it means.)
 
GIMP vs. Photoshop. Are you kidding me? Photoshop may be the best piece of software ever written in my book. To be fair, I've never even tried GIMP, nor do I have any idea what it's feature list is, but I'm going to go ahead and pretend I do anyway.

For one, Photoshop has had a long list of competitive products that have all come and gone. Photoshop allows you to do whatever the hell you can imagine and do it five different ways to the same end. If you take images seriously, there is no alternative.

Yeah, yeah, sure there are other programs that do one or two things better than Photoshop, but seriously folkes, if you can only have one program, it's Photoshop, end of story, no discussion.

As for lower end "non-professional" alternatives, what's so great about GIMP? There's a thousand perfectly usable, free or semi-free bitmap editors that would work fine for basic needs.

Again, I have no idea, maybe GIMP is a perfectly fine product, but please, don't use it in the same sentence as Photoshop. Oops, I just did.

:)
 
Originally posted by simX
WTHD IIRC M? ISIALOT, BICNFOWIM.

(What the hell does IIRC mean? I see it a lot of times, but I can never figure out what it means.)
Click to expand...

It means "if I recall correctly". Check out Internet Acronyms Dictionary. I've had to use it a couple of times (I've been chatting with people online since the hey-days of BBS's, and I still can't remember them all).

P.S. When I first saw your post, I thought I was playing Myth again...WTF?!?! Y U DRP? MAYB I KIK U NOW!
 
Given a choice between Gimp and Photoshop 3.0.1 (the last version made for SGI Irix), Gimp is great! I use it on my Indy any time I have to deal with images on it. In Mac OS X, I'll stick with Photoshop in Classic for the time being. Gimp alone is just not a good enough reason to install X-Windows on my system. If I really feel the need to run it I can run it on either my Solaris or Irix systems where I don't have (much of) a Photoshop alternative.
 
I've used both, so:
If you are doing serious images for print or publishing, if you need seperations, layers, channels and accurate colour reproduction, then PhotoShop is the only option. I have used PhotoShop in magazine production and it never left me wanting.
I still use it as my main editor, even though that means I have to run classic in the background.
However, if you just want to do a few graphics for a website or something, Gimp is a little ripper! It does have an impressive set of effects and routines aimed at producing similarly themed sets of graphics for a web page and some of these are really impressive - such as its animation effects (which would let you do ripples and things for animated GIFs, for instance).
GraphicConverter has a good browser and is okay for simple cropping, adjusting, etc.
I can't wait for the PhotoShop release!
 
Does anyone know what's happening with Apple's proposed iPhoto? I really only need to do simple image editing, but won't install an X window server for GIMP alone.
 
GIMP has the usual opensource problem competing against photoshop: it tries to play catch up. for years now. it's no rival feature/usability wise, but it's free.

there'll be no cocoa photoshop for a while. it'll be a carbon app.

but: if you need a program just to do some basic image manipulation and want to get an application that *knows* it can't compete with photoshop in a professional environment: get graphics converter. it's already carbonated and works just fine under os 10.1. it's not free, but it's cheap enough shareware. boots faster than classic+photoshop, boots faster than photoshop. and can do some pretty things.

the x-window system is nice to have if you really are used to some tools that only run on it. but if you want to do graphics, stay with what's around for mac os/mac os x.
 
Originally posted by Solaris
Does anyone know what's happening with Apple's proposed iPhoto? I really only need to do simple image editing, but won't install an X window server for GIMP alone.
Click to expand...

Maybe iPhoto is what Apple is announcing on the 23rd of October:eek: . Anyway, the GIMP is very cool. Photoshop is better, of course, but the GIMP is very good, as well. If you want to pay for photoshop, then go ahead. If you don't need the full power of Photoshop then get the GIMP.

-JARinteractive
 
Originally posted by Solaris
Does anyone know what's happening with Apple's proposed iPhoto? I really only need to do simple image editing, but won't install an X window server for GIMP alone.
Click to expand...

Maybe iPhoto is what Apple is announcing on the 23rd of October:eek: . Anyway, the GIMP is very cool. Photoshop is better, of course, but the GIMP is very good, as well. If you want to pay for photoshop, then go ahead. If you don't need the full power of Photoshop then get the GIMP.

-JARinteractive
 
Stupid, ugly and dumb RacerX person.

It's not called "X-Windows". You can't pretend that it is some fast racing car that you can fantasize about playing around in.

Either of these alternatives are acceptable:

"X", "X Window System", "X Version 11", "X Window System, Version 11", "X11".

This is pretty simple. I hope you can remember any of the above.

And everyone who refers to Mac OS X as "X" ought to be stoned.

!"#¤&%/()=?
 
Not that you asked for it, but there definitely is another product which can live up to Photoshop. (and is way better depending on who you ask)

It's TIFFany from Caffeine Software. (http://www.caffeinesoft.com) TIFFany initially comes from the NeXT platform.

So it's not just Photoshop or Gimp! Hmpf! :)

Sargon
 
Jeez.... so much religiousness about X11 :p

I call OS X... Oh Es Ex ... got a problem with that ? :p
Come on matey! I will throw ya overboard :p he he he


Admiral
 
Originally posted by peppo
Stupid, ugly and dumb RacerX person.

It's not called "X-Windows". You can't pretend that it is some fast racing car that you can fantasize about playing around in.

Either of these alternatives are acceptable:

"X", "X Window System", "X Version 11", "X Window System, Version 11", "X11".

This is pretty simple. I hope you can remember any of the above.

And everyone who refers to Mac OS X as "X" ought to be stoned.

!"#Â?&%/()=?
Click to expand...

You give the words "ignorant intolerant boor" a whole new meaning.
Written in "X" but I could have used "Xwindows" too. :D
 
Originally posted by peppo
Stupid, ugly and dumb RacerX person.
Click to expand...


I see you've seen my picture in another thread (is was very early in the morning, what can I say).


It's not called "X-Windows". You can't pretend that it is some fast racing car that you can fantasize about playing around in.

Either of these alternatives are acceptable:

"X", "X Window System", "X Version 11", "X Window System, Version 11", "X11".

This is pretty simple. I hope you can remember any of the above.
Click to expand...


I've been working with Unix based systems for years (and would bet that I own more systems running a Unix-based OS than you do), and X-Windows has always been an exceptable generic name for the versions you mentioned, and Sun's OpenWindows and Motif base Windowing systems (though I general don't lump it in there, but that is my personal preference). You are going to find that the convention of using the term X-Windows is very well documented, and you are going to need to write an awful lot of nasty letters to the authors of may books and texts on the subject (dating back to the 80's When I first saw the term in school).

I couldn't help but notice that you tried to tell soapvox the same thing, though you didn't call him "Stupid, ugly and dumb", you reserved that for me (I feel so special). Though he put X-Windows on the same footing as gnome (when gnome runs on top of X-Windows), I didn't see any reason to correct him. his point was still valid as far as I was concerned.


And everyone who refers to Mac OS X as "X" ought to be stoned.

!"#å&%/()=?
Click to expand...


I never called Mac OS X "X", Mac OS X Server has been out for almost 3 years now, and I have always pronoused it "Mac O-S Ten Server", I don't think I have ever mistook the X for anything other than a "10". I don't feel the need to stone anyone who pronouses it the other way any more than I feel the need to stone anyone for mispronousing Linux (Linux is pronounced with a short 'i').

You should do more studying before calling someone "stupid" and "dumb" while using a term correctly. As for "ugly", that is a matter of opinion, but it is still not nice to point out my short comings. We can't all be beautiful people.
 
GIMP is all right if you want to do some minor photo editing, as a beginner. I purchased my version from MacGIMP.com for $19.00 a while back and that's because I have little experience installing software on UNIX systems. The MacGIMP CD has its own installer and installs everything needed, including X Windows. Upgrading to 10.1 temporarily disabled MacGIMP, but I downloaded a "fix-it patch" and got it back recently. I know it's not Photoshop, but it can edit pictures and it is free if you are willing to download huge files to get it running (or purchase a CD for a little $$). I don't use MacGIMP very often, just to change a few things in photos like getting rid of red eye, etc... nothing major (I don't know how).

A 3 button mouse is required for GIMP as you can't access any of the filters without right-clicking on the image to get the pop-up menu. I also have a cheap Logitech 3 button wheelmouse that works great with OS X and GIMP.

chemistry_geek
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top