While virtually all computer graphics professionals use Adobe Photoshop to do their artistic work, Photoshop is a pricey and proprietary application. If you’re looking to do graphics design on a budget, or perhaps want a software package that is less resource-intensive than Photoshop, check out open source alternatives — the GIMP, SodiPodi, and Inkscape. Our Take: While these apps are extremely valuable for Unix users, they can’t compete in the professional marketplace with Photoshop or Illustrator. They just don’t do as much or they don’t always do it in an expected way. More here and here.
Open source Photoshop alternatives
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
My take: Stop editorializing and let people make up their own mind about whether an app solves their needs or not. I know plenty of people who are using the Gimp and FilmGimp professionally and they would not switch to anythingelse.
By the way, before endorsing Photoshop and Illustrator so strongly, do you have some $1000 to spare?
I find it insulting to devalue apps like the gimp considering that it is a gift of love of the developers and considering that 95% of users and that includes many who think of themselves as “professionals” do not need half the features in photoshop. There are also things that Gimp does that Photoshop doesn’t.
I just found this program (deneba Canvas ) a month ago. Im not trying to sell it really id love an open source program that does…
Vector editing (cubic interpolation from mouse movement, vector functions (add subtract etc), text to vector automatically done behind the scenes on the fly)
Photoshop filters rendered on the fly from adjustable layers.
Advanced object properties (gradient fill textures)
Anyone else used this program? Found anything better?
>Stop editorializing
Editorialism is part of the scope of this site as long as it is seperated by the main news item (as it is, with the bold “our take”). It has always been like that and it will continue to be.
The GIMP 2.0 is about as featureful as PhotoShop was at version 3, which IMHO is a pretty big achievement for an OSS app. I think we’ll see it make very rapid progress over the next year.
I had a JPG file that I wanted to resize for a webpage and so I tried gimp (on windows) at first, but the result was horrible. The image was a diagram that I had drawn in powerpoint and the words after the resize were illegible. I decided to try the same JPG file on Photoshop 7 and the resize maintained the clarity of the lettering. Maybe I went the wrong way about it in gimp (image size with ratio set), but it just couldn’t even come close to the job that Photoshop did.
A simple test, go ahead and try it if you’ve got both pieces of software.
I like gimp, especially since it’s free, but can it really compare to photoshop?
funny how there is always a troll going nuts if someone dares to say that there is an better proprietary software out there.
bear the facts: while gimp is good enough for many tasks it doesn’t mean someone is insulting it by saying photoshop is better. i never met an webdesigner who didn’t use photoshop even when they where linux/oss zealots.
Image resizing (scaling) has been a well-solved problem for years, by any decent graphics system. I think you just didn’t turn on antialiasing. I have resized so many images in Gimp I can’t remember, and in every case the results were easily as good as those in Photoshop, Corel, or whatever.
Of course, there are plenty of areas where Photoshop is more polished than Gimp, but there is no way that a simple resize is in that category.
By the way, the specific setting for high quality scaling is to set the “Interpolation” setting to “Cubic (Best)” in the resize dialog. Look at
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Lite_Quickies/
This does illustrate one of the differences, though, between the open source graphics programs and the commercial ones: Photoshop would never expect the user to understand what the term “Interpolation” means.
Photoshop has a nice feature: it will not let you open a scanned dollar bill. Top that The Gimp!
…considering that 95% of users and that includes many who think of themselves as “professionals” do not need half the features in photoshop
Trouble is, the “half the features” one needs is different from the “half the features” someone else needs. So I think it’s not a crime to compare Photoshop to the Gimp.
One moving from Photoshop has every right to think the Gimp is very limited both on features and (IMO) GUI; of course it’s improving fast, Gimp2 is a huge improvemente, and it’s probably one of the brightest success cases for OSS, but just because it doesn’t have a price tag it’s not immune to criticism.
The GIMP 2.0 is about as featureful as PhotoShop was at version 3
Unless my memory is fading, then photoshop 3 didn’t have layers or multi-level undo, which i would not want to live without today. (hrm, i am not 100% sure if layers was introduced in 3.0 or 4.0)
If you’re resizing an image with indexed colors, first switch to RGB (Image > Mode > RGB), then resize it. It makes a huge difference in term of quality.
You may switch back to indexed color afterwards, obviously.
tell that the people who issued that law requirement.
this is also true in europe right now… and it looks that even the gimp will have to adopt this “feature” or become illegal in most european countrys.
i switched to linux two years ago. Since then i’ve been using Gimp, Sodipodi and, now, Inkscape. I’ve never had to regret having left aside Adobe. I do any kind of things: from graphics for the web to post-processing of huge rendered images from 3d architectural models, and Gimp and Inkscape just work deliciously.
Its good to stay focused, while The Gimp might not be as “good” for proffesional production work as PhotoShop i think most people would be amazed what you can do with it.
People just grap Photoshop if they want to resize an *jpg that is completly nonsens. I use the Gimp for all my grapics work on my Linux machine and i never missed Photoshop. On my Mac is use PS CS but i do have the Gimp installed an use it ones and a while because it has features that are NOT in PS CS but you can buy as a plugin. It all depends on your needs as a proffesional working on a print and design envoirment its stupid to not use Photoshop but for the home user is and OVERKILL they are better off with the Gimp or Paintshop.
As for Illustrator the draw section of OpenOffice.org is a very decent and powerfull vector program it can do tons more and even output to pdf. I often use it too.
IMHO photoshop renders fonts better than gimp.
to drop a shadow is also much simpler in photoshop than in gimp. i also like making fonts glow and seeing the result “on the fly”… didn’t find that powerful interface in gimp…. none of the script-fus could do that.
another thing – whenever i save a picture in the gimp as PNG, with compression on “9” it’s ALWAYS bigger in size than it is when i save the same picture as PNG in photoshop.
could anybody tell me why that is so?
has photoshop implemented a better PNG-compresion or what?
(try it for yourself.. i encountered this “problem” with any picture i tried…always smaller PNG size in photoshop)
Again, I believe in the laws of economics. People will only use another product if it is better than what they use now, without it being relatively more expensive.
The GIMP is free, and still every serious (as in: someone who tries to make a living) graphic artist uses PS, mostly on a Mac.
To me, this leads to a simple conclusion: Photoshop is better and more advanced than the GIMP (note: this does noet mean the GIMP sucks).
FilmGimp is being used by quite a few Hollywood studios for special effects.
As a professional Photoshop user, I can say that Gimp 2.0 is quite ready for prime time. The only thing missing are Pantone colors, and that’s only important if you’re doing Print stuff. Sure, some of the UI doesn’t work exactly the same way – but that shouldn’t be held against Gimp. After all, the interface for Maya is different than that of 3DStudio Max, and yet both apps are comparable in professional use.
I think if Adobe was to crack down on illegal copies of Photoshop, Gimp’s popularity would skyrocket…
Yes, The GIMP isn’t as advanced as Photoshop. I don’t think anyone will seriously argue that.
But saying it is not good because some features work differently than in Photoshop is bogus. How’s this: “Photoshop is not as good as Gimp cause some features don’t work the same and confuse me”.
Its just a matter of preference and what you know. I wish you wouldn’t always present such things as clear advantages or disadvantages.
With respect to photoshop, yes, almost everyone has a copy of it lying around. But unless you’re a graphics professional, let’s not forget that these copies are probably ILLEGAL.
The vast majority of casual computer users (especially students) have a pirated copy of photoshop if they have it at all. (I know, I am a student and see this all the time at my uni).
So we can conclude that for most people that don’t want to spend a couple hundred on photoshop and do not want to be criminals the Gimp is an excellent alternative. The criminals bit is debatable, but you have NO RIGHT to use photoshop if you didn’t pay for it.
“has photoshop implemented a better PNG-compresion or what? ”
defaults are not the same. tune the properties
FilmGimp is renamed CinePaint http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/ . Its usages is growing.
By the way, before endorsing Photoshop and Illustrator so strongly, do you have some $1000 to spare?
In a professional setting, $1000 is cheap. (We develope J2EE apps and spend around ~$20,000 a year for WebLogic).
When I installed GIMP, I were asked to replace two dll files in system32. Later on, I realized they were for HomeSite5. GIMP got to work out this issue.
I also noticed the Next style file dialog but not internationalized. I still prefect native file dialog.
Not really have time to try it out. My photoshop 6 totally freeze my winXP.
A lot of the time I try to think of stuff this way. If these two products cost the same which would I pay for.
If Windows and a particular distro of Linux both cost the same, in the end I would choose Linux. Why? Not politics or religious, Linux just suits me best. Would I switch my friends or family over, nope; at present time it doesn’t suit them.
If Photoshop and The GIMP cost the same, I would choose Photoshop. Why? I’ve used both and if it came to paying for it there’s no way I’d choose The GIMP over PhotoShop.
If Illustrator, Corel Draw, Sodi Podi and InkScape cost the same, it would be a draw between Illustrator and Corel Draw. Why? Having used them all, again, I wouldn’t pay for SodiPodi or InkScape in comparison to Illustrator or Corel Draw.
This isn’t putting down the developers of these other apps; and they definitly work well for the budget minded; just after trying them all I just choose the tool I like best.
For png compression, I find it’s not that often that any graphics app can reach the compression of pngcrush, but that does take a whole lot longer to work.
I do think that generally the Gimp 2.0 seems at least the standard of the last Photoshop I used, which was 5 I believe. I haven’t counted the features or anything, so I’m just going on the ease of doing the sort of things I do, which mainly involving playing with photos in an amateurish way. I can honestly say there’s no feature I’ve missed, and I’ve been able to do what I want without even installing the help files.
But then, I’m a huge way from being a professional, and I wouldn’t even want to pay the price of Paint Shop Pro or similar, let alone PhotoShop, so there isn’t much competition for me.
First of all, it isn’t true that all serious professionals use Photoshop, and not on a Mac either. A lot use JASC Paint Shop Pro, actually, and another group uses the GIMP. I’m assuming that Web graphic designers can be considered serious professionals, right? And movie studios? And if you are just doing photo touch-up, Photoshop is really overkill. Not that overkill is bad!’
I use Photoshop, but I have experienced the GIMP and know that, contrary to most comments here, it is just as featureful. You have a hassle getting all the plugins you need to make it so, but they are there. I just consider the learning curve too steep, since I already own Photoshop and find GIMP hard to navigate. Eventually (3-5 years) I will be a GIMP user. I won’t ever buy Photoshop CS because of the dollar bill restriction, so next time I need an upgrade it will have to come from somewhere else.
Oh, and if everyone who wanted Photoshop had to pay for it, it would not dominate the market. I don’t know what percentage of Photoshop installs are pirated, but it has to be monstrous. I pirated it in high school and didn’t buy a copy until I left college. Had it not been ‘free’ for me back then, I would never have tried it, never have learned it, and never have given a damn about a $600 piece of software for which there are perfectly good free and cheap alternatives.
“In a professional setting, $1000 is cheap. (We develope J2EE apps and spend around ~$20,000 a year for WebLogic).”
So I suppose that people who work at small businesses and NGOs cannot think of themselves as professionals or working in a “professional setting” because they don’t have $1000 to spend on Photoshop and Illustrator?
Right.
I would like to know how many of the Photoshop fans have actually paid for it.
When I installed GIMP, I were asked to replace two dll files in system32. Later on, I realized they were for HomeSite5. GIMP got to work out this issue.
That’s strange. Which Windows version do you use and which Gimp version do you install? I have not faced that issue with Windows XP as Gimp 2.0 work perfectly. Maybe it is another issue that affected your dll such as spyware or trojan.
About features, there is not much difference between Photoshop and Gimp once you figure out how they work. It is all about the user willing to adapt.
>Again, I believe in the laws of economics. People will only use another
>product if it is better than what they use now, without it being relatively
>more expensive.
Again you are wrong if your opinion was true everybody was driving Toyota and eating vegtables while using the Gimp
-. People make choices based on: quality, quantity, other peoples opinions, media, marketing, circumstances, feeling etc. I wish it was as easy as you describe it but it is not.
I use the Gimp not because its better that Photoshop but because i actually like it and because its free.
Many software companies look the other way when people copy their program. This way they get a higher mindshare.
If Windows was impossible to copy, they would not have the market share they have today. This was more true in the past than in the recent years. When people copied Windows from work or from friends they increased the user base needed my Microsoft. For every installed copy it became harder to buy an alternative OS because “everyone” else were using Windows.
It’s interesting to see that as Microsoft gets a stronger hold of the PC market they use more aggressive tactics against installing copied software. It looks like Microsoft changed its strategy after Windows 98, when MS realised they had mostly killed their closed source alternatives (on the PC platform, stay calm Mac fans).
The reason why Adobe probably won’t go the Microsoft way, is that even if the product is extremely popular, most of the casual users will never spend that much money on the product. Most of the formats can be used by other programs, so they don’t control the market like Microsoft.
If they make a version of Photoshop that can’t be copied, most people outside the profesional market will buy a cheaper alternative, use an older copy or switch to free software.
Also there’s myBabya Photo Workshop that is open-source and has a good set of image effects
I just recently switched to Linux for all needs, including graphic design (i am a student web/graphic designer). I use Inkscape, Gimp, and Bluefish on a daily basis. True, there was about a week in my life that I couldn’t get anything done because OSS apps _aren’t_ clones of Windows apps (thank god!), but it took me a week or so to get used to doing things the [quote on quote] “Linux way.” Now I think it was the best decision I ever made for my future career. Personally, I believe I will use Linux and OSS apps for as long as they are around, whether it be in a professional situation or a home situation.
I just can’t justify spending hundreds to thousands of dollars for “the standard” when I can do the same things for free. As for all those “professional features”, I have yet to run into something that I can’t do with Gimp, but could do with Photoshop.
Using cubic instead of linear worked great, thanks. I now have an image with similar quality to the one resized in photoshop, gimp 2 may just be the ticket.
Post some work and let a professional designer tell you whether or not you can really “get your work done”. Far too many people opened up a copy of Photoshop, or GIMP, or whateve, and proclaimed to be a graphic designer simply because they could make pretty pictures in these apps. Photoshop reigns supreme in the graphic design world simply because Adobe addresses the needs of graphic and media designers. I don’t see GIMP doing much mor ethan trying to undercut Adobe by being a free knock-off of Photoshop.
I run a small publishing company as my day job (in addition to developing software as a hobby), and I’ve been migrating steadily away from commercial software (Adobe and Corel, mainly) towards open-source. I use Gimp.app on the Mac and also Scribus, and I’m test-driving Inkscape.
I’m not a high-level designer–photo-editing is mainly limited to scaling, cropping, and other basics–and for these purposes Gimp is fine. Scribus matches InDesign for PDF output, and is rapidly becoming a full-featured page layout app. Inkscape seems to have a longer way to go, but I like its interface (hated Sodipodi, which was too cluttered).
The only commercial package I can’t live without is Adobe Acrobat, which allows me to edit PDF files. No OSS package does that.
More on how I use OSS in publishing here: http://www.wordtechcommunications.com/software.html
The Gimp is a very nice and powerfull tool for most occasional users. Most users whose primary job is not graphic design will find all the features they need plus some more. But I don’t think it’s realistic to expect TheGimp to be on one level with PhotoShop. PhotoShop is one of Adobe’s most important programs, they will work day and night to make it better than anything else.
> As a professional Photoshop user, I can say that Gimp 2.0
> is quite ready for prime time. The only thing missing are
> Pantone colors
There are lots of important features missing in Gimp 2. The most annoying one, IMO, is the idiotic restriction of a maximum of 8 bits per channel. It doesn’t take much playing around until you’ve lost almost all shadow, midtone or/and highlight details, making the final picture look like a GIF.
It’s not that I’d require 32 bits per channel, like e.g. Photogenics HDR has, but every image processor should support at least up to 16 bits per channel (both fixed and floating point). (FilmGimp, or CinePaint as it’s nowadays called, does support 16 bits/channel, but unfortunately it instead lacks many other features of Gimp 2.)
> FilmGimp is being used by quite a few Hollywood studios
> for special effects.
Guess if it’d be used if it only supported 8 bits/channel. Not a chance.
KWord allows you to import PDF files and export PDF files.
There are very few competing products to Adobe Photoshop in the Windows world let alone freeware alternatives any either side of the fence. Adobe pretty damn much has a lock on an entire sector of the market.
“Scribus matches InDesign for PDF output, and is rapidly becoming a full-featured page layout app.”
Bullshit. Nothing matches InDesign CS for PDF output. As for the rest of this comment, you sound like an OSS astroturfer telling the world how great [pick an app] is and how it’s getting better every day.
For the rest of you telling everyone they don’t need Photoshop, you’re probably right. However, Adobe has released an app called Photoshop Elements that’s only $99 but it ships with most digital cameras and scanners these days so you can pick it up “for free”. It’s a great “lite” version of Photoshop and pair it with Photoshop Album on Windows and you have everything you need for a personal photo editing and cataloging studio.
Well, I still have ID 2.0, not CS, but the output I get from Scribus is just as good–CMYK, high-res, subset fonts, etc. It runs through my printer’s prepress workflow without a hitch. Are you telling me that Quark 6.0 doesn’t provide output that is equivalent to ID CS?
It doesn’t seem that you read my criticism of Inkscape–“it has a longer way to go.” I’m not an astroturfer. Anyway, a lot of OSS isn’t just “getting better everyday,” but surpasses the commercial competition. (For instance, PDF export from OpenOffice.org requires clicking a button. I have yet to see this feature in MS Office.)
When you install Acrobat 6.0 Professional you can export directly to PDF from IE and Office with the click of a button. No, Microsoft does not support PDF right out of the box but it’s still possible.
When you install Acrobat 6.0 Professional you can export directly to PDF from IE and Office with the click of a button. No, Microsoft does not support PDF right out of the box but it’s still possible.
“As for the rest of this comment, you sound like an OSS astroturfer telling the world how great [pick an app] is and how it’s getting better every day.”
Sorry to nitpick, but there’s no such thing as an “OSS Astroturfer”. Astroturfing refers to companies setting up fake grassroots consumer groups (and, by extension, to company employees posing as ordinary users). I think the term you’re looking for is “enthusiast”, or if you want to be more abrasive, “zealot”.
Meanwhile, while one can debate on the merits of Photoshop vs. GIMP (which, in my opinion, could replace Photoshop for about half of its users), you can’t possibly argue that Photoshop Elements is superior to Gimp 2…
[i]”you can’t possibly argue that Photoshop Elements is superior to Gimp 2…”[/i}
Sure I can as long as I make the same assumptions about users as you people do. If you’re doing minor work, rotating images, red-eye reduction, asjusting contrast, etc. then Elements is perfect.
I’ve tried gimp.app on my Powerbook, and it sucks. Photoshop elements is much more friendly and easier to use. The sooner OSS developers understand what the “normal” user wants, the sooner they might make inroads to commercial applications
Trouble is, the “half the features” one needs is different from the “half the features” someone else needs. So I think it’s not a crime to compare Photoshop to the Gimp.
In the case of Photoshop, it’s not so true that the “half the features” one needs is different from the “half the features” someone else needs. If that were the case, Paint Shop Pro would not fill the niche that it does–a raster graphics program that is very capable but trades off features only used by graphics professionals with deep pockets (especially those targeting print media) in favor of a much, much lower price. Gimp is in about the same niche as Paint Shop Pro, maybe not as featureful as Paint Shop Pro, but not far off, either.
I’d like to know a list of thing Photoshop can do, that the latest stable version of Gimp can’t. And also how those features justify a “proffesional” paying for hundreds of dollars of wad over almost nothing for Gimp.
Although I’m mostly a IT than a webmaster, me and my co-webmaster, we are working exclusively on free software program. As such, our website is coded with Vim, Quanta, Gimp for images editing, etc. And seriously, Gimp 2 is better than Photoshop if you exclusively work (as us) under Gnu/Linux. Emulating Photoshop is not really interesting solution in this case, and you lost interraction with other programs, such as Ghoscript and OpenOffice.
Check it out if Gimp suc* that much http://www.uinm.qc.ca
For the record, I am a professional image editor for web, packaging and magazines.
Why does everybody try to compare the Gimp with Photoshop ?
Photoshop is, like it or not, THE professional graphics editing software. It’s not only a question of features, it’s a question of standard : if you’re making a living about computer graphics and you need that other people or other companies use your files, you NEED Photoshop 99% of the time. And that has nothing to do with the quality of the work you can do with other software, it’s a question of portability and speed of production.
Most people don’t realize how tricky is graphics editing. More and more people think that doing graphics on computer is technically easy. For those who think that, you have no idea of the crap files we receive because of that… Most people don’t know that for printing purposes files must be in CMJN (not RGB) and at 300dpi of resolution, that color correction is not done by making the picture look good on your screen (but analizing and knowing the right color values)… and so many other tricks that make their files unexploitable to a professional printer or to use for a professional website.
Leave that to us, the professional ones… If we elected photoshop the standard software, it’s not because of a corporate, microsoft like, conspiracy : it provides us with all the features we need to make a good job (and I’m not talking about so-called photoshop filter plugins, which are in my opinion only gadgets, though useful sometimes). Then, of course Photoshop is expensive : once again, it’s a PROFESSIONAL tool!
Now, for other purposes, the Gimp is a great graphics editing tool. A professional can, with his knowledge, without a doubt make good work with it, but it will most of the time take him more time to do it, which is not really good in an industry where we are always in a rush.
Is the Gimp the better graphics editing software on Linux : yes (and because it’s the standard on this platform too).
Is it better than most of other softwares, in all other platforms : yes.
Can it replace Photoshop : NO and I really wonder if it should try to…
The whole problem with all this is that Linux aficionados are trying to sell the Gimp as a Photoshop replacement. No way that can happen anytime soon (though not impossible one day…). Developers of the Gimp are doing a very good job with this OSS tool, users can manage brilliant artwork with it, but the Gimp is not a viable professional product, not yet (exception made for some specific areas of the graphics industry, for which for one reason or another Photoshop is not the most productive solution).
For my part, I work mostly on Windows XP. I am looking forward to switch to Linux at home, I am just waiting for Photoshop CS to work with WINE so I could still be productive. I tested Photoshop 7 in WINE : it works like a charm, but I really lack the Photoshop CS features.
I am saying all this because I am tired to read in forums, when people ask how to make Photoshop work on Linux : “Use GIMP, moron.”
The linked article didn’t make a claim that those applications could beat every other app, in fact it clearly pointed out that they aren’t as featureful as Photoshop for example. Still, the fact that they are Open Source makes them a great option for everyone who is on a budget or to whom the application is “good enough”.
While I think it’s a compliment for Open Source software that some people feel the need to constantly point out that it can’t compete head to head to the most powerful and established closed source applications on the market yet, I also think that it’s a little childish and unasked for, if nobody claimed the opposite.
Take a look at Blender for example, that’s one hell of a powerful and impressive application, yet it can’t do as much as Maya. But do you see people pointing that out everytime someone mentions Blender in a positive light? No, the typical reaction is more like “wow, an Open Source application can do THAT much? Awesome!”.
And it’s not just the price, also the fact that the code is available is a huge plus for many people. Both for private people who want to be sure that the application will keep getting maintained and improved forever (as long as anyone cares about it) and for large studios who might even hire their own in-house programmers to do custom modifications to the software (see Cinepaint or Instinctive-Blender).
Open Source software doesn’t have to compete head to head to Adobe, Adobe has to prove that they are worth the money, and that’s getting increasingly difficult as Open Source software progresses.
Additionally, I believe that it’s very important that young artists and hobbyists have access to powerful tools without becoming dependant on any corporation or even platform. Yes, there are still people out there who use those applications for artistic reasons, not to make money.
“My take: Stop editorializing and let people make up their own mind…”
I’ll second that. One can’t possibly decide for “everyone” what “everyone” thinks or needs.
I’m an OSNews-oholic, but for me the “Our Take” section always takes away from the content by trying to force an opinion on me before I even have all of the facts.
While I may generally agree with the editor’s opinion, it takes away from the professionalism and credibility I have come to expect from OSNews. Why not post your opinions in the comments section, and discuss with all of your readers?
amen to that
“Yes, there are still people out there who use those applications for artistic reasons, not to make money.
”
I second that, and fortunately creativity is not restricted to any software in particular.
> While these apps are extremely valuable for Unix users,
> they can’t compete in the professional marketplace with
> Photoshop or Illustrator. They just don’t do as much or
> they don’t always do it in an expected way.
Yeah, in expected way.
The 16 bit per channel color has been an issue for a while, so I won’t go over that.
But many other problems can be solved with additional plugins and scripts, or by install GTK without the GTK-Wimp theme on Windows.
Some people will ALWAYS demand everything work out of the box without considering the cost; they are free to pay for that kind of polish. But to bash another free software just because hunting plugins / scripts is a little trouble? Or, to say that the “professional” market is limited to pre-press only? I wouldn’t take that as objective reporting.
Sure I can as long as I make the same assumptions about users as you people do.
“We” people? Could you be any more arrogant? There is no “we”, all users are different. I happen to use both Linux and Windows equally, so you can cut the divisive bullcrap and go start your little flamewars somewhere else.
For the record, I use Photoshop professionally, but NOT for print. For my work, there’s nothing I can do with Photoshop I couldn’t do with Gimp, and since I’m used to both UIs I’m equally quick with both. (Actually, I don’t like the new tools UI for Photoshop 7, I think it’s a step back in usability, but that’s another topic.)
Again, I’ll reiterate the obvious: if everyone had to pay for Photoshop (even 99$ for PS Elements), then Gimp would be a lot more popular.
Yann
The reason Linux users try to push Gimp as a PS replacement is that Adobe won’t release Photoshop on Linux. Now, it’s true that for print work, Photoshop can’t be beat…but for all other kind of graphic work (Web design, Video, Film and Video games production, for example) it is a serious contender to Photoshop. Some tools, like those that have to do with path operations, are actually better in Gimp 2.0. Also, the new UI (though at first alien to PS users) is quite flexible and powerful.
For those who are interested in learning more about Gimp 2, I suggest you check out Jimmac’s demo videos:
http://jimmac.musichall.cz/gimp2demos.php
Note: I haven’t tried Gimp2 on Windows, so I don’t know how it compares to PS.
Some interesting tips for installing and using GIMP on Windows:
http://www.geocities.com/zero0w/gimp2-win32.txt
http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24190
“So we can conclude that for most people that don’t want to spend a couple hundred on photoshop and do not want to be criminals the Gimp is an excellent alternative. The criminals bit is debatable, but you have NO RIGHT to use photoshop if you didn’t pay for it.”
What you can conclude is that most people would rather be a criminal and steal photoshop then use GIMP which is free and not ilegal for them to use. Which says much more about what people think of GIMP compaired to PS. They must be seeing something in PS that GIMP doesn’t have to offer.
I can’t do crap in PS, never messed with GIMP. They simply are way to complicated.
In the end of the day, those who need photoshop, are professional types and for them shelling out the dough for it is nothing. If you think photoshop is too expensive, then you don’t need photoshop. Same for most any app really. If you make you’re living with it, then any small gains in time and such or ease of use from PS are worth the cost since they pay for themselves.
If the Price of PS is out of the range of what you can pay for it you don’t need it, and there is lesser apps out there. Like Adobe Elements. Where so many people loose it on the reality is thinking they need PS or various other apps. No person just hanging around at home needs PS. Even a super extreme ameture (sp) photographer doesn’t need it. If they do then they probably don’t have a problem with the price, and isn’t a big deal compaired to how much the spend on cameras and lenses. Plus they don’t need the latest versions.
All apps are prices based on who they are ment for and what they will pay for them. Same for OS’s. A home user isn’t going to pay the bucks for winXP pro. They don’t need it. They buy Home, which is cheaper. If they for some reason did need Pro, say they have a dual CPU box, then the fact they even own a dual cpu box has put them in a position of not being a basic user and being one with more money to spend. Everything is relitive.
I get so tired of people bitching about software cost. If it’s out of your pricerange, then its not something you need. And don’t give me any weird 1 in 1000 people examples that defy this.
I could bitch that Pro/E cost $33,000 but then reality hits that I don’t need it. And if I did, I would spend the money if thats what I needed. And if it was for the always popular reason “I want to learn” (which is somewhat valid sometimes). I could buy the student version for 300 bucks. Same thing with say Matlab.
This is also why people don’t care if things like Linux are free. The cost of windows isn’t that bad, and is worth it compaired to the hassle of windows to them.
I know that this is possibly off-subject … but given that this particular item has generated so many comments from GIMP,Photoshop, etc. users can I ask for some advice.
What I want, what I really really want (and what many developers would like) is a tool that I can use to design PROFESSIONAL icons. After all just because it’s OSS desn’t mean that it has to look crap !
Before I get flamed by professional graphics designers – I DO realise that teh tools do NOT make the artisan. As a earning-my-crust developer I too get sick of all those weekend-VB-jockeys
Anyway, like most everyone I know who does not have access to a graphics design service ($$$) outside of work, the old stables are Paintbrush, IconEdit etc. (Most of the stuff I d now is on Windows boxes now, but the Unix machines I used to work on didn’t offer much better … although you could handcode bitmap files if you wanted the pain).
I used to use Paintshop-Pro, but gave up when they started to FORCE you to pay and I’ve been searching around for (what seems like) ages for something that will help me produce something better than a smiley!
I CANNOT (for now) afford Photoshop or Illustrator, and I REALLY would like to be sure that they are going to help me if I have to pay out 1000 bucks !
Typically when “hacking together” an icon on a trial-copy of PSP, I’ll do most of the major work in vector, then rasterise and apply effects. The templates (for bevels, buttons etc) in PSP really help here.
I recently downloaded InkSkape and SodiPodi (yuk !!) and tried them out. On windows, they are a “good start” but pretty flaky (on Windows) and I find the UIs difficult.
So .. to all out there. What am I missing? What tools are used for icon design? And how do you generally go about marking one up ?
Ta
“”What you can conclude is that most people would rather be a criminal and steal photoshop then use GIMP which is free and not ilegal for them to use. Which says much more about what people think of GIMP compaired to PS. They must be seeing something in PS that GIMP doesn’t have to offer.””
Or PS is all they have heard of, and aren’t aware that GIMP even exists, so therefore they’ve never tried it. Just because it’s not heavily used doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not good to use.
What you can conclude is that most people would rather be a criminal and steal photoshop then use GIMP which is free and not ilegal for them to use. Which says much more about what people think of GIMP compaired to PS.
That conclusion is based on dubious assumptions. In fact, many people may not be aware of the Gimp, or they may have tried it a couple of years ago. Most of the people who steal PS are not graphic professionals, and there is little reason to believe that they would have heard of the Gimp.
Consequently, the rest of your argument pretty much falls apart because of the faulty premises on which it is built.
If it’s out of your pricerange, then its not something you need.
What if you’re in a Third World country? Don’t poor people deserve to be able to make purdy graphics too?
What about a company that has to buy a hundred licenses? Don’t you think an economy of 100,000$ is substantial?
I can’t do crap in PS, never messed with GIMP.
Really? Then why should we care what you have to say about it? It seems to me you simply wanted to use the opportunity to bitch Linux and OSS…
Dear Lord, deliver us from the trolls. Please.
Damn, you beat me by 28 seconds!
i’ve been using photoshop sinced version 5 for webdesign purposes.. and i’ve also tried the Gimp, although i didn’t get much work done with gimp because of the confusing UI. Just used what you’re accustomed to using and stick with it. nuff said
For the “We” thing, it was just a manner of speach. Sorry about that.
You said :
“Now, it’s true that for print work, Photoshop can’t be beat…but for all other kind of graphic work (Web design, Video, Film and Video games production, for example) it is a serious contender to Photoshop.”
and zero said :
“Or, to say that the “professional” market is limited to pre-press only?”
It’s an interesting point to make clear :
Historicaly speaking, first graphics editing software purpose was only print work. Photoshop was created for that purpose solely then, it was only for pre-press professionals. The market being limited, there were few competitors then and Adobe won the bigger part of it.
With the advance of computers and the creation of new media, professional graphics editing extended to all the other areas you cited. Photoshop included those new purposes, but then other softwares could appear and compete succesfully with Photoshop on those new areas of work.
Of course, pre-press companies that opened to those new markets had no interest to switch to another software because they needed Photoshop anyway for workprint. But for companies dedicated to those new areas of graphics creation, effectively Photoshop’s solution is not a fatality.
The reason why pre-press is kind of the benchmark for graphics editing software is because it’s a much more technical product to deliver than the others, as it in general also demands more technical knowledge from the artist than “digital-only” graphics (that may be controversial, but at least for web design, that’s true).
To sum-up, pre-press is the oldest and more complex form of graphics editing, and that’s why in the common talk the “professional” term is sometimes reduced to only that.
But it’s totally true that a large part of graphic work nowadays are produced for all those new medias which doesn’t need software with the pre-press features. In addition, specifications for pre-press tend to be lighter than they used to be (even if I think that sometimes it reduces the quality of the result, but that’s another story…).
So the door is really open, professionaly speaking, for other graphics editing sofwares. In fact, most of people that do graphics have of course photoshop but also other softwares which are easier, faster or better for specifics works (Painter, for example is much better for “painting” digitally, or Fireworks is more powerful to export graphics for the creation of internet content).
So yes, you really can use the Gimp and Photoshop side by side…
The pity is that on Linux you don’t have much choice and that’s fortunate that OSS software have this level of quality. It would be good that software like Photoshop existed on Linux… Frankly, I’m sure that’s the main reason why there’s not more people on Linux right now.
The last time I read on creativity was the tool was irrelevant. Since when do graphic designers need Photoshop or Illustrator crutches to get their work done?
GIMP can do all you want — you just need to use brains and a little peeking around in it rather than cribbing *its not photoshop*! Of course, its not! Moreover, for all those trolls who have bundles of cash lying around, Photoshop is fine but my take on them is: How can we say creativity is free??
It’s been said a hundred times before, but I’ll say it again.
You aren’t supposed to compare GIMP to Photoshop. You’re supposed to compare it to a commercial tool with similar goals, and the tool that best fits that description is Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro.
http://www.jasc.com/products/paintshoppro/nfeature1.asp
As has been said, Photoshop is a professional’s tool. GIMP is just meant to be an image editor for the masses. The only reason people compare GIMP to Photoshop is that for most people, the prices are the same. That is, most people pirate Photoshop. Almost no one buys it. I haven’t seen ONE visual arts student in my whole life who has actually downed the $$$ to buy a legal copy of Photoshop. And I’ve rarely seen an adult who has done it.
If you want to touch up your photos, do simple web graphics, GIMP will let you do so, just like Paint Shop Pro. You want professional grade graphics for print? Use Photoshop. If you’re running Linux you are on the wrong platform for print media. You _need_ tools like Quark, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. They are tried and true. And everyone expects their formats.
Now, if you’re doing web development, Linux may be the right platform for you. And if you are still attached to Photoshop, you can always run it through WINE (Crossover Office) or VMWare. These aren’t bad solutions. They are fast. I use them.
Very well put. I’m still not sure why Adobe doesn’t release a Linux version of Photoshop. It’s not as if they would have to make it open-source, and one would think it wouldn’t be such a huge undertaking, now that Adobe has an OS X version…
Not to seem overly paranoid, but I wouldn’t be surprised if MS had a tacit agreement with Adobe.
I agree with you, though – if Adobe Photoshop, MS Office, Lotus Notes and Quicken were available native on Linux, then a lot of people would consider migrating…
By the way, the “we” comment wasn’t directed at you at all, but at “me (IP: —.ne.client2.attbi.com)”. On the contrary, I find your contribution to the debate to be a constructive one. Sorry if I wan’t clear.
Creativity is indeed the most important part. But the tools are very important as well.
It’s pretty hard to paint an acryl painting with water colors right? Only having watercolors doesn’t stop you from being creative, but it might prevent you from getting the result you wish for.
Also, the ease of use is very important. A tool should not stand in your way when you are working and make you focus on technical issues rather than the creative process.
I personally tend to be more creative with limited tools. I used to do a lot of cool stuff with the earlier versions of Flash, Photoshop etc. but now when the applications does most of that stuff for me it’s not just as much fun anymore. Still gets the job done, but it takes a lot of the fun away.
I also had a lot more fun with my 4-track porta studio back in the days than what I have with the virtually unlimited hdd recording systems of today.
Limitations forces you to be creative. But the tools still need to be easy to use.
I wouldn’t dream of doing web graphics in PS or Gimp because they are simply not easy enough to use for that application. Macromedia Fireworks and the like are in my opinion superior to photo editors for making web graphics. They are tools designed for that purpose and does it really well, but they suck for photo editing.
I left out the fact many have not heard of GIMP, this is true, I just put it in there. That does not make what I said wrong either. And that statement has little to do with what I said below that.
Not having used these apps does not make me making a logical point not matter. It does mean I’m not bias’d one way or the other though. I look at them from the same point of veiw.
Your third world country response was just plain stupid. Sure they deserve to make purty graphics too. What does this have to do with this argument. Graphics aren’t a requirement for life. If someone needs them they are probably a company just the same. If you are a person making a life as a graphics artist in a third world country things will be the same as they are here. If you need PS, your need will pay for the cost of this. If you are making a living off something the cost of the software is not big issue. If you don’t make anough to pay for the software your not making a living either way. If a country is so third world for where you are talking like they live in huts and make 5 dollars a year, then PS is the least of their concern.
This is not a hard thing to understand. If what you need to do with PS does not more then cover the price of buying it, you do not need it. You may want it, but you don’t need it.
“What about a company that has to buy a hundred licenses? Don’t you think an economy of 100,000$ is substantial? ”
what are you talking about. If you need 100 copies of PS you are one hell of a graphics company. If you need 100 people running PS, your doing one heck of a lot of business. Or are you thinking that everyone in a company, even if there is one graphics person, needs to have PS on your computer. If you are a multi person company, with multiple people using PS all the time where you would need multiple copies, that means you are making more then anough to pay for it since it means you have anough business to need more then one person.
If you wanted to make a company argument you would be better off saying what if you are a company of 5 people or 1, and am a small start up. If that was the case though you either still need PS to the point where it is worthwhile you buy it. Or you have so little use for it you outsource your graphics work to someplace else.
Its simple, if you are hiring a person to do your graphics, the extra grand to give them the tools to do the job is not an issue. If you only need PS for rare things where it’s cost may not be justified, you go someplace to get the work done instead of in house.
What was the point of that editorial comment, when the article itself comes to a somewhat similar conclusion? I don’t expect objectivity here, anymore than I would at slashdot or fark, but I think you came off pretty strongly “I h8 gimp!!”, whether or not that was the intent.
You aren’t supposed to compare GIMP to Photoshop. You’re supposed to compare it to a commercial tool with similar goals, and the tool that best fits that description is Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro.
http://www.jasc.com/products/paintshoppro/nfeature1.asp
So how well does the Gimp measure up to PSP8? And is the Windows version of Gimp as good as the Linux version? Just curious.
If you are a person making a life as a graphics artist in a third world country things will be the same as they are here. If you need PS, your need will pay for the cost of this.
But what if the cost represents a much larger portion of your annual computing costs? You can’t just say that cost isn’t a factor when a software costs 1000$.
I won’t comment on your “living in huts” remark. I find it quite ignorant of life in the developing world and reeking of neo-colonialism.
If you don’t make anough to pay for the software your not making a living either way.
But what if you’re a struggling graphic artist?
If I can save 1000$, I can make a better living, especially if my salary is half, one-third or one-tenth of what it would be in the U.S.
what are you talking about. If you need 100 copies of PS you are one hell of a graphics company. If you need 100 people running PS, your doing one heck of a lot of business.
What if you’re an animation house? What if you’re a video game company, and you have texture artists, as well as designers, level designers, illustrators and art directors who need to use it?
If you are a multi person company, with multiple people using PS all the time where you would need multiple copies, that means you are making more then anough to pay for it since it means you have anough business to need more then one person.
You obviously don’t run a company. Ever heard of minimizing costs? If you can do a particular job with GIMP as well as with Photoshop, then there is no economical argument to choose PS. There may be other arguments, but the bottom line is a substantial saving in licensing costs.
The new KolourPaint to be included in KDE 3.3 has the basics as ambition. I’m hoping that will change in time.
> But it’s totally true that a large part of graphic work
> nowadays are produced for all those new medias which doesn’t
> need software with the pre-press features.
You summarized what I want to say elegantly.
Game Designers, Web Designers, and many 3D artists who just need beautiful textures, are professionals.
I guess you could say an application is or isn’t better considering if it does as much.
But I’m not so sure that the argument of doing it in the expected way is always right. If you let that argument decide, no application will ever be comparable to Photoshop. The Gimp is different, it’s even strange at first, but can you really say it’s worse just because of that difference? IMHO, no.
> And is the Windows version of Gimp as good as the Linux
> version? Just curious.
It is a little tricky to setup and install GIMP for Windows.
Since wiki.gimp.org is currently unreachable, you can take a look at my installation note here:
http://www.geocities.com/zero0w/gimp2-win32.txt
Using it a for while, GIMP-2.0, if setup properly on Windows, seems working great as much as the Linux version.
Save your money. Buy Corel Draw and you get Corel Photo-Paint, too. It costs about 1/5 of Adobe’s stuff and is more flexible and user friendly. And its VBA compatible.
I’ve never understood why so many people stupidly continue to pay cash for Photo$hop and Illustrator when cheaper programs which are as good or better are available.
According to store.adobe.com – photoshop cs costs $649 and not $1000 as someone said here.
Another thing is that – how does gimp compares to Pixel32 (http://pixel32.box.sk/)? Pixel32 is a “powerfull image/animation painting/editing and retouching application available for DOS, Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP, Linux, BeOS, QNX and Solaris” and it’s shareware as I know (registration fee is $32).
“You obviously don’t run a company. Ever heard of minimizing costs? If you can do a particular job with GIMP as well as with Photoshop, then there is no economical argument to choose PS. There may be other arguments, but the bottom line is a substantial saving in licensing costs.”
I think the term is minimize cost and maximize productivity. The last time I checked with my Dad (yes a real professional graphic designer for 30+ yrs) the billing rates were over a 100 bucks an hour. It is actually an economic loss to switch as a designer probably could not switch and maintain their
I’ve never had any luck with PNGs on either PS or Gimp.
pngout (http://www.advsys.net/ken) gives the best results.
Umm…you apparently don’t know much about Paint Shop Pro. It is intended to be used by graphics pros (myself and others I know are using it). Here is a qoute from the product info:
“professional digital imaging results”
Not every piece of pro software has to have a high price tag. All the features of Photoshop are available to me in PaintShop Pro (I have both), just PaintShop is easier to use and only costs about 1/6th of Photoshop. As a matter of fact, were you aware that some of PaintShop’s features were actually copied by Adobe? For instance, Vector and Rster layers being mixed into the same image file. PaintShop had this ability for several years before Photoshop. That’s just pne example. I won’t bore you with a long list of Adobe’s bad copies of useful features.
You don’t have to pay $$$ for pro software. Ultimately, the power to create rests with the artist, not the price tag of the software they are using.
“”I left out the fact many have not heard of GIMP, this is true, I just put it in there. That does not make what I said wrong either. And that statement has little to do with what I said below that. “”
It doesn’t make what you said right, either.
That’s strange. Which Windows version do you use and which Gimp version do you install? I have not faced that issue with Windows XP as Gimp 2.0 work perfectly. Maybe it is another issue that affected your dll such as spyware or trojan.
I download it from.
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/stable.html
Please take a look at
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/faq.html
about DLL confliction. I got xmlparse.dll and xmltok.dll.
Thank you for your totally useless comment.
Ah, trolls…
it is true cinepaint is used in hollywood, but all they use it for is to paint out wires in film material. for example in those gigantic jumps of actors in martial arts films or in matrix, the people hang on wires. those wires are painted out with tools like cinepaint… this is not the “king class” of graphic tools, it is about as impressing as software people buy at wallmart to get away red eyes in their photographs.
“I haven’t seen ONE visual arts student in my whole life who has actually downed the $$$ to buy a legal copy of Photoshop.”
Students here at KUB (university of Tilburg, NL) have to buy an Apple laptop with various software including Photoshop when they’re 1st year. Total price is around 5000 EUR.
I actually believe you’re right many people pirate this software but statements like this one based on what you’ve experienced or investigated are bogus.