GIMP - a free alternative to PhotoShop

R

Rich Silfver

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I ended up on a PC where I did not have PhotoShop installed and was in the need of an image editing tool.
Searched the web and remembered that I had heard of GIMP in the past and decided to give it a try given it's very modest download size.

Turned out it that the current 2.2 version is quite a capable editing tool - and it's free!

I wanted a tool that would allow me to;
a) Crop,
b) Resize,
c) Unsharp,
d) Adjust levels,
e) Adjust curves,
f) Adjust saturation,
g) Adjust brightness/contrast, and
h) Adjust the file size/compressin when saving.

Pretty basic stuff but often hard to find in a free tool.
GIMP had them all in a pretty easy user interface.

Is it PhotoShop? No but it's a very capable tool - and it's free!

Give it a try if you're looking to move up or away from your current application.

More information at GIMP.ORG

Did I mention it's free?
 
I would like to throw in my 2 cents here.
Google bought a company that made imaging software, so it became free.
You can download it here:

http://picasa.google.com/

It does most what GIMP does without the hassle and it is easy. It even reads RAW files from my Panasonic LX1 directly.
 
A must-bookmark for GIMPers (GIMPs?): Eric R. Jeschke's GIMPguru

http://www.gimpguru.org/

Especially useful for learning how to do common Photoshop tasks the GIMP way. It's a donation-supported site, with beginner, intermediate and advanced tutorials. Other goodies too.
 
The GIMP releases available from gimp.org and its mirrors contain the source code and have to be compiled in order to be installed on your system. If you do not want to compile the GIMP yourself, there are several sites providing pre-compiled binaries for various platforms. For detailed information on the install process and requirements, please take a look at the install help page.
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Huh? Any other link where I don't have to use my brain? :bang:
 
frank: http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/

I had used gimp extensivley for other stuff for six or so years. Maybe more. I found it best for quick, small edits for website stuff. The windows versions back then were not very stable, but hopefully that has changed. There's another branch that works on a 16bit version, cinegimp or something like that, but it was rather unstable last I tried it.
 
Eric is a great guy
I contacted him a couple of years ago and have seen his site growing and evolving.
He also has an email list in yahoo that is worth keeping an eye on.

I have lots of color scales for "toning", if anyone wants them drop me a line to email them to you.

allthumbs said:
A must-bookmark for GIMPers (GIMPs?): Eric R. Jeschke's GIMPguru

http://www.gimpguru.org/

Especially useful for learning how to do common Photoshop tasks the GIMP way. It's a donation-supported site, with beginner, intermediate and advanced tutorials. Other goodies too.
Click to expand...
 
I believe Bill Mattocks uses gimp and runs it on Linux. He has said he is very satisfied with it.
Kurt M.
 
kbg32 said:
Note; GIMP and Picasa 2 are Windows applications only. Not for Mac.
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Picasa, yes win32 only. Gimp was originally for the linux/bsd based os's, and has evolved to windows and mac. It works best in linux. Should have not many problems on OSX.
 
GIMP is definitely NOT for PC users only; it works fine on the Mac. But if you're coming from Photoshop, do yourself a favor and use GIMPshop instead - it's GIMP, but with a user interface much more like that of Photoshop. GIMPshop was developed for the Mac first (just like Photoshop, of course), but has now been ported to Windows and Solaris.
 
I use nothing but GIMP on my MAC.
X11 support for MAC is included on both OS X 10.3 and 10.4 on the distribution disks.

The only gripe I have is that it only supports 8 bits, but GIMP V3 is supposed to have 16bit support built in.
 
Yes, the GIMP is it! If you don't rely on Photoshop plugins and actions it can do nearly everything PS does. The only exception are 4 colour seperations which my printer does from TIFFs I created with the GIMP than I could do with Photoshop :)
 
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