[hnriot]

so far I have a 0% conversion rate

that's not surprising given that the GIMP pales by comparison to photoshop. There's just no comparison. I think the high price of Adobe Creative suite has always been there because any professional uses it and buys it, but Adobe knows there are many illegal copies used by students and they just assume they one day will get jobs and then they will be paid users, meanwhile the illegal use is subsidized by the industry who doesn't care how much it costs because it gets the job done. By comparison GIMP is a toy. I know its a pet of the open source community, but commercial software with real designers and focus groups and product managers sometimes get it right.

[sbuk]

Photoshop is hardly a beacon of software done right. In my experience (been using Photoshop pretty much everyday since 1991) it has got considerably more bloated and unstable with each release, the exception perhaps being 5.5.

The benefit that Photoshop has is familiarity and Adobe's pricing structure is that of an abusive monopoly - they know they can charge as much as they do because they have a monopoly. This monopoly was earned in large part because early on, Photoshop was the most accessible app.round about 5.0 Adobe started to get sloppy.

I've started using Pixelmator for about half the image work I do on the Mac and IMHO it represents excellent value for money. It works like Photoshop used to do. It's lacking some feature, mainly the ability to work in colour channels, but for the price, it's hard to beat.

[mkup]

Also there's Paint.NET on PC. It's fast, not bloated with useless functions (yet), and freeware. I've switched to it from Photoshop a few months ago and never regret my decision.

[WickyNilliams]

I recently switched over to mac and was saddened to discover there wasn't any viable open source alternative to GIMP a la Paint.NET. GIMP is functional, but barely usable. Paint.NET on the other hand is great, on top of all the things you mention, it also has quite a good UI with some interesting features.

[bad_user]

Gimp has the ability to work with color channels. Try it out.

[bad_user]

Your comment is bullshit and lacks substance, the kind of opinion born out of ignorance, sorry to say it.

First of all, it is surprising because people put themselves at risk of fines or even jail by using unlicensed copies. If you don't like paying that much for software, then don't freaking use it and search for something cheaper. You don't freaking need all that functionality. Students and schools also get discounts. The many unlicensed copies out there are not used primarily by students. Also I worked for Adobe and I can tell you that they don't like piracy. That's one reason why they are moving towards a subscription-based model.

The difference between Gimp and Photoshop is that while Gimp gives you all the tools you need, it doesn't have an idiot mode, so it expects of you to know what you're doing.

A good example I can think of is Smart Sharpening. I don't know why the Gimp devs haven't implemented it. Maybe there's a patent on it or maybe they considered that it isn't worth it. Well, you can do it manually [1] ... it has the downside that it isn't something you can do in 3 clicks, so messing around to see how it looks is a little painful. On the other hand doing it manually makes you understand the process and allows you to have fine grained control, leading to better results, because truth be told, Photoshop has no way of knowing which edges are important in a photo and which aren't, so the results are not optimal.

This does scare beginners away and I wish that they implemented a nice wizard for what is standard functionality. On the other hand, it's actually quite easy to script such a wizard for Gimp in Python. So GIMP is designed for people that bend their tools to their will with a sharp inclination towards developers. It's not a good design because it prevents mainstream adoption, but for me it's like a breath of fresh air.

[1] http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Smart_Sharpening/

[activedecay]

I'm so sick of people like you who feel the need to defend GIMP. It's a fantastic piece of open source software that doesn't need your help and it shouldn't be compared to Photoshop.

Photoshop provides art and design professionals with a vast amount of resources and extremely customizable tools, some of which GIMP does not offer or provides with less opportunity for modification. I'm not about to sit here and type out how Photoshop is more powerful in the hands of someone who truly knows the program, but you seem to not use it for anything beyond the basic functionality that GIMP also provides.

"The difference between Gimp and Photoshop is that while Gimp gives you all the tools you need, it doesn't have an idiot mode, so it expects of you to know what you're doing." Talk about bullshit comments lacking substance.. I almost spit out my coffee. Smart Sharpening has been around since CS2.

GIMP is the best open source image manipulation software, a free alternative that provides most users with all the functionality they will need. However, it is NOT a Photoshop killer.

[bad_user]

     it shouldn't be compared to Photoshop.

But it is compared to Photoshop.

     However, it is NOT a Photoshop killer.

I don't think anybody here was talking about that. I also never argued against Photoshop having some advanced functionality that Gimp lacks or more resources available (it's a defacto standard after all). I don't like it when people are putting words in my mouth.

[activedecay]

That last comment wasn't directed at you specifically, just look at how many times the phrase "photoshop killer" is used in the comments on this article.

Yeah okay, you never argued against Photoshop having more resources available, but you criticized someone for saying there should be no comparison between GIMP and Photoshop because of "bullshit and lack of substance" while at the same time serving up your own steaming pile of bullshit: "The difference between Gimp and Photoshop is that while Gimp gives you all the tools you need, it doesn't have an idiot mode, so it expects of you to know what you're doing." I was just pointing out that there's a lot more differences than "idiot mode".

[bad_user]

It was a reaction to the parent claiming that GIMP is a toy. You can say many things about GIMP (unpopular, hard to use, ugly), but I don't think it classifies as a toy no matter the perspective.

[stuaxo]

Wow, very cool tutorial.

Am surprised someone hasn't got round to making a script of it.