75
GIMP
Released January, 1995
The Pros:Free alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Open source application. Available for UNIX/Linux, Mac OS X, Windows.
The Cons:Missing some advanced productivity features found in Photoshop with layer management and history. No Pantone colors because of legal issues. Limited color management/color space/HDR support.
GIMP is a popular open-source graphics editing program that is often used as a free replacement to Adobe Photoshop. Short for GNU Image Manipulation Program, GIMP is licensed under a GNU General Public License and is available for all major operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.
GIMP is a raster graphics editor, as opposed to a vector graphics editor like Adobe Illustrator, or OpenOffice.org Draw (also open-source), and thus useful for manipulating digital images such as photographs. Common tasks include cropping, resizing, adjusting color, creating composite images, removing artifacts and other unwanted image features. GIMP is including as the default graphics editor in many popular Linux distros including Ubuntu, SUSE, and Debian. Originally released in 1995, the current release version is 2.6.0 as of 2008-10-05.
User Reviews (20)
Pros & Cons
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17
Free alternative to Adobe Photoshop
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16
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16
Available for UNIX/Linux, Mac OS X, Windows
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15
Supports read and write of PhotoShop .PSD file format
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14
Extensive file format support
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9
Extensive featureset, comparable to Photoshop
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6
Many plugins and scripting interfaces available
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9
Missing some advanced productivity features found in Photoshop with layer management and history
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7
No Pantone colors because of legal issues
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7
Limited color management/color space/HDR support
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1
Non-native GUI in non-GTK environments, especially KDE and Mac OS X
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-1
crappy re-sampling algorithm and/or user interface - often adds artifacts to resizes
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-3
poorly designed interface
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Comments (5)
onepuff:
#gimp A superb programme, and free! Version 2.8 with its single window UI and layer grouping looks to be awesome.
Feb 7, 10
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GT-D:
#gimp yeah I have photoshop on my main PC for work - then my laptop sports GIMP for a bit of image editing on the go when needed.
Actually, right now my secondary work computer is running CS2 - my main work computer had CS3 until I (stupidly) thought it might be interesting to try the windows file and folder compression... CS3 no longer runs, none of the apps will open any file, I cleared it out repeatedly and installed again to no avail.
Gonna have to reformat this weekend :/
May 1, 08
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Howlsthunder:
#gimp I agree - free applications, including GIMP, have come a long way and hopefully will keep the big players (Adobe, in this instance) on their toes. GIMP is fabulous for dabblers or folks who simply want to do more with their digital photos and art but don't want to spend a hunk of dough. However, when it comes to professional work, Photoshop is a must-have tool and as a graphic designer I would recommend nothing less.
Apr 30, 08
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GT-D:
#gimp Great free app - though for serious image editing for work I'd say it doesn't quite cut it on a few fronts compared to photoshop - you could say GIMP is a bit gimped - lol.
Apr 30, 08
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