Gimp 2.4.0 released

Well, many things really. I find RAW on Linux not great in all honesty for starters. The GIMP UI is absolutely horrid. Non destructive layers is a big miss, as is 16 bit support for me, since I work with 16 bit tiff files. The GIMP is VERY slow, much slower than Photoshop or Elements. The GIMP help is a horrid joke, I've never seen the help section actually work for me yet in about ten Debian version releases over the years...maybe it's me, but the UI is just well, horrid. And I used the GIMP for a few years before switching back to Windows back in February 2006 (and didn't start using Photoshop until May 2006 I might add). I found Photoshop's UI etc just that much more better. Then there's cmyk support in the GIMP (lacking)...working colour space has only just been included in the main 2.4 tree...then there's the lack of quality plugins, and 3rd party commercial plugins. Documentation on the GIMP is lacking - try getting an actual book on it so you can learn about it more...

Add to that, I'm not a fan of Gnome. Gnome has one of the most horrid UIs of any operating system desktop environment that I've ever used. I would rather work with CDE than Gnome, and that's saying something!

Dave

Okay, but I was asking about Elements. At ~$600 I would hope that Photoshop CS was more feature rich and polished than a program you can get for free .

Non-destructive layers would be nice but then Elements is missing proper layer masks (you can use a kludge to get similar behaviour though).

I don't find the ACR provided with Elements to be as powerful as UFRaw - especially the most recent versions.

CMYK is also lacking in Elements, the 16-bit support is rather limited as is the colour management functionality. I wouldn't call the help a horrid joke but yes it certainly not up to Elements help system. To be honest though I never even looked at the help until installing 2.4 and that was just to take a quick look. It worked flawlessly though on a Windows system - the topics were just incomplete.

"Grokking the GIMP" is freely available on the net and can be purchased as a printed book.

The UI - well that is kind of a personal thing. I prefer the GIMPs UI but then that is what I started with.

Yes a number of things are slower in the GIMP and I'm not going to argue that .

e-k

Yes, there are those who claim "photoshop killer." I'm not one of them, and honestly think its just a tag-line to sell magazines or get people to read the articles. I don't think the Gimp community itself has ever advocated itself as such.

But I think my point is still vaild... at its price point, you're not going to find anything more powerful. If you have NO post-processing software, or have limited budgets and want to just play around, get your feet wet, and get some skills, its a great choice. Also for those who can't afford the licensing fees to put photoshop on multiple computers.

Elements and Gimp go hand in hand in my arsenal... a number of times I'd launch Gimp from Elements organizer to do things I couldn't accomplish in Elements... other times Elements is enough. Other times I had snazzy filters that I'd use elements for.

UI is a personal decision. Some LOVE the Lightroom UI... others despise it. Some see nothing wrong with the GIMP's... other's are used to using Photoshop's. I'm comftorable navigating from command-line prompts in Unix or DOS... other's think they're computer has crashed if they see a black screen and a blinking cursor. I personally ignore UI side of reviews as they are too biased. Give a Canon to a Nikon user and many will be lost, and vice-versa. Everyone has to judge for themselves as far as UI... what's cumbersome to one is intuitive to another.

Is Gimp as full featured as Photshop... no, and I don't know anyone who has EVER claimed it outside a Tag-line or blurb taken out of context. But what it does, it does quite well. Oh, and did I mention, its free? Its hard for me to pan software like this unless it corrupts my files, adds spy-ware or formats my hard-drive (Which it never has for me.) I sincerely hope they keep working at it, its improving all the time and I plan on keeping an eye on its progress.

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #4246511
Yes, there are those who claim "photoshop killer." I'm not one of them, and honestly think its just a tag-line to sell magazines or get people to read the articles. I don't think the Gimp community itself has ever advocated itself as such.

But I think my point is still vaild... at its price point, you're not going to find anything more powerful. If you have NO post-processing software, or have limited budgets and want to just play around, get your feet wet, and get some skills, its a great choice. Also for those who can't afford the licensing fees to put photoshop on multiple computers.

Elements and Gimp go hand in hand in my arsenal... a number of times I'd launch Gimp from Elements organizer to do things I couldn't accomplish in Elements... other times Elements is enough. Other times I had snazzy filters that I'd use elements for.

UI is a personal decision. Some LOVE the Lightroom UI... others despise it. Some see nothing wrong with the GIMP's... other's are used to using Photoshop's. I'm comftorable navigating from command-line prompts in Unix or DOS... other's think they're computer has crashed if they see a black screen and a blinking cursor. I personally ignore UI side of reviews as they are too biased. Give a Canon to a Nikon user and many will be lost, and vice-versa. Everyone has to judge for themselves as far as UI... what's cumbersome to one is intuitive to another.

Is Gimp as full featured as Photshop... no, and I don't know anyone who has EVER claimed it outside a Tag-line or blurb taken out of context. But what it does, it does quite well. Oh, and did I mention, its free? Its hard for me to pan software like this unless it corrupts my files, adds spy-ware or formats my hard-drive (Which it never has for me.) I sincerely hope they keep working at it, its improving all the time and I plan on keeping an eye on its progress.

Agreed - at the price, the GIMP is outstanding.

As to UI - I came from the GIMP and went to Photoshop. For me, Photoshop just made more sense, and I started enjoying digital image editing, rather than hating it.

Yes, I know about grokking the GIMP - I'm not one that does well with reading online books, I'm old fashioned and prefer a hard copy. Getting a hard copy of that book is all but impossible in Australia. I don't have a credit card, so Amazon is out of the question for me.

I'm the same - I'm very comfortable with a command line (much more powerful than a GUI imho)

Dave

I used the Gimp several months back when I built a new computer and then couldn't find my case and serial number for my PS CS CD. Was fine for a couple of months using it and if I couldn't afford PS I would use it long term no worries. I agree GUI is a preference and all most really need for most of the time is in there.

I am going to try it out.

I have Gimpshop 2.1 on my PC. It's not as good as photoshop elements 2!

rhys wrote in post #4260397
I have Gimpshop 2.1 on my PC. It's not as good as photoshop elements 2!

Yeah, its BETTER!