I GIMP, therefore I am - some thoughts and a poll.

I want some opinions, images and thoughts from you lot!
This is why:

Been into photography (sometimes for money, sometimes for fun) since around 1979, so I see no problems with manipulating negatives, prints or RAW data using whatever means man has come up with. It's all part 'n' parcel of the creative process in my opinion.

But, are some POTNers burying themselves in "PhotoShop World" so much, that they're missing out on the basics of photography?

A great final image must (99% of the time) start with a great negative/RAW/jpeg, yes? Either the subject must capture us, be newsworthy, stunningly beautiful, whatever. And we need the skills to capture that subject the best we can with the gear we've got.

So, should we be less concerned about PhotoShop, and more concerned with getting the picture right in the first place?

This is my belief, and it's why I love to GIMP. It's free software being developed by it's users. It's not as "powerful" as CS4, et al., so I know I have to think more before I press the shutter. To me, that's a good thing. And, I don't make massive amounts of money from photography - don't really want to, to be honest - so I don't have a company behind me who will write a cheque for new gear/software, and so on, which is a different argument/existence.

So, if you love to GIMP, post some examples of why it's great software here. And post reasons why you don't have the latest super-duper software.....I'd love to hear from you. And CS4 users join in too! Why did you go down that route? Do you think your skills are better, with or without CS4? What do you think...?
And below is a shot using the GIMP. The girl wanted me to try colour separation, which in the GIMP is easy.
Oh and don't forget the poll!
Cheers all,
Simon

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I'm an amateur but have CS4
I have a camera, a few good pieces of glass, a couple speedlites, studio strobes, backgrounds and a camera bag full of goodies like wireless triggers and remotes and filters + stuff. A couple great printers and a calibrated workspace.
For me, it made sence to go the extra mile and buy PS and learn how to use it. It's basically the price of a mid range lens. Heck, I've probably spent triple the price of PS on plug-ins and add ons. Yeah, probably a little overboard but it's what I enjoy.
The software I use for my "real job" cost me 20 grand so Photoshop seems like a bargain.

I love Gimp.

New OS install for myself,family or friends, its one of the first things I put on it.

Over at friends house, and they're showing you pictures that can easily be improved with a crop, rotation and levels/curves? DL & install Gimp and impress them with how easy PP can be.

Over lunch the other day I showed a coworker how easy it was to use levels to improve his product shots (simple "white" eyedropper on his white background did wonders), add a watermark with transparency, and resize his images for his website. People he knew told him to just get (or pirate) CS before they could help him. Glad to say he didn't want to do that, and I was able to help him in short order... he previously had absolutely no PP experience.

CS is overkill for me. (Though the support community IS vast. And it is a great program... can't knock it. But it is awfully expensive... and I personally can't justify the cost when with just a little effort I can learn to do most of the same things I need in Gimp or other software.) But I also enjoy ingenuity in other ways with my photography. I built my own remote shutter release with an old switch and cellular headphone cable, use my old standalone GPS in pocket of backpack to track then geotag photos, made and used a chain-pod, used the coffee-filter trick for white-balance in place of expo-disc at times, and am about to build my own light-tent either out of PVC or an old cardboardbox & some inexpensive lights from Lowes. I enjoy being able to have fun/be creative with this hobby rather than go broke, and Gimp plays right into that. I'm obviously not a pro... if I were I'm sure the power and automation available in CS would pay for itself.

(WIll note that I now primarily use LR... but I did get LR at HUGE discount over normal pricing.)

I have CS4, but use Gimp if I am on my wife's computer. I am trying to get things right more often in camera and just use those for tweaks. However, I enjoy the actions in PS for fancy stuff.

I use GIMP.

I use it because it's open source. The people who develop it are interested in editing images, not selling software. I'm interested in editing images and not in buying software. It's a perfect fit.

I think you forget that LR2 has local adjustments and full HLS for a large number of sub-colors. 95%+ of my work is 100% LR2, just a bit requires anything other than some advanced sharpening in CS4

I have nothing against GIMP, I just found that when I first tried it I didn't like. No particular reason, I guess it is just what you get used to. I would much rather see people go the GIMP route if they need a decent image editor and are not prepared to pay for it. There are just too many people out there grabbing the Adobe products and using a cracked key code for it.

If all I did was image editing I might have been willing to commit the time to learn this properly but I use the Creative Suite and use Illustrator, Acrobat and InDesign on a regular basis. This was the logical choice for me and I didn't mind forking out the cash for it.

Post processing can be over done but it is all in the eyes of the beholder. If you have spent a long time making an image look totally different than what came out of the camera and it still pleases you then who is to say that it is wrong or over done. I used to have a full wet dark room (well its still sitting there but not being used) and I would do my fair share of dodging, burning and whatever else i could think of to the images. Photoshop obviously has much more capabilities than what we could do in a darkroom but then is that not why we buy the new technologies, to take advantage of the advances it has made.

If I was to decide to bury myself in Photoshop World as you put it, what effect does that have on you. In reality it a choice that each person will make and if they are happy with their place in life photographically speaking, how do you know they are or have missed the basics of photography. Do you see an image that might have taken some extra time to get done and assume that they have missed something in life. There are certainly some that can get carried away in Photoshop according to my standards but they are quite happy with it. My position is that each person will decide what their standards are and not I nor anyone else should preach to them that they are not living a fulfilling photographic life.

Some lovely long thoughts! Thanks for adding folks...here are my replies - sorry for cutting some wordage:

Car2n wrote in post #9521789
I'm an amateur but have CS4
I have a camera [& lots of lovely gear!]....For me, it made sence to go the extra mile and buy PS and learn how to use it....

Sounds reasonable to me, and judging by your equipment I'd guess photography is a big part of your life......
Good on ya!

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #9522191
I love Gimp....CS is overkill for me.....it is a great program...But it is awfully expensive......I also enjoy ingenuity in other ways.....I enjoy being able to have fun/be creative with this hobby rather than go broke, and Gimp plays right into that. I'm obviously not a pro... if I were I'm sure the power and automation available in CS would pay for itself....

Maybe you and I are similar there David. I love "tinkering" with things, so the GIMP, being open-source and added to by the users fits with my way of thinking.

asysin2leads wrote in post #9522209
I have CS4, but use Gimp if I am on my wife's computer. I am trying to get things right more often in camera and just use those for tweaks. However, I enjoy the actions in PS for fancy stuff.

I like how you say you're trying to get more things right more often in-camera. Perhaps that's part of what I'm "worried" about (for want of a better word) - that many miss the utter joy in making a stunningly simple image via photographic skills. Certainly, each to their own, and not all people love the "pushing the button part", but perhaps that's one of the joys of our hobby - we can all enjoy each part that appeals!

cmos_censor wrote in post #9522440
I use GIMP. I use it because it's open source. The people who develop it are interested in editing images, not selling software. I'm interested in editing images and not in buying software. It's a perfect fit.

Love how clear that statement is cmos! I totally get you.

basroil wrote in post #9522514
I think you forget that LR2 has local adjustments and full HLS for a large number of sub-colors. 95%+ of my work is 100% LR2, just a bit requires anything other than some advanced sharpening in CS4

Sorry - I'm still using LR1.6, though I'll probably update to 2.6 when I get a 7D.

ssim wrote in post #9523149
I have nothing against GIMP, I just found that when I first tried it I didn't like.

I think that's quite common. Me too!!! But something about it really appealed to me, and now, I love how it's added to by so many people so can't get enough of it.

Quite right!

I agree! It's just the people who think a crappy image can still be made into a masterpiece by PP skills. Maybe it can be "saved", but is that where we should aim? I hope not.

None. Don't worry, I'm not trying to "convert"! Just interested in people's thoughts.

Again, thanks for the long answer....I'm really happy to read that people don't just bury themselves in PP-land, thought I think we POTNers should always be promoting excellence in technique at the pushing the shutter stage first, and then encouraging PP skills.
Any others out there care to comment?

I start with UFRaw and then polish up in GIMP. I've been using GIMP for about 2 years now. I've never used PS because I can't conceive paying that much money for software, so I can't compare the two.

EDIT: I'm an amateur.

robloeffel wrote in post #9523697
I start with UFRaw and then polish up in GIMP. I've been using GIMP for about 2 years now. I've never used PS because I can't conceive paying that much money for software, so I can't compare the two.
EDIT: I'm an amateur.

Hey Rob, just had a look at your website and there's some good stuff in there!
Did you go on safari?

And I'm just pondering now....I wonder if part of my question is because when we consumers buy a computer, it's full of crap we don't want (but are, I expect, paying for) so if the shops loaded up what we actually wanted, and NOT put a ton of rubbish in there, using up disk space, would I feel less concerned about paying a set fee for bundled software?
Maybe not....

Greetings Simon, good topic. I started out shooting 35mm and medium format film. This has influenced the way I shoot to this day. The tendency then was to make sure your image was captured correctly at the time you release the shutter. Medium format film wasn't cheap and there was the cost to process it. You were forced to create your style of shooting at that point. Often times (not always) you now see photographers creating a trademark style in post processing; batching images thru a filter/plug-in or with very good PP skills in their image editing software. My intent here is simply to suggest the difference in photography era's, not which is favored or better than the other.

I produce DVD video slide-shows and on occasion do so for other photographers. I'll get a DVD or two of unprocessed images of an event and set about picking the best to PP and include in the show. Music and even video clips are choreographed in. I have to have CS4 along with other well functioning software because I never know what I"ll run into. A creative licence comes into play here and I'll often use some PP styles I wouldn't ordinarily do. But it helps hold the viewers interest and so far the kudo's outweigh the naysayers

I've used GIMP & liked it. There's even a version that looks like a PS clone & uses the same shortcuts. But then I had a chance to teach PS, so I went back to PS7.

I started shooting RAW early & learned to do a lot of pre-PP before conversion. Beyond Curves, Levels, resizing & sharpening, it led to Selections, Adjustment layers with masks, & Blend Modes, which cover about 95% of what I use every day. So I'm still using PS7 & I don't miss the new advanced features along with their advanced prices.
OTOH, if I needed the higher 32 bits of CS4, I'd buy it in a minute.

skygod44 wrote in post #9523639
Sorry - I'm still using LR1.6, though I'll probably update to 2.6 when I get a 7D.

LR1 also had HLS for multiple colors as well, and the above shot could have probably been done 100% in LR1 if you tried/were lucky that the colors matched up. You'll see in LR2 that gimp is pretty much useless unless you are adding or removing detail information (other than cloning)

basroil wrote in post #9522514
I think you forget that LR2 has local adjustments and full HLS for a large number of sub-colors. 95%+ of my work is 100% LR2, just a bit requires anything other than some advanced sharpening in CS4

I would agree with this statement 100% about 90% of the time.

irishman wrote in post #9525956
I would agree with this statement 100% about 90% of the time.

You forget that the other 4.99% of my work is at least 20% LR2, with 60% of that being over 80% LR2