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

GIMPs great. Before I even picked up a camera I used photoshop, paint shop pro and some other editors. Never liked any of them. I became a Linux user too and thought it was great that Linux distros give you GIMP and windows users have to make do with MS Paint out of the box. Anyway I didn't like GIMP either. I don't think any photo editing software is easy or intuitive all of them need to be learned. Anyone who says they just opened PS and knew how to use it straight away is telling pork pies I use windows and linux every day. If my windows computer breaks, i can usually figure it out in a few hours, if my linux computer breaks I can usually fix it in minute. Considering 5 years ago all i used was windows thats progress

Anyway, I decided I needed to learn one of the photo editing software options. I shoot manual mode and nothing else, most of the time my flashes are manual too and I like to get it right in camera first time. But occasionally you do need to give the levels or curves a tiny kick, or do your black and white conversions with a bit more control.

When you run both side by side its striking how the results for most edits is identical, the process to get their is almost always identical. I can look at a photoshop tutorial and almost always do it 95% the same in GIMP. What is striking is the cost factor. GIMP free, learning GIMP is mostly free due to the great communities out there. PS costs a bucketload, and if you want to learn it you will find no end of people looking to take your money for a book/dvd/course. For what I do with photo edits PS offers me nothing more for that huge premium.

Now don't get me wrong if I find one day GIMP is holding me back I'll replace it, but that has not happened in years, and the development pace of GIMP is way faster than PS at the moment so whatever gaps do exist are shrinking significantly almost every 6 months.

When it comes to raw however, DPP can work for most things, i just don't like the interface and it slows me down. UFRaw at the moment doesn't suit me as its really a single image solution, but its only on version 0.17 or something so I'm keeping an eye on it. So I have invested in Capture One for my Raws. Capture does such a great job that I hardly ever have to open GIMP, usually I do just to see if I can make any kind of useful edit, but more often than not the Capture output is perfect.

Leaving cost aside I have a free copy of Photoshop Elements through my work. I have it installed alongside GIMP. In the last 2 years, I've never once used Elements. I've opened it a couple of times but straight away felt like closing it again. GIMP is right for me and I have had to deal with other peoples PSD files, not been an issue and I can give them back a PSD file they can open in photoshop too.

I've noticed that some people do have a "security blanket" relationship with PS/Elements. They feel they need to have it to be accepted and safe. I think its a bit of an issue in photography at the moment when everyone aspires to the same camera, same lenses, same software and same processing technique. Sometimes you have to mix it up a little....

FYI I'm an amateur who is very secure in using
Canon Digital Cameras(is it 2010 already)
Canon and Halinna Film cameras(still cool)
Sigma and old MF lenses (for their rendering style)
Capture One (for my rendering style)
and GIMP (for icing on the cake stuff)

Well, now it's really getting interesting...and again, sorry to all for snipping words here and there...

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #9535990
Need a little love for Lightroom/Aperture in this Simon...I probably do 90% of my processing without ever going to CS4.

I love LightRoom too, Jay! I guess there's just something yummy to me (being a bit of an artist on the side) with playing with pixels...and my concern is that I "feel" so many think "PS = Instant Photographer".

joayne wrote in post #9535997
....I installed GIMP back in the very early days and had some trouble with the way it wanted to take over.....

Maybe I'm lucky in joining the digital fun relatively recently, being 100% film until 2004.

Todd Lambert wrote in post #9536024
....[Using the GIMP if you're a pro']....It's like being a home builder but not knowing how to use a hammer. Yes, you may be able to build a house without one, but everyone else around you, uses hammers and it's not usually a good idea to be the odd-man out in cases like this.

Maybe "KarlosDaJackel's" comment at the end could be right though...? If everyone has the same camera/lenses/software​/workflow, might there be an increased risk of us all producing similar images (yeah, of course individuality comes right in there, but still.....?)

tonylong wrote in post #9536099
....when someone is on a professional track they are best served by the best, highest-power software, is right, in fact Simon alluded to that in his OP.

Yes. Professionals who earn a heck of a lot more than me from photography need and deserve the fastest most stable software. Of course. But how many amateurs assume that software is a shortcut to creating amazing photos? I fear it's a high percentage.

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #9536460
....people may try [the GIMP,] and immediately say "I don't like the interface." That may be a valid complaint, but how much of it is brought on by the common thought of 'If it's free, it can't be any good... I'm not going to waste my time figuring it out if its not absolutely magical."
Plus there is the perceived value of expensive software being worth more.

Love your story of the increase in price to gain sales! That's priceless - literally!!! And yes, I fully agree with your thoughts about PS->GIMP being unlikely to say the least.

KarlosDaJackal wrote in post #9537914
GIMPs great....I shoot manual mode and nothing else, most of the time my flashes are manual too and I like to get it right in camera first time.

Which can only come from getting to grips 100% with your camera. And THAT'S what I want to promote in newbies. And GIMPing, I believe, helps to encourage that process - even just a little - whereas jumping into PS/CS4 etc., surely, after spending all those Euro-Dollars, must subconsciously encourage 'togs to PP more. Am I wrong?
And KarlosDaJackal, I apologise most profusely to clipping your post so much as I loved every word!!!

Just wanted to add an example of a shot where I would have used gimp extensively. I was trying to get a shot of a starling on a rooftop. The equipment I had available to me was a 40d, and a Sigma 70-300 f/4-f/5.6 APO DG Macro. What I did not have available to me was enough natural or artificial light, or a lot of time, my camera was on manual focus I did not have time to change this, my camera was on the 3 fps setting, i did not have time to change it to 6 fps.

ISO on the 40d went straight to 1600 which was still not enough, to even get a shutter speed of 1/160 (lens was at 200mm on a crop :eek I would have to underexpose by a full stop, bearing in mind when your already at the highest ISO your camera can do this is going to be noisy. To make up for the shutter speed I tried prop myself into the corner of a window frame. Still these Starlings don't stay still. If they are looking left, you press the shutter and pretty much by the time your mirror has dropped back and let you see through the viewfinder again they will be facing right. So I took about 9 shots of him trying to time it right, then he flew off.

Opened all 9 in dpp and sure enough only the 9th shot was clear of motion blur, presumably from him moving his head to hear where the shutter was coming from. They all looked horrid in DPP. I pushed up the exposure by a full stop, maybe +1.17, no noise reduction in DPP as his eye, feathers, his perch and the background all needed different amounts. So I exported a JPG and opened in GIMP.

I think I split it out to 4 layers, used some wavelet noise plugin, greycstoration for another layer and manually messed with channels for the background, also blurred the background a little more (quick fix as it was blurry anyway due to the focal length). Don't believe it was sharpened at all. Its so rare i sharpen anything I usually tag the photo with "sharpened"

Not the best shot I've every taken but without gimp it would be no shot.

From what I am reading, GIMP is as good, or nearly as good as Photoshop. I have never used GIMP, so I can only assume that this is true, but if it is, then how is GIMP going to psychologically force someone to breakaway from relying on software as a crutch?

By the way, does GIMP have 16-bit capabilities these days; I don't think it did when I was checking it out. Anyway, as an Apple user, the process of getting GIMP on OS X, although apparently possible, seems like a bit of a hassle. If I am wrong, please correct me…the damn software is free, so it might be fun to play with.

I scan film to digital RAW DNG files, and use Photoshop Camera Raw to first extend exposure perimeters and then PS curves for tonal manipulation. I'll sometimes use dodging and burning brushes (half grey, black and white paint method) and sharpening, that's really about it.

Using a 55-year-old camera that lacks a meter never mind auto-anything (nice not to worry about batteries), I am quite cognitive about getting it right in camera. No histogram, no delete, no infinite amount of shots for the same price as one. That said, using curves to alter tonal gradation, highlights, shadows, contrast, and such is, for the most part, not a remedial process but a creative one, and I enjoy the post processing element almost as much as the photo-taking process.

sjones wrote in post #9538616
From what I am reading, GIMP is as good, or nearly as good as Photoshop. I have never used GIMP, so I can only assume that this is true, but if it is, then how is GIMP going to psychologically force someone to breakaway from relying on software as a crutch?

By the way, does GIMP have 16-bit capabilities these days; I don't think it did when I was checking it out. Anyway, as an Apple user, the process of getting GIMP on OS X, although apparently possible, seems like a bit of a hassle. If I am wrong, please correct me…the damn software is free, so it might be fun to play with.

I scan film to digital RAW DNG files, and use Photoshop Camera Raw to first extend exposure perimeters and then PS curves for tonal manipulation. I'll sometimes use dodging and burning brushes (half grey, black and white paint method) and sharpening, that's really about it.

Using a 55-year-old camera that lacks a meter never mind auto-anything (nice not to worry about batteries), I am quite cognitive about getting it right in camera. No histogram, no delete, no infinite amount of shots for the same price as one. That said, using curves to alter tonal gradation, highlights, shadows, contrast, and such is, for the most part, not a remedial process but a creative one, and I enjoy the post processing element almost as much as the photo-taking process.

Currently 2.6.x has partial 16 bit support when you enable GEGL in the options. 2.8.x might have fully functional support or it might be pushed out for 2.10.x (or 3.0.x if its seen as significant enough). This issue is overstated really, as a lot of people now do levels/curves in the raw editor, so an 8 bit limit is not an issues as any futher adjustments are usually small tweaks. Using Camera Raw then photoshop is kindoff like the workflow using UFRaw then Gimp, although as said before UFRaw is not exactly finished software yet.

Honestly though if you have something that works for you, no need to change "if its not broke, don't fix it"

Regarding the whole basics of photography, I don't see how GIMP can really help either, but it is true. Last week some people at work told me they where after buying some Rebels and wanted to get into photography. They still haven't got out of Green Box(full auto) mode yet. However I'm getting emails from them today asking where they can get a cheap copy of photoshop. I guess the point is if people think that "You can fix any photo in photoshop" that what they think they should do. For some reason they think learning photoshop would be easier than learning to get the exposure right (or even give the camera a hint how to expose correctly)

I told the guy I don't use photoshop I use GIMP, and he said he'll use that then. Still he doesn't seem too interested in moving away from Green Box mode just yet

I think i'll have to work on this one

@Karl, have you seen the upgrade to greycstoration? It's called G'MIC and is available here -> http://gmic.sourceforg​e.net/gimp.shtml
It adds a lovely new unsharp mask that has way more parameters than the original GIMP USM. Plus lots of "novelty" filters that could amuse the unwary
Or be put to use in graphic design and other creative shenanigans!

skygod44 wrote in post #9542786
@Karl, have you seen the upgrade to greycstoration? It's called G'MIC and is available here -> http://gmic.sourceforg​e.net/gimp.shtml
It adds a lovely new unsharp mask that has way more parameters than the original GIMP USM. Plus lots of "novelty" filters that could amuse the unwary
Or be put to use in graphic design and other creative shenanigans!

Thanks for the tip, have not heard of that yet. I've been shooting a lot of stock recently so I've not required (or been allowed) sharpening at all. Noise reduction in C1 has been doing me fine also, but I'll check it out.

Oh btw, the Sinc/Lancoz re-size in GIMP is fantastic for up scaling photos especially 150% to 200%. A 150% up-scale turns my 10.1MP images into nice 22.7MP images in seconds!

KarlosDaJackal wrote in post #9545032
Thanks for the tip, have not heard of that yet. I've been shooting a lot of stock recently so I've not required (or been allowed) sharpening at all. Noise reduction in C1 has been doing me fine also, but I'll check it out.

Oh btw, the Sinc/Lancoz re-size in GIMP is fantastic for up scaling photos especially 150% to 200%. A 150% up-scale turns my 10.1MP images into nice 22.7MP images in seconds!

No problems with the G'MIC info'....and while I'm thinking about it, have you ever had any issues in GIMP when you want to tweak Brightness/Contrast etc? Every now and again, when I click to do so, the poor thing crashes. Maybe I need to do an uninstall-reinstall?
Any ideas appreciated....

I have used GIMP for a couple of years and liked it. I have just switched over to PSE8. It is taking me a while to get used to it, but the Kelby book is helping a lot. I do miss GIMP sometimes (would it be so hard to put curves in Elements?), but I am starting to like Elements better as the RAW to finished jpg seems easier.

BTW, I am an amateur and most of my adjustments can be done in the RAW converter, but I occasionally do need layers and such.

skygod44 wrote in post #9551475
No problems with the G'MIC info'....and while I'm thinking about it, have you ever had any issues in GIMP when you want to tweak Brightness/Contrast etc? Every now and again, when I click to do so, the poor thing crashes. Maybe I need to do an uninstall-reinstall?
Any ideas appreciated....

I had that with GEGL enabled, so I turned it off, do adjustment, save as xcf and turn GEGL on again. I have the latest 2.6.8 and it is crashing a lot all over the place. 2.4.x was incredibly stable, oh well better wait for 2.6.9 then

I'm a Linux user so I'm pretty much locked in to GIMP. I came from using Paint Shop Pro on Windows but hadn't paid to upgrade that since PSP5 and when I looked at more modern versions of that it seemed as alien as GIMP anyway so decided to save my monies and learn the free way rather than getting Windows/PSP. I'm yet to come up against anything I can't do with GIMP, still haven't looked into command line batch editing with it yet, though use some scripts with imageMagick to do my resizing for web/FTP upload etc.

As stated by others, the vast majority of my editing time is spend in UFRaw rather than GIMP itself but GIMP is a powerful tool that I've only really scratched the surface on what I can do with it. TBH if they implemented an USM in UFRaw I'd spend even less time in GIMP.

Would I upgrade to Photoshop? Maybe one day. But only when I can't achieve what I want in GIMP. At the moment I'd get more benefit spending the money Windows/Photoshop costs on glass than software.

SwitchBlade wrote in post #9552738
I'm a Linux user so I'm pretty much locked in to GIMP......Would I upgrade to Photoshop? Maybe one day. But only when I can't achieve what I want in GIMP. At the moment I'd get more benefit spending the money Windows/Photoshop costs on glass than software.

Yet more good points from SwitchBlade, ending with the one that we always throw at newbies - "glass comes first".
Thanks again to all, especially Karl from Ireland for great reasons to think twice before "buying into" the expensive software that's "made just for photographers", when there's free stuff on the 'net which can do more than most of us need.

And as an addendum, I've just downloaded "CombineZP" for photo stacking macro shots, so that's my next bit of Freeware to get to grips with!

Don't ya just lurve the internet?! And all those gifted people adding useful stuff to it!

@ Karl,
Just tried switching the GEGL on and off and did a reinstall and I seem to have 2.6.8 running smoothly again! Thanks so much