How does GIMP and Photoshop compare in terms of capability?

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Kelvin - 29 Oct 2004 02:10 GMT

GIMP is free, but Photoshop costs few hundred bucks.
Which is more powerful?
Is GIMP sufficient for beginner photographer?

Thanks.

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n.t. - 29 Oct 2004 03:05 GMT

Well, the bottom line is... you get wat you pay for. You can never expext a
free product to perform al well as an 8th generation professional editor.
GIMP is good for beginners. It is not as stable, efficient, or flexible as
any of the Photoshop series. But then again PS8 is very difficult for a
beginner to learn. You might also like to have a look at PS elements (a
light version of ps7).

> GIMP is free, but Photoshop costs few hundred bucks.
> Which is more powerful?
> Is GIMP sufficient for beginner photographer?
>
> Thanks.

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al-Farrob - 29 Oct 2004 12:21 GMT

Do you actually know it?

[snip]

> editor. GIMP is good for beginners. It is not as stable, efficient, or

[snip]

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Carl - 30 Oct 2004 00:23 GMT

> Well, the bottom line is... you get wat you pay for. You can never expext a
> free product to perform al well as an 8th generation professional editor.
> GIMP is good for beginners. It is not as stable, efficient, or flexible as
> any of the Photoshop series. But then again PS8 is very difficult for a
> beginner to learn. You might also like to have a look at PS elements (a
> light version of ps7).

Sorry, but have you actually used GIMP 2.0? It's definitely not a truism
that you get what you pay for otherwise MS Windows would be a decent
Operating System. In reality you get what you get irrespective of how
much or little you pay for it. Price and quality do not equate. Price is
determined by what the intended market will pay.

The Gimp is not a free product in the sense of cheap product, but a
result of the Free Software Philosophy (which incidentally has nothing
to do with price but freedom in terms of ideas) and is released under
the Gnu General Public License. It is the result of co-operation between
many good programmers around the world.

I've been using Photoshop since version 4.0 and stable, efficient, and
flexible are not necessarily factors I would always place together in
the same sentence with regard to PS - yet I have to admit that I reach
into my pocket at each upgrade.

The Gimp performs as effectively as Photoshop and is definitely not a
beginner's program by any means. Currently it lacks a Colour Management
capability and some functions that appeared in PS 7 and CS - which is a
reason why I currently still go with PS. It also has a fairly
idiosyncratic interface in that there is no containing dialogue holding
parts of the application together - there various elements appear
directly on the desktop. On the other hand, it is ported to more
operating systems than any other software. Several mainstream books have
been published on using the Gimp, though nowhere near as many as for PS
(though I often wonder why, if one has a legal copy of PS, does one need
to buy one of the many published books that simply regurgitate the PS
manuals?)

BTW a 16bit version of Gimp was used for the graphics for the following
movies: Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, Cats & Dogs, Dr. Dolittle 2, Little
Nicky, The Grinch, Sixth Day, Stuart Little and Planet of the Apes

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Dominic Richens - 30 Oct 2004 01:33 GMT

> Well, the bottom line is... you get wat you pay for. You can never
> expext a free product to perform al well as an 8th generation
> professional editor. [...]

So would you also say windows is better than linux?

My suggestion is to download GIMP go through the many many online tutorials
(Grokking the GIMP) and use it for a bit - if it does what you want, save
your $$ for something else.

The things really missing from GIMP is 48 bit support and native CMYK
colourspace support.

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Dominic Richens | dominic@alumni.uottawa.ca
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Bartek Plichta - 29 Oct 2004 04:08 GMT

> GIMP is free, but Photoshop costs few hundred bucks.
> Which is more powerful?
> Is GIMP sufficient for beginner photographer?
>
> Thanks.

Hi,

Yes, I definitely think GIMP is sufficient for a beginner photographer.
If you're coming from a Photoshop world, GIMP takes a little getting
used to, but after a while it feels great. It supports layers, paths,
and channels. You can script it. It has a good community support. You
will be able to use a variety of image processing techniques to great
effect. I have only used GIMP on Linux, so you may want to explore how
the Windows and Mac OSX versions compare - there should be no
significant differences, though.

Having said that, Photoshop is the industry standard. If you're thinking
seriously of photography, it might be a good idea to think Photoshop at
some point down the line. Meanwhile, GIMP will do.

Bartek

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D.R. - 29 Oct 2004 04:40 GMT

> GIMP is free, but Photoshop costs few hundred bucks.
> Which is more powerful?
> Is GIMP sufficient for beginner photographer?
>
> Thanks.

The GIMP is very stable and reliable on Linux. Not sure about the Windows port.
I have had issues with stability with Photoshop and Paintshop Pro on Windows in
the past.

I cannot stand the interface to the GIMP, I am too used to PaintShop Pro. I use
Photoshop 7 at work, but still prefer Paintshop Pro 7.04. It guess it's what one
gets used to. I can find everything on PSP7, PS7 takes a little more thought
(for me that is).

If it were me, I'd grab a 2nd hand copy of PSP7 from Ebay (or perhaps Photoshop
Elements 2 as a 2nd choice). PSP8 was said to be buggy, and I have no idea what
PSP9 is like. PSP7 beats the pants off Photoshop Elements for features, but
Photoshop CS is more powerful than all of these.

D.R.

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Matthias - 29 Oct 2004 08:09 GMT

> GIMP is free, but Photoshop costs few hundred bucks.
> Which is more powerful?
> Is GIMP sufficient for beginner photographer?

I don't know PS, but I read and use available PS tutorials on the web
quite often. It was never difficult to follow the PS instructions
using GIMP. GIMP is stable and fast enough.

The only critical feature missing is 16bit support for color channels.
So if you want to work professionally with images PS might be the
better option. (There's a program called cinepaint, based on an old
version of GIMP, which supports 16bit, but I haven't tried it yet.)

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