Photoshop Vs. GIMP

[akumos]

Hi all

Just installed a version of Linux on my computer as part of a university project and heard good things about the free photo editor GIMP. Some even said it was as good a photoshop!

Before I start experimenting can anyone who has experience comment on which is best?

(does anyone know if Photoshop is Linux compatable??)

[djwixx]

Both take practice and are not as intuitive if you are used to a windows environment. If you are using Linux then GIMP is the best option.

http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/ is a free online book on using GIMP.

Photoshop is the standard, but costs may be an issue. For price you can't beat Gimp. If you want Photoshop you'll either want the Mac or Windows version. I'm not sure if or how well Photoshop will run on Linux using Wine, but there certainly isn't a port for Linux.

To say Gimp is as good as Photoshop is probably stretching it a LOT. Photoshop has a whole community that use it, support it and build on it, and there are hundreds of plugins available.

If basic editing is all you need then the above benefits of Photoshop may be irrelevant.

One thing to consider is that Gimp only supports 8 (24) bit images while Photoshop supports 16 (48) bit images, so depending on what images you are working with (JPG,RAW) that may make a huge difference.

[clayogre]

There are several sites dealing with Gimp, probably the most active is

http://www.gimptalk.com

Which has a variety of tutorials, however not a whole lot on working with photographs, but you can learn a variety of techniques that might be applicable to photos.

There is also http://www.gimpguru.org/, which has a number of things relating to working with digital photographs in gimp. For plugins, go to the gimp plugin registry http://registry.gimp.org/.

Gimp has a built in scheme interpreter, which means, if you know what you are doing, you can write some very complex add-on features, called script-fu's. Photoshop has actions, which are probably easier to use, but Gimp's method is possibly more powerful.

There is also a plugin called pspi which can allow Gimp to use some photoshop plugins. I've never used it, but it is supposedly possible to use under both windows and linux.

As for the 16 bit thing, that is correct. Rumor has it that it is in the works, but nobody knows when it will be implemented. There is a fork off of the gimp project called Cinepaint http://www.cinepaint.org/ which supports up to 32 bit. However it is based on an older version of Gimp so doesn't have some of the newer features. It is linux only. It has been used for retouching film frames and such on movies like The Last Samurai and Harry Potter.

Also, there is UFRAW, which allows you to work in raw in linux or windows. It can run as a standalone program or as a gimp plugin. It supports 16 bit, but obviously, if you are working with Gimp, that won't be very helpful.

http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/