Free Software Gimp vs Photoshop for editing pics etc

rbw

Received a new laptop for Christmas, I want a software that will allow me to do all the things photoshop does but not at Adobe's price.

 What do you think about gimp...cnet rates it high.  Any other suggestions and also what was the lowest price you paid for photoshop.

 

T!ckledP!nk

I'm interested to see these responses as well. Also, there is a Photography board over on the bump that might be able to help.

RhymesWithOrange

What extent of editing are you trying to do? Photoshop Elements may be enough if you don't want to shell out 700 bucks.

CornFed

GIMP is really really good.  It's comparable to Photoshop, except it's free.  The only downside I've heard regarding it is that the user interface could be better.  Luckily, some people have used the fact that GIMP is open source and created an alternative called GimpShop if you don't like the look of GIMP itself.

Julia_JJ

It all depends on what you're using it for. Chances are, GIMP will more than meet your needs. I used Photoshop, my husband uses GIMP, and he often has to have me cut images for him (I'm a designer, he's a developer) because GIMP can't handle my nesting of layers. Another power feature is adjustment layers - I can apply an adjustment to one layer or group, and he can only apply the adjustment to all the layers below it. CMYK and text handling isn't all that great, which becomes an issue for print design. The interface is really a problem; I just don't have time to relearn how to do things that are second nature in Photoshop. And a lot of features are handled by plug-ins, which would take some time to get up and running in an environment that only does *some* or *most* of what I need. For the photo editing that most people are doing, GIMP is completely serviceable. For me - not so much.

fallbride_2004

I use Photoshop Elements.  You can get it for $56.49 from Amazon right now--76.49 with a $20 rebate:

http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-65045174-Photoshop-Elements-8/dp/B002ID8R3Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1262058600&sr=1-1 

It has pretty much the same tools as Photoshop, and actually has some additional features that are there for a home/consumer user as opposed to a professional user.  I especially like the "divide scanned photos" feature because I am trying to scan all of my old printed photos to digitize them.  I can fill up the scanner bed with many photos and click on "divide scanned photos" and it will straighten and crop them each into separate photos.  It is saving me a tremendous amount of time.

There are also a lot of tutorials on the internet for Photoshop Elements and Photoshop (many of the Photoshop ones will work with a little bit of tweaking or some will work as is).

 

CornFed

I think the answer here is "it depends."

My advice would be to start out with GIMP or GimpShop since they're free.  If you don't like them, give one of Adobe's products a try.

katydid17

I'm an Adobe girl - never really got the hang of GIMP. Adobe offers a 30 day trial on their products, so that can delay a bit if you want to save the money for it.  Their Education discounts are stellar, too.

Burgandy05

I switched to GIMP this past year and love it.  Previously I was using Adobe Photoshop CS2.  It took awhile to get used to the different interface (I googled GIMP tutorials), but now I can digital scrapbook as if I was using Photoshop CS2.  

J0Rzilla

If you know someone who is a student, Adobe  usually has student prices for Photoshop if that's the way you end up going:-)

(Have you thought about Lightroom?  Its great, especially if you edit the RAW-files.  My DH edits his photos using it.  Unfortunately, the lowest price I saw listed was around $150 .) 

 

GilliC

I've been using Paint.NET lately.  It's completely free, and the interface is very similar to Photoshop, so I found it pretty intuitive.  There are a few little things that irritate me sometimes, but overall I'm quite happy with it.