gimp vs photoshop

Jerry pointed me to a Slashdot discussion on GIMP vs Photoshop. Both are photo manipulation programs - Photoshop is a commercial product that has been around for 15 years and GIMP is an open source project that has been under active development since the mid 90s.

I managed to acquire serious Photoshop skills as the volunteer digital editor for a magazine startup a few years ago (I was putting in about 40 hours a week for about eighteen months in evenings and on weekends doing mostly Photoshop and a bit of Quark).

Photoshop is an amazing program that keeps growing. For the casual user it probably seems like a featuritis problem, but a serious graphics artist finds most of this very useful and will spring for each upgrade (I think the comparison is more to Mathematica than Office -- for serious users the new features in Mathematica really are useful).

Several people had been pushing me to try GIMP and I tried to spend time with it six months ago. It is probably OK for a very casual user, but its performance is poor, the interface is awful and the range and quality of the tools varies. A casual user may find it worth what he or she pays for it, but if you are using Windows or OS X I would recommend the light version of Photoshop (Photoshop Elements 2), which can be had for well under $100 and in equipment bundles.

Sadly Linux and BSD users are left out in the cold as GIMP is as good as it gets. The argument people have used is "if you don't like a piece of open source software, you can always pitch in and help" ... sure. Adobe has a development team of 50 people devoted to Photoshop who have worked for more than a decade on the program. Finding people with the talent, taste and deep appreciation of the problem for large specialized pieces of software is none trivial. GIMP has done impressive things getting as far as it has, but the effort required to make it even as usable as Photoshop Elements would be formidable.

Serious users will focus on Photoshop. It isn't cheap, but in its intended market a computer and the software is a necessary tool for getting work done. If I do $150k billable in a year (not unusual in advertising), I'm going to take advantage of a $650 program that is the only practical way for me to get there.

Don't get me wrong - I really like open source efforts. In the OS area we have seen amazing focus of talent and wonderful things have happened. The same can be said about small programs where one talented individual and grok the problem space and apply their taste and talent. Large applications have had a spottier history. A few have made real strides, but many seem to have problems getting past initial implementations. There are probably some interesting ethnographic papers lurking here.

Comments

[John Vogel]

I use Photoshop Elements 2 for my advanced hobby work. I shoot wedding, anniversaries and other gatherings as a part time business. I don't make a lot of money, but enough that the tools are important to me. At first I was making sure my costs were as low as possible. I used a white box PC running Linux and GIMP.

On the Linux machine it was problematic to connect my digital camera, scanner and color printer. Once I got images in, usually through ftp from my Windows machine, I had to deal with GIMP.

GIMP is very impressive, but has a steep learning curve and lacked some important features - it only has a subset of Photoshop tools and they "feel" different.

Anyway, my billings for July and August were about $7500. Most of the effort was my labor and my workflow was broken. I asked other photographers what they used and everyone told me "a Mac." They were split on Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. The basic recommendation was to learn Photoshop Elements and then decide if moving to Photoshop made sense.

Last weekend I visited the Apple Store in Edison, NJ to see what was required. I feel in love with the 20" iMac and bought one with one gigabyte of memory.

The amazing thing is that it just worked. My old epson scanner was recognized as were my three digital cameras. I'll be learning Photoshop Elements for awhile and a much improved version is supposedly out next month. In a day I was much more productive than I was using GIMP. I think I can take on about fifty percent more work with this than I was doing and the quality will be better. That means a payback of the new hardware and software in about a month or two.

There is certainly a place for GIMP and I have enormous respect for those who have worked on it. It probably fits well with hobbiests, but if you need a smooth and efficient workflow I recommend going elsewhere.

[Sam Fletcher]

I agree with this. PSE is fine for amateurs and GIMP may be OK for people at the low end who really want to save money.

If you are serious about photography you really need real Photoshop. I played with GIMP for a full week in an attempt to save some money, but I lost money. Photoshop, for those willing to learn it, is seriously powerful. I bill about $250,000 a year and most of that would be impossible without Photoshop.

[Rob]

The choice is simple - pay if you need photoshop. If you only need 95% of what photoshop can do, use the gimp for free. In any case, a good artist using the gimp will produce better work than a bad artist using photoshop, and vice versa. If you're a bad artist and you're trying to justfy your photoshop license cost, I wish you luck.

[WoofWoof75]

For OS X users, there's an app called "GimpShop" on http://www.plasticbugs.com/ this guy tried to make GIMP to look and feel like Photoshop, have anyone tried that? :)

[Kamran]

i think GIMP 2.0+ is really a healthy piece of software. I won't say anything about professional photography as i m not into it that much, but I have designed posters, newsletters and websites for commercial work and all have been done using GIMP.

I must admit Photoshop would be a much better software. Otherwise, why in the world would every professional design studio be using it? But that being said, people like me, who cannot spend $600+ and who do not like to use a pirated copy, GIMP is the only choice. However, i recently had plans to buy Paint Shop Pro, but I didnt as after GIMP's version 2.0 came out, it really gave me everything that I wanted!

Mind you GIMP was used for color correction of Scooby Doo movie... so it has the potential and ability to be used in such professional environment.

[GraphicArtist2k5]

As a graphic artist/ designer, I would take Photoshop ANY day over the Gimp. The main reason being, the Gimp is EXTREMELY unstable, and certain filters/ features tend to take too long to complete, whereas Photoshop has gotten better and better and better, and CS2 runs a HELL of alot faster on my pentium 4 pc with 1.5 ghz of ram than the Gimp does. So it's not a question of whether or not my computer can run the Gimp, it's more a question of why don't they improve upon HOW the Gimp runs on ANY computer, because I'm sure that there's other people out there who have had problems with the Gimp running in a stable fashion, and not having it crash on them all the time. Sure, it's an open-source program and it's free, and all that, but there's NO WAY that it could ever kick the crap out of Photoshop. When I tried the Gimp, I became extremely frustrated with just how pointless and dumb the whole menu system is set up in that program. To me, it's not very intuitive at all, whereas Photoshop's menu systems are ALWAYS intutive, even when they change certain small things around. They always make sure that they keep the user in mind when they do make changes to Photoshop. Maybe that's another reason why Photoshop is WAY better than the Gimp.

[GIMP Convert]

Gimp is free is 7MB is size and has magic wand selction and layers. There isn't much more anyone needs.

[vinod]

I have used Photoshop Elements for over a year, mostly for photo editing and recently for my website graphics. I have used Gimp for small projects, mostly to compare it with Photoshop. Photoshop definitely has a much better, intuitive and clean interface and anybody could be quite productive in a few hours. Gimp requires more effort to learn all the details. As any sophisticated tool, it is still only a matter of learning it, and once you learn it, you are in business.

If did not already own Photoshop, probably I would have chosen Gimp and stayed with it.

[Phil D.]

I am not a graphical artist nor serious photographer or anything like that. I was able to use GIMP for Windows (2.2.8) to retouch some digital photos, with satisfactory results considering I'd never used GIMP before and have only had scant exposure to PhotoShop. I think the learning curve is steep with either software: both provide a vast range of functions, often hidden in sundry menus, dialogues, etc. Any software tool which is powerful will also require some learning effort by the user.

I think that Adobe's product must be more "professional", since that's what the pros use and prefer. Certainly, an Open-Source software project could never produce the same results as an in-house corporate one. Those are two very different models of software development, with different expectations and requirements. That being said, the GIMP has come a long way and I am impressed with what it provides.

[Fritando Bullwarger]

I bought PS 8, the Deke McClelland training dvds (which I've done), and PS Elements, and used them over the past year (2205-2006) for a project I have coming up. In disgust with PS, I searched and found the GIMP.

The GIMP has MUCH handier tools, simplified steps (compare increasing canvas size sometime), and better previews in dialog boxes. Another neat trick, is being able to open more than one window of the same image, but with different zoom levels. You can make changes at the zoomed in level and see how it looks like at the macro level. I have two 19" monitors and having my "tools" and "image" in separate windows is waaaay better than PS.

Maybe I'll find something in PS after I'm done mastering the GIMP that I'll need, I dunno.

I really like being able to do a fresh system install and not having to call Adobe and get a new activation number, it's a small thing, but time is money.

Fritando

[Clément Budzik]

I am a photographer. You can see my work et this adress : http://clementbudzik.free.fr. For anyone who thing one can't work professionnaly with this software, I think this is the proof that it is possible.

[Mike]

Although the interface is hatd to get used to, gimp is still great. Have you tried GIMPshop, though? It is supposed to be a lot more like photoshop. Try it.

[Mike]

Although the interface is hatd to get used to, gimp is still great. Have you tried GIMPshop, though? It is supposed to be a lot more like photoshop. Try it.

[Cliff]

As a low end hobbyist who simply needs to touch up pictures I take on my camera, I think gimp serves the purpose pretty well. What I mostly need is changing the contrast, brightness and gamma. At times I add some text to the pictures and screw around with transparency levels.

I used to work with photoshop in the past, and yeah, it easy to use and has a lot more knobs and switches which I never use. Even gimp has a lot of features that I never use. I highly recommend people to use gimp if they aren't looking for very high end applications.

[Cliff]

As a low end hobbyist who simply needs to touch up pictures I take on my camera, I think gimp serves the purpose pretty well. What I mostly need is changing the contrast, brightness and gamma. At times I add some text to the pictures and screw around with transparency levels.

I used to work with photoshop in the past, and yeah, it easy to use and has a lot more knobs and switches which I never use. Even gimp has a lot of features that I never use. I highly recommend people to use gimp if they aren't looking for very high end applications.

[Greg]

Hmm I have totaly different experience about Gimp. I was using Photoshop for almost evrything for the past five years. From creating signs, retouching photos to photomanipulation (warhole style - comercials). Then I changed jobs and people I work for don't have Photoshop any more. So at first I was a bit frustrated. They ware using Paint shop Pro. And I wasn't realy satisfied with it.And then I discovered Gimp. Interface realy sucks but like always with open source programs (like I discovered after time) the truth is hidden under the cover. The only problem I found when working with Gimp windows version that toolbox didn't want to stay on top when focusing on the picture window. That was very frustrating. Then I started using Linux and they have very nice feature (Always on top) that saved the day. If I compare features gimp vs photoshop are almost identical or acheivable. I was even more happy when I realized most of the keyboard shortcuts are same.The good thing about using MAC is that it comes with colour calibrated monitor.But that would be PC vs MAC discussion. So the biggest drawback from using Gimp (when you also take time to learn how to acheive same results as in Photoshop) is user interface.I was forced to use this software but after some time I'm happy I did that.It's a great replacement !

[Ulric]

I can see a pattern here. Quite understandably, since this is a comparison discussion, most people are rooting for one package while professing respect for the other.

Over the two years that this discussion has been going on, there is another pattern
- the GIMP supporters here outnumber the PS supporters, and more importantly...
- quite a few professionals have converted, or regularly use GIMP.

So will there be a war, if GIMP gets as good as PS? I don't think so.

Both packages have a very individual place in the market and are in fact complementary. For the new imaging novices, thank goodness for GIMP - to provide a hands on experience of a rather complex profession/hobby. Once the advanced GIMP user is ready to take on the professional world (and make money) they can step up to Photoshop.

The benefits of going to Photoshop are not just additional PS features (if any), but creating that professional presence (by mentioning PS in your work) and experience. But I feel that the best value comes out of fast product support and tons of easily accessible tutorials. Cos' when you're busy making all that money, you won't have time to hunt for feature tutorials!!!

Use both, have fun.

[Ziya]

Is there CMYK Mode in GIMP?

[Michael]

I'm a professional photographer working for a newspaper around here in San Francisco. I use GIMP 100%. Photoshop does have some extra, and in my opinion, trivial, features, and Gimp is steadily adding all the missing features. It's fast, and I can't believe how someone else in the comments can say that its slower. It's almost never crashed on me. Photoshop, however, takes a minute to start up, uses 100% of system resources, and has crashed numerous times. Gimp is free, and while its not as feature complete, for professionals and beginners alike it has everything you will need.

[Matt]

I've used Adobe Photoshop at school for years (7.0 and 8.0). Overall an amazing program. Incredibly productive and functional. However I was never able to use it at home because it cost way too much and didn't run well on my older machine anyways. So I decided to look for alternatives and I found the GIMP. For a free application it's incredibly functional. I didn't like it at first but I stuck to it and I realized how capable it was. The interface isn't that great in windows and it fills up your taskbar. However everything that the basic photoshop user would use is there, maybe more. Once I got use to it I became more productive than when I was using photoshop. The scripts available on the net can speed up the process and generate amazing artwork from scratch in mere minutes. You can pretty much do anything photoshop does just that a different process is involved (sometimes it's easer in photoshop and vice versa). People don't take GIMP to seriously because of photoshop's brand and $500+ price tag. With GIMP the learning curve may be steep but the view from the top is worth it.