about 1 year
ago
GIMP Lover
by
shakyone
(Update 13JUL08)
GIMP 2.4 has been out for a while now. It is very stable, and very usable for all the reasons listed below. The portable version crashes sometimes, but the regular version is good. No longer do you need to install the GTK packages first, it is one file for the photo editor, one for the Help file, and one if you want to add the animation package.
If you need a good book to get smarter on photo
... [More]
editing with the GIMP, I recommend ¨Beginning GIMP by Akkana Peck.¨ Edition 2 comes out December 2008, I pre-ordered it. It really unleashes the power of graphics editing with GIMP.
GIMPS´s Latest version is still only 8-bit color depth. 16-bit is on the table for the next version, according to the developers. I do not think it is optimized for multiple core processors, although it runs pretty darn fast on my Intel quad-core.
(Original Input)I love digital photography, and I really like being able to do some advanced functions with digital images. I mainly take pictures of my children, and when I get a good picture that I decide to print I like to clean it up for the large print format. I hate having some piece of food on their face, or a slightly off-color image. I got tired of using Microsoft PictureIt! The software version I had was buggy and frustrating. It also had a limited feature set. I felt cloning was a basic digital photo editing function, and hardly any basic photo editors have it as an available function. I was open to something better, however I was not in the mood to drop another hundred on software that may or may not work out. The IT guy at work mentioned trying GIMP. He knew of it, though he didn't use it himself.
Around 2003, I installed GIMP 2.01 on my PC, and abruptly got frustrated by the advanced interface. I gave it up for a month. I searched the web a little for tutorials, and I was not disappointed. I finally linked to the GIMP basics tutorials from the www.gimp.org website, and I was rolling.
Once I learned all the basics of resizing, cropping, and cloning, I was ready to expand my skill set with more advanced functions. After some more time learning and doing, I read through the GIMP user Manual. I downloaded the PDF and I was impressed at how much of a well written document it is for the GIMP user. I found the software even more usable after that.
Now I have learned most everything I wanted to get from photo editing, and I hardly scratch the surface of capabilities in the GIMP. Yet I continue to learn more, just to keep sharp and further improve my obsession. There is never a shortage of tutorials available from other users. I have enjoyed the images I created with it. My wife is extremely happy with how our pictures around the house look. I proved my ability enough to justify the move to the Digital SLR and the GIMP keeps up with the new gear just fine.
GIMP is not dumbed down for the novice photographer that wants to be a hacker at photo editing. You do have to do some homework to learn how to use it. Once you learn a few of the basics, it really starts to become a pleasure to use.
I highly recommend it to anyone willing to put a little effort into learning photo editing. If you are not willing to learn, stick to Google Picasa and its peers. Taking candid pictures of small children is a challenge. Usually I find the picture with the expression I wanted, but I rushed the picture so something had to be corrected before printing. I have learned that images reflect the effort you put into them. I now know what I want, and have the discerning eye that can appreciate good photography. GIMP enables me to take photo editing to the next level where my large prints look phenomenal on a wall. My co-workers are always impressed by my picture taking skills. I even have a competition (as lame as that sounds) going with another co-worker that sells his images as a side business. He pays for Adobe Photoshop and all the bells and whistles that go with it. I cannot justify that expense for a handful of large print and framed photos that we put on walls around the house. I seem to continue to impress him and a professional photographer friend of mine. GIMP is my friend, and I will continue to spread the word on its greatness whenever I can.
Also, if you do not administrator rights on your computer, download the portable version from www.portableapps.com. You can install most plugins to this one as well. Not to mention you can run it from either a USB drive, or a folder in "My Documents." Enjoy. [Less]
6 of 6 users found the following review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
|
No
7 months
ago
GIMP is great for novices
by
Alison Heittman
I've been spreading the gospel of GIMP for years to novice website owners/updaters. GIMP is easy to obtain (providing your IT people don't block you!) and even easier to use. It contains the basics that are needed for quick and dirty image editing (resizing, cropping) for the web, and will keep an advanced user happy, too. GIMP is definitely a great complement to content management software, empowering anyone on a budget to be a more effective website manager.
1 of 2 users found the following review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
|
No
