GIMP is an image editing program that’s been around since the mid 90’s. It’s often thought of as a free alternative to Photoshop. That characterization is not entirely off-base — it covers the basics: layers, channels, masks, blending modes, filters, and more. More recent releases have added support for color profiles, brush dynamics, and pressure sensitive tablets. And yes, it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
GIMP is not as polished as Photoshop, and it doesn’t have all of Photoshop’s bells and whistles, but it goes way beyond the capabilities of the simpler and easier-to-use free editors like Picasa. Photoshop has a street price of about 650 USD, which is about 650 bucks higher than GIMP. If you use GIMP, you will also realize similar savings on Photoshop’s upgrade price of 180 USD every year or two.
Graphics professionals are not likely to switch to GIMP in hordes. But if you haven’t bought Photoshop because of its price, and Photshop Elements seems a bit too abridged, then you might give GIMP a spin.
Here’s some handy links to help you get started:
- Gimp.org – the “official” GIMP Site
- Wikipedia’s article on GIMP
- Six Revision’s recent article “10 Websites to Help You Master GIMP”
Continue reading about The Free GIMP Alternative to Photoshop
PhotographyBlog.com has published a review of Imagenomic’s Portraiture 2, a photoshop plugin. The plugin is designed to clean blemishes, smooth skin tones, remove imperfections and ease other portrait enhancements. Says the reviewer “….Portraiture 2 is a sanity saver I would not want to be without”. If you think it may be worth the $200 bucks, I would take advantage of the 15 day trial to help you decide. Read the review here.
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