CNET Editors' review
The volunteer developers of The GIMP have been working hard to develop a polished, user-friendly, and freely distributed image editor. Although the separated palette windows may disturb those users who are used to more traditional layouts, your comfort level should grow exponentially as you discover how pain-free the program is.
One of the most powerful general-purpose image editors around, the upgrades make the GNU Image Manipulation Program eminently comparable to Photoshop. Older features include channels, layers and masks, filters and effects, tabbed palettes, editable text tools, perspective clone, improved printing, and color operations such as levels. New improvements include GEGL integration for 32-bit color support, dynamic brushes, and more options for the free select tool. It even has regex-based pattern matching for power users.
The application provides professional tools that can stand against the big boys without the hefty price tag. Even the installation process has gotten simpler, with no need to download and install the GTX Runtime Environment separately. Extremely powerful and easy to work with, GIMP is ideal for both amateur and pro photographers, Web designers, or anyone who wants to create and edit professional-quality digital images on a budget.
Publisher's Description
From Gimp:
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring. It is a powerful piece of software with capabilities not found in any other free software product. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert-quality photo-retouching program, an online batch-processing system, a mass production image renderer, or an image-format converter. GIMP is modular, expandable, and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image-manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.
What's new in this version: Version 2.6.12 fixes some buffer overflow problems and fixes fails to import a path from SVG
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All versions:
4.0 starsout of 804 votes
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Current version:
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My rating:
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"Top Drawer."
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
It's free. Unlike when I bought a Laptop (for a pretty penny) that had Windows 7 on it and found that their photo shop was limited and that I would have to spend a large sum of money to upgrade it. I figured that they could just kiss my grits.
Cons
No doubt about it, Gimp is great. The problem is that it was built by "Super Geeks" and is very difficult for "Everyday Joe's and Jane's" like me to understand it without laymen instructions. The good news is that here in Portland, Oregon, we have a place called Free Geeks. A wonderful place. You can take courses that will teach you about various software systems offered by Linux. You can even take a excellent course in how to build a computer (for free) and at the end of it build your own computer (for free) and take it home with a Linux system in it (for free). Live is good.
Summary
Gimp is a God send.
At the Cons segment, I meant to say Life is good. And it truly is. ;=))
Updated on Jan 30, 2012 -
"Very Complicated"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
I have no idea, I gave up trying to use it after 1 hour of frustration
Cons
Extremely complicated to use. Cannot perform even the simplest of tasts without consulting the manual which is difficult to read/follow.
Summary
Use photoshop instead - much more user friendly and self explanatory.
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"very good one.for a part time geek this is great stuff."
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
User friendly.easy access to the functions.
Cons
some times does not respond.
Summary
over all good programme for amatuers,
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"Very good for Hobbyist like me"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
>Feature Rich
>Easy to learn
>Open Source
>FreeCons
>Three windowed interface is a bother
>Text tool needs more refinement (version 2.8 is said to improve this)
>No layer clipping/masking.Summary
As a hobbyist like me, me, i'd say Gimp is very great. It certainly has everything you need. But there are some parts it lacks, but it is getting there. One of the best thing about it is that i's free! Most Image manipulation software like this would come at a pretty hefty price. Another thing that's fun is to play around with it. If you're familiar with Photoshop the terminology will be easier, but if you want to work it like you do with photoshop, then you're definitely going to have some difficulties.
There's also the three window thing going. I'm very disorganized so it's counterproductive for me. The text tool is very annoying, and by annoying i mean, it opens a window for you to type. You can't type on canvas, and you can really write as you please (for ex: you type "Blew" - you can make the character different colored unless you type each on of them in a new layer).
There are some lacking features, but they could be filled in using plug-ins from the gimp plug-in, but the downside that it's not native, and result isn't always guaranteed.
Overall, since it's free, It wouldn't hurt to try out Gimp. I definitely recommend it. -
"Nice product"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
I really like it. Easy to use.
Cons
No problems to report
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"Admirably complex image handling capabilities."
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Far and away the most advanced photo freeware encountered by yours truly. Massive amounts of friendly-user-created instruction materials (tutorials and so on) are available all over the web.
Cons
Not for the casual hobbyist. I'd say it's got a difficult learning curve, with somewhat confusing menus and jargon therein. People familiar with Photoshop may get frustrated with the differences.
Summary
I use it for its wonderful lens distortion and/or perspective correction abilities, and similar, though find my ancient Photoshop version to be better for color corrections and retouching (i.e., paint-overs, flaw removals, texture replication, etc.).
This particular installer is the most stable one among the three or four I have tried for Windows. -
"I LOVE IT!"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Powerful
User Friendly
Stable
FREECons
"Export Selection" should be a native function. There is a Script-Fu addon for that, but it's faulty.
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"Amazing program. All for free. Thanks."
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
I am teaching a small graphics class at a local Bible Institute. Between Gimp and OpenOffice Draw - they have everything they need and all free. Never spend the money for Photoshop unless you make your living doing graphics.
Cons
For some reason my Help file never linked up with my Gimp programs...but I can live with that for right now.
Summary
This is an absolutely great program.
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"Not good!!"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Free Software
Cons
It is not self explanatory as Adobe Photoshop is. If you do not read the manual - which I didn't - then you will have lots of trouble trying to do even the simplest of tasks like cloning or text layering.
One annoying thing I found is that when you are trying to compose a text layer, there is a pop-up that just annoys the heck out of you.
In my opinion, it is too cumbersome.
Oscar -
"This is No Photoshop"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Free, uninstalls properly.
Cons
Counter-intuitive, and outdated tools (e.g. contrast slider)
Summary
This just can't hold a candle to Photoshop, even if it is free. Compared to Photoshop, the controls are completely counter-intuitive; it eludes how me how anyone can work with it. Not only that, many tools are inferior - the contrast slider exemplifies this. The only thing it has going for it is that it's free.
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