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:
* Bugs fixed:
627328 - GIMP 2.6.10 segfaults when CTRL-left click on a layer mask
631885 - GIMP fails to import a path from SVG
631728 - Crash or Gtk-CRITICAL on File->Open
641259 - [abrt] gimp-2:2.6.11-1.fc14: py-slice.py:172:slice:TypeError: integer argument expected, got float
640219 - gimp(1) manpage fixes
640612 - Sample Colorize does not function non-interactively
646947 - file-pdf-load: Don't use deprecated API
639203 - file-psp: fix for bo... See all new features
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All versions:
3.2 starsout of 63 votes
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Current version:
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My rating:
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"It works. It does what it should; well."
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Price-Price-Price!
Cons
Not as pretty as Photosomething; not as elegant; doesn't have a lot of books written about it. X11 is a pain.
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"Good if you have patience to learn to use it!"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Very powerful and I can see lot's of potential uses!
Cons
Hard to find the time to learn and really needs an easier video tutorial for Basic 101.
Summary
Hard to believe such sophisticated software is free!! There are lots of "experts" on You Tube just not many "expert" teachers! Only been using one week so early days....
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"OK free editing software"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Price can't be beat; good for light editing; easy for most people to use
Cons
Not much new here that I haven't seen in most other editing programs
Summary
Good for light editing and touching up; for free software, it's fairly comprehensive and is a worthy substitute for Picnik, which I can't use on my MacBook.
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"I opened it and closed it as soon as X11 started up."
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Could be ok for a PC user or Unix codeline user
Cons
Ditto. I do not have time for a steep learning curve. I will later. But I own CS5 now, so I can wait. Yes, a paid 5.5 (and Adobe first and a huge let down) is on its way, but you never get the first version anyway. Let others deal with the bugs!
Summary
GIMP's existence is admirable. Its UI simply is NOT.
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"Nice alternative"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Lots of tools like in photoshop
Cons
can be overwhelming with options
Summary
good alternative to photoshop and best of all its free
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"Good to have a copy"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Looks impressive.
Cons
Can be difficult to understand.
Summary
Worth a try.
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"Works really, really well."
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Customisable brushes &�patterns, stable, level of customisation is very high, alot like photoshop just .. free. Pretty much lag-free. Able to export images in a very wide variety of types.
Cons
Pen pressure unable to work with my Mac for some reason...
Summary
I downloaded GIMP 2.0 some time ago and for a teen with no experience with digital illustration, I picked up and learnt ALOT very quickly just by messing around with the program. I started out on a very dated, used, p.c. that couldn't even connect to the internet and surprisingly it worked and did not lag. I began to use GIMP even before I bought a tablet and even then I found it easy to use the basic functions.
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"Very good."
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Good photoshop compatibility
Cons
Before you can access a control in a tool window, you first have to click it to focus on it unless you have a scrolling mouse.
Summary
Gimp is great if you can set up your controls for your own preference.
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"Difficult for the Novice or one without patience"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
It's free.
Cons
There is a big learning curve. Not your average crop, resize, paste type of program but it does all of the stuff with some learning.
Summary
I started out on a PC and was too cheap to buy PS but tried Gimp. The version I had then was archaic and difficult to use because I couldn't understand the manual or Grokking the Gimp manual. I left it alone for one year. In between there were upgrades and finally a version that was easier but not novice friendly. I basically started to fiddle around with it read PS tutorials and applied some of them to the GIMP. Some things did not correspond but alternatives could be found. I have to say I got good for a novice. I could retouch pictures, do some graphics, work with layers, and make my own GIMP brushes.
Now, I am on a MAC and I do have a Adobe Photoshop Elements, Pixelmator, and GIMP. Photoshop Elements is the cleanest and easiest to learn but I still like my GIMP since I started on it and am used to it. Pixelmator is nice but I can't save my pictures in JPG or any other form, it has to be in the pxm. I still need GIMP to change it to JPG or any other form. And, if you really look closely at GIMP, it does what Pixelmator does. -
"1 star if you are a novice, 4 if you are a pro"
Version: GIMP 2.6.11
Pros
Very, very powerful program. Head and shoulders above most freeware.
Cons
Reminds me of the problem I had with Linux- From the simplest to the most complicated features, this program screams "We the developers know more than you do, and don't you forget it!
Summary
You will never regret the sizable investment in time required to go beyond the simplest tasks in this program! It is a wonder of power and flexibility. BUT, for the average user its very power can be daunting. Just make up your mind that you will have to resort to manuals, user groups and other helps to really master the program.
Again, a truly wonderful program, especially for freeware. Well worth it to master. For those who don't wish to invest the time, I recommend you switch to a MACINTOSH (or MacBook as I did after Vista and Win 7) where the I-Photo program which comes with the system does a great job.
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