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The GIMP/PhotoFiltre/Paint.net/etc., thoughts...

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Darwin:
Yeah, Photofiltre is a great alternative, if your needs aren't "Pro". For now, the author is selling lifetime licences. I reviewed it here. I slam PaintShop Pro in my review, and still have issues with it's slowness, but it works well and I still find myself using it more than I thought I would.

Jimdoria:
I've never been able to get Gimpshop to run either. GIMP by itself runs fine though.

I've tried to make GIMP my primary image editor, but I keep falling back to my old copy of Paint Shop Pro 7 just because it starts up so quickly and I know it so well. However GIMP has the one tool from Photoshop that I really love and that PSP7 lacks, which is the ability to paint on the mask layer.

GIMP has a little bit of that "all over the place" feel you get from OS apps sometimes. Like, effects are in two different menus based on whether they are binary filters or scripts. As a user, do I care how the effect works "behind the scenes"? No. But OS software is designed by techies for techies (what do you mean you're not a programmer?  :o ) and so the usability is not up to what you'd get from a commercial app like Photoshop. I still often find myself hunting through the GIMP menus for the function I want.

Also, the documentation is just sub-par. I want to punch my screen every time I see that "Eek! A help is missing!" message (which is all the time!) To me, it's like I can hear the developers saying "it is so humorous to us that you can't figure this out, you clueless noob" in some vaguely Scandinavian accent.

But rants aside, I like GIMP overall, and it has really progressed recently. If you haven't looked at it in a year or so, definitely check it out - it's grown up quite nicely. It is a decent competitor for Photoshop for certain things, such as web graphics and hobby photo editing. It's not really capable of professional work though, due to lack of stuff like color calibration tools and its lack of support for CMYK color.

f0dder:
I like PaintShop Pro a lot, but not after JASC sold it to that company which shall not be named here. paint.NET is pretty cute for simple stuff, it runs pretty well and all, and certainly beats mspaint :).

GIMP... confuses me. Just like photoshop. Both are probably pretty smart when you're into it, but when you're not - eek.

Sevaral years ago, I used micrografx picture publisher (iirc) - it was pretty nice in the sense that you could turn your selections into "objects", instead of having to muck around with layers, and you could "paint" your selections (easier than dealing with alpha channels). And it was very very lightweight.

elpresi:
Hi, for photo work (not graphics or advanced brushwork retouching!) I find Lightzone very easy to use (bit pricy but free on linux):
http://www.lightcrafts.com/products/index.html

Besides the oviously nice gui, the nice thing about it is that every tool you apply is automatically put on its own layer and you can adjust its settings at any time (as in a PS adjustment layer) or simply remove it; thus there is no Undo/Redo and the editing is 100% non-destructive.
It is a java application so not the speediest but the workflow advantage makes up for it imho.

linux:
http://www-old.lightcrafts.com/linux/

Hirudin:
Hi, for photo work (not graphics or advanced brushwork retouching!) I find Lightzone very easy to use
...
-elpresi (June 14, 2007, 06:28 PM)
--- End quote ---
That looks very cool! Downloading now...
... Why do these sites insist on making you register to download their demo??? So annoying!

@f0dder - Why mustn't they be named? The buyout (or whatever it was) didn't thrill me either BTW.

...Later
The GIMP/PhotoFiltre/Paint.net/etc., thoughts...
Should I be worried???
...Even later
Oh, Install4j isn't a typo... that's actually the name of the installer.

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