about 1 year
ago
GIMP:
GIMP Lover
by
shakyone
(Update 5AUG08)
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 editing
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with the GIMP, I recommend ¨Beginning GIMP by Akkana Peck.¨ Edition 2 comes out December 2008, I bought ed 1. 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 (disregard this comment, there is a setting in the program that lets you set how many processors your computer has, my thanks to the GIMP for beginners book 1st ed.).
(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.
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about 1 month
ago
by
shakyone
Rick,
Keep up the good work. Your program is very fast on my quad-core computer, with .NET installed. I am really impressed with its optimization for multiple processors. In Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood podcast, they talked about how much effort the multi-threading took for you to code. Your effort really paid off in the performance. Nice work!
The capabilities of Paint.NET really surprise me over and over. I use
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both it and the GIMP. I bounce between the two. I like that you also have plugin capabilities. That feature has come in really handy.
Unfortunately I am not a software developer, just a lowly user who likes digital photography. I look forward to your upgrades. Anyone out there that still uses MS Paint, is truly living in the stone age, after what you have put together.
I really hope someone puts together a collection of tutorials or a book that explains some techniques. I would buy it, as I think your product has taken off. I´ll see if I can put something together. It would give me something to do when I finish Grad school. [Less]
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