what are your thoughts on Gimp???

I just downloaded Gimp as a backup for photoshop...WHAT A DISASTER!!! gimp REALLY is gimpy... I couldnt understand WHAT the heck was going on so I uninstalled it after about 10 minutes of getting completely confused.
NOOO thanks... I will stick with photoshop!!

I use Gimp sometimes for simple things like re-size, etc., and don't find it very user friendly either.

I often use GIMP before. It's not user-friendly but you could search for tutorials. It meets most of what I need. Yes, it has its limitation but what can you do.......it's free.

Jon said:

......it's free.

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This is why I still use it

I use it exclusively; it might not be as good as Photoshop. I wouldn't know since i refuse to pay that much for a program i'll just use for my casual hobby.

GIMP let's me adjust white balance, clean up imperfections, resize and crop pictures very easily...so far i haven't needed much more. And the good thing about GIMP is that you can tailor the shortcuts to whatever you use the most.

GIMP is what it is: an opensource freebie. 10-15 years ago, GIMP was a viable alternative to Photoshop but it has fallen way behind in development. It has enough tools to get you by, but that's about it. It's user interface never was anything to write home to mom about.

Photoshop is expensive because it's the best. But really, Lightroom is very powerful and inexpensive so there's really no reason why any digital photographer can't have it.

I use the GIMP exclusively because I am a cheapskate. Been using it for about ten years now and pretty much know it backwards and forwards. I can do amazing stuff with it including animation but I most often use it for resizing or changing file protocol or minor retouching of pics.

I've said it before and it seems it needs repeating......you want to resize or do quick touchups? Download Irfanview. It's free, too.Hell, even Picasa does some pretty neat stuff....and it's free!

I got a copy of Photoshop out of pure luck,,,at a garage sale! It was in among a bunch of CD's I was going through, and the guy let me have the whole bunch of CD's for $5. I have a huge book on Photoshop now (birthday gift), but it's going to take me awhile to get my head around it. I also use Corel Paintshop X3 Pro, which my brother in law bought for me for $40. It was on sale.

Gimp is actually very powerful however it's user interface is, like stated, not very friendly. There are many free photo editing programs on the net however you won't find one that will do everything you need. I used Corel for several years but last year switched to lightroom and now photoshop CS5. Programs are like your favorite jeans, one tends to stay where it's comfortable, and some day that will be me with photoshop.

I am learning a different technique almost every evening (write them on 3 X 5 cards until it all clicks in).

Another great thing about photoshop is all the plugin that can make life really easy and produce quite nice work.

Photoshop is the standard, buy it used, student or whatever way you can and stay with. My 2 cents.

Hey do you know how to make skies/clouds darker?

Eye-level said:

I use the GIMP exclusively because I am a cheapskate. Been using it for about ten years now and pretty much know it backwards and forwards. I can do amazing stuff with it including animation but I most often use it for resizing or changing file protocol or minor retouching of pics.

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I use 2.2! Not only am I a cheapskate but I am behind in the times too. lol

Here is the way I would do what you are describing...with certain types of photos mind you not all photos - first you open the image and use the select contiguous regions tool aka the magic wand to select the portion(s) of sky you wish to manipulate. Cut it out and paste it onto a blank page of the same dimensions as the original. Now you can do all sorts of things with this image. You can use gradients under dialogs and give it a nice gradient. Tools/color tools allows you to change the exposure,color,contrast,hue,etc and that is what you are looking for to make skies/clouds darker or lighter. You can also use Filters/Light Effects to change a lot of things with the image also. Script Fu allows you to do some crazy things and some useful things like adding borders bevels etc. Your last step is to save the manipulated image and then go back to the original and open the manipulated image as a layer and then combine them. GIMP is very very powerful and it can do lots of stuff.

GIMP and products like it are written and maintained mostly by volunteers. There's also no guarantee about what skill set you get. If you go to GIMPs site, you'll see they are looking for a window's developer to help them fix bugs. That's a skill set they currently lack. Even if you have programmers, they will work on their pet projects and it can be hard to get people excited to work in the less glamorous areas like bug fixes.

There is also no big company to fund, drive, plan, set priorities, etc... GIMP doesn't have the huge budget like Adobe to get focus groups together to get feed back on their UI. They can't their whole team in a room for a week to story board it out. Considering the software is written by computer people, you'll also end up with user interfaces computer people like. These UIs tend to be less user friendly than the UIs that Adobe and Apple will put out aimed at the creative community.

So, what you get with GIMP is what you often get with this sort of software. A product that recreates the core functionality of the professional software, but, does it in a way that's less polished and less refined. They often emulate rather than innovate so they always seem to be some what out of date. If you're a full time pro, it's often in your best interest to shell out the money for the pro product. The extra level of features and refinement will help you do your job better, and will justify the cost. If you're a hobbyist, it might be a good solution. On the other hand, if you plan to buy Photoshop in a year or two, you'll be stuck with two separate learning curves.

I will admit I have Photoshop because I get a steep discount on it when I buy a new version. I also use the rest of CS4 not just Photoshop, if all I were doing were some resizing operations and adjusting some contrast on occasion I would seriously look at Lightroom and not worry about anything else. GIMP works well enough but as others have pointed out development has fallen behind on it and its not what it once was. There are some better free tools out there now days.

I tried to standardize my workflow, helps a bunch to use both Lighroom and Photoshop when it comes guides and tutorials. I just upgraded to CS6 for the PS but still have Lightroom 3. I also agree with Jack concerning Corel paintshop pro, I just bought the latest Pro X4 and use it occasionally, very powerful software and also lots of guides and tutorials and it was under $50.

One of my favorite CS5 plugins is the Picture Package. When those time everyone wants copies this lets you do those school type packages. Even better when you can print on 11 X 17 and 13 X 19 paper.