It is an excellent program if you want a fully functional photo editor. It does have a steep learning curve though. I have heard good things about "Native" ( http://www.nathive.org/ ) as a simple free editor but never used it.
Simple? No. Straightforward, powerful and reliable yes. It has as many capabilities as Photoshop except it began as a college project (I believe thesis project and even if the creators had wanted to make it interface with commercial printing standards as smoothly as Photoshop they were never in a position to pay the royalties needed to implement it (Adobe pays a bunch of commercial printing companies for the use of their IP. I'm generally pro-open source but on this I give Adobe a free ride, though the reliability of many of their programs -- and the wisdom of some of their choices I can go into at length. Don't pirate adobe: you are potentially costing them real money and I don't mean in lost sales).
It began on UNIX in the nineties. The interface with about six windows instead of one is typical of the UNIX design philosophy. That confuses Windows and Mac users, but there is a front-end called GIMPShop which takes care of it. In point of fact its originally screen graphics library, as the GTK (originally Gimp Tool Kit) has been incorporated into most X-Windows desktops because it is excellent -- X Windows is the GUI for UNIX and Linux systems, except proprietary ones like Apple's.
So it is awesome from a programmer's perspective. From an artist's, and I'm also that, it is powerful and straightforward. It is also annoying as all get-out.
Yes, it's a lot like Photoshop, pretty much has all of the same features, only it's free. It's pretty self explanatory. If you've ever used Photoshop, you'll have no problem with Gimp. Even if you've never used any of these sorts of programs, you probably will be able to figure it out.
Comments
It is an excellent program if you want a fully functional photo editor. It does have a steep learning curve though. I have heard good things about "Native" ( http://www.nathive.org/ ) as a simple free editor but never used it.
Simple? No. Straightforward, powerful and reliable yes. It has as many capabilities as Photoshop except it began as a college project (I believe thesis project and even if the creators had wanted to make it interface with commercial printing standards as smoothly as Photoshop they were never in a position to pay the royalties needed to implement it (Adobe pays a bunch of commercial printing companies for the use of their IP. I'm generally pro-open source but on this I give Adobe a free ride, though the reliability of many of their programs -- and the wisdom of some of their choices I can go into at length. Don't pirate adobe: you are potentially costing them real money and I don't mean in lost sales).
It began on UNIX in the nineties. The interface with about six windows instead of one is typical of the UNIX design philosophy. That confuses Windows and Mac users, but there is a front-end called GIMPShop which takes care of it. In point of fact its originally screen graphics library, as the GTK (originally Gimp Tool Kit) has been incorporated into most X-Windows desktops because it is excellent -- X Windows is the GUI for UNIX and Linux systems, except proprietary ones like Apple's.
So it is awesome from a programmer's perspective. From an artist's, and I'm also that, it is powerful and straightforward. It is also annoying as all get-out.
Yes, it's a lot like Photoshop, pretty much has all of the same features, only it's free. It's pretty self explanatory. If you've ever used Photoshop, you'll have no problem with Gimp. Even if you've never used any of these sorts of programs, you probably will be able to figure it out.
It is a very good program. There is a learning curve, but it depends on what you need to do.
There are tutorials here : http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/