Gimp vs Photoshop
Posted by: Rea Maor In: Image and Graphics - Tuesday, April 10th, 2007Do you want to edit bitmap images on the home desktop? It’s surprising, but really the choice of image editing applications comes down to just two: Gimp and Photoshop. And therein lies a dilemma.
Photoshop costs around $600 these days, and Gimp is free, so of course if cost is a factor you’re going to swerve towards Gimp. But - and you knew there was a ‘but’ coming - it’s not that simple. Photoshop has two leads over Gimp: (1) patented features, and (2) the interface that everyone is used to. Most especially, Gimp is out of the running for professional print shop editing, thanks to the patent lock on industrial features such as color correction and CMYK. Gimp can emulate these features with work-arounds, or it can get sued, and that’s all there is to it.
A common misconception is that Gimp lacks many more features that Photoshop has. In fact, with the exception of features that depend on patented algorithms, Gimp is 99% on par with Photoshop in capabilities. It’s just that Photoshop users try Gimp, are immediately lost in the baroque interface, and leave in terror. Having the features doesn’t do you much good if you can’t find them!
That’s the real hanger is the user interface. Unlike other professions which happen to take place on a computer, graphics artists are almost never geeks. Geeks explore an interface, practice with it, read the manual on it, and when they discover the scripting language buried within (Gimp has scheme), they’re bowled over at how cool it is. Graphics artists aren’t like that. They’re right-brained all the way; they’re here to draw, not write programs. And when they learn one way to make the computer do what they want, that’s a sacrifice of time which they can never again be asked to do. Learning a new interface is painful for anybody, but it seems to be simply unacceptable for the graphics artist.
For instance, let’s say you want to draw a beard on a face. In both Photoshop and Gimp it is straight-forward enough to create a custom brush shaped like a few hair follicles. But to draw the beard on and have it come out looking like natural hair, in Photoshop you would open the brush dialog and change the shape and color dynamics, tweaking switches and knobs in each and setting them to randomize. In Gimp, however, you would create a layered brush (called an “image pipe”) which is similar to how you would do an animated gif, then just tell it to use the brush layers in random order. You could manually set up the brush layers to be lighter, darker, and rotated and resized - in effect giving yourself more control over the final effect. It is possible to get the exact same effect in both programs, with even some room to argue that one result looks better than the other.
But what good is that going to do if you’re used to the Photoshop interface? Nothing. In a nutshell, Photoshop is for linear thinkers, and Gimp is for lateral thinkers. Both of them can arrive at very nearly the same result, so close that it’s a neck and neck race. Bottom line, for website graphics and simple editing jobs it’s almost insane to spend the money to use Photoshop. And Gimp is likewise inadequate for the needs of a professional print shop.
Unless, of course, you’re already a geek. Then it won’t matter, because you learn new programs just for fun anyway. The only problem with that is… have you ever met a geek with good artistic skills?
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April 10th, 2007 at 21:26
Photoshop is gay
April 10th, 2007 at 22:15
Uhm, yeah, I know the Tango Desktop and the Oxygen Desktop, they are talented, VERY talented, and they use free (speech) tools.
Photoshop is ridiculous, even my friend pirates it because he’s used to it, even though he can have GIMP for free and be able to achieve the same results. Sigh…
April 11th, 2007 at 4:35
Indeed Gimp is better (in my opinion) but users tend to like Photoshop more because of it’s familiar UI, so sadly he is the winner.
April 11th, 2007 at 14:11
Since my computer crashed this fall and erased my pirated version of Photoshop I had become prette versatile doing what needed to be done in paint, that is to say untill I discovered paint.net, a free tool from microsoft that can be used for the basic tasks one uses photoshop for 90% of the time, nothing fancy like drawing a beard with individually randomized hairs, as described above though.
April 11th, 2007 at 16:23
I’ve found Photoshop to be better, and it’s not just the interface. The filters work better and there are more of them. Adobe keeps adding to Photoshop as well, which makes it worth keeping. Take the money out of the picture and Photoshop wins.
I’ve used GIMP when I’m at a place that doesn’t want to spring for Photoshop. GIMP does the job and pretty well for a free program. For simple touch up it can’t be beat. I did miss several of my usual filters for effects, tho’.
GiMP is certainly a good program, no doubt. Photoshop’s just better. Sometimes commercial software actually gets it right.
April 11th, 2007 at 16:43
“Take the money out of the picture and Photoshop wins”
The problem is that you CANNOT take it out, you have two options,
use it illegally or buy for 600 USD, and what do you do when new version comes out and there’s a feature you REALLY want ? pay again… and again… and again…
April 11th, 2007 at 19:58
I came from photoshop and found gimp not nearly as intuitive as I assumed it would be to start, until you get the hang of it, wikivid took care of that: http://wikivid.com/index.php/GIMP
April 11th, 2007 at 20:04
Thank god for Wikipedia
no matter what program you switch with the other,
it always take you some time to figure everything up.. just as it would have taken time to figure up everything in Photoshop if you’ve been using Gimp before.
April 11th, 2007 at 20:29
I’m trying to ease into GIMP but after two years of using it I find I am still reaching for photoshop when I have to do serious work. I realise that GIMP can probably do it but photoshop and paintshop pro before that has made certain habits very difficult to break and while some features of photoshop are not exactly usable they are extremely intuitive to me now. There are times I spend a full minute staring at gimp’s tool window wondering how I do something that I wouldn’t wouldn’t even have to think about in PS. Add to the fact that just about every tutorial site out there is geared toward PS and the ones for GIMP tend to be simple or average quality at the best of times. I root for GIMP but like OOS it’s just not there for me yet.
April 11th, 2007 at 22:16
[...] it’s another Gimp vs Photoshop article. But this one is short, not technical and actually very very interesting. “Both of [...]
April 11th, 2007 at 22:17
some thoughts : CMYK, LAB, layer styles, changing brush sizes, HDR, 16 bits effects…
Without CMYK (better not speak about the other functions lacking in gimp) what do you think a company would choose over, given that the price of the license for a few years doesn’t even equals the electricity bill for a month ?
Gimp _can_ be a great tool depending on what you have to do with it ans it’s opensource, photoshop _is_ a great tool under any other circumstances than needing an opensource software
April 11th, 2007 at 22:21
That’s why they created Gimpshop several years ago.
http://www.gimpshop.com/
April 11th, 2007 at 22:28
you should look into gimpshop if you like photoshop, but can’t/won’t spring $600 for photoshop, or don’t want to pirate it.
http://gimpshop.blogspot.com
April 11th, 2007 at 22:29
ha! that’s what I get for opening all my slashdot/delicious/digg links and slowly making my way through them. way to beat me by 7 minutes nebajoth!
April 11th, 2007 at 22:35
@Rea Maor
Well, if I want to drive a new car with all the nice new features, I certainly don’t go carjack one. What a surprise that companies need to make money to produce what takes millions of dollars to create! I never knew…
Grow up and if you can’t afford it then Gimp away.
April 11th, 2007 at 23:04
@ supergeek
You mean you don’t use doggdot.us?
I’ve been using The Gimp for years for every raster image purpose imaginable. I prefer to work with vectors, simply as an aesthetic choice. But The Gimp is fine, so long as you’re under 30 and can form new neural pathways.
April 11th, 2007 at 23:20
Why has nobody mentioned Paint.NET yet? Yes it’s Windows, but it’s also free and absolutely trashes GIMP for both UI and functionality. Still not even close to Photoshop, but way, way more usability than GIMP.
April 11th, 2007 at 23:30
Paint.NET ?! nothing good ever came out of Microsoft, except DOS and even that was stolen from IBM… .NET will be dead soon… hopfully microsoft soon after.
Long live Gimp
April 11th, 2007 at 23:40
Wow! It look´s like you´ve arrived! My advice: be curteous to each and every one that the is delivered to your shores.
P.s. I was surprised myself when I discovered paint.net. I almost did not give it a second glance because of the microsoft bias there exists for freeloaders, but as I discovered it really is worth it´s price, and then some.
April 12th, 2007 at 2:28
@ Rea: You didn’t mention Gimp runs in Linux in the post. That is an advantage and, by your comments, you take that into account.
April 12th, 2007 at 4:43
The GIMP’s UI is its biggest letdown. It’s just horrible. Like a command line program developer was let loose to write the GIMP UI. Absolutly no idea. That’s the main reason it will never come close to Photoshop.
April 12th, 2007 at 7:38
This is a good comparison … By the way, I think that if you used Gimp first, you probably describe these details differently …
I used Photoshop one year and after that Gimp 4 years (I’m not a strong image editing user just a fiddler)… When I’m on Phosothop now, it’s a pitty to have some simple things done … Select those parts, extends and customize selection by selection layers … Much more easy in Gimp !
I know that Photoshop will be the only tool used by professional, but I think that beginning with TheGimp is much more easy than with Photoshop …
And it’s system independent … So when I switched from Win to Lin I kept my Gimp … and now I’m on a mac… I still have my Gimp ! That’s fine !
My two cents
April 12th, 2007 at 14:23
[...] must powerfull open source graphic program. make sure you know your opponent, read it now.read more | digg [...]
April 13th, 2007 at 20:43
[...] Photoshop to Gimp - We gave that it’s own post here. Best to keep the giants in their own room, where they can’t stomp on the rest of the [...]
April 13th, 2007 at 20:44
@ nebajoth, well I do use doggdot.us, but figured no one would know what I was talking about!
April 13th, 2007 at 23:30
I’m going to have to disagree with you on one point. Photoshop CS cost $600 dollars, but most people don’t use the features in CS. Usually, unless it’s part of their job, people don’t pay that much for software. (Unless they got it off torrent or something,) most people have Elements. Now Elements is MUCH cheaper. I got a free copy with my scanner. (Which I have no use for in Linux, so I gave to my Dad.) As for all you other comments, hell yeah, GIMP is teh sexy!
April 18th, 2007 at 8:24
@Jason, dude… don’t be a little bitch. I pirate the shit out of anything I use. And then if I release a commercial product having used those tools, I license the product. Your a tool man, seriously, I am not going to pay 600 dollars to learn a new piece of software I may not end up using.
That is like asking me to license the Source Game Engine for the (I wont say because of a little NDA I signed but lets just say its a shitload more than 600 dollars) they want for it, just to find out I cant run HDR. Now, as a side note, source does HDR but that is detracting from my point.
Fuck buying software.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:26
And carjacking? What the fuck man, it is called a test drive, and most dealerships allow it.
April 18th, 2007 at 18:10
@mmeltdown
I was referring to those who use the software professionally, not to those who have never used it. And if you’re just doing simply picture manipulation, then of course use a free, open-source solution. What i’m arguing is the notion that it’s ok for people who use photoshop professionally to steal a license.
Grow up, man.
April 19th, 2007 at 18:22
Hey I can agree with you on professional use policy. But that wasn’t what you said, you said and I quote, “Well, if I want to drive a new car with all the nice new features, I certainly don’t go carjack one. What a surprise that companies need to make money to produce what takes millions of dollars to create! I never knew’
May 1st, 2007 at 20:39
[...] was amazing! it really was, two of my articles made popular on digg ‘
May 15th, 2007 at 19:28
I used gimp some time loong time ago until I discovered Paint.NET, it’s much easier to use and powerful enough to make some more or less complex work, and it’s free!!, great great program, you should do an article titled Paint.NET vs Gimp, it doesn’t makes sense to compare a 600$ program with a 0$ one.
May 16th, 2007 at 0:21
@Random, thats a Very intresting idea… i’ll probably go for it and write about those two..
May 16th, 2007 at 2:05
“it doesn’t makes sense to compare a 600$ program with a 0$ one”
I think it’s stupid enough to be commented! I’m on linux and I can found thousend of free softwares that do their job better than any expensive sheety softs on windows ! I don’t say anything about mac (I’m using too) which is a captialist version of linux…
You don’t pay the software but the company which is developping. If you’r money goes through marketing, nice desks and hardware, employee sickness or all inconvenience a company could have, your software won’t be better even if you pay more…
Retrive half the price to a (serious) free project, you’ll see what will happen! I agree, it depends on the serious parameter and that’s not the perfect way to rate a software… But the price …
The day linux will be more popular than windows (it’ll come, look around you, computer science is a matter of fashion !) the software price will decrease until zero. What you’ll pay will be professional lisenses, suport …
Despite of my opinion about free softwares, I think you don’t have to pay a software ! Everybody must have the rights to use a software ! So as for books, music, art … You pay the support (CD, book, canvas, software support or commercial use) but the content should be freely available! Otherwise (and that’s the case by now) everybody will fill three categories. Rich (nearly poor) people, uncultivated and smuggler !
May 23rd, 2007 at 19:20
[...] Manipulation Program (GIMP, available for Windows, Linux and MacOSX) Rea’s comparison of GIMP vs Photoshop From Windows to Ubuntu: Alternative software Book: Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional [...]
June 15th, 2007 at 11:01
[...] mysql, Persistent, wp-catch Wow, what a night I had yesterday’
October 30th, 2007 at 23:53
the new version of gimp came out, 2.4
it added many more features and now I’d say its an equal to or better than PS.
I will use Photoshop when I need the advanced brush settings but GIMP is the way to go for anything else.
October 31st, 2007 at 20:28
PAINT.NET is NOT a Microsoft product! It had some sponsoring from M$ and apparently a bit of coaching, but the work was (if I recall correctly) done initially by students at Washington State University. It started as a student project and has continued on to become something rather larger than that. So please, PLEASE stop saying ‘It’s alright but it’s made by Microsoft’ - that’s an utter falsehood. The only thing Microsoft about it is that it happens to be written for Windows.
December 23rd, 2007 at 17:11
I’m pretty let down by Gimp ATM. I do believe Photoshop has more advantages than just the UI and print media capabilities. It has more features, including a ton more filters, and Layer Styles which is a HUGE time saver for playing around to get the right look. Also in Gimp, I can’t even find options to adjust the Font Anti-aliasing. WTF? That’s a pretty major thing, especially since the default settings look pretty poopy if you ask me. The apparent inability of Gimp to link layers also wastes a bunch of time, forcing me to move stuff one layer at a time. Also I’ve noticed sometimes hotkeys don’t work, I press ctrl+shift+a a million times and it won’t “select none”. So, again, I’m wasting time by having to go up to the menu to click “select none” manually. These are some of the ass pains I’ve been experiencing just today.
January 4th, 2008 at 19:42
@xerokill
Font anti-aliasing is in the main gimp menu box, dude… below all the icons. Right in front of you
@everyone
As someone mentioned before, It’s unfair because almost everyone starts out with PS. Not me though. I’ve used GIMP for two years and now I have access through a Media class at my school. It’s like vice-versa of everyone’s general opinion… I am so used to GIMP(and it’s really NOT that hard at all, the UI…) and now, finally using Photoshop I can’t find my way around the menus. I’m trying to learn them, but everything I see in PS I say, “Wow, GIMP does that a lot easier.” Except for the layer Styles which I’ve discovered is a GREAT timesaver. Anyway, that’s the story from a different perspective. My 2 cents.
Oh, and I was WAITING for someone to say that Paint.NET is NOT a MS product.. so don’t be prejudiced!
February 25th, 2008 at 11:20
This was an entertaining little stop on the net. My favorite part of the article…
Unlike other professions which happen to take place on a computer, graphics artists are almost never geeks. Geeks explore an interface, practice with it, read the manual on it, and when they discover the scripting language buried within (Gimp has scheme), they’re bowled over at how cool it is. Graphics artists aren’t like that. They’re right-brained all the way; they’re here to draw, not write programs. And when they learn one way to make the computer do what they want, that’s a sacrifice of time which they can never again be asked to do. Learning a new interface is painful for anybody, but it seems to be simply unacceptable for the graphics artist. ____________________________ Abso-freakin-lutely right on man. Never were truer words spoken. I seriously had to talk myself into the switch from Quark to InDesign for like a Year! And only after i got real damn sick of the then-new OsX screwing with my time. Truly I am not even interested in GIMP. I only searched for it because a geek i know told me to. (graphic artists do tend to rub virtual elbows with geeks a lot)
April 29th, 2008 at 20:36
The latest Gimp seems to be a real step up, especially in the area of User Interface. Some complain that it is a waste of time making the UI more like Photoshop, but the fact is it is more usable now. I find my workflow very smooth using Gimp. I am a web designer so the limitations for print-media dont apply, but I would definately recommend Gimp to anyone. I can’t see the point of paying all that money, unless you really need certain features or you are earning enough that it doesn’t matter.
July 23rd, 2008 at 14:16
As far as I know, the whole “photoshop is gay” defense doesn’t work. And as far as I know, most design professionals don’t use the gimp. And, furthermore, as far as I know, when I took graphic design courses in college, I wasn’t taught about how to use the gimp. This could be because the gimp is weak as hell compared to Photoshop. I know, I know, “The gimp has gotten better”, but what the hell is the point in how good the gimp has gotten, when Photoshop has already left it in the dust? I am currently using Photoshop CS2 on a laptop that has a Pentium 3 processor with 256 mb of ram installed. I tried to use the gimp, but guess what? The gimp didn’t work for CRAP on my laptop. Isn’t it funny that I can run Photoshop with only 256 mb of ram and with a Pentium 3 processor, but the gimp won’t work for crap? I think it’s quite funny.