From photoshop CS5 to Gimp

polygonfreak

Ok as I get older, I am slowly getting away from pirating software, and I think its time to do something about my imaging software. Photoshop is way too expensive and they do not offer anything for poor students. Way to go Adobe(you cock suckers.) Anyway, my question is about Gimp, anybody use it? and for those that are coming from CS5, is there a lot of limitations?

Thanks in advance.

System

polygonfreak wrote: »

Photoshop is way too expensive and they do not offer anything for poor students. Way to go Adobe.

Yes they do....


If you're a student, that's a reasonable price for the whole Design Premium Suite. And if you're a paid pro, Photoshop will pay for itself very quickly.

Calabi

You know its a myth that software pays for itself dont you?

I have yet to see any software dig into its own pockets and stump up cash for anything.

EarthQuake

My wife who is in grad school, can pick up a copy of Photoshop CS5 Extended for about $180, which is a massive discount. As long as you have a valid student ID, you should be able to get a good discount somewhere.

Justin Meisse

My experience with Gimp - it's like Photoshop but slightly off feeling and it crashes alot - I've gotten very used to the fact that Photoshop almost never crashes.

EarthQuake

I was looking at gimp briefly as a alternative on a slower laptop for processing photos, but lack of adjustment layers killed it for me.

acc

Hm, that's true. I don't use it as heavily as I used to but I haven't had Photoshop crash on me for years now. If only Flash was that stable

How's Gimp been doing at keeping up with PS features these days? Adobe has recently brought in a lot of genuinely useful improvements (unusual!). Content aware scale & fill, canvas rotation, web slicing (etc.) and it's long had the best brush customization panel. Is Gimp really still a full, professional alternative or more of an entry-level or specialized alternative now?

System

Also, on the subject of student software. Autodesk do a great package for upgrading from student licenses to full licenses upon graduation.

They don't advertise it very clearly on their website, but I know here in the UK when I spoke to my reseller, it was like £400 for the Entertainment Creation Suite (Maya/Max, Motionbuilder, Mudbox + Softimage) for a full license, which is a massive saving.

Calabi

I heard Paint.net was working on a brush engine. Dont know how far they got with that but its not bad for other things.

Mark Dygert

For painting, go with Art Rage. http://www.artrage.com/

Even the highest priced package comes in well under the cheapest version of photoshop and it doesn't come with all the bloat and BS photoshop does. Great interface too, but it really depends on what you plan to use it for.

If you're hacking apart photos, tossing lens flares on things and Matthew Kleesing things up, then Art Rage isn't the best option, but it rocks for painting... it's worth trying out.

Bibendum

This is probably going to sound really bizarre but I really don't like artrage and painter specifically because of the fact that they try to emulate working with real media.

I've always preferred photoshop because it doesn't really try to do that. It feels purely digital, but for some reason this is usually seen as a drawback to painting with it.

I guess it makes sense to try to go back and mimic the feeling most artists who grew up painting/drawing traditionally are used to but it's not something that ever really appealed to me.

Andreas

Mark Dygert wrote: »

For painting, go with Art Rage. http://www.artrage.com/

Or mypaint, I like it better meself.

http://mypaint.intilinux.com/

whats_true

Only the real pros use MSPaint.

throttlekitty

Bibendum wrote: »

This is probably going to sound really bizarre but I really don't like artrage and painter specifically because of the fact that they try to emulate working with real media.

I've always preferred photoshop because it doesn't really try to do that. It feels purely digital, but for some reason this is usually seen as a drawback to painting with it.

I guess it makes sense to try to go back and mimic the feeling most artists who grew up painting/drawing traditionally are used to but it's not something that ever really appealed to me.

Those apps don't really compare well because they don't try to do what photoshop does. Photoshop is a photo and design tool first.

polygonfreak

Even at $180 dollars its too much for me right now(sunk too much money into my desktop). This is all in comparison to what autodesk offers students. I still think adobe fails.

But that is so true about photoshop never crashing. but I am so use to max crashing, I just save all the time.

SO I did mess around in Gimp. I have found a few features that it does not have that cs5 haves... but the basics are there. Most of the short cuts are different... which is annoying.

I am going to give it a try for awhile or until I can't handle it and just download cs5. And just to be clear, I don't condone piracy, however, I am only using photoshop to help me create my future portfolio which will eventually get me a job at a studio that will have to buy me a license to use photoshop. Justification for piracy? or just utter bullshit? You decide.

polygonfreak

I'm also using windows 7 64 bit... and maybe just maybe running gimp on a 64 bit system might make it more stable. But then again... does anything run more stable on 64?

Ben Apuna

I've been watching GIMP's development for a while now and it may offer some interesting features in the near future. They had been in a kind of bugfix only feature freeze for a while due to lack of developers but recently they seem to be gaining momentum.

I think the main thing missing for now that hasn't already been mentioned is 32/16 bpp editing, but if you aren't working with high dynamic range images or high bit depth displacement textures then it shouldn't be an issue.

Another app to keep your eye on is Nathive, though it's still got a long way to go... hopefully it's not dead in the water.

If you were on a Mac I'd suggest Pixelmator, but you mentioned Max so you're probably on a PC.

Mike_Carlyle

Was messing around with GIMP myself there for a brief period... I tried to customize it as much as possible to match what I was used to in photoshop. It aloud me to do things quicker in GIMP, but there was still that off feeling and some missing features/abilities that photoshop has that I tend to use alot... Free transform comes to mind.. Also, as justin mentioned, stability ( or lack of ) is a big deal...kinda trailed off with using it... if you can get ur hands on a good priced student copy, I would go that way.. good luck

seth.

Mark Dygert wrote: »

....Matthew Kleesing things up...

sorry, nothing to contribute, just needed to say that this made me giggle.