Preserved Topic: GIMP is good! mmmmm... yummy GIMP

In light of another topic here I thought I'd post my comments about this app as I truely feel it deserves a good look over by many of the people here. I mean, there are two good and popular free 3D apps out now, it's was only a matter of time before a really good 2D app hit the scene. To be perfectly honest I'm not sure how long GIMP's been out for but none the less, it's the single best peice of free software I've ever seen. Well, with the exception of MAX's HTML app.

Just amazing I tell you!

I've been using GIMP for a little while now, getting used to the interface but dam! This thing's powerful!!!

In certain areas it even leaves PS sucking up fumes. No, I'm not kidding, read on....

Pro's:
Full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone,etc.
Full alpha channel support
Layers and channels (layers support all of the different blending modes)
A Procedural Database for calling internal GIMP functions from external programs as in Script-fu <-- PS actions for GIMP with twice the power!
Advanced scripting capabilities
Multiple Undo/Redo (limited only by diskspace)
Extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool.
Load and save animations in a convenient frame-as-layer format.
Transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip.
File formats supported include gif, jpg, png, xpm, tiff, tga, mpeg, ps, pdf, pcx, bmp, and many others.
Selection tools including rectangle, ellipse, free, fuzzy, bezier and intelligent. (and yes there's a wand tool)
Plug-ins which allow for the easy addition of new file formats and new effect filters.
Over 100 plugins already available. (about 80% are direct PS equilivents that work just as well, sometimes better, plus some!)
Supports custom brushes and patterns
Most other things you'd come to expect from a pro GFX app.
The lighting effects has not only bump-mapping but enviroment reflection mapping! too cool.
IT's FREE!
It's also only an 11 meg download.. a tad high for us modem users but well worth the wait none the less...
Many of the tools seem have been created with gfx tablets in mind. Meaning you can change how the tool acts at different pressure sensors (size,opasity,colour,shape,hardness ect ect...).
You can also make animated brushes of sorts (brushes that will rotate through a series of pre defined brishes. Usefull for adding texture with a brush no doubt.)

Con's:
Unuasual interface this sadly is it's biggest downfall, and it is a big one.... It just feels odd. After a while it's not too bad but it could be a lot better IMO.
Many of the filters are as good if not more flexabul as the PS ones but take a lot of fiddiling to figure out....
Not so many tutes on the net for this app, but If your good enough you can port most if not all of your current PS skill over to the GIMP quite easialy.
The winsows port is still kinda buggy . But I havent run into too many problems.


Well, I could brag on for hours but I won't. Just trust me, it's good OK.

Hell, it's free, and IMO it's a great addition to my toolset. I don't know why I wasn't using it before. I still find it hard to believe that this app's free. Stop reading and go download it already, think of the hours of fun you'll have exploring all of the new possibilities! It felt like the jump from PS 4 to 6, truely amazing. And you don't have to feel guilty about using warez if you cant really afford PS.

PS is still the king though, there's really no doubt to that. It's tried and true and it's been around longer. It's only natural, but theres a much much smaller gap between GIMP and PS then there is between Lightwave/MAX and Blender/Strata.

However, I mostly do web work (is has some nifty web related features too, but not as goos as PS), so I can't tell you what it would be like as far as print work goes, but I'm sure it'd be good at that for it's price .

Enjoy.
http://www.gimp.org (look for the Windows port bit on the front page....)



[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 08-06-2001).]

I actually like Gimp. I would use it, but Script Fu wreaks havoc on my system. Crashes rather consistanty. Yeah, and generally buggy for Win (like Drac said).

But don't let my bad experiences discourage anybody else from playing with it. Damn fine alternative to PS/PSP.

Another good thing about GIMP is that web developers can use it to create/modify images on the fly using GIMP-Perl module for PERL language...

It's good that was the first graphic software I used becuase it is free. Has some great tools and options but I love photoshop so much I've lift the other progs behind.

It's well worth a try if trying to getting in to computer art.



[This message has been edited by Darkshadow (edited 08-06-2001).]

I've oftened heard about the benefits of GIMP, but alas, I don't use a UNIX-based operating system.

If its almost as powerful as PS, buggy, and has an awkward interface that forces one to learn a new way around, why use it? Certainly if GIMP did offer something essentially different than PS it would be worth putting forth the effort. But since from what I've read it doesn't, it seems to me a better use of one's time would be to master the tools in AE, Painter, Illustrator or some other bit of software that adds some unique tools to the palette rather than duplicates many of the ones you already have.

Having said that, certainly if you don't know PS and are short on cash, this may be the best place to start. Unless of course you happen to own a MAC.

www.macgimp.com & www.macgimp.org

I haven't used it, but I would be inclined to say Batch Processing.

I am totally talking out my ass here, but I have to assume that GIMP is much more scriptable. You can do some nice stuff with Photoshop Actions and batch processing, but I find myself constantly bumping up against it's limitations and being forces to perform some trivial manual task 100 times along with an action to get done what I need.

-jiblet

HS... First notice: Windows Port Then: Download Windows Port...

Second, I would have to agree. Gimp is an amazing program.

The limitations that Gimp faces is that it has a different GUI. Which is its only flaw. I remember stumbling around PS the first time I worked in it.

This also goes well with the topic that HS brought up about not pirating software, because you don't need to. You now have an equally powerful tool that is free.

Gimp has been around for a while.

I would also not reccomend to PS vets to learn gimp. There is no reason, you use PS, why change.

However, if you are new on the scene I would definatly recommend GIMP. This shit is free! Support your open source developers.

If you don't like how GIMP's GUI is organized, join the mailing lists and let them know. Heck, if it perturbs you, download the source code and change it! That is what makes it so incredible.

<!-- Changing into open source rant -->

When people see "FREE" in the software world they tend to be turned off. Why would anyone want to use something that is "FREE" it can't possibly be any good can it?

The answer quite surprisingly is yes it is more likely than not going to be a much better product.

There are reasons for this. The open source community is not a closed shop. When you develope software for commercial sale your product is hidden to all except the in house beta testers, or maybe you even allow a select few to beta test the software outside the shop.

Which open source software, every single alpha release is released to the public for thier input. Not only that, the source code is published in its entirety, so that people can modify it at their leasure, contribute to the group enviorment and so much more.

Mozilla 0.9.3 has been reported as being more stable than Netscape 4.7, which we all know to be one of the better browsers out there. Is it not amazing that a beta release is more stable than the commercial release of netscape?

Another example. Apache servers... how much does the apache system cost? Nothing, it is "FREE" And IMO it is the best server system out there. It is open source, more stable than the IIS and doesn't cost a dime. The huge downfall is, that you might have to go through a text file in order to set it up, there is no elaborate GUI. Then again is it really a downfall? I can edit my httpd.conf file much faster than I can configure the IIS.

"FREE" in software is a good thing. *nix is huge. Linux, unix, BSD they are all huge, stable and faster than windows. Oh did I forget that unix is the only operating system in the bunch you have to pay for? or that unix is also the most archaic of the bunch.

"FREE" really is a good thing, and there are no strings attached. Open source is good. You may be surprised. And I assure you that you are misisng out on a lot by not exploring it.

Take a look at this topic to see what I've said about Mozilla stability: http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum8/HTML/000194.html

"I would also not reccomend to PS vets to learn gimp. There is no reason, you use PS, why change."

I've been using PS for about 4 years solid now but...

I still think using GIMP opened up new doors for me. I learnt different/better ways to accomplish tasks in both GIMP and PS.

At times it felt like I was working with a slightly different medium.. kinda cool for a while. It also helped to use a different program when I was rather un-inspired or un-motovated towards something...

I also have the educational version of PS so I use GIMP for any comercial work I do.

Just imagine is NS had to release their "COMPLETE" bug list.

NN4 doesn't have many bugs. Unless you're talking about W3C incompatibilities, but those are not bugs...

Anyway, just take a look how many Mozilla bugs are postponed for next release, but were planned to be fixed by the 0.9.3 release, and if they continue to do that (postpone bugs for later, who knows when they will the finish the first non-beta release version)...

And last, but not least Mozilla is still *extremely* slow...

HS-

quote:

---

I've oftened heard about the benefits of GIMP, but alas, I don't use a UNIX-based operating system.

---

umm. What O.S. do you use?

ajde bre max nemoj da kenjsh vishe!! ))
salim se naravno ..umm..cudno mi je da vidim ovde nasheg coveka...
hehe
cekirao sam ti sajt...ajd napravi nesto 10X bolje sada sa tim znanjem ?!..
pozdrav ortak ....

PSYplant

PSYplant, ja vec imam nesto najbolje sto nema svako - sopstveni HTML editor! I veoma sam ponosan na njega, kao i na enormno veliki broj njegovih korisnika sirom sveta. Enivejz, sto se sajta tice nova verzija (codename "MAX's World") ce biti okacena tokom sledece nedelje i bice krcata sadrzajem...

Kierstal Da Mi.

Not even going to pretend to understand.



I was actually surprised to see how much gimp had evolved since I had started playing with it. Looks a lot nicer now.

Anyone know a way to fix how gimp works with the Writing Tablets? When I use my graphire, there seems to be some 7 pixel offset from the cursor.

ma ne bre nije prozivka sta ti je ...samo kzem ono uradi nesto do jaja sad posto vidim da znash
e daj mi ICQ ako oces se cujemo ...

pozdrav

Nisam ni rekao da je prozivka, heh... Mogu i ja da se zezam!

Sto se ICQ-a tice, ne koristim instant message klijente...

Shuts the Phuckest Upiest!

Look, Mine even rhyms!