Who needs Photoshop ?

<p>I downloaded a free version of GIMP the photo editing program to my laptop yesterday. I wasn't planning to do this but I had to restore my computer to factory settings due to technical issues. I didn't have my Photoshop Elements disk with me so I decided to download GIMP from the web.</p>

<p>Last time I looked at this program was 8 years ago when it was no more than a very bad copy of photoshop, but the program has improved significantly since then. I can do practically everything I can do in PSE and almost everything I can do in Photoshop. The editing tools are not as smooth as in PS or PSE but good enough. I'm really impressed, plus there is a Manual that come with it all for free !</p>

<p>Next time Adobe asks me to upgrade I might justr keep the money and go on a cruise ! </p>

<p>I just really cannot stand the interface of the GIMP. But yes, it sure is highly capable. I switched to Paint.NET instead, equally free and I like the interface a lot better.<br>

However for RAW conversion, I continue to rely on paid products. The open source RAW conversion engines, when I tested them, only managed to impress me with their horrible output.</p>

<p>see: <a href="00ZtmI?unified_p=1">http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00ZtmI?unified_p=1</a> </p>

<p>I've used GIMP since 1996 when I was in college. I've only used Photoshop a few times because it doesn't run (well) on Linux.</p>

<p>These days I hardly need either. Today many people use a workflow program like Lightroom or Aperture. I use Bibble 5 which is now Corel Aftershot. I can do almost all manipulations within it and quicker that I rarely need something like Photoshop.</p>

<p>RawTherapee is now open source and I am quite happy with using it for raw conversions.</p>

<p>I've tried Raw Therapee as well as Digikam (haven't tried Darktable yet) and I preferred Raw Therapee although I prefer Bibble over all of them including Lightroom which I tried on my Mac for a while. Back to GIMP, if you really need 16-bit editing you can get Cinepaint which is a fork of an older version.</p>

<p>I do. [<em>Who needs Photoshop?</em> Lots of people -- millions -- use it and will keep it...]<br>

<br /> For the past 15+ years I've tried several image editors -- until there is something better than Photoshop (for me of course) I'll not switch... it would be like switching from Canon to Nikon for me. Don't see any reason whatsoever to switch.</p>

<p>I prefer Photoshop too!</p>

<p><strong>The editing tools are not as smooth as in PS or PSE but good enough</strong></p>

<p>Good enough for what?</p>

<p>It seems that if the free programs really were that good, Photoshop would have been put out of business long ago, or at least Adobe would have lowered the price. I am a Photoshopaholic, and never want to recover!</p>

<p>"<em>It seems that if the free programs really were that good, Photoshop would have been put out of business long ago"</em><br>

<em></em> <br>

Well, after using all day on and off it freezes up alot. Not only does it freeze, it freezes up the entire computer. You have to call Task Manager to close the application then start all over. For minor changes it is OK though. </p>

<p>Adobe is not going to lower the price on PS. Why would they because they have a cash cow that people are willing to blow their money on. If Adobe actually wrote a software that was worth the price they charge, two-thirds of the third party PS support venders would go out of business and they would lose the license fees. You pay through the nose for the initial product then pay that much or more on tutorials and seminars to learn to use it--or most likely never actually really learn to use it--or at least any more of it than is available for much less in Elements. I know people that have used PS for years that still jump at the opportunity to pay for another seminar hoping it will be the one where they actually learn to use the software. Then they upgrade at a ridiculous price and start all over again. A lot of people can live without PS. For a professional, sure, you can write it off; for the amateur there are a lot of programs out there that are more than adequate. I still don't understand why PS owners pay ridiculous prices to add software that upsizes better, or removes noise better, or sharpens better, or converts to black and white better--for what--for a program that, considering the price, should do all of these things better than any other software around, but obviously doesn't. Yes, that is an opinion and sure you are entitled to yours. I'll get along very well without PS, thank you.</p>

<p>Just tried it (GIMP) on another computer with 4GB RAM and 64-bit operating system it works fine one that computer no freezing or crashing but it still does not perform as well as PS. Nevertheless, since it's free it's good to have and it doesn't take up much space on your comuter either, but I would much rather use PSE.</p>

<p>I still use CS2 even though I have CS5 loaded on my computer. CS2 offers me just about everything I need to post process an image. I see it for sale on the web for $199. The big advantage for me is all the great plugins that you can use with CS2 that really speed up post pricessing.</p>

CS2 seems very buggy to me, Michael. Do you have the Mac version? The Windows version has a lot of non-working or crash-inducing corner features. Hopefully Adobe got this sorted out in newer versions. My daughter bought CS4 (college discount) but I haven't used it.

 

I can't remember the last time GIMP crashed on a Linux system. Some operations are slow, so a pro saves money on Photoshop in the long run, but the 2 CPU license limit is a non-starter for me. Including VMs, I regularly use 6 different computers. It's nice to have the same image editor everywhere.

 

Photoshop still doesn't have 2x1 chroma subsampling, or different vertical and horizontal settings for Gaussian blur, does it? That former is invaluable for digicam JPEG editing, the latter for smoothing panoramas.

I use Photoshop as a giant plug-in to Aperture. Inside PS I use a couple different Nik filter sets

<p>If you need a low cost replacement for Photoshop, there is always Corel's Photopaint. I have been using it for years and work side by side with photoshop users at work. It is an incredibly flexible editor, but at about a 5th of the cost in the package. I have used both, but I started in photopaint years ago, so it's just easier for me to use.</p>

<p>Nobody mentioned Picture Window Pro. Made for photo editing, not graphic designers. I'm quite happy with that. Working in a hybrid workflow; so can't comment on raw conversion capabilities.</p>

<p>I downloaded the newest version of GIMP (at least as of a few months ago), and it told me it couldn't edit 16 bit tiff files. That pretty much sealed the deal for me.</p>

<p>Also zooming in and out is much less convenient than Photoshop, as is resizing an image. Resizing the canvas around the image also takes several steps more than it ought to.</p>

<p>If you're printing from the editing software, the full Photoshop is the only logical choice, as the print drivers are way better. If you're not, and you can deal with an annoying interface, there are a ton of cheaper or free options.</p>

<p>You don't have the zooming options like in Photoshop, but you can change the size of the photo by using the pluss and minus keys.<br /> <br />Gimp sometimes freezes up on me (not often), but that only happened after I had downloaded quite a few photoshop brushes. I don't know if there is a connection there. There might be.</p>

<p>Bill, I use XP Pro on a Windows machine. I have no less than 30 different programs and dozens of plugins for CS2 and I don't think my computer has ever crashed. It's about 4 years old, dual core Intel with 4 GB memory, built by the local computer shop from parts & pieces. </p>

Thanks Michael. It's not Windows that crashes, it is Photoshop itself, for example when changing colorspace on a 16-bit per channel image imported from PhotoCD. CS2 seems fairly solid for normal operations, although zooming often fails to repaint the screen properly, etc.

 

Anyway, if I were to switch to a RAW workflow, I would probably upgrade from WinXP to a Mac and buy Lightroom, but not Photoshop.

<p>Bill, you say the file is from a PhotoCD ... are you opening it directly from the CD? Because Photoshop (or any program) runs much more slowly working off a CD than it does if you put those images on the hard drive and worked from there. 16 bit images are generally large too, and that will make the problem even worse.</p>

No, copied the PCD images to hard disk. As another example, CS2 Shadow/Highlight tool is useless due to fringing. After six tries I got this but still don't like it (sky not blue enough near edges).

 

http://cacreeks.com/pthumb/esca5027.jpg

<p>The GIMP development community has been promising 16 bit edits for years and years and years ...</p>

<p>I think the Corel products are a good alternative for many but Adobe also makes Elements which is a very capable affordable product. PWP is a good product, but Gimp I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I've tested it several times and quickly got tired of it.<br>

I've been using PS for years and I agree that the price is high but CS5 + LR is a wonderful combination.<br>

Capture 1 is also excellent and is no slouch of a product.<br>

Since I'm not an Apple fanboi I can't comment about Aperture but I know several Aperture users who switched to LR. </p>

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