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Why I like GIMP better than Photoshop CS2


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<p>Here are a few reasons:</p>

<ul>

<li>GIMP starts up so fast I don't need to make an espresso, thus reducing caffeine consumption. </li>

<li>Save-as-JPEG can mimic the quality parameters of any existing JPEG to reduce artifacting.</li>

<li>Menu picks are more accessible than CS2, for instance Levels and Curves are at first level.</li>

<li>Easier to zoom up and down and shrink/expand the window to fit.</li>

<li>Most dialogs have fine-grained up/down control over numeric values.</li>

<li>Curves window includes Levels histogram.</li>

<li>Levels window has exponential view and can be stretched (see below).</li>

</ul>

<p>I'm not going to list GIMP's drawbacks, although I know what they are. We'll probably upgrade to CS4 after Xmas when we have better cash flow. Nothing about CS3 seemed exciting, but CS4 starts up faster and has, umm... what does it have?</p><div>00Rmgv-97291584.thumb.jpg.f63dbc3bcb49383edad07e5785ab3ac6.jpg</div>

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<p>John,<br>

16-bit is a mith.<br>

http://www.digitaloutput.net/content/ContentCT.asp?P=350<br /> <br /> http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=23054&hl=16+bit+mith<br /> <br /> In the following article Emil Martinec explains the noise role.<br /> http://theory.uchicago.edu/~ejm/pix/20d/tests/noise/noise-p3.html#bitdepth</p>

<p>16 bit are necessary for raw conversion starting from 12-bit. But you work in a linear space.<br>

As soon as you have the image in a compressed space (gamma corrected), 8-bit are more than enough.</p>

 

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<p>As you say, CS3 or CS4 as the exact same feature, but im not sure what you meant about your jpeg color change? my jpeg always look the same when save since version photoshop 2 15years ago...and are software mainly use in the industry, so support is all over the place.<br>

I think a upgrade will be a good thing to do if you can afford it, but if you like GIMP..why upgrade?</p>

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<p>Bill left of the most significant fact about GIMP - it is free! That has enormous appeal to the crowd that makes lens shades from bean cans. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for. What you lose, with respect to Photoshop, is a product nearly universal in scope, with paid developers (not volunteer hackers, however sincere) and a well developed support mechanism (peer-to-peer and Adobe).</p>

<p>A few years ago, car manufacturers were citing how their products were superior to Volkswagen in some (usually in some inconsequential way, like number of cup holders). Volkswagen capitalized on these ads by saying "We're the ones everyone looks up to." Needless to say, I'm not switching to GIMP anytime soon.</p>

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<p>Without color management and 16-bit@channel editing (ok, 15 bit LOL), it's not worth the time. And it has no image management or metadata editing capabilities. </p>

<p>My work is 100% RAW captures. Lightroom 2.1 does 99% of what I need to do better than anything else I've used, including Photoshop. And it costs $300, not $600. </p>

<p>G</p>

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<p><em>What you lose, with respect to Photoshop, is a product nearly universal in scope, with paid developers (not volunteer hackers, however sincere) and a well developed support mechanism (peer-to-peer and Adobe).</em></p>

<p>I can (and do) use GIMP on Mac and PC pretty much regardless of OS versions and with pretty much the same interface and knowing there is an extremely detailed help/faq/forum available on the web for free AND without ever worrying about how many licensed active versions I'm allowed to install on different machines OR what may happen with the paid development and support teams the next time a software giant buys another software giant and chooses to kill a competing package.</p>

<p>GIMP is not nearly universal, it is <em>truly </em> universal.</p>

 

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<p>Lot's of strange posts in this thread.</p>

<p>I don't have anything against anyone who uses a different application than I do. That would be sort of obsessive, right. I happen to use Photoshop? I'm guessing that most users of the GIMP feel the same way - we all use whatever tool we happen to choose for whatever reason we choose it.</p>

<p>The idea that Photoshop users select it as a "status symbol" rather than as a tool is just nuts. </p>

<p>It is pretty easy to demonstrate posterization in black and white conversions, particularly with portions of the image that are nearly but not quite uniform and which contain mostly one color channel. Sky is probably the best know example since it is virtually entirely blue channel and since the luminosity is smoothly graduated. If you simply to a "normal" BW conversion and leave the sky alone you won't have any big problem. But if you apply a yellow or red filter or darken the sky by working with levels or curves you can quite quickly end up with banding and other issues in your BW rendition.</p>

<p>There is some rubbish in this thread, but the recognition that posterization can be an issue during BW conversions is not part of it.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

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<p>By "universal", I mean that nearly every graphic professional uses Photoshop, as well as every service bureau and many of my clients (e.g., art directors). Photoshop works in Windows and Apple OS/X - which is all that really matters. The support system, formal and informal, is every bit as important as the program's capabilities. I have better things to do with my time than play around in backwater software and systems. Of course, YMMV.</p>

 

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<p>I'm sure Gimp is fine for some people's uses. It's free, so if it has any functionality that is useful to you you're getting your money's worth!<br>

I need a system that works in full 16 bit, particularly for the manipulations I do to black and white files, and need one that does a good job with color management as I have a profiled monitor and printer.<br>

P.s. don't take articles from 2003 citing non-luminaries like Dan Margulis as gospel re: 8 vs 16 bit. I used Photoshop 7 into this year and am keenly aware of the difference as there are many edits you can't do with PS7 in 16 bit mode. I'd had to jump through hoops (using the history brush, etc) to make significant edits while avoiding posterizing with certain files. Now in CS3 I don't have to worry- I just stay in 16 bit mode.</p>

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<p><em>"P.s. don't take articles from 2003 citing non-luminaries like Dan Margulis as gospel re: 8 vs 16 bit."</em></p>

<p>Indeed. See, for example, Bruce Lindbloom's article on the so-called "challenge". I particularly love the following line, speaking of the way the challenge was ultimately modified as various folks began to show clear advantages given their workflows. The ground rules were eventually qualified such that the challenge only served to prove that: <em>"When considering all images showing no 16-bit advantage, 16-bit images show no advantage."</em></p>

 

<p >Like most here, I consider the ability to work in 16-bits when appropriate to be an absolute necessity. As for GIMP, I believe that the developers have been slowly and steadily working towards 16 bit support for some time now, and that they fully understand the necessity of 16 bits for serious photographic work. In their own FAQ in the section on future 16 bit support, you'll find the following quote: <em>"For some industries, especially photography, 24-bit colour depths (8 bits per channel) are a real barrier to entry."</em></p>

<p > </p>

<p >I think you can enable some limited 16 bit capabilities in v2.6.x, but I'm not a GIMP guy, so I could be wrong.</p>

<p>Scott</p>

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<p>GIMP 2.6 has color management support and is now based on their new GEGL library which will allow for 16-bit editing in a future version.<br>

I use GIMP, I don't own Photoshop. Almost everyone I know runs Linux and periodically uses GIMP but as Jeff implies I and almost everyone I know are in the computer industry. I use Bibble for RAW conversions, I only rarely use GIMP for minor touchups. If I need to adjust curves more on an existing 16-bit TIFF then I use Cinepaint which is based on an older version of GIMP but supports 16-bit editing. There are other RAW workflow programs like Krita and Digikam that also support 16-bit editing.</p>

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<p>Jacopo: Given that there are numerous posts, articles, and tests on this topic I think that your request to use to go out and generate a flawed file for you is likely to go unanswered.</p>

<p>Feel free to continue to believe what you want to believe however, including that all of us work by the standard you described above:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"Yes, I'm an Adobe client" is better than "I select looking at quality, or quality/price"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You are, of course, wrong. And you are, of course, entitled to remain so if that is your desire.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

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<p>This thread turned funnier than I expected. You guys with the 16-bit color channels probably use Bayer sensor cameras with 1/4 or 1/3 color per pixel, so why the sudden concern about precision? I have seen evidence that 16-bit color helps for some images in a very limited way, but my JPEG photos are better now than when I scanned film, so I just don't give a damn about stuff of little consequence. The idea of B&W requiring 16-bits per color channel seems completely comical. All the same, I think it would be relatively easy to compile a 16-bit GIMP on a 64-bit Linux machine.<br>

On the plus side for Photoshop, it fills up this forum with repeatedly pointless DPI questions, and (somewhat less pointless) newbies having problems with colorspace conversion. If it weren't for those threads, we might have to discuss -- horrors -- photography.</p>

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<p>I have been using GIMP for around 6 years on both pc and mac. Before that I had Photoshop 6. I would consider myself more of a photographer than a computer person. I like GIMP alright. It has some major drawbacks that drive me nuts sometimes, but you get what you pay for. GIMP is free. I think its a pretty good program for being free. That being said, Photoshop is the industry standard. Most pros use it, the lab I worked in used it and the lab I use for printing now gives directions and specifications based on it. Would I buy Photoshop if I had the money? Absolutely, but for now GIMP works fine and I will continue to use it until I see that my workflow demands otherwise. </p>

<p> </p>

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