Open Source Graphics Software - professional quality?

Anyone using open source graphics software to do professional qualty work?

[surfin2u]

Is open source software an option yet for doing serious graphics, especially digital photography (including extensive retouching)?

[limbo]

The GIMP is the only Opensource App I have come across with enough capability to get proffesional results.

[surfin2u]

Thanks, limbo, gimp is the only one that I've heard of too. I wonder how it compares to photoshop. Have you used it?

[Turbulence]

Thanks, limbo, gimp is the only one that I've heard of too. I wonder how it compares to photoshop.

In my view and speaking from experience,

Photoshop and Gimp are incomparable.

Surfin2u, I recommend you read some articles on the topic (many comparisons available) and I am sure you will get the reasons of my position above.

[surfin2u]

Thanks for sharing your opinion. It would be helpful to hear directly from you why you feel the way that you do, if you wouldn't mind saying.

[bcolflesh]

Everything I used to do in Photoshop, I can accomplish in GIMP (for Windows) with ease - some folks seem to like Paint.NET as well, since it has a more "Photoshop-ish" feel to the editing process.

[surfin2u]

Thanks, bcolflesh, that's quite a statement:

Everything I used to do in Photoshop, I can accomplish in GIMP (for Windows) with ease

I was really hoping to hear that as it gives me a reason to take a serious look at GIMP.

[bcolflesh]

Hopefully, you do the same things in Photoshop that I did...

[surfin2u]

Was there something unusual about your use of Photoshop that you would be willing share?

Are the areas that you know of that GIMP is particularly weak in?

Thanks!

[Turbulence]

Thanks for sharing your opinion. It would be helpful to hear directly from you why you feel the way that you do, if you wouldn't mind saying.

Surfin2u, hello,

Sure I don't mind sharing, of course.

To be much more concise in my feedback, I'll dare to quote an opinion

that I fully support. The main point is that

"The winner for commercial use is, by no doubt,Photoshop.

The winner for home use – The Gimp."

But it is again a matter of personal choice and experience. Once you've had scrutinized both Gimp and Photoshop, you'd end up with a conclusion of your own.

[surfin2u]

Thanks for that info. If you have the time to elaborate, that would be appreciated. Can you think of anything that I as a digital photographer might want to do with GIMP that I won't be able to, or that I won't be satisfied with?

[limbo]

The support for native digital camera files is not great for GIMP (eg Nikon NEF) - that said, Photoshop is not great without plugins.

However I have test GIMP's functionality and It's definitely worth giving it a go - what have you to lose? - it's open source!

You can happily optimise images, control contrast, colour, levels - it has layers, swatches, drawing selections tools and filters you can crop, enhance and export as most file types.

It's a very appealing package to those on a shoestring.

The other option is Photoshop-Elements - a rather tasty offering from Adobe that has most of the functions an hobbyist would need at a fraction of the price of it's older brother.

One thing it apparently doesn't support is CMYK & no Pantone swatches. This renders it (nearly) useless as a tool for print - but I imagine there is a plugin for that too.

[surfin2u]

limbo, thanks for the specifics, that's exactly what I'm looking for. As far as what I've got to lose by trying gimp, the answer is time. I am running on a very tight schedule and trying to avoid whatever extra work I can. Trying out new software is especially difficult, because you may not find a serious shortcoming until after you've been using it for a while. Thanks again!

[bcolflesh]

[ufraw.sourceforge.net...]

Free Raw Image plugin that works with GIMP.

[cue.yellowmagic.info...]

Separate+ CMYK plugin

[Turbulence]

Bcolflesh, thanks a ton!

These cool plug-ins are already in my bookmarks.
Great share :)

[surfin2u]

I'm ready to give gimp a try. Any suggestions for the best place to learn how to use it, for someone like me, who is experienced with photoshop?

[Birdman]

[gimp.org...]

[edited by: encyclo at 3:00 am (utc) on Feb. 27, 2007]
[edit reason] fixed link [/edit]

[rocknbil]

One thing it apparently doesn't support is CMYK & no Pantone swatches. This renders it (nearly) useless as a tool for print - but I imagine there is a plugin for that too

I would be interested to hear if this is the case, particularly in CMYK conversion. :-)

The CLUT's (Color lookup tables) for an RGB to CMYK conversion are pretty carefully guarded by Adobe, and rightfully so. Their color lookup tables are the most flexible and powerful ones in use by the graphics industry, involving complex and robust gray component replacement and under color removal, across a variety of printing stock profiles and ink standards. The only ones that come close and excel are proprietary tables by Scitex and Dainippon Screen. This is deeply integrated into adjustment for Postscript output as well.

In The Beginning there was a program called Color Studio we used for a while, eventually bought by Corel (I think.) A close comparison of CMYK outputs quickly revealed its inferiority.

If you need quality output for printing, you will want to use Photoshop.

[surfin2u]

Birdman, thanks for the tutorials link. I think studying them is probably the best way to go about making a good decision about whether to go with gimp or not.

[Birdman]

Surfin2u, you are welcome. Here's another page with a nice collection of tuts:

GIMP User Group [gug.sunsite.dk]

[surfin2u]

Thanks again, Birdman! These tutorials are tremendous. One of the (great) side effects of reading these tutorials is learning more about Photoshop. I wandered off into an article that explained how to use the unsharp mask in Photoshop and learned some very good stuff about how to make better use of that tool. I found that article as a link in the gimp tutorial about sharpening images, which was also very interesting and helpful. I appreciate the info, and am sure that my audience will enjoy the added sharpness and higher image quality!

[drooh]

I use photoshop 7 which is now a little dated. I am primarily a code developer working with php & mysql. For my needs Im sure I could use gimp or paint.net.

I work on a team and the guy that handles the font end graphics uses the latest photoshop. For the graphic professional Im sure some of the more adv techniques are used.

So basically Im saying that if you are an all around web developer then full blown latest photoshop may not be neccessary, however if your main focus is graphics and front end then you may find some advantages.

[boxrec]

I have tried to do what you are considering in moving from photoshop to gimp. Unfortunately (I.M.O.) the gimp doesn't quite cut it yet. The menu's are not as intuitive as photoshop and often seem illogical. For instance if you scan a photo and then need to rotate it by a fraction this option is not available from the image rotate menu, it can however be achieved through the layer menu?
But the biggest shortcoming for me is the lack of a healing brush. One has been developed during last years Google summer of code but it isn't in the stable branch yet and I don't know how good it is.
So at the moment I am having to boot up my old windoze box just to run photoshop, what a pain.

[thecoalman]

For batch processing: resizing, renaming, format conversion...etc Irfanview is a great utility program.

[docbird]

I've read of - but haven't used - the Hidden Power of (Photoshop) Elements, which enables things like gradients, CMY.

For me, Elements does what I need. Tho yes, not images directly to printers; for that, can go via graphics specialists (but prints on Epson photo printer excellent).

[werty]

Paint .net is another option. I am not sure how it will compare to PhotoShop, but I remember people talking highly about it when it came out. The site looks spammy, but it really is the official site.

[r3nz0]

GIMP Powerrrrrr :)

Before i used Photoshop 5.5 for about 5 years. But sinds 2 years im over on The GIMP.

And i have to say im more than happy with this free killer product. IMO it is better than Photoshop 5.5 :) You have to work a lot with it to become a GIMP expert but it is worth the money!

I Gimp
I'm just Gimped
We Gimp
We are Gimps

[zulu_dude]

I've also been trying out several open source (or cheap) alternatives to Photoshop.

The GIMP is great, but does take a little while to get used to when moving from Photoshop.

I've also tried a donation-ware clone of photoshop called Pixel. Absolutely terrible, I would stay well away from it. I think it managed to open 1 out of 8 photoshop files that I'd previously saved!

Am just downloading paint.net now, that sounds really interesting and looks pretty good from the screenshots!

Although it isn't free, how does the Corel Draw package compare to Photoshop? It's about half the price but seems fairly decent. Has anyone used it?

[Beagle]

Corel Draw would be a parallel to Illustrator rather than to PhotoShop. Their PhotoShop parallel would be either Paint Shop Pro or Corel Paint. Now that they've taken over Paint Shop Pro from jasc, Corel seems to be emphasizing photo editing features on the latest PSP releases and leaving the graphics features basically static - possibly to minimize its competition with Paint?

I've been happy with PSP, but since I work mainly with graphics - as opposed to photos - I haven't bothered with the recent updates. For photo work, the latest releases have been getting very good reviews; any negative comments have mostly been from us graphics folks grumbling about being ignored. (ETA: I haven't grumbled enough yet to buy Paint, so I can't give an opinion on that - it leans toward the "artistic" natural media-type use.)

[edited by: Beagle at 2:24 pm (utc) on Mar. 5, 2007]

[cmarshall]

I'm in the graphics software business.

You won't get pro-level OSS graphics software, simply because all the good algorithms are patented up the yin-yang.

I remember a good Pascal app in the eighties that was developed for medical imaging, and that was the last "pro-level" OSS app I've seen.

You will be able to get quite a few "sub-pro" packages, but you just won't be able to get the speed and accuracy of a pro app without forking over some duckets for a compiled binary.