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Details at a glance
Image Editing
PC: Win 98+
Mac: 10.0 +
We clicked with
It's FREE, multi-platform, good for basic web editing, acts well as a no frills photo editor, the layer and mask features work well and it allows basic and some advanced image editing.
Shots in the dark
GIMP is not taught in your local college, there is no batch processing, animated gifs or for web optimisation of images. There is no add-in album feature, the palettes are clunky and the process of saving images isn't a straight forward way.
Links
www.gimp.org
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Surprisingly, the GIMP (or Graphical Image Manipulator Package) started life as an academic project for 2 Berkeley students in 1996. Since then it has become a more sophisticated product, due to a fully fledged development community. The GIMP is free and it can be installed on a variety of operating systems, including Macintosh, Windows and Linux.
As one of the world's most famous open source packages, it is something of an oddity. This is because while packages like Adobe Photoshop have leapt ahead in terms of the features they contain, GIMP is different. It has been developed in line with a simpler non-commercial look at photographers' needs.
Basic Features...
While Photoshop is the de facto software package for professional photographers, the GIMP is a free package, with a smaller set of features. If we compare the product with Photoshop Elements however, we are getting a very similar set of tools. The interface is definitely slicker on Photoshop Elements 4 (RRP £59 from Amazon.co.uk), but with GIMP you are getting something for nothing. The following information was gleaned from working through a number of the tutorials to be found at www.gimp.org/tutorials.
GIMP is great because, it works very well at doing the basic photo editing features, it does not crash, and it has a small footprint (so it is fast). For cropping and resizing images for the web it is fine. You can scale an image so it keeps the original proportions or adjust the X and Y axis independently. You can also add textures an image, using an excellent set of automatic fixes (listed under Script-fu - The GIMP's name for Photoshop's Actions, which are a recorded series of procedures). Reducing red eye and doing colour changes are also very easy in GIMP. The following picture was created using a single Script-fu feature:
...and Some Advanced Features!!!
With knowledge of the basic features GIMP had to offer, it took me about 4 hours to get results from some of the more advanced features. This must be similar to most photographic packages. In the end, I was very pleased and impressed with the results. It proved to be far from the chore I thought it would be. Here are some of the results (on the latter two, there are before and after shots - click for a larger view):
selective colourisation of background
decreasing contrast and increasing shadows
reducing noise levels in an extremely noisy, slightly blurry image
Some Drawbacks
GIMP is a clunky package. The interface does not fit seamlessly around the image you are working on. The way that the application works may not suit everyone. Furthermore, you can tell that GIMP is freeware, because of its spartan feel (NB - to GIMP fans this will only add to its charm). For support you are reliant on the online community and a limited number of text books. GIMP is not taught in every school and college across the land, unlike Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Choose GIMP and you will have to be content with self-learning.
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This software works, it is free and it is relatively easy to use. If you were thinking of buying Photoshop Elements, I suggest you try this software first. You may find it meets your needs. If you are a supporter of open source software (like myself) then that is another reason to use it. There is something quite special about software developed by a user community and given away for free. Like Pulp Fiction (you know the other type of GIMP) - it is a bit of a cult classic with a big following. Now with a variety to suit nearly every user, there are no excuses to giving it a try.
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