Gimp

[Havoc]

I always assumed printer drivers are separated from the graphical applications and are managed by the OS? For stiching there is Hugin. It's been a very long time since I used that so I have no idea how it looks now.

[bdkphoto]

One thing I rather dislike is the name. I remember when "gimp" was a pejorative term for someone (well, sort of like me,) who can't walk or walks with a limp.

I use a RIP to print to my Epson P800 Big thing I'm worried about now is whether the printer will still function after being unused for over a year while I was in the hospital - it's still really hard for me to get into my office even after being home for a couple of months, so trying to resurrect the printer will have to wait a couple of more months.

There's some great printer maintenance info over at Inkjetmall.com - the have cleaning fluid etc, it worked really well after my printer had been sitting for several months.

[wclark5179]

I’m an oldie moldie. I still find that Photoshop CS-4 works just fine still with my Canon DSLR cameras, 100% RAW capture. And my old iMac still works great.

And my avatar was made by my friend Monte Zucker, long time ago, Sarasota. I still miss Monte, he and I discussed photography, all aspects a lot. He was a friend.

He was using a Canon 10D at the time. Pancreatic cancer took his life.

Would Photoshop Elements be something to consider for you guys?

Just a thought.

[sharktooth]

I find Gimp to have such amazing potential, but so extremely frustrating at the same time.

I started out using Photoshop CS3, so that's what I'm most familiar with. In those days I was using the Mac version, so needed something else to use on a PC. I tried Gimp, and it seemed to be O.K., but eventually settled on Photoshop Elements, since it was relatively inexpensive, and had many of the features I regularly used in CS3.

Gimp has improved significantly over the years, and I still have a current version loaded on all my computers, but ultimately, it has one major failing that keeps me from using it. To this day, Gimp has no simple way to convert images easily for use on the web. Every version of Photoshop or Elements has the "save for web" feature that makes this super quick and easy. I can't understand why Gimp hasn't done something to achieve this, since virtually every image is seen on the web these days. That's why I find Gimp so frustrating.

[Jim Andrada]

Heck, I find ALL software frustrating - and I've had 64 years in CS/IT.

[Tin Can]

I also dislike GIMP

the name is horrible

I tried long ago

waste of time

[Graham Patterson]

Adobe started out in typography (PostScript) and moved into image processing and page/document processing (Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat). The GNU Image Processing program came from programmers. Something of a different design ethos (not that unusual - Pagemaker was arguably better than InDesign until Adobe quashed it).

We have Adobe licensed software for the digital artist in the house - on my wife's Mac. I see no need of it on my machines - GIMP will run on my Linux systems as well as Windows, and does what I need at minimal ongoing expense. But then I do not have a huge history of using Adobe products in depth, which is a sunk cost for many people.

At least there is a choice. At one time it looked like Adobe would be the only one.

[Mick Fagan]

Graham Patterson, Aldus Pagemaker and Aldus Freehand were the top of the tree using portable computers instead of mainframe computers. Eventually they came out on top and if it wasn't for Paul Brainerd selling his business to the Adobe company, I think it would have been top of the pops, so to speak.

I first started using it in 1986, still have all the floppy discs.... :-)

[jp]

PageMaker was awesome....
To flow a whole chapter of text across as many text boxes on as many pages as you want.. Way ahead of it's time and a mature reliable product at the same time. Very nice kerning adjustment abilities too.

Gimp has certainly improved with the 2.10. The export has much of the save for web options if you choose jpg except for resize is not there like in LR/PS. I've not owned PS elements but have tried it on other people's computers. I was not impressed and think the lesser known 3rd party image editors would be more competitive than PS elements which seems extra limited by design.

[Oren Grad]

Those who want a free but very powerful editor that is oriented toward the needs of photographers should look at Picture Window Pro:

https://www.dl-c.com/Products-PWP8.html

It's written for Windows, would need to be run in an emulator if you want to use it under Linux or MacOS.