Gimp vs. Photoshop

Gimp vs. Photoshop | GRIMTHING.COM

I know I've talked about this before but here it is again.  Gimp and Photoshop are both professional-level photo editing programs.  Photoshop is produced by Adobe Corporation and costs around $900 for the full program.  Gimp is free and open-source.

So, which one is better?  The answer: they're both the same, unless you're doing professional CMYK printing.  If you don't know what that means, then the answer is simply: "they're the same."

So, why shell out a grand for Photoshop?  The better question is: why pirate software worth a grand?  The only answer is that people are still afraid of open-source.  Also, a common complaint about Gimp is that it has a steep learning curve.  But guess what: so does Photoshop.  Photoshop is one of the worst-designed pieces of software I've ever seen.  It's harder to figure out than law school.  But once you figure it out, you can work magic.  Same with Gimp.

In the past few months I've started to realize that not only is it not necessary to pay thousands of dollars for useful software, but it's not necessary to pirate that software either.  Just about everything is available through open source, and the free versions have gotten pretty damn good.  I know it's been said before, but I really think we're nearing some kind of tipping point here.