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SimeyTheLimey · May 12, 2002, 10:42 PM

Anyone familiar with the Gimp from these folks? http://openosx.com/products.html

I'm looking for an alternative for Photoshop and $30 sounds like quite a steal. Is this a good choice?

[ 05-13-2002: Message edited by: SimeyTheLimey ]

theoden · May 14, 2002, 09:44 AM

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Anyone familiar with the Gimp from these folks? http://openosx.com/products.html

I'm looking for an alternative for Photoshop and $30 sounds like quite a steal. Is this a good choice?

[ 05-13-2002: Message edited by: SimeyTheLimey ]

Gimp is great, but it really depends on what you plan on doing with it. If it's just for personal use or making a few images for your website, sure. But in a professional setting, you'll probably end up with tons of headaches with colors, and probably other annoyances whereas it's actually a *nix app running under XWindows, not an actual Mac OS X app that supports ColorSync.
Also, even tho I'm sure their installer is rather easy to use, expect a little learning in the *nix area, espically for saving files

SimeyTheLimey · May 14, 2002, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by theoden:


Gimp is great, but it really depends on what you plan on doing with it. If it's just for personal use or making a few images for your website, sure. But in a professional setting, you'll probably end up with tons of headaches with colors, and probably other annoyances whereas it's actually a *nix app running under XWindows, not an actual Mac OS X app that supports ColorSync.
Also, even tho I'm sure their installer is rather easy to use, expect a little learning in the *nix area, espically for saving files

This is scary, considering I don't know what a *nix is!

What I want to do is set up a digital darkroom. I'm an amateur photographer, though formerly professional. I'm in law school now and no longer have the time for my chemical darkroom.

I mainly want to be able to correct curves, do a little sharpening and light retouching. I do most of my work in B/W. I'm leaning towards the Piezography system because it seems to be the only alternative to a chemical darkroom that gives acceptable results. Unfortunately, it's expensive, so if I can save a few bucks by putting off buying Photoshop, that would be nice. It will mean tweaking in one program (like the Gimp), then importing to Elements (free with one of the scanners I'm getting) in order to use the Cone Piezography plug-in to output to the printer. I'd just do it all in Elements, but that doesn't have curves.

Later, I'll probably add a second printer for color. Are you saying that the Gimp will be hard to set up for that? I'm not sure if my monitor supports Colorsynch anyway. I have an older LaCie 21"/108.

Sorry for my newbyness. Thanks for any help you can give!

[ 05-14-2002: Message edited by: SimeyTheLimey ]

Millennium · May 14, 2002, 10:23 AM

In your particular case, I would have to say no.

GIMP's main weakness, as compared to Photoshop, is its lack of color support. You can only use the RGB colorspace, and there's no color-matching to speak of. This makes it unsuitable for professional photo work, or even "prosumer" photo work, really.

However, if you're just playing around, GIMP will not disappoint. It's also great for creating graphics from scratch, for Websites to give one example. In those areas, GIMP fills the bill at the right price. But for what you're doing, I don't think it would really fit your needs.

SimeyTheLimey · May 14, 2002, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by Millennium:
In your particular case, I would have to say no.

GIMP's main weakness, as compared to Photoshop, is its lack of color support. You can only use the RGB colorspace, and there's no color-matching to speak of. This makes it unsuitable for professional photo work, or even "prosumer" photo work, really.

However, if you're just playing around, GIMP will not disappoint. It's also great for creating graphics from scratch, for Websites to give one example. In those areas, GIMP fills the bill at the right price. But for what you're doing, I don't think it would really fit your needs.

Thanks very much. I might get the Gimp to play with it. At $25 (with student discount) it's pretty cheap. I can get Photoshop 7 for $299 anyway so this isn't the end of the world.

Know a good place to get a cheap refurbished Epson 3000?

Superchicken · May 14, 2002, 09:44 PM

100 Bucks for Photoshop Elements.
If you're using OS 9 however. They havn't carbonized it.
But Photoshop Elements is kidna like a cut down version of Photoshop, and they include a WHOLE LOTA the higher end things that people want from a graphic app. You don't get Image ready, you don't get vectors, you don't get a few things. But you get all the filters and you get most of the tools. really it's a HUGE steal. I'm trying to convince my teacher at school to downgrade to Elements instead of trying to have the whole Lab run Photoshop 3.0 and slowly upgradeing the newer versions. He's got about 10 licences for 5-6 so I don't see why he dosn't stikc those on the better comps and give the other s MUCH cheaper software that'll do what they need.

SimeyTheLimey · May 14, 2002, 10:29 PM

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
100 Bucks for Photoshop Elements.
If you're using OS 9 however. They havn't carbonized it.
But Photoshop Elements is kidna like a cut down version of Photoshop, and they include a WHOLE LOTA the higher end things that people want from a graphic app. You don't get Image ready, you don't get vectors, you don't get a few things. But you get all the filters and you get most of the tools. really it's a HUGE steal. I'm trying to convince my teacher at school to downgrade to Elements instead of trying to have the whole Lab run Photoshop 3.0 and slowly upgradeing the newer versions. He's got about 10 licences for 5-6 so I don't see why he dosn't stikc those on the better comps and give the other s MUCH cheaper software that'll do what they need.

No curves. I'd be very sad without that. But I'm planning to get an Epson 2450 and elements comes bundled so I'll give it a whirl.

godzookie2k · May 15, 2002, 07:49 AM

I think I'm getting old. I was just about to make a comment along the lines of "Godammit, don't rip on pshop 3, its the goddamn best version of pshop ever, godammit!"Damn, I'm losing my mind. Perhaps Fireworks is an alternative? Cheaper, supports most of the stuff you want (i think), made by Macromedia. Granted, its not *that* much cheaper but...