Bring out The Gimp! For the unlikely reader who’s never heard of Gimp, it’s basically the open source version of Photoshop.
My friend: You’ll let them use Photoshop, right?
Me: Well, no…
My friend: You mean you’re going to make them use Gimp?
That was part of a conversation I had recently while talking about the Webcraft Studios concept. I’ll get back to this after I talk about Gimp just a little bit.
Although it is an amazingly powerful tool, Gimp’s biggest downfall is a rather kludgey interface; and the issue has been talk to death. Gimp does have some other issues, such as a lack of native CMYK support. However, next to the interface, most other problems seem very minor.
Changes in the open source community are always slow but steady. The open source community is very much the “tortoise” from the famous racing story. Most commercial software packages tend to have significant releases. Consider the Win 3.1 -> 95/98 -> XP -> Vista evolution of Microsoft’s Windows. Each iteration is vastly different from the previous. Now look at the evolution of the Gnome desktop. Gnome saw a steadier pace of more minor updates and improvements over time. That’s part of the nature of open source, and Gimp is no different.
I expect Gimp to continue to improve. This already seems to be happening. The most requested feature, a single window interface, is already in the works. If you can’t wait for that, there’s GimpShop - a branch of Gimp with GUI changes making it look and feel more like Photoshop.
So back to my friend’s question about making people use Gimp. The answer to that question is definitely “No”. I’m not looking to make anyone anywhere use open source software. I want to FIND people who are already passionate about using Gimp and empower them by bringing them together with other talented individuals.
That leaves the final question, do these people exist? Well, to that end, I’ve been using Gimp in all of my production work for the better part of six months now. That’s part of why I feel confident speaking both about the amazing features of Gimp and the truly dismal user interface. I’m not the only one using Gimp. In fact, the Gimp Talk Forum hosts more than ten thousand Gimp users. To see what they’re doing, check out the Gallery.
Gimp won’t be replacing Photoshop from the mainstream tomorrow. However, I believe we can build successful Web shops with it. It’s an excellent application and my gratitude goes out to the developers who made it happen. I leave with this sig created by a Gimp Talk forum user named AliNaqi.
There really is not much wrong with gimp. In fact it is better for all those people who are talented with a writing utensil since it uses all the features of tablets. I would disagree with your reference to the tortoise and the hare because the rabbit goofs off because he’s so fast. Microsoft is probably never goofing off they just make small errors.
Also there’s a link that’s not linked.
Thanks for the link catch - I fixed it.