For a class, I don't know, but for serious photo work, Photoshop is incredibly more advanced. Some exampes:
Color: - support for more than 8 bits/color/pixel (my scanners have 16) - support for color profiles (.icc profiles - how are you going to profile a printer otherwise?) - support for color spaces (sRGB, but also Adobe98, etc etc) Basic Processing: - Is able to dither when converting according to a curve or a color profile. This avoids color banding. - You can have adjustment layers, thus postponing both the decision, and the processing. Especially if you work with 8 bits/pixel, it makes quite a bit of difference. Fancy Algorithms: There is a remarkable number of fancy algorithms built into Photoshop; some examples are: - Good algorithms for correcting lens aberrations, color fringing, lens blur, and more. - Good algorithms for collating images into a panoramic. - Good algorithms for producing extended dynamic range images. - Good algorithms for converting from one colorspace to the other - Good algorithms for shadow/highlight correction and the list goes on and on, even before counting the plug-ins many professionals developed. I love the interface of Gimp, and I love linux and open source software, but it's Photoshop's management of color, and professional algorithms, that in the end make me go to Photoshop; Photoshop is a much superior tool for serious photography. The problem is that it is the very heart of Gimp which is limited in its capabilities, so one cannot fix it in a lightweight way. If there is no notion of color space in an image... well! I am periodically torn between going to develop for cinepaint (at least they got the color spaces and profiles correct, one can just redo some algorithms), or rewriting a new tool for scratch in a decent language like Ocaml (I really have come to dislike C). However, in the end, as I lack time even for doing what I should be doing for my job, I do nothing, and I use mostly Photoshop for photo editing. Luca On 12/16/06, John R. Culleton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > ON another list someone was complaining about the expense nad bother of > upgrading to the latest Photoshop, including licenses etc. I suggested Gimp > as a no cost/no fuss alternative for students. I received a long reply, much > of which I am not technically competent to answer. I have never used > Photoshop. Anyone else care to take a crack at one or more issues raised? > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > I've checked out GIMP before. > > > > I was going to try to run it again to see if this comment held any > > > > water: > > > There may be a feature or two that are unique to Photoshop but I'll > > > bet you > > > can live without them. > > > > …but X11 choked on my 34 activated fonts. From what I recall of > > version 2.1.x, it (and I) suffered from its aggravating GUI and > > inconsistent tools, and a general lack of features. That being said, > > if friends and family members are pining for some way to scan and > > modify old photos, I install GIMP for them and show them how to do it. > > > > GIMP works for casual use. I don't see it fitting into a professional > > workflow mainly because of the utter awkwardness of the GUI. Maybe if > > you're used to the Gnome UI standards or have the mindset of a > > programmer, it's less awkward. But that's another story. These are > > first year students I'm talking about here. They can barely get the > > OSX dock straight, let alone browsing for files in the GIMPs browser, > > which reveals the BSD underbelly of OSX, hidden folders and all. > > > > Update: I gave X11 some time (10 minutes on my hermetically > > maintained dual 1.25 G4 with 2 gigs of ram) and it finally loaded > > GIMP and also GIMPshop. While it seems that the feature sets have > > expanded quite a bit, there are still things that I use regularly in > > Photoshop missing. Here's a list. > > > > Adjustment layers: non-destructive editing. It can save you whole > > minutes if not dozens of them. > > CMYK Support: Come on! > > Wacom support- I'm sure you can get it working in linux, but we're > > not switching. > > Semi-automated extraction- a real time saver. > > Live filter previews- what's the point without them? > > Color profiles (again, come on- how is importing an image into > > Scribus just to apply a color profile a productive workflow?) > > Limited output options (a.k.a. mostly useless file types) > > Vanishing Point (it's actually useful) > > No typeface previews > > > > I could go on and on but I feel that I'm wasting breath, so to speak. > > Yeah, you can do a lot in the GIMP but it's just not enough. Beyond > > its limitations, it's difficult to use, doesn't play well with > > others, and would probably curl up in a ball and die if it tried to > > interact with our scanners on the intel machines. Photoshop saves > > time which saves money in the long run, and thus the software pays > > for itself. I'm not trying to say that GIMP isn't a great solution > > for Do-It-Yourselfers or Very-Small-Businesses, but if you're > > teaching students, there's a certain responsibility to focus on > > industry demands. I had a hard enough time getting them (the faculty) > > to give up Extensis Suitcase for Font Explorer X. > > > > -Matt > (My first response follows) > > Interesting response. Let me answer those objections that I can. > 1. Load time: On a modest Linux system and using the stable verson 2.2.13 > load time 10 seconds. Modest means a 768MHZ CPU and 512 MB ram. > > 2. Activated fonts. I estimate about 50 X11 fonts on my system. I got tired > counting them onscreen. > > 3. Scanner: I use an Intel machine and activating the scanner means copying > the xsane program to the Gimp plugins directory. Then on next reboot it > shows up automatically on the Acquire menu. I scan all the time. > > 4. GUI: I use KDE. Gimp adapts nicely to that. KDE resembles MSWin. I set my > teeniebopper granchild down on my computer and she was able to use Mozilla > which she had never seen before and Kword which she had never seen before and > the KDE interface itself which she had never seen before without any > instruction after I showed her where to access the programs on the menu. The > dreadfulness of GUI shock is IMO much overrated. I can go back and forth > between KDE, Win 2000 and Win 98 without difficulty, though of course I > prefer KDE. > > 5. CMYK support. In fact what you see on any screen is RGB. The latest > unstable Gimp will convert an image by reducing its gamut to one resembling > CMYK. You can even get cmyk separations. But for print work it is probably > smart to do final checking in Scribus which does the whole CMYK bit, ICC > profiles for monitor and printing etc. Now I would much prefer a Gimp that > worked natively in CMYK. I have been pounding the drums for that for years. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > John Culleton > Able Indexing and Typesetting > Precision typesetting (tm) at reasonable cost. > Satisfaction guaranteed. > http://wexfordpress.com > > _______________________________________________ > Gimp-user mailing list > Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU > https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user > _______________________________________________ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
