On Jan 24, 2007, at 6:06 AM, Yann Morvan wrote:
> I know it's a bit prosaic but the free as in free beer thing can
> make a difference:
> -Photoshop CS2 at the French Adobe Store: 1075.20 euros
> -The GIMP (G as in GNU): 0 euros
> The GIMP's interface would have to seriously suck (and it doesn't)
> to make up for the time spent at work earning a Photoshop licence.
And reading through the Wikipedia article on GIMP, I see that it has some serious limitations that would make it inappropriate for hardcore graphic artists (a group that certainly doesn't include me). E.g.:
> Missing features, which many graphics artists require, include:
>
> Support for the Pantone color matching system, or spot color.
> Support for Adobe Photoshop plugins and other add-ons[3].
> Support for anything but 8-bit per-channel images e.g. 16-bit, 32-
> bit, floating point.
> Support for color models other than RGB(A) and greyscale, such as
> CIE XYZ. (Partial CMYK support is available with the Separate plug-
> in.)
> Extensive gamma support.
> Support for Color management (GIMP has limited support through LCMS
> [4])
> Native support for Adjustment layers, i.e. layers which act like
> filters. (A plugin is available which adds some support for these.)
> Undo history "snapshots" that persist between sessions.
> The magnetic lasso tool, which assists the user in edge-finding.
There are many other graphic editors with basic capabilities for people with needs well short of full-blown Photoshop, which is a truly amazing program that can do nearly everything. So that's really not a valid comparison.
Doug