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Whoa, slow down a bit. They're not talking about taking Photoshop away from designers. The developers are using GIMP to do simple cropping and amendments to pr

Whoa, slow down a bit. They're not talking about taking Photoshop away from designers. The developers are using GIMP to do simple cropping and amendments to prepared images. GIMP works just as well as Photoshop for this simple use case. In fact, the post says that they find it better than Photoshop in some regards. Furthermore, some of the developers are using Linux, on which Photoshop is not available. So, given that they're using a tool that works for them, that they like, and that runs on their choice of operating system, what's insane about that? From what the post implies, the designers are still using Photoshop. They're the ones who need it - or think they need it - or are used to it and happy and productive with it, which is perhaps the most important consideration.

benregenspan 14y ago
I used GIMP the same way up until recently. It worked for me, but switching to Photoshop has sped up a ton of common workflow -- slicing an image, turning on and off groups of layers, and similar. Also I've found that some small tweak to the PSD is almost inevitably needed, and it's worth the cost of Photoshop not to have to wait for an updated design from someone else. I don't want to just hate on open-source graphics software - a lot of amazing work has gone into GIMP, it had fun things like content-aware resizing before Photoshop did, but Adobe has 1000X the resources to invest in usability and they've used those resources well.
- michaelbuddy 14y ago
  I think Gimp can do the slicing with a plugin. There's a lot of stuff it can do that the gimp pros don't advertize, or the instructions are linux only or just difficult to lock down.
- unhammer 14y ago
  In 2.8 at least, turning on and off groups of layers is a single click on the "eye" icon of the layer group: http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-layer-groups.html http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-layer-groups.html
michaelbuddy 14y ago
Photoshop's PNG export is inferior. It should be one of the best things it can do given the popularity of it for web design. Whatever tinypng.org is doing both PS and GIMP need it badly. Also, there are things like creating seamless textures, tiling them that is easier in GIMP. Animated gif import / export is pretty easy to do too. If only GIMP could do smart object work and live layer styling, I'd be all over it. But I do use it as a professional designer / developer for specific use cases. Another designer and I had a discussion. Basically since CS2, there hasn't been a valid reason to upgrade Photoshop really other than gimmicky stuff.

benregenspan 14y ago

I used GIMP the same way up until recently. It worked for me, but switching to Photoshop has sped up a ton of common workflow -- slicing an image, turning on and off groups of layers, and similar. Also I've found that some small tweak to the PSD is almost inevitably needed, and it's worth the cost of Photoshop not to have to wait for an updated design from someone else. I don't want to just hate on open-source graphics software - a lot of amazing work has gone into GIMP, it had fun things like content-aware resizing before Photoshop did, but Adobe has 1000X the resources to invest in usability and they've used those resources well.

michaelbuddy 14y ago
I think Gimp can do the slicing with a plugin. There's a lot of stuff it can do that the gimp pros don't advertize, or the instructions are linux only or just difficult to lock down.
unhammer 14y ago
In 2.8 at least, turning on and off groups of layers is a single click on the "eye" icon of the layer group: http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-layer-groups.html http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-layer-groups.html

michaelbuddy 14y ago

Photoshop's PNG export is inferior. It should be one of the best things it can do given the popularity of it for web design. Whatever tinypng.org is doing both PS and GIMP need it badly. Also, there are things like creating seamless textures, tiling them that is easier in GIMP. Animated gif import / export is pretty easy to do too. If only GIMP could do smart object work and live layer styling, I'd be all over it. But I do use it as a professional designer / developer for specific use cases. Another designer and I had a discussion. Basically since CS2, there hasn't been a valid reason to upgrade Photoshop really other than gimmicky stuff.