Im bored at work so thought id share.
Up till now I have been using Paint Shop Pro on both Windows and on Linux (using wine) and all's been great. I have been using Paint shop pro since the Dos/Windows 3.1 days for drawings, and other 'arty-farty' stuff.
I recently went on holiday and my laptop had no PSP or wine installed on it, so i downloaded the latest gimp. I have been using this too for a while but only for certain filter and transparency operations. I grudgingly started using it for some complicated drawing stuff and was soon swearing at the interface.
Rather than giving up with it like i usually do, I decided to investigate exactly how this horrid program was supposed to work. Not being a "mac-photoshop" (the multiple windows) or a "win-photoshop" (odd shortcuts) type person everything was making me crazy. Tools kept dissapearing behind images and other infuriating problems.
Anyway. I found out it can be quite comfortable to use with a few options changes and it is more way more powerful than i first thought, its all there, its just in strange places:
-It does have editable text layers after all.
-the path tool is very usable and much better than i thought. (especially when the paths and layer dialogues are docked in the tabber)
-my old moan about LMB for 1 color and RMB for another is easily fixed by pressing X. (I guess this is a PShop thing)
-The dissapearing tools can be assigned to the little-used "menu key" between ctrl+alt under prefs -> key shortcuts -> dialogs -> tools
-Once all the dialogue boxes are docked under the tools (as tabs), they too can be accessed by menu key.
-The way the layers once you know how, work better than in PSP.
-Response from my tablet works better.
-It has some good filters too (so does PSP but i cant remember there being this many in gimp).
-It FINALLY has a proper brush scale slider
-The clone tool does have a 'parallel' mode after all.
A week ago if you had said choose Gimp over PSP i would have said "Not on your nelly!". While i guess its no photoshop (but i have never needed or liked that anyway) it is certainly superior to what i have been using all this time and is perfect for the arty stuff.
If you do not have photoshop and have not tried gimp for a while i strongly reccomend looking at it again.
Up till now I have been using Paint Shop Pro on both Windows and on Linux (using wine) and all's been great. I have been using Paint shop pro since the Dos/Windows 3.1 days for drawings, and other 'arty-farty' stuff.
I recently went on holiday and my laptop had no PSP or wine installed on it, so i downloaded the latest gimp. I have been using this too for a while but only for certain filter and transparency operations. I grudgingly started using it for some complicated drawing stuff and was soon swearing at the interface.
Rather than giving up with it like i usually do, I decided to investigate exactly how this horrid program was supposed to work. Not being a "mac-photoshop" (the multiple windows) or a "win-photoshop" (odd shortcuts) type person everything was making me crazy. Tools kept dissapearing behind images and other infuriating problems.
Anyway. I found out it can be quite comfortable to use with a few options changes and it is more way more powerful than i first thought, its all there, its just in strange places:
-It does have editable text layers after all.
-the path tool is very usable and much better than i thought. (especially when the paths and layer dialogues are docked in the tabber)
-my old moan about LMB for 1 color and RMB for another is easily fixed by pressing X. (I guess this is a PShop thing)
-The dissapearing tools can be assigned to the little-used "menu key" between ctrl+alt under prefs -> key shortcuts -> dialogs -> tools
-Once all the dialogue boxes are docked under the tools (as tabs), they too can be accessed by menu key.
-The way the layers once you know how, work better than in PSP.
-Response from my tablet works better.
-It has some good filters too (so does PSP but i cant remember there being this many in gimp).
-It FINALLY has a proper brush scale slider
-The clone tool does have a 'parallel' mode after all.
A week ago if you had said choose Gimp over PSP i would have said "Not on your nelly!". While i guess its no photoshop (but i have never needed or liked that anyway) it is certainly superior to what i have been using all this time and is perfect for the arty stuff.
If you do not have photoshop and have not tried gimp for a while i strongly reccomend looking at it again.