I have not been impressed with the Gimp. My image modification needs are modest. Usually, all I need to do is resize or crop an image. Gimp insists upon saving images in .xcf format, which I have never heard of, and this .xcf format cannot be read by many other programs. That bizarre decision on the part of the developers prohibits use. I suspect that there is a way to teach Gimp how to use the universally accepted .jpeg format or there is a hidden option in Gimp that is not easily found, but one can find by googling "gimp jpeg." Whatever the case may be, I have zero motive to even bother learning Gimp's ways. If I ever have a heavy-duty image editing need, then I turn to Windows 7 and ACDSee, which is intuitive, fast and powerful enough for almost any need of the average user. In Linux, I have found that ImageMagick, a quirky, modest little program, works great for resizing .jpeg pictures and is very fast, too. I also strongly recommend Digikam, which is powerful and capable of handling digital cameras.
4 comments:
Igor,
Well I totally disagree with you on this one. All you have to do is choose file/export or save for web. Then you can save as jpeg. In the past I was a photoshop junkie, but now all my work is done in the Gimp. Photoshop does the same thing by saving your file in psd format. Plus the Gimp can open a psd file. I'm not sure if Photoshop can open a xcf. So that is my two cents worth.
Scott
I don't know much about Photoshop or Gimp. I don't work with images that much unless I really have to do so for some particular purpose. You are probably right to use Gimp if you are willing to invest the time to learn its ways. I appreciate it has a lot of features.
I often find myself in a hurry, working on a time-limited project that requires a single logo. I may open up an image editor for the first time in months just to resize a little .jpeg. With Gimp, I always, without fail, forget the .xcf / .jpeg issue. I like for software to be intuitive, easy to use and not have anything that I have to remember, because I am not that great about remembering little things that I don't use but once in a Blue Moon. That is also why I find Firefox Sync irritating, because even though it probably works fairly well for average daily use, if someone with a less than perfect memory like me uses it once a year, then the learning process has to begin all over again. I'm a big fan of any software that is intuitive and seems to operate in the way that humans expect. I know it is incredibly difficult to design such software.
Like the guy said earlier, you need to export the image to get it as a JPG. Remember that GIMP is geared towards professionals/enthutiasts with a need for its many features, so it's often overpowered for resizing and cropping. There are much simpler apps that are purely designed for those simple jobs.
I moved on to the simpler apps. For heavy-duty tasks, I use my Windows box and crank up ACDSee. I like the ACDSee interface about ten times better. I don't think I would ever get used to having three separate windows like in Gimp. I appreciate that Gimp is free and open source, and that's nice, but I got a recent version of ACDSee on sale for only $25 by haggling with their sales rep, and it is definitely worth the money. I just feel like the user interface of ACDSee is designed better and is much, much more logical and intuitive. I get things done a lot faster and don't have to remember a thing. It's a pity there is no ACDSee for Linux. There are definitely Linux users that are missing it and that keep a Windows box alive in order to edit and manage photos.
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