GIMP

I have used the GIMP in the past for studying and editing images such as for resizing, clipping, rotation, color curves, hue, saturation, noise reduction, sharpening, format conversion, studying the histogram, adding text, etc. It is true, among the FOSS Software I have used GIMP stands out as a tool packed with features. It used to be slow to startup loading all the data options and the plugins, but in the latest version it seems to be slow only the first time around. The GIMP and its source code are available to download and install on Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

Just noting that PDF produced by WellOiledPC is possibly a GFDL violation:

https://www.ohloh.net/topics/3602?page=1#post_10844

Also, non-downloadable _work in progress_ version of the manual is free:

http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/

Older (2.2 and 2.4) manuals are also downloadable PDFs.

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In other news, GIMP is an excellent piece of software, especially for software developers or for-computer artists. From what I hear from for-print artists, it's not suitable for finalizing for print.

But when you take its price into account, as well as its excellent suitability for any advanced for-computer image manipulation, then you see you can't go better than this. After all:
benefit / price = benefit / 0 = +infinity

I am not a super user of photoshop but occasionally need to resize or recolor images, convert images to .png files, create esignature images, and make backgrounds of images transparent. So far, GIMP has worked exactly as I needed it to. It looks to have all the functionality that is available in photoshop from what I can tell by looking through the menus. I actually find the icons to be more intuitive than Photoshop. I hesitate to give GIMP five stars only because I just recently started using it, so there may be issues I have yet to discover, or it could turn out to be perfect.

Create, edit, and manipulate images, text, and graphics with this high quality editor. It is easy-to-use and offers similar features to the high-cost competitor software.

I've been using GIMP for years and am very happy with it, it can edit and analyze photos, create pixel art, apply effects, convert formats, there is a lot of useful plugins as well. It has some minor issues, such as lower performance with some effects, inability of plugins to modify the program itself which makes it lack some advanced features, such as a tiling canvas... but there are workarounds for most of these. I suppose the active community will make the program even better in the future. Thank you for this great editor.

I've been spreading the gospel of GIMP for years to novice website owners/updaters. GIMP is easy to obtain (providing your IT people don't block you!) and even easier to use. It contains the basics that are needed for quick and dirty image editing (resizing, cropping) for the web, and will keep an advanced user happy, too. GIMP is definitely a great complement to content management software, empowering anyone on a budget to be a more effective website manager.

Let's face it. The Gimp's GUI is scary for beginners. But with a little commitment and lots of RTFM you'll soon realize that the Gimp is probably the best image editing software there has ever been.
I learned quickly to dock the various toolbars to the right places, so now even my Gimp windows are manageable.
As to picture editing, it's just incredible. Just think about Colors/Curves.../Freehand.

Its not so good as photoshop but for many people its enough.

At first, GIMP doesn't seem all that user-friendly - especially to someone who is unfamiliar with image manipulation software in general. However, there are a number of tutorials available (which are free and pretty easy to find), and even a compete novice can get the basics down pretty easily. As an educator I have attempted to introduce students to this software, and have found that for middle school students it can be used relatively easily with some well-structured guidance and some templates. I have found that students in seventh grade and higher catch on quickly after being introduced to the application and many find it very enjoyable. GIMP is undoubtedly a powerful piece of software that is very useful in K-12 schools, and there's certainly nothing out there that can beat the price.

Hello,

The GIMP ide is very bad. It does'nt have fixed windows and everything is messed up. But the software itself is very good and powerful.

I hope that the windows system is fixed soon so that we can dock the layers, tools toolbars/windows properly in a fixed place.

Thanks.