f13.net

It looks like next year my work will be giving me the job of showing my team members how to do various things with computers next year, especially in stuff like image editing, but on a no-budget, erm, budget.

Since I use PS to make nice shineys for my presentations, etc, they all like that. But of course, there's no way that my work would be able to shell out for a pile of PS licences. So I'm looking for a legal alternative, something with a bunch (but not needing all) of the functionality of Photoshop (layers, nice tools, etc) that's free or at worst, shareware. Because at the moment most of them only have Paint, and we know how great that is...

Any suggestions?

That would have to be gimp:

http://www.gimp.org/ (http://www.gimp.org/)

(http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/4271/windowscropjf2.jpg)

Awesome. I'll check it out over summer and let them know about it.

Beat me to it.  I use The Gimp itself.  It's not quite as user-friendly or fully featured as the multi-hundred dollars that is Adobe Photoshop, but it gets the job done pretty well.

Yes, it can be quite frustrating going from Photoshop to Gimp in terms of learning the latter's user interface, it especially took me a long time for me to get used its layout of disconnected windows.  I kinda wanted a workspace in place to comfort me like a loving womb.

The very fact that people can have a pro/con comparison of GIMP versus Photoshop should indicate the robustness of the former program. It falls short on some of the really advanced features, but in general, it's THE program.

I like Paint .NET. It has layers and the UI is a bit friendlier than GIMP. Every time I've tried GIMP I've run away screaming; it's not for the faint hearted.

Paint .NET is civilization, motherfuckers.  I am eternally in Yegolev's debt for telling me about it.

Gimp is more robust/extensible than that. And Photoshop even moreso, of course.


Not that that's bad. Image Editors are either too slim or too bloated. A middle ground is nice. I use something similar: Pixelmator (http://www.pixelmator.com/). It's based on the "other" open source project "ImageMagick". One cool thing about it is that it's GPU powered.

Paint.NET does lack some of the fancier things that you can do with Photoshop, but for most applications it is more than enough and It Just Works.  That said, I didn't realize there was a Windows binary for GIMP, and I'll be taking a look.

Pixelmator is a nice program. A similar one with slightly different GUI behavior is Acorn (http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/). Well made program and it runs $39.95 per seat right now. I'd imagine you might land a discount for volume, but I don't know for sure.

GIMPshop (http://www.gimpshop.com/download.shtml) is the Photoshop lookalike version of Gimp. I just tried GIMPShop and Paint.Net. Paint.Net is by far easier to use. I can't stand the disconnected windows everywhere. I need thin bars of tools around my workspace.

I use Picture Publisher and Xara (for vector). They aren't free though.

Edit: Grammar.  :ye_gods:

TheGIMP is nearly as powerful as Photoshop but it's CYMK capabilities are no where near as good as ol' Photoshop, which is why professionals don't really use it. Paint.net is good if you want something better than old fashioned Paint but not Photoshop.

Get GIMPShop if you wanna use GIMP, because the regular version has the worst user interface in the history of user interfaces. Nothing in that program is intuitive.

hmm.. thanks. It's sounding like Paint.NET may be the go, as it will only be used occasionally, by non-computer professionals in a "go make a pretty page or two" sense, and not on an especially regular basis.
Being free is better than $40 a pop since it'll be used pretty occasionally.rarely by most staff, and it lets people just install and use as we have staff turn over.
Having a simpler, more intuitive UI is a good thing too, as some of the staff are a little compu-phobic when it comes to stuff past MS Word...

It's true. Even this (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/06/18) is a better UI.

urgmgh!

Seems like paint.NET wants you to install that MS NET.passport bullshit. That won't fly...

Umm. Yeah. Probably should have it anyways. You're already running that piece of shit called Windows. Might as well fill your cup.

I like the Gimp UI. It's odd and different, and definitely flies against Windows-centric thinking, but any UI is when you first encounter it. I like the tearoff menus and once your subconscious understands the multiwindow thing, it works well for me, especially once you get the hotkeys down for those actions you use frequently (layers, select by color, dropper, etc.…)

I don't remember any sort of passport thing.  It uses the .NET framework (that's how the app itself weighs in at something like a meg), but not anything that involves online authentication.

It's not about my computer at home, it's about telling everyone at work that they need to install .NET on their notebooks and so forth. And since we're a part of a government department, that's not likely to fly.

Unless .NET framework doesn't require .NET passport etc as Samwise suggests.

Ah, I see your complaint.

Yeah Samwise is right. .NET has nothing to do with Passport (they've changed passport branding to "Live" btw.. So it's not .NET anymore). It's just like installing Java or something.

You don't need Passport anything, just the .NET Framework... probably v2.0 but I can't recall.  As far as I can tell, .NET is a fancy MSism for libc.a, so no worries.  Pretty much it lets C# programs be made and work.

You just get the redistributable (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en) and hope it doesn't jack their machines.

What do you mean by "jack their machines?" All the OSes are legit, so there's no worries about Windows authentication, etc.

Essentially, if I find something that looks the go, I'll download it to my machine on the holidays, have a play with it, and then if its thumbs up I'll email my boss and tell him the details, he'll then download and play with it, and if its thumbs up, the install files will go live on the server until I have to PD people with it...

Actually it could jack up some scripting that is already in place, depending on what you are doing.  I have .NET 3.0 on this laptop and it has dorked some scripts the Workstation Police have running, generating annoying popups for me.  They seem to be contained to wsh scripts.