I expected ridiculous propaganda from Adobe, but they give absolutely no reasons why Photoshop is better than Gimp and list a bunch of things that Gimp can do too.
They only mention Gimp a few times at the top and they never mention it again after:
How is Photoshop different from Gimp?
They ask a question they literally never answer.
They could have lied, they could have stretched the truth, they could have brought up the paltry number of things Photoshop does that Gimp can’t. They never do. They never say what Gimp can or can’t do.
Like I said, I expected ridiculous propaganda. I didn’t expect them to just pretend Gimp doesn’t exist in their article about Gimp.
They may have made the page purely for SEO to grab a few people considering downloading GIMP.
That makes a lot of sense.
This seems to be the plan. It’s the third result for ‘photoshop vs gimp’ on DDG.
How is Photoshop different from Gimp?
Photoshop is a subscription-based…
Oh, so Gimp is better then, thanks Adobe!
I so laughed when i saw they already start with that lol
Gimp is what you use for image editing if you’re poor or Stallman-like. It’s good at being scripted for programmers that want to automate their image processing workflow.
Krita is what you use for drawing stuff if you don’t want to spend money on software or are Stallman-like.
Photoshop is what you use if you do photo editing or digital art for a living. Paid, proprietary options exist if you don’t do photo editing.
There’s one tool that comes close to competing with Photoshop and it’s Photopea, a subscription based/ad ridden website clone of Photoshop.
Recommending GIMP as a Photoshop alternative is like recommending LaTeX instead of Word. It’ll work for some people, and it’ll do some things much better even, but it’s ridiculous to assume any normal user of the proprietary product is going to be able to use the open source alternative without weeks or months of training.
I highly recommend the Affinity suite of problems (Photo, Designer, and Publisher). While they aren’t free they are much cheaper than Adobe and they are only available for a one time fee.
suite of problems
Lol not sure if this is a joke or a typo
Lol, it’s a typo but I’m not changing it, haha
It is a typo, affinity suite is a very good alternative
I have to admit that GIMP has me beat - I’ve taught myself plenty of progs (usually in a panic because I told the interviewer I could use it and therefore had to learn it real fast - that’s how I learned Illustrator, CorelDRAW and QuarkXpress), but I just can’t seem to get the hang of GIMP.
I’ll agree with this. GIMP is the most user-unfriendly piece of photo editing software i’ve used to date. I can pick up video games like Shadow Empire and spend dozens of hours figuring out how it works but GIMP is a wall to me.
It’s one of the things I’ve bounced off of many times, but each time I come back and give it another shot it gets a bit easier until one day I thought, hey this isn’t as bad as I used to think. Not really a ringing endorsement, but I definitely don’t hate it anymore. I would still rather do as much as I possibly can in Krita though.
The other problem with Photoshop is that it now scans your projects.
For a real Photoshop vs GIMP discussion, I think I’ll leave a link to Franklin Veaux’s Quora post here.
tl;dr there is actually a lot of functionality in Photoshop not present in GIMP that most casual users will never use, but is very important to professionals. People don’t pay hundreds of dollars to Adobe just for funsies.
There’s a ton of functionality in Photoshop that even pros never use. Every user of Photoshop needs something different from it. Sure, there’s a core of features that everyone uses (and which the Gimp also has) but there’s also countless other niche features that are a crucial part of the workflow for tons of users and they won’t give them up. This is one of the reasons Photoshop is so hard to replace.
It’s also the reason Latex is tough to replace as well. It’s a phenomenon which is not limited to commercial software, that’s for sure.
I would argue that there’s also lots of professionals who don’t use or need those features. Not everyone is using photoshop for print work, which that link seems to mostly discuss. It is still true, though, and every time I try to switch away from photoshop I run into some niche missing feature I need that most people wouldn’t care about.
I use Photopea, it’s a website so no download and does 99% of what Photoshop and GIMP can do.
Made by a single Ukrainian developer, and free (with some ads on the side while you’re using it)
How is Photoshop different from Gimp?
Photoshop is a subscription-based graphic design and photo editing program with a large catalog of advanced features that go beyond simple photo retouching. It’s the go-to tool for experienced photographers, graphic designers, web developers, and film editors. But at the same time, its tools are approachable enough for beginners and hobbyists looking to tweak images for work or create artwork in their free time.
Okay cool, that’s all technically true or unverifiable. What makes Gimp different, Adobe?
I stopped reading after “subscription-based”.
You don’t have to pay for it.
But they don’t like mentioning that part.
Edit: Having used both, the only real disadvantage I can see when it comes to Gimp in a Photoshop vs. Gimp comparison- apart from special cases- is that Gimp (for me anyway) has a higher learning curve. I end up having to look up how to do something more often with Gimp. But not having to pay Adobe a monthly fee makes up for that.
I once read that adobe also patents the simplest UX improvement, which means that gimp can’t implement good ideas that people are already used to.
Gimp’s UX is a trainwreck. “Approachable tools” is the key bit there.
I don’t use photoshop. Fuck subscription horseshit. I use affinity. But Gimp having capability is fine, but it has a super high barrier to entry because the design is so bad.
Photoshop lets you draw a circle
So does Gimp…
It’s more complex. In Photoshop, it’s a single tool. In GIMP, you make a circular selection, convert it to a path, and then stroke the path.
Not only is this more convoluted, it’s bewilderingly unintuitive to beginners and is definitely one of GIMP’s shortcomings.
Obligatory: Do people not know that Krita exists?
Krita isn’t for image editing
I edit images in Krita…
It isn’t for image editing
Well I’m not gonna stop doing it.
No, don’t you understand? It is not for image editing
