Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, or GIMP

[roryt]

I wondered what you guys thought about these three graphics packages. Which you use and which is your favourite an what your main use is for them.

I have to say Photoshop is my favourite but I did use Paintshop pro for quite a while and that is very good but a bit annoying at times. But GIMP in my opinion is terrible and very hard to use. I DO NOT understand why you have to have "the GIMP" open and then you image in a seperate window.? I mainly use these programs for web graphics and optimizing and editing a few photos. But I ain't no photographer!

Let me know what you think.

[jbennet]

i like Paint.NET (freeware, may be open source but dont know)

Not quite as flexible as the Gimp but easy to use - works well as a general purpouse editor when you cant be bothered waiting for photoshop to load

[malawibob]

I use Paintshop Pro Studio for enhancements, but I have an old Windows 3.1 program from Ulead that is better than anything out there for working with images. Even Ulead employees have never heard of the program (Image Editor). Superb at adding something from one image to another. I never have figured out how to use layers!

[roryt]

when you cant be bothered waiting for photoshop to load

I have to say that can be annoying but the more you use it the faster it gets.

[iamthwee]

The gimp hands down.

The magnetic scissor tool sucks but using bezier curves is the way to cut around images professionally.

It supports all the other gimmicks you may find in photoshop. And you can use plugins such as the resynthesizer for smart erase etc.

Amen to open source.

Whatever you might be able to do in photoshop I could match in the gimp. Fact.

[GreenDay2001]

I use Photoshop when i really have do something huge i mean good whatever. I have photoshop CS2 and its although damn good, but i hate waiting for it to load, so i rather use Fireworks 8, its nice for graphics for webpages. Oh yeah, it easier to and integrates well with flash. So basically i use Fireworks cause i do more work for web.

As far as slow loading is concerned, fireworks loads slow to but not that as ps, however once you get used to with that, everything seems normal :).

[jbennet]

ive noticed the macromedia suite is slow (we have the eucation version in college)

[roryt]

It isn't to slow really. Once the aps have loaded they are quick as any other program.

As for vishesh's comment - I find fireworks quite obstructive (for want of a better word) because I don't feel as free to do whatever I want with it as I do in ps. But that's probably because I don't use it very often at all.

BTW, Adobe have got a beta testing thing for fireworks 9 at the moment.

[GreenDay2001]

It isn't to slow really. Once the aps have loaded they are quick as any other program.

He is right.

As for vishesh's comment - I find fireworks quite obstructive (for want of a better word) because I don't feel as free to do whatever I want with it as I do in ps. But that's probably because I don't use it very often at all.

For this i say, it all depends upon users. I started working on graphics with fireworks probably because it integrates well with flash. And now i am pretty comfortable with that. However i agree that Photoshop is really the best, no comments on that. Everytime i couldnt do everything i want to woth fireworks then i use photoshop.

BTW, Adobe have got a beta testing thing for fireworks 9 at the moment.

Oh i didnt knew abt that.

[iamthwee]

Flash pro 8.0

Now that's nice. Especially if you want to make professional looking banners.

But I still think the gimp is comparable to photoshop. Do you guys use any 3d software?

[GreenDay2001]

Well for flash I use Swift3d 4.5, its really swift and easy to use.

Flash Pro 8 is really good, and the new features are really exiting. New script editor, reference and layout is reallly good. But one thing I observed that its not very stable, perhaps because it is the first release. It crashed several times and i lost my precious work.

[roryt]

Do you guys use any 3d software?

I have tried using 3ds max studio, but it is very hard and quite confusing. I would really like to get into that kind of stuff though.

[GreenDay2001]

Hey, its huge too. I have version 8, 4cd. I hate to install it.

[jbennet]

Paint.NET

[MidiMagic]

Corel Draw

[jithu8851]

I have photoshop cs2..its very easy to work.

[jbennet]

I use paint.net

Its freeware and has an interface very similar to PSP but is very fast to load

[christina>you]

I like Photoshop.

[shashi28]

I choose Photoshop CS 3 as it is easy to use & also you can do make good graphics easily also I agree for GIMP but tht does not provide so much flexibility like Photoshop,,...

With Regards
Shashi Agrawal

[roryt]

I am going to get CS3 in the next week so I'll let everyone know what i think of it.

I needed to do a quick graphics job the other day and I didnt have photoshop on the computer I was working so i downloading GIMP to give it another chance....... And yet again it drove me insane!

I just don't get why they don't have a parent window!

[jbennet]

Use PAINT.NET ! its freeare and good (interface is kinda like PSP)

[roryt]

point taken jbennet. I have finally got cs3 and it is pretty good. The interface has been cleaned up a bit. And some good new features have been added but I havent had much time to play yet :(

Paint.net looks pretty impressive for freeware.
Looks better than GIMP atleast ;)

[GreenDay2001]

GIMP is much better than Paint.NET, I think so, but the interface of GIMP is really really bad and I hate that it doesn't have a parent window. Paint.NET is much better with interface and easy to learn.

Anyway good to see you roryt after a long time.

[roryt]

A long time indeed but I'm glad to be back ;) Yeh I didnt actually use paint.NET but last time I used link as you can probably tell it really annoyed me because everything is so hard!

Plus i used to do a lot in PSP so I would have though i'd be used to the interface of that by the looks of it.

GIMP is open source though isnt it?

[jbennet]

Yep.

[roryt]

maybe we should make a daniweb mod of it so it has that blasted parent window!

Any programmers up for it?

[jbennet]

I hate GIMP. Like most opensource software, it is too bloated with useless featuress

[roryt]

hmmm... Yeh i do agree but I think its more that the features are just displayed in a complete none intuitive way.

[iamthwee]

I have to disagree with jbennet, the gimp is packed with features and useful ones too. There is no way paint.net even comes close.

"non-intuitive" really depends on how long you've been using it for. People say blender3d is non-intuitive but for me nothing else compares. =)

btw Welcome back roryt. Where ya been?

[roryt]

I knew someone would say that and yes you are also (of course) right and I just think that it is a real shame for GIMP that it is hard for new users to use. Someone needs to sort it out befoe it just gets to hard to use.

What are your views of the parent window imathwee?

{I've been very busy recently but I am back! and hopefully to stay ;) }