As our company is more and more focussing on OpenSource (free) solutions for all kinds of software (I hope they dare to throw off Microsoft Office soon for normal users soon in favour of Lotus Symphony) I decided to take a look at GIMP.
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
Logo GIMP
As a Photoshop crack I was in the beginning a bit reserved to GIMP since Photoshop has got just everything you need, but it has it’s price-tag. Since I want that all developers have at least a better alternative that MS-Paint and Adobe Photoshop is too expensive there is a need to look for alternatives.
After reading an article on Smashing Magazine how to tweak GIMP a bit more and playing around with it I am starting to like it. At least for most handlings (multiple layers, resize, rotate, coloring).
Luckily there are pro’s you can learn a lot from.
Another step to a richer and cheaper developer’s desktop =)
Carlos Rivera said
I’ve been using GIMP for a few months now for all my apps image needs and it’s great. Like any tool it takes getting used to but as you said there is lots of tutorials to make it easier.
Kathy said
Check out http://www.aviary.com – very cool tools!!
quintessens said
As alternative for MS Visio for drawing structured diagrams I could recommend DIA:
http://hans.breuer.org/dia
quintessens said
also check this site http://www.webdesignbooth.com/15-great-and-free-photoshop-alternatives/ for more alternatives