I noticed that a lot of people use GIMP because it's free, which is a perfectly sound reason. I took a look at screencaps of it and I thought, "Huh, doesn't seem to have a lot of options." Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Anyway, I recently heard about SAI and have seen some pretty cool things made with it, and thought I should share it with the artistic community. It's a Japanese Photoshop-like program that's been translated into English and is available open-source, basically free: http://sai.detstwo.com/sai/

I haven't tried it myself, since it's only for Windows computers, but it looks pretty neat.

I'm correcting you, because you're wrong.

The GIMP is an excellent program that has essentially all the options and abilities of Photoshop. In my experiences, GIMP was easier to use and more intuitive than Photoshop (a program that I've literally spent hours searching for a particular function simply because it's incredibly poorly placed and needlessly hard to get to). There are also a great many add-ons for the GIMP.

As far as screenshots go: a lot of functions have -optional- dialogs, so you don't have to see them if you don't want to.

I haven't tried this program, though, so that's not to say it's not also a great program.

What I like about the GIMP, though, is that their system was so comprehensive and complex that the GNOME window manager for linux was literally built on the toolkit from GIMP.

Okay, thanks!

I think the biggest problem with Gimp is when you move from Photoshop to Gimp. Nothing is in the right places, and things don't work the same way. Takes some getting use to...I stick with Photoshop mostly cause I was having trouble with my machine running slowly with Gimp.

I've had GIMP jam up my computer a few times. This happens on occasion when I run other programs on the side (MUSHclient, a few browser windows and msn messenger being the normal "setup"). Of course, my computer is quite a few years old and can't handle anything that makes it think too hard. I should probably just be content with playing Solitaire and doodling on paper from the looks of it...

If you can't have 10 other windows open while running Gimp, then it's just not worth it.

GIMP was and probably still is an awesome program for what its worth (free ). I used it a lot in other games or web communities to make avatars and sigs, even helped me render things so I could make those. It was easy to learn and to use, since I've never messed with PhotoShop or like programs before. However, I might have to give this SAI a try.

Part of the problem comes from using it on windows, a system for which it was not designed. GIMP is built on the GTK platform, and GTK has been ported to the windows environment. Oftentimes, this is not a perfect port, so you see minor memory leaks and so forth.

That said: I've never had a problem running it on Windows.

Did you know that photoshop is now online? www.photoshop.com There is also a third party version of photoshop online by some company that I belive is called faux. It's been some years since I saw it.

My friend showed me SAI before- it's pretty neat and does nice smooth inking. I agree that GIMP probably works better as a Photoshop replacement, though.

Huh, interesting. I wonder if I can do the same things on it as I can do on my offline copy.

I've been using Paint.NET

I've used Paint.NET as well. Not as many features, but it does the trick. My advice, don't use a laptop track pad when trying to render

Oh Gimp. You all know I'm an admirer of it's free, functional usage. Smitten with it's existence.

Alas, I must agree that it screws with the speed on Windows. I wont switch systems till I get a new computer.

Honestly, though, when I start something, I may have firefox up (to upload to photobucket and here for progressions). But that's it. My computer is surely more than a few years old, too. My sympathies to other users who have had bad trips.

SAI, I've heard of and have seen wonderful products from on Deviant Art. I've thought about downloading, but never have. I'll do so in the next week and attempt something on it before making any judgements.

Like all things, though, we should keep in mind that until you give something a complete test run a couple times and familiarize with it's components, you can never really get a true feel for the value of it other than the obvious general opinion as set by our peers. I adore GIMP, more so than Photoshop. Like Isuka stated, more organized, same stuff for the most part.

Oh, and all three software have the potential for great work.

Photoshop:


SAI:







Gimp:


I tried to find similar styles.. failed.. but still, you can see how all the programs have wonderful potential.

I'm probably just biased. I've been using Photoshop for years, so I don't consider it confusing or disorganized at all.

It would also be nice if it were truly free. It's open source for a trial period. Just FYI.

Well... umm, try Gimpshop. Just throwing that out there... Gimp but with the familiar GUI of Photoshop... I use Alias Sketchbook Pro though, and Corel Painter X...

Here you go:

http://www.splashup.com/

Ofcourse the offline version of photshop is stronger than the online version, but it's there if you don't need to do major professional work and are just doing sigs or something for online communities.