Repository

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp

Introduction

Not long ago, I was a heavy Windows and MS Paint (yes, mock me) user because that was what I was used to since I was a kid, I grew up around windows PCs and most of the (light) image editing I had to do could be accomplished with the onboard editor, for some more advanced tasks Photoshop was my go-to choice, but it was not something I would have to use frequently, I am not a graphic designer by any means, far from that actually!

But when I started investing, both time and money, more heavily, on blockchain and cryptocurrencies I felt like I should start to give more value, interact, and immerse myself more into open source projects, Windows do use a bit of open source code sometimes, but buying large it is definitely proprietary. I didn't want to just dip my feet in open source, I wanted to really be into it because the influence and taste the blockchain and cryptocurrencies gave me, so I took a nosedive into it, replaced my Windows for Linux and challenge myself to not change for one month. The result, I am on Linux for more than 1 month and I have successfully fulfilled my image editing needs with GIMP

Talking about the transition to Linux, on the work/programming side of things, it was all fine, actually better because the Linux command terminal is much more powerful than windows one. But I missed Windows/Paint when I had to edit simple things on images and didn't know how to do it. That is when I started searching for some image editing software for Linux, and I found GIMP

What is GIMP

GIMP is a powerful, yet versatile, image editing tool on the likes of Photoshop and similar software, can be used for both professional and complex image editing and for simple day to day small image editing tasks. It is compatible with all 3 biggest operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux). Personally, I have tried it before while I was a Windows user, but as I could use other, paid and more familiar, image editing software I didn't really pay attention to it. A shame, because I am now a full-time Linux user and the time I spent learning how to use paid and "not as multi-platform" tools were totally wasted. I take this as a lesson to give priority to multi-platform software.

Linux does not come with an image editor, and even for simple tasks, such as highlighting something or writing some text over an image to explain something to someone was hard for me because I did not know what tool to use. On Windows there was paint, as for 90% of the time, to highlight data, text or write something over the image that simple software that comes with the operating system is perfectly fine, but once I switched to be a full-time Linux user I had no such tools available right away, that is when I saw that I had to learn GIMP

At first GIMP is not intuitive because the thought process behind the interface is very different from the one employed by paid proprietary software, for instance, when you first open the software after installing you will most likely see a bunch of different windows, and might feel lost, personally I did, I used to see on Paint and Photoshop all tools, canvas, and layers on its own box but everything inside one single window. On GIMP each of the boxes has one window and all those windows form the workspace.

Here, see how is the vanilla interface and how is my personal workspace, in order:

Transitioning to open-source

Turns out I had to google a few things before I could get started. There is a joke for beginners on GIMP that says "GIMP is awesome, beginners only take 2 hours to learn how to draw their first like", which is completely exaggerated, it took me 2 or 3 small 5 minute youtube videos to learn how to use the tools I would use 99% of the time, there might be some effect I will need to learn on the future, but those 15 minutes could get me going.

Jokes aside, most of the time I use the tool simply to underline some text, draw arrows to point to something I want to show someone or write something over images, the most "advanced" use I have for the image editor would probably be making the thumbnails for my DTube videos, though, I wouldn't call my thumbnails very hard to do or very professional, I just need to blurry the background image, add a layer with a color and a lot of transparency to give a sort of "filter" for the background image and then I write a text with borders around it and call it a day.

Of course, free software can't be compared to a paid software that has partnerships with many industry professionals, but after a quick research, it is possible to find that there are indeed a few small professionals and freelancers that prefer to use open source software, the main reason being that by using free resources you can reduce the costs involved in creative production, thus increasing profitability. A simple economic fact is that if you can charge less than the competition you can, very likely, get more clients and receive more works to produce. With more work and the lower price, you can get more exposition on the field and that by itself could get you even more customers.

Multi-platform is an under-valuated perk

For the professionals that use GIMP they also have the advantage mentioned before of the multi-platform software, imagine if you have specialized in certain software, let us say photoshop just for example, I have used photoshop and the software is great, so, not talking down on it by any means, every program has its pros and cons, for me I have discovered I value very much multi-platform products.
So on our example you are a heavy Photoshop user, and you are also a Mac user, again, Apple products are great, by in my case, I have experienced a bit of a delay, when I had problems with my old iPhone, iPad and Beats it took 2 or 3 days to get it back, which is a great timing, but if time is money it is 2 or 3 days of doing nothing. Well, on that example you would have to borrow a computer or laptop from a friend or family member, chances are you would probably get someone to give you some help, and if they have an old computer with Windows, that is great, you are specialized on Photoshop and there is Photoshop for Windows too.
But what would happen if his computer did not have an operating system? Well, you would have to buy Windows just to use it for 2 or 3 days.
But now imagine you are, instead, specialized on a multi-platform operating system, like GIMP, yeah, lucky you, Linux is free and there is GIMP for Linux! You just need a computer, because Linux works anywhere!

Yes, the example above is kinda specific and exaggerated, but I went through something similar when I switched from Windows to Linux, and GIMP saved me.

Simplicity And Flexibility

Sure, there is a way to install Photoshop on Windows, you need to do some tricks and it is not very safe in my opinion, it works basically by emulating Windows compilers and drivers so that the software thinks it is inside a Windows environment, but the performance would take a huge hit. I had tried that actually, I could deal with performance issues, but what I could not deal with was the bugs, my computer felt like a rainforest: BUGS EVERYWHERE!
And of course, I have described my use for software editing tools so you can guess that Photoshop is too overkill for what I need to do, I only had to use Photoshop once or twice a month.

And this is what I grew to like on GIMP, once you learn the "transition knowledge", that is, the basic tools to do the basic things, you can see that the tool can be very flexible. The software can be used either for simply highlighting text, using arrows to point something you want someone to pay attention to an image, but I feel that, with a bit more digging into the functionality, it could perfectly serve me to do more advanced image work.

Resources

Screenshots from GIMP website
https://www.gimp.org/

Windows, Mac and Linux logo from
https://www.omegaweb.com/windows-v-s-linux-v-s-mac-web-hosting/

Tutorials on GIMP
https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

Beneficiaries

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