I've been playing (and writing a book about) GIMP for the past month or so and if you've been thinking about getting started, I definitely recommend it. I'm not a graphic designer so the advanced stuff is beyond me in experience/application, but I use Photoshop and everything I do is doable in GIMP. Some of it seemed easier (some not) to my self-taught Photoshop mind.
Here's a simple but not obvious basic. When you copy an image and create a new empty document in Photoshop, it automatically reads the clipboard and creates on in the appropriate size. In GIMP, it proposes standard 600x400 or something static like that.
How do you get GIMP to give you the right size for your copied image automatically? Choose File > Create > From Clipboard instead of File > New.
When I first downloaded the Gimp, I was completely stymied because I never had used Photoshop. The instructions I found online were impenetrable. I gave up. Then I got a chance to learn Photoshop and found in my local public library a step-by-step instruction book. I was no expert but I finally understood how it all worked. Photoshop was and is way too expensive and far to large a program for my puny PC memory so I tried Gimp again and I've been using it ever since. Most of what I had learned in Photoshop was easily applied in Gimp. It's a fantastic resource.
Posted by: Ambimom | January 27, 2010 at 06:16 PM
I'm an old Macromedia Firefox user and just can't get the hang of Gimp. Since Macromedia was acquired by Adobe, each iteration of Firefox has become more bloated and Photshop-esque-- I find myself going back to the old Firefox (version 4.0) to make quick image edits.
I have an older PC with an Ubuntu 9.10 OS. Gimp seems like the natural choice for Ubuntu novices. When Chrome (another Linux distro) is released later this year or next, I'm wondering if Gimp will be a preferred image editor for that OS. If Google's Chrome OS takes over the world, your book may be very timely.
Posted by: Kent | January 27, 2010 at 08:29 PM