GIMPshop the Gimp and P-shop....Free!

**Kraellin** · 04-13-2005, 19:23

Attack of the Show (AotS)(formerly The Screensavers) on tech tv did a bit yesterday about a new hack of the Gimp. for those that dont know what the Gimp is, it's an open source paint, graphics editing program. i believer several folks around here use it and can tell you much more about it than i can.

the new news on this is, that not too long ago, some clever person converted the Gimp for the Mac to make the interface more like photoshop's. the idea is that if you learned to use a paint program with the free Gimp with a p-shop interface, you could then be more likely to get a job that actually required photoshop without having to invest in the very expensive photoshop.

at any rate, folks using the Gimp liked this, but folks using windows couldnt use it. thus, a port was done to Linux, and just recently a new port has become available for windows.

now, whenever AotS does one of these reviews, servers get flooded. they claim to have a viewership of about 50 million folks. so, if even a tenth of those all decide to check out the review or program, servers tend to get overwhumped fairly quickly. and sure enough, i couldnt get the page to load last night, even into the late hours. however, i tried again this morning and it was back up!

so, if you're interested in checking this out, the link is here: http://blog.yumdap.net/archives/20-G...r-Windows.html

now, so far i've only downloaded this. i'll most likely install it later today, so all i can say about it is what i've heard. it seems a number of folks didnt like the gimp interface all that much and that basically, all this gimpshop does is change that interface. it's not adding a lot of new photoshop type features. one review did mention, however, that you could now use photoshop plug-ins with the gimpshop and that that would add a fair amount of new features. that's basically it.

so, if you do try this and would care to review it, post it here, please.

K.

**Kraellin** · 04-13-2005, 21:48

ok, i installed this thing and it does work. and, having tried out one of the photoshop cs demos, i can say that gimpshop does look a bit like photoshop. i can also report that there are features here that i dont have in paint shop pro ver. 7 (psp). so, that's good.

however, i like the ease of use of psp a bit more and my version 7 is now a bit dated too. i also tried out version 8 of psp while on vacation and gimpshop may not have a thing more than that version. i dont really know. all of this so far is just a cursory look at psp v. 8 and gimpshop and the p-shop demo. so, no extensive reviews here. the main thing is that gimpshop does work in windows....oh, and it's free!

with that in mind, i would have to say that for the money you spend, gimpshop is definitely the best value for what you get ;)

for me, currently, i'll continue to use psp as my primary tool. i'm just too used to their interface and know what most everything does. learning a new paint tool, especially one as complex as p-shop, is not going to happen right now. but, as a secondary, i can only find this tool in this paint program, gimpshop, for me, is going to stay on my machine. and for those already using the Gimp, i'd say, give gimpshop a shot. you might like it. and for those looking to buy, steal, or borrow a decent paint program, gimpshop looks like a real deal.

now, bear in mind that i'v only played with gimpshop for a VERY short time, but i did encounter one bug that forced me to close it down. the author of the hack does warn about possible bugs, so this was no big surprise. when 'exporting' a tiff file, it did this ok, but then froze the program after it tried to refresh the interface afterwards. more bugs may well exist, but hey, it's free!

K.