I've had Gimp for a while now...using it for almost everything...for here and even for school projects....I've recently downloaded Photoshop CS2 as a demo to see if I'd like to buy it but I just don't see much of a difference between Photoshop CS2 and The Gimp.

There are small differences on both sides and I'd like to hear everyone else's views on which is better.

I've never used 'the gimp' ... so ... if we remove the cost from the equation and, as you say, the capabilities are the same, then we have the fact that Photoshop is by and large the "industry standard" and if you were to seek employment in this field .. they will expect PS experience

Also ... If you are still learning ... the amount of tutorials on the net can choke even a ravenous wart hog during mating season

If we factor the cost back in ... then ... the box sure is shiney ... so, hey, it's worth it

I've used both GIMP and PS. I've found that PS is just much easier to work with. It has a much more professional feel to it, and there are lots of resources available.

I don't doubt that GIMP also has lots of resources (tutorials etc.), but I still prefer PS.

I use both and find that Gimp is useful for somethings but will not do tthe same things as PS..

As a long term PS user I'd never had reason to even look at Gimp but after seeing this thread I thought I’d download the latest stable version and try it out. I've spent most of the day tinkering with it today.

I think the only real thing it has going for it is that it's free. I can’t objectively see how it has anything other than that to offer. Realistically if it were a commercial product it would probably sink without a trace. The user interface is unnecessarily 'clunky' and dumbed down, whether or not this is rectified remains to be seen in the upcoming version 2.4.

The breadth & flexibility of control isn’t even close to approaching Adobe’s (or many other commercial retouching products) abilities. The method of acquiring, installing and using optional plugins (that should really be standard) is also frustrating especially seeing as how most of the ‘new’ version 2 plugins appear to be little more than rescripted/ripped off versions of old PS base set plugins. Brush control, layer control and masking all seams to be much more limited as well – all of which are critical elements in a good image manipulation program.

If you haven’t found much difference between CS2 and Gimp2 then I’d suggest a much deeper look at CS2 – they are different beast’s altogether. I don’t have CS2 on my windoze laptop that I tried Gimp on but do have Elements 4 and even that seams to be more than a match for the Gimp.

Ultimately, as a free tool it’s very good – as a serious rival to Adobe or even Corel it begins to come apart at the seams. In conclusion then, if you have the means then you should opt for the Adobe product. There is little it cannot accomplish and if there is something it cant do directly there is always a work around or alternately there will almost certainly be a plugin available for it from the portfolio of thousands available ranging from simple freeware items to pro grade options costing more than the program itself.

I've currently been using Photoshop right now...working on a manipulation I plan to upload by Monday afternoon or later....I just have spent enough time on Photoshop to really test its potential...after working with it today...I've come to my conclusion...agreeing that PS is better.

Thanks everyone for posting your opinions on this...it has helped me.

Well lets see, I'm an avid user of both softwares and this is what I've come up with:

They are both very easy to use.

Photoshop is a CLOSED source project, so there is only a central company (Adobe) that really works on developing it. Thus, you may get updates once in a *long* while. This may not concern you, but to some it may give them reason to use or not to use this program.

The Gimp is OPEN sourced and thus has much more flexibility in terms of development and cross-platform installation (Meaning you can install it on Windows or Linux, or other OS's). Honestly, I found that The Gimp can do anything that photoshop does, you just have to learn where the buttons are. The Gimp seems to develop techniques in me that I wouldn't normally do in Photoshop, but generally, I can apply any technique in photoshop in The Gimp (for the most part).

As an open sourced project, you can probably find that there are quite a few people always making plugins or modifications to it. And actually, I have found quite a lot of tutorials online for The Gimp. But if you know how to use Photoshop, learning The Gimp should be no problem at all....wasn't a problem for me.

Thanks Dave..I've already made my decision...photoshop is much better..thanks for the help though.

Maybe something we should do is....make a few tests. Try to create something in PS that we can't ultimately mimic in The Gimp.

It's not fair to judge how intuitive (or lack there of) of PS or The Gimp. The intuitivness has nothing to do with the program's ability, but rather the patience of the user. So I would like to see if someone can create something in PS that nobody could replicate in The Gimp.

I'll try something if you want....I don't know what you'd like to make though.

GimpShop
Page quotes:
"If you’ve never used Photoshop before, you may not appreciate my GIMPshop hack. What I’ve done is renamed and reorganized GIMP’s tools, options, windows, and menus to closely resemble Adobe Photoshop’s menu structure and naming conventions. Many of the menu options and even whole menus were recreated to faithfully reproduce a Photoshop-like experience. After running my GIMPshop hack, you’ll find that Photoshop and the GIMP are strikingly similar."
"GIMPshop is by no means a 1-to-1 copy of Photoshop and you may find some menu items that are not in perfect order. But GIMPshop’s pretty close, and I think it does the job. I’m getting lots of use out of it and I hope you do too."

One thing I did notice about The Gimp though, is the frustrating lack of quality when creating radial gradients. Photoshop makes pretty smooth ones very quickly, but for some reason I have to enable certain advanced functions to make the radial gradient smoother, plus it tacks on a much longer drawing time. The JPEG compression in The Gimp can also cause me a lot of frustration as well.

Also, I havn't found a way to save the changes as a project. It always wants me to save it as an image when obviously it won't load back up with the layers it once had. This hasn't bothered me too much, but that is just one difference I noticed.

Yes Photoshop might be somewhat more developed than The Gimp, but I wouldn't put The Gimp out of my attention just yet. Its open source property allows virtually anyone to create "hacks" (modifications or programs) to manipulate The Gimp to add or improve features without having to necesarilly download a whole new version (although there are new versions occasionally).

xentrik gave us a perfect example of the open-source advantage.