On May 17, 2005, at 7:33 AM, Scott Loveless wrote:
I hear quite a few people say stuff like "MS Word does it this way", or "It's different in Photoshop. The GIMP sucks." I have the hardest time explaining to people that interfaces are different, and if they had started with OpenOffice they would be griping about the interface in MS Office. You, on the other hand, have made one of the most intelligent comparisons I've read. Thank you.
BTW, I'm relatively new to digital imaging. My wife has Photoshop Elements installed on her DOS box, and I have The GIMP installed on the Slackware machine. I've been toying with both and haven't quite made my mind up. Honestly, I'll probably go with the GIMP just so I don't have to install Winders on my machine. Neither is easier or harder to use than the other, but they most definitely are different.
I've tried every successive version of The GIMP as they've come out. It has many impressive features but I find it a very non-intuitive, difficult to learn and "difficult to remember how to use it" application. I have two or three books on it which help somewhat, but I simply find it opaque in its design. The lack of color management is a huge disadvantage to me ... makes printing a hellacious chore. I wish The GIMP were better, but I can find a more efficient and faster way to get anything I need done with Photoshop.
(BTW: I despise the way MS Word works. It's a word processor written for someone other than a person who needs to write something. I'd rather use a terminal and troff! ;-)
Godfrey
