Downloaded gimp via macports onto a Macbook Pro running OS X Yosemite (10.10.5). In the ton of output from macports, I saw no obvious problems. I tried to run without success, however. Find the best free programs like GIMP for Mac. More than 14 alternatives to choose: Autodesk Pixlr, Photoscape X for Mac, Pinta and more. GIMP clone optimized for Mac OS X. Adobe Air-based image editor.
Gimp vs Photoshop - How to Install Gimp on a Mac and Some First Impressions Gimp vs Photoshop / Beginning Gimp tut / How to Use Gimp Gimp is effectively (in a limited way) free Photoshop Mac and PC compatible If you're looking for a free copy of Photoshop for Mac, the best (and legal) thing for you to do is to download Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Gimp is free software and is part of the GNU free software operating system Project.
This page focuses on getting Mac users started with Gimp, and contains my first impressions of Gimp vs Photoshop. This article is primarily for anyone who has never installed or used Gimp before, and wants to know what to expect in the first ten minutes. Gimp 2.6 is the version I installed for the purposes of this article.
Gimp vs Photoshop / Beginning Gimp tut / How to Use Gimp Installing Gimp on a Mac In order to run Gimp on Mac OS X you'll need to install Apple's X11 environment (although it may already be installed, as was the case on my G5 running Snow Leopard 10.6.1). If you don't have it already, it's included on the 'Optional Installs' package on the OS X install disk. Alternatively you can. To download and install Gimp on your Mac, visit and click the Download link at the top of the site. It will take you to a page where you need to select a version appropriate for your operating system.
Once downloaded, mount the disk on your desktop (this should happen automatically) and you'll see a window open like this: Drag the Gimp icon to the Applications folder shortcut (this version was about 230MB), locate it in Applications, and double click to launch. Click Open on the following dialogue box: After waiting for a few seconds (be patient), the following application splash screen should appear while the program loads: Once loaded, the first thing you'll notice is that The X11 Application is the one which appears in the top left corner of your screen instead og the name ' Gimp'. This means that all the tools (including the Gimp main menu panel) are floating, rather than fixed to the top of the screen. You won't find any main menu options in the usual place. This is what the panels look like: Gimp vs Photoshop / Beginning Gimp tut / How to Use Gimp Using Gimp The first thing I wanted to try when opening Gimp 2.6 was to see if I could work out how to use it intuitively, having used Photoshop exclusively for years. I opened one of my Photoshop TIFF files and within a couple of minutes I had successfully created a perfectly good path around an object without any major problems. Only one thing annoyed me until I got to the bottom of it.
The Command+Z undo keyboard shortcut seemed to get rid of the whole path rather than a single anchor. I discovered that the path was still there - I just had to double-click on the path icon in the Paths palette. It is better to use the Edit/Undo Add Anchor option straight from the menu. The Path submenu allows you to save the path, stroke it and most of the other usual things that are available in Photoshop. The Layers, Paths and Channels palettes are laid out very similarly to Photoshop, so it's easy to find everything. A few keyboard shortcuts are different, but after experimenting with various variations of the ALT / CONTROL and COMMAND keys, I soon got the hang of it.
Gimp vs Photoshop / Beginning Gimp tut / How to Use Gimp Some Similarities and Differences Another difference from Photoshop (and most other programs I have used) is that you have to double-click tools, layers and paths etc in order to select them. This takes a little getting used to, but it's not a big deal. You can save images in pretty much any format, although I noticed that there was a notable absence of a CMYK color mode option.
This wouldn't be much of a problem for an everyday user, but for graphic designers or pre-press professionals, it would become an issue. I managed to open a CMYK TIF file and it converted automatically to RGB after displaying the following message: /Users/Mac/Desktop/angelcmyk.tif: wrong data type 7 for 'RichTIFFIPTC'; tag ignored If you're going to place the image in an InDesign or Quark document, this would not present a problem because when you output a document, the images are automatically converted to for you. However, if you really need CMYK support in Gimp, there are developers who've created plugins which will provide support for the CMYK color mode, such as. Gimp vs Photoshop / Beginning Gimp tut / How to Use Gimp Basic image tasks in Gimp Many of the features in Photoshop can be found in GIMP, although some might have slightly different names - for example, Image Size in Photoshop is Scale Image in GIMP and so on. Many of the main filters (Gaussian Blur, Sharpen etc) are present, as well as a few unfamiliar ones. The tool icons are nicely designed and intuitive - just play around with a few and you'll soon get the hang of them.
The most common image tasks that I perform most often (using Photoshop) are resizing, cropping, tweaking levels, creating a new layer from a selection, and saving web-optimised JPEGs. Gimp managed these tasks easily: Photoshop Image/Image Size = Gimp Image/Scale Image Photoshop Image/Canvas Size = Gimp Image/Canvas Size Photoshop Image/Adjustments/Levels = Gimp Colors/Levels To save an image for web use, just select the JPEG option in the file types window and tweak the advanced options which appear on the dialogue box. As for creating a new layer from a selection, Photoshop's Layer/New/Layer via Copy is really handy and I couldn't find a Gimp version of this. No problem though - you just copy the selection, create a new layer and paste your selection into it. It will stay in exactly the same x/y location on the canvas as it was copied from. If you did that in Photoshop it would default to pasting into the centre of the canvas.
These were just my first impressions of Gimp - and considering that this is a free program, I was hugely impressed. It's professionally laid out, intuitive, familiar and above all, free. An excellent alternative to Photoshop if your pockets are shallow. Browse the online Visit the Visit the Project Resources & More Information.
Features All the features of GIMP are still present. You can create your own images with tools for airbrushing, penciling, cloning, and creating gradients.
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Power users can create their own brushes and patterns to use later. GIMP also allows users to manipulate images imported into the program. You can crop, add text, resize, and create nested layers. There is even a way to your creations. New additions GIMP has now been updated with many user interface tweaks to make the application accessible to newbies.
The biggest interface addition is the ability to edit in a single-window. GIMP versions of the past drew criticism for their confusing interfaces, but the developers are addressing many of these issues in this newest version. While single-window mode is great, it is also disappointing that there is no way to view multiple projects side by side. Other updated features include easier text editing, nested layer groups, and a shift to using the Generic Graphics Library (GEGL), which is a more sophisticated image processing framework.
GEGL was introduced a couple of years back in a developer version and has now made its way into the sable, consumer version. GIMP developers hope to move entirely to GEGL by version 2.10. One of the major advantages of GIMP using GEGL is the ability for non-destructive editing and high bit-depth images. GIMP now only saves to its own XCF format to retain layers and other file manipulation information. Users can still choose to save in formats like JPEG and PNG but will have to 'export' the project instead of saving.
This follows in the footsteps of. Mac users will be happy to know that GIMP 2.8.2 is the first version of the program to run natively in OS X, without requiring the installation of X11. This takes one annoying step out of the installation process. The latest GIMP is better than ever. Its developers are taking the user experience into serious consideration and are speeding up development for this already great photo editor. Runs natively in OS X. X11 is no longer required.
For full changelog, please visit: Version 2.8.4: Core: Move the OSX gimpdir to '/Library/Application Support' GUI: Better names for the default filters in save and export Make tool drawing (esp. The brush outline) much more responsive Remember the 'maximized' state across sessions Simplify the splash image code a lot, makes it appear immediately again Allow the text tool to start on an image without layers Various fixes for text style attribute handling Set unconfigured input devices to eraser if GTK+ says they are erasers Make language selectable in Preferences on OSX Libgimp: Make libgimp drawable combo boxes aware of layer groups Make sure plug-in windows appear on top on OSX Fix item width in GimpPageSelector (used e.g.
In PDF import) Plug-ins: Better default values in the Drop Shadow script Fix a whole bunch of bugs in the BMP plug-in On OSX, use the system's screenshot utility Installer: Add Brazilian-Portuguese translation to the Windows installer Source and build system: Many improvements to the OSX bundle build system Support automake 1.13 General: Lots of bug fixes Lots of translation updates Changes. Runs natively in OS X. X11 is no longer required. For full changelog, please visit: Version 2.8.4: Core: Move the OSX gimpdir to '/Library/Application Support' GUI: Better names for the default filters in save and export Make tool drawing (esp. The brush outline) much more responsive Remember the 'maximized' state across sessions Simplify the splash image code a lot, makes it appear immediately again Allow the text tool to start on an image without layers Various fixes for text style attribute handling Set unconfigured input devices to eraser if GTK+ says they are erasers Make language selectable in Preferences on OSX Libgimp: Make libgimp drawable combo boxes aware of layer groups Make sure plug-in windows appear on top on OSX Fix item width in GimpPageSelector (used e.g.
In PDF import) Plug-ins: Better default values in the Drop Shadow script Fix a whole bunch of bugs in the BMP plug-in On OSX, use the system's screenshot utility Installer: Add Brazilian-Portuguese translation to the Windows installer Source and build system: Many improvements to the OSX bundle build system Support automake 1.13 General: Lots of bug fixes Lots of translation updates Author's review. GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. GIMP is expandable and extensible.
It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted. By Anonymous Make sure you have the right version for your OS: great program! I have used Gimp for a few years; very few of the advanced features, but for easy conversion of PDF to JPEG, removing color to make B&W images, simple selections, it is great to have this free program! I do not have a MacBook Air; was using it on my Mountain Lion machine, I think I accidentally updated to the newer version, which works on Yosemite and up, I believe. Looking for the 2.6 version (I think it is) now to reinstall on this machine.
Reviewed on February 17, 2017. By Anonymous Make sure you have the right version for your OS: great program! I have used Gimp for a few years; very few of the advanced features, but for easy conversion of PDF to JPEG, removing color to make B&W images, simple selections, it is great to have this free program! I do not have a MacBook Air; was using it on my Mountain Lion machine, I think I accidentally updated to the newer version, which works on Yosemite and up, I believe.
Looking for the 2.6 version (I think it is) now to reinstall on this machine. Pros: free and open source. Lots of features that I can grow into while starting on basics.
Cons: confusing to have the outer shell and Gimp inside; adjusted to that after a few times using. Figuring out where documentation lives; once I did and bookmarked it, very complete information reviewed on February 17, 2017.