Good free or cheap Photoshop alternatives?

[appleciders]

As a poor right-out-of-college person in the arts scene, I find myself missing the Photoshop access I had in college and a little uneasy about using hacked or cracked versions for both ethical and safety reasons. I figure that there must be some good alternatives out there that don't cost an arm and a leg. GIMP is the first thing that comes up after a few minutes of Googling- does anyone have experiences with it or other programs, good or bad? I'm aware of Photoshop Express, but it doesn't have layers and that's a make-or-break feature for me.

[msmith537]

Paint Shop Pro (http://apps.corel.com/paintshop_photo_ultimate/paintshop_photo_ultimate_a.html) $99

[Nadir]

Gimp is awesome. Not a really hardcore image editor myself, but it seems to do everything I need. I'm sure I haven't even scratched the surface of it's capabilities.

[kiz]

I've had Elements for years. Does everything Photoshop does except for curves.

Picnik (http://www.picnik.com) is an online Photoshop-like site where you can do basic editing for free. You need to pay to get the more advanced features, though.

[Trepa Mayfield]

What Nadir said. I actually used GIMP over Photoship in college because it meant I could work on projects on my home computer, instead of in the campus lab.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

Gimp is good. I actually prefer it to Photoshop for a lot of work. It's also free, so if you don't like it, all you've lost is the time spent. The main feature that it's missing for me is the ability to create groups of layers. It also doesn't do CMYK which might be a problem if you do print work.

Paint shop pro is generally well regarded, but I haven't used it myself.

[bup]

I'm with Nadir. I love Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/).

[appleciders]

Were you able to transition from Photoshop to GIMP easily, or is it a lot of relearning?

[Lobohan]

I had to use GIMP for a customer job because my laptop died on vacation and I needed to use a friend's computer. It's not as intelligently laid out as Photoshop IMHO, but it works, more or less. I don't think it would be hard to transition.

That said, if you're still counted as a student get a student version of Photoshop. It's way cheap and you can upgrade from it to the commercial version for the upgrade price when CS6 comes out.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

Were you able to transition from Photoshop to GIMP easily, or is it a lot of relearning?

I'm not a Photoshop guru, but I had used it for a few years at work (mainly cutting up designs to be used on websites) before I switched to almost exclusively using Gimp.

The basics are quite similar. The selection/layer interactions work a little different, but you get used to it pretty quickly. The main "problem" is probably going to be the different interface - similar functions have different names and may be in completely different locations and use different keyboard shortcuts. There is the Gimpshop project that transforms the UI to something more like photoshop, but I don't think many people use that version - it's also really out of date compared to the "main" Gimp releases.

[kevlaw]

I use The Gimp a lot but I dislike it intensely. I find it awkward to use and there are much better alternatives for low cost.

On a mac, for example, Pixelmator is currently only about $30 and it's awesome for sketching and simple photo editing.

We could probably target our recommendations better if you told us what you plan to do with your photoshop-alike. Photo editing? Drawing? Graphic design? Something else?

[Inner Stickler]

There's also pixlr.com. It's like a superlite photoshop and easier to understand than gimp, I think.

[FalconFinder]

I'll second the PaintShop Pro. Has just about everything Photoshop has, but cheaper!

[Dervorin]

Were you able to transition from Photoshop to GIMP easily, or is it a lot of relearning?

You might want to try GIMPShop (http:///www.gimpshop.com), which, despite the potentially dodgy-sounding name and URL, is
a modification of the free/open source GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP.

[River Hippie]

I use Paint Shop Pro X.

I barely scratch the surface of what it can do. No idea about cost, it came installed on my computer. Definitely has all kinds of layer stuff that I don't really understand. I've never used Photo Shop so I can't compare.

[Fair Rarity]

I've had decent success with Paint.net. The name implies it's a web app, but it is software that runs on your system, not online.

[kiz]

It's not as intelligently laid out as Photoshop IMHO, but it works, more or less. I don't think it would be hard to transition.

My husband installed GIMP on my desktop, and I think I've only used it once. I find it cumbersome and not very user-friendly. For me, coming from a Photoshop background, the learning curve was so convoluted that I quickly said "Forget it".

OTOH I transitioned quite nicely from PSP to Photoshop. I look at PSP now and I'm like, "I used to use this?!?"

[Galanthus]

You know you can get an educational discount for Photoshop.

Here is the UK its 80% which takes it from stupidly out of reach to just expensive.

You do have to show your still a student though, or a teacher in a valid educational establishment. I got my wife ( who is a teacher ) to buy it.

[gaffa]

My husband installed GIMP on my desktop, and I think I've only used it once. I find it cumbersome and not very user-friendly. For me, coming from a Photoshop background, the learning curve was so convoluted that I quickly said "Forget it".
What version? Unlike Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro has revised its interface considerably over the past several versions.

OTOH I transitioned quite nicely from PSP to Photoshop. I look at PSP now and I'm like, "I used to use this?!?"
As usual, your mileage will vary. I like Paint Shop Pro and dislike Photoshop. My main objection to Photoshop is that it is part of a hugely expensive suite and they leave out vital features that exist in the other suite programs. If you want to work on a mask with vector tools, oops! Sorry, you have to have Illustrator. Paint Shop Pro has decent vector tools including vector fonts.

I'm not unbiased though. Years ago, I worked for a computer graphics company, demoing a high end animation program. The tech at the company was one of the brightest people I've ever known - he designed a PC motherboard, a graphics card and wrote the bios for both then wrote his own OS and the origin of Paint Shop Pro was the graphics tools he wrote to work with this early 24-bit PC graphics card (at the time, the only 24 bit cards for a PC were the AT&T Targa and Vista ones).

Later on he was headhunted to be the lead on a version of Photoshop. They let him look at the code and he was not impressed. He described it to me as "a pile of spaghetti". He went to JASC and wrote Paint Shop Pro. Personally, these days Photoshop is playing catch-up with Paint Shop Pro - there are features that PSP pioneered.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Paint Shop Pro (http://apps.corel.com/paintshop_photo_ultimate/paintshop_photo_ultimate_a.html) $99I don't know if they still do this but I got a free copy of PSP 8 for buying PSP 7 toward the end of its run.

[BigT]

You might want to try GIMPShop (http:///www.gimpshop.com), which, despite the potentially dodgy-sounding name and URL, is

The problem with Gimpshop is that it hasn't been updated in a long time. The next version of the Gimp will have a better interface (including a single window variety), but, for right now, that's the most annoying part of it.

Although I'm generally against pirated software, I'm getting close to reinstalling a pirated copy Photoshop CS2 that I unwittingly bought from eBay for my Photoshop class.

Oh, and the Gimp doesn't have shape tools or any vector abilities, but I find I can use Inkscape (http://inkscape.org/), the open source answer to Adobe Illustrator. Other than a deficient bitmap trace tool, it's pretty good.

[foolsguinea]

I've never been able to get GIMP to do stuff I did in Photoshop all the time, like copy one layer to part of another. It's superficially similar, but I miss Photoshop.