I’m a Gimp newbie; don’t have much familiarity with Photoshop 7 either, really. I’m a MacOS 9 / Photoshop 3 person by choice (there’s very little that Photoshop has added or changed since then that I have more than qualified appreciation for, but many many things I consider them to have screwed up). But I can’t reboot to a different OS every time I want to do Photoshop things, and Classic isn’t a good alternative either.
I like the Gimp. Although the interface is different, in many ways it’s more like Photoshop 3 than Photoshop 7 is. Doesn’t toss every @#$@ new thing I do onto a new unrequested and unwanted layer, for one thing!
But I don’t have confidence that I can do everything I need to do with Gimp tools. (In particular, there will be times I’ll want to bring copied elements from other programs via the clipboard, and the Gimp is running in XFree86 which just barely even on speaking terms with the general Aqua clipboard, text at best. So being able to work on a project and then save and open the saved document in Photoshop for whatever tasks I think Photoshop would be better for, save, and continue as I was, would be a good thing.
So I fire up the Gimp and point it to a multilayer Photoshop document and it opens nicely, with all the layers available, hidden ones staying hidden, and I edit some things with Gimp tools, and go to save. Nothin’ doin’. The Gimp opens Photoshop-native “.psd” file format but it doesn’t save in that format, apparently. Saves just fine in Gimp-native “.xcf” format, though.
So I fire up Photoshop and aim it at newly-created “.xcf” file. Nope, no recognition. (Even GraphicConverter, which I thought could open anything, won’t deal with this file).
I could, of course, Save just the layer I modified as a TIFF or something, whenever I’m working in the Gimp, and then in Photoshop open the layered file and the TIFF and bring in the TIFF to replace the former version of what was on that layer…but not only is that klunky, it anchors the main work-flow in Photoshop.
I don’t suppose anyone knows of a clever little utility, an “xcf-to-psd” kind of tool or an extension or plugin that either lets the Gimp save in Photoshop .psd format or allows Photoshop to open a Gimp .xcf file?