The following is in response to a question I received from a previous article: Photo-what?! A basic guide to photo editing programs. Thank you, B. Oceander, for prompting me to research your inquiry.
Dear B.,
Thank you for the question. Let me preface my entire response with the caveat that I have not used either GIMP or Paint.NET, but your inquiry intrigued me and I set out on some serious investigation to see what answers I could provide.
If I understand your dilemma, it seems like you have been utilizing GIMP sufficiently for your needs, but it has only recently (last few months) been giving you some glitches. First and foremost, bravo to you for taking the initiative to utilize freeware programs on the market. You are definitely a savvy consumer and I applaud you!
Now, down to the nitty-gritty. GIMP, as freeware, appears to be one of the best on the market. GIMP has a fairly established reputation and has been around the block for a while—since 1995 to be exact. Their programming team has gone to great lengths to keep up with Photoshop despite the fact that they do not have Adobe’s big budget. Ars Technica’s 2.6 and 2.6.4 reviews are fairly glowing even though they mention some minor issues. Those minor issues, however, could prove to be what is causing your current hiccups.
One setback for GIMP is the limited color depth. If you are trying to work with higher bit images, GIMP recommends using CinePaint right now until they integrate more with GEGL. The GEGL project is what allows GIMP to use higher color depth and basically fancier bells and whistles on some tools. GIMP is hopeful that their 2.8 (and eventually 3.0) release will integrate more with GEGL. Right now I would make sure you have the most current download so that you can utilize the current GIMP-GEGL interface.
Another point of interest is GIMP’s supported platforms. Many computer users are switching over to Windows 7. However, the programs we all know and love are still working to catch up with the new platform. GIMP’s list of currently supported platforms are: GNU/Linux (i386, PPC); Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista); Mac OS X; Sun OpenSolaris; and FreeBSD. Unless Windows 7 was an oversight, it might not be completely compatible. This also goes for all other platforms outside their list. Lots of platforms can seem close to each other, and they may even run our favorite programs, but eventually we hit that invisible wall where our system just doesn’t know what to do anymore.
If all else fails, consider this: GIMP was written and developed on the UNIX platform. While the makers of GIMP exude confidence that “basically the same code runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X,” this might be one source oopsie. It is my basic understanding that when a program is transferred from its native platform to a new one it doesn’t necessarily translate. It is somewhat like taking a French sentence and translating it to German. Sometimes you get one word wrong and then the whole thing just doesn’t make sense.
In any case, GIMP has released the help files for 2.6, which might help narrow down your culprit.
Enough GIMP, let’s address Paint.NET. Originally created in 2004, Paint.NET was billed as a higher-end, free replacement for Microsoft’s Paint program. The program has evolved quite a bit in the last few years, but it is still a far cry from the major players. The unfortunate fact is that while Paint supports higher color depth, it does not support PSD files, lens correction, or a few other key tools. I also notice that Paint is extremely limited on color modes. It appears that LAB and Adobe RGB colors are not supported; while Indexed, Grayscale, CMYK and HSV are only partially supported. This could prove very frustrating when trying to work on an image. Paint is also only available for the Windows platform.
If you are absolutely frustrated with GIMP, but not ready to shell out the big bucks for Adobe, Corel or the like, I recommend giving CinePaint a try. It is free and has a lot of the same tools as GIMP—in fact CinePaint resembles GIMP in its user interface. However, CinePaint does not have the Noise Removal and Lens Correction tools. Another unfortunate setback is that their Windows version is currently broken, but if you are a Windows user I recommend sending them a polite email. You’d be surprised how far you can get (and get what you want) by politely nudging programmers.
An interesting tip that most people don’t know about is that you can get a free 30-day trial of most Adobe products. If you have a big project coming up and need all the bells and whistles that many freeware programs lack, you can simply plan your project around your Adobe trial. I have recommended the Photoshop Elements trial to many clients before with absolute success. It is a great way to test Adobe programs free for a whole month and compare their product to your current setup. Corel also offers free trials for many of their programs as well!
While I cannot outright compare user interface of one program to the next, or tell you how each one acts on a particular system—simply because I have not given GIMP or Paint.NET a whirl—I can give you this advice: even Photoshop gets frustrating! Yes, there are days when I want to beat it silly because it just isn’t responding to me like it did yesterday or three months ago. I may sound crazy, but I firmly believe that like humans, sometimes programs have bad days too. I’ve learned that on those bad days to just submit a help request to a couple forums and walk away for a few hours.
Eventually my computer and I come to some sort of agreement and I can start work again.
