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Review : GIMP 2.0 for Windows
Last night I upgraded to the new GIMP 2.0 for Windows and I was blown away by the quality and power of it. This is a major upgrade to the free, open-source, cross-platform and super-powerful image editing program. After getting used to Gimp 2.0 I am going to be using Adobe Photoshop less and less in favor of the lighter faster and zero cost to install and use GIMP.
You might be asking What the hell is this GIMP thingie that he is ranting about?
Let's look it up:
The GIMP is a bitmap graphics editor, a program for creating and processing raster graphics. It also has some support for vector graphics. The project was started in 1995 by Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis and is now maintained by a group of volunteers; it is licensed under the GNU General Public License. GIMP originally stood for General Image Manipulation Program; in 1997, the name was changed to GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is an official part of the GNU project.
Gimp 2.0 improved the organization of the underlying code of the program and had an almost total user interface overhaul and a plethora of new features and improvements. It is on Linux, Unix, Windows and Mac OS X and can be yours for the price of ZERO dollars.
To you must first download the GTK installer and then download and run the GIMP installer. Since of software royalty patents the GIF export plug-in must be downloaded and installed separately but that is not hard to do. Also if you are running an older version you should uninstall it and GTK before upgrading.
GIMP lacks CMYK color support so Photoshop still has an edge for printing. If you are looking for web graphics production I think that GIMP stacks up to Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks in a blind taste test. This is a must download for digital camera users.
Gimp is perfect for optimizing images for the web, designing user interfaces. I am going to install it on my girlfriends new notebook and it is easy enough for graphic novices to do basic stuff with and you can do advanced graphical manipulation.
I am starting to love GIMP and plan on using it for most day to day graphics tasks.
BRING OUT THE GIMP!
Jake at April 1, 2004 
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Comments
I loved the Gimp on Linux. I've never tried it on Windows because Paint Shop Pro always got the job done for me. But maybe I'll give this one a shot. Thanks for the heads up!
Posted by: Trent at April 1, 2004 10:04 AM
Thanks for the pointer. I hated The Gimp 1.x on Windows, and this is much, much better. But I keep getting font-errors in a DOS box, which is kinda annoying and I can't paste from other programs! That is a major oversight!
Posted by: Berklee at April 4, 2004 7:00 AM
Humm I can paste from other programs just fine.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 5, 2004 8:37 AM
In many ways Gimp 2 is a new program since they changed so much of the underlining code. I am sure the font issues will be worked out soon.
you can paste from other programs by File : Aquire: from Clipboard
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 5, 2004 5:06 PM
lol! what a crap! i mean they should really overthink their distribution network! currently there seems to be no location where the gimp 2.0 compiled can be downloaded.
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/ is down due to some patent protest, http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/downloads.html doesn't have gimp 2.0 d/l's, http://www.ftgimp.com/ : no gimp there, http://www.wingimp.org/ selling gimp for money! WTF? guess i have to wait for some weeks before i can try it.
Posted by: dr_colossus of dataleak at April 11, 2004 8:41 PM
They had a link to the old page.
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/stable.html
This protest thing is new to me.
But yes they need a new place to host WinGimp.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 11, 2004 10:29 PM
GIMP 2 for Windows is great, but there is one thing I thought would be dropped in the stable version - the debug console window. This might confuse novices who try to close it down (it closes the program). It would be better to have error messages appear as a Windows dialogue that could be closed by clicking an "OK" button - without closing GIMP.
Posted by: G W Purnell at April 29, 2004 8:29 AM
True, I totally Agree, they should've dropped the console window for the stable version, I already have enough windows open without the need for an extra debug console.
The interface has radically changed, I'm still getting used to it, I was so dependant on GIMP 1.5's interface it's extremely frustrating for me to work in GIMP 2.0, I wasted 5 minutes trying to find how I could change the size of the canvas.
I'm sure I'll get used to it though.
Posted by: Rezza at May 6, 2004 11:42 PM
