GIMP

According to its dedicated community of followers, GIMP boasts functionality to rival the image-editing programs you have to pay for. But how good a job does it do considering it is free?

GNU Image Manipulation Program (or GIMP for short) has been around on the imaging scene for over a decade with its first release in the mid-nineties. GNU refers to a project dedicated to lifting restrictions on the development of programs to offer operating systems and software that are completely free to use. GIMP is now on ‘stable release’ v2.6, which means it’s been very well tested, while later versions are still being developed.
According to its dedicated community of followers, GIMP boasts functionality to rival the image-editing programs you have to pay for. There are other incarnations too, such as GIMPPHOTO and GIMPPAD, which are said to have more of a similar feel to the Photoshop interface. These programs are based around GIMP v2.4 however, which isn’t as advanced as the latest offering, so can this freeware software application really stand shoulder to shoulder with the industry standard packages?

Interface
The GIMP interface features a main image area, zoom controls, a toolbar across the top and houses its controls in palettes, referred to as Dialogues. It’s a customisable interface using floating Dialogue windows that can be moved freely around the screen. There’s also a full-screen mode, and Dialogues can be grouped together into Docks, making them easier to navigate. Not all Dialogues have to be open at the same time; they can be closed when not in use and opened via the Window menu or you can dock them and toggle between them with the Tab key.
The interface is capable of handling multiple images so, as you flick between open images, each Dialogue updates with data that’s relevant to the selected pic. When an adjustment Dialogue is open, such as Levels, it sits in its own Dialogue which can be moved freely around the screen so you can see any area of the image beneath.
We found the interface fine to use, but not everyone loves this multiple-window system,  and a single window interface is promised in version 2.8 which is still under development.

Features
With control of Levels, Curves, Hue/Sat, and Colour Balance to name just a few, GIMP features most of the enhancement that photo enthusiasts need. You can also crop, transform, resize or retouch with the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush tools.
GIMP isn’t limited to just these basic adjustments, however, as there’s also control over the RGB colour channels, you can fix distortion and vignetting, create artistic effects with the customisable Brushes and Gradient tools, and what’s more, it works with pressure sensitive graphics tablets.
It’s also possible to create Selection Paths because although GIMP, like Photoshop, is a Raster (or pixel-based) graphics program it supports Vector (scalable) graphics as well. It also features Layers, which are essential for complex image adjustments, and the Layers Dialogue features both Blending Modes and an Opacity slider. Adjustment Layers are missing, which is a shame, and although they can be replicated, you end up with lots of image Layers stacked up which increases the file size. Another downside is there’s no Browser so finding pics is a pain with File ‘ Open or drag & drop as the only routes.

Performance
When experimenting with image adjustments in GIMP, the previews generally refresh fairly quickly. In the main they’re not as instant as Photoshop, taking a few seconds to render each time, but they’re not slow enough to be a major annoyance. Some adjustments, however, like the Lens Distortion filter, can only be previewed on a smaller window inside its own Dialogue and while it’s possible to make the preview larger, doing so does slow the process down a little and isn’t as intuitive as the effect being applied on the main image.
As already mentioned, browsing images is a bit of a pain, and we found ourselves using Adobe Bridge to find the pic we wanted, before opening it into GIMP. But once you’ve found your image, opening and saving times are quite respectable.

What is freeware?
Software that is free to download and use without restriction. GIMP is also Open Source which means it’s open to anybody to help develop it. If you enjoy GIMP and find it useful, you can do the honourable thing and leave a donation on the site.

UFRAW Convertor
One of the things we were expecting to be missing was a RAW convertor but no, GIMP can do that too!
You need to download the UFRAW (Unidentified Flying RAW) utility which has been developed by a member of the GIMP community. It can be used as a standalone program or GIMP plug-in and it is really easy to get going with. Once installed you can open RAW files and it even opens the very latest RAW files we’d shot on the Canon EOS 7D.
It’s not as slick to use as Adobe Camera RAW, but has a lot of the same functionality to adjust key settings such as Exposure, White Balance, Tone Curve, Desaturate, Crop and check the RAW files’ metadata, too. The only things missing are sharpening, HSL controls and lens correction.

Verdict
GIMP features most of the functionality photo enthusiasts need. It’s not as well featured or as slick to use as Photoshop and advanced users would miss the integration with other programs like Bridge or Lightroom but it’s perfectly good for basic image-editing and it’s completely free, so there’s no reason not to give it a go.

www.gimp.org