Topic: free or open source windows image editors?

[ratty redemption]

hi guys,

i've been trying out gimp for the first time this week and although it seems powerful i really don't like all the windows it keeps opening and or resizing, so today i googled gimpshop which is apparently designed to look more like phopshop, but that gimp mod isn't being developed anymore.

are there any free or gpl windows image editors that are still in development that you guys would recommend?

[kat]

Yeah GIMP is pretty much the only real alternative without shelling out for an application. I don't really use the app so it's somewhat surprising to see you can't 'truly' dock the panels (you can make it *look* like they're docked by going full screen with the image window and setting the docks to be "on top" all the time).

Photoshop has such market dominance that nothing can compete with it really; I'm using CorelDraw graphics suite and powerful as that is, there are very few plug-ins and addons for it (it used to be able to load PS tools but they stopped for some reason). It suffers the same "it's not photoshop" stigma.

[ratty redemption]

thanks kat, and i didn't know about the fullscreen mode, i'll try that out.

my biggest issue with gimp so far is every time i load in a new image after the app has been run, it creates a new image window, but doesn't seem to remember the size and position of the default image window seen at startup, so it quickly clutters up my desktop. i admit i'm ocd about this kind of thing, but i like windows and apps to stay where i place them.

also when the image window resizes itself it often results in part of the image being behind the toolbox and layers windows, which means i can't see or work on them without resizing every image window. very frustrating, but on the plus side it does have some very cool tools from the Little i've experimented with it.

[kat]

Check the apps preferences, there are a couple of settings relating to remembering window positions, sounds like you might have that disabled/inactive.

[ratty redemption]

thanks kat and i've tried all the preference options i can find, at least it does start up looking the same now, but it has one called 'initial zoom ratio' which i have set to 'fit to window' although that only appears to work for images loaded from the recent or open menus, not images that are pasted from the clipboard.

as it is i can't work with it since i'm wasting too much time resizing and positioning windows. shame because i like it's tool set.

[ratty redemption]

i'm currently trying out the freeware app paint.net, which although not very fast at applying some of it's tools when running on my laptop, it does seem quite a powerful app with several hundred user written plugins, it can also apparently import ps brushes, although i haven't yet tried any of those, and there are a lot of youtube video tutorials

http://www.getpaint.net/download.html
http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/forum/18-tutorials-publishing-only/
http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/15260-plugin-index/

i don't know yet if i'll use this for most of my texture work. i'll update this topic over time.

[ratty redemption]

kat, although their not free apps, what is the main difference between coreldraw graphics suite and psp? i used to use psp7 a lot and have also been researching into the latest version, but i've heard it's very unstable on some versions of windows.

[kat]

It's been a long time since I looked at PSP but it was intensely 'wizard' based (drives the user through a series of steps to apply an effect rather than encouraging the development of any fundamental understanding regards to what one is doing). I don't know if that's the case now though.

The version of CorelDraw suite I have is nearly ten years old! So although I have had a look a recent versions it's not necessarily doing anything 'better' than it was back then (that's the only reason I ever upgrade.. heh). Best thing to do is download the demos of each and try them, this stuff is always a personal preference as you know.

That Paint.net has come a long way since I last looked at it, should be more than capable of doing what would be needed for most texture work, especially if it can use Photoshop plug-ins and tools.

[ratty redemption]

understood and thanks, and so far the main disadvantage of paint.net that i have seen is the image window lags when using a tool dependant on mouse movement, eg a paint or custom brush type tool, but it's filters seem reasonably fast. there is also no direct way to save selections, although we can save 'masks' which can then be reloaded into any image layer and selected using the magic wand tool. so not quite as convenient as i was used to in psp7 but the workaround is ok.

i'm not sure if paint.net can use photoshop plugin filters but it can use custom brushes from what i have read.

edit: fixed a couple of typos.

[mikshaw]

There are now decent builds of Gimp 2.7.3 available, which include single-window mode (disabled by default, but easily enabled under the "Windows" menu item).  The image widows in this mode are tabbed, which I think is beautiful.  I also like being able to shrink the toolbox into a single column on the edge of the window, which frees up a lot of space...especially if you switch to the small theme.

http://www.graphicall.org/gimp

I'm using the Linux version, so your experience may be different.

[ratty redemption]

thanks a lot mikshaw for updating us, that really sounds like an interface i would enjoy working with, and i'll try the latest build over the next few days hopefully.

[Mary]

The main program I use is RealDraw Pro by mediachance, (not free) but Paint.net is my "go to" program for cleaning my backgrounds, special effects, and what not, that I can't do with RealDraw.
I, personally, can't stand Gimp, but that's a personal thing. I know others who love it, so just depends on your taste.

There are literally tons of free paint and photo editing software's out there. You just have to try them all out and see which ones you like best.

[ratty redemption]

hi mary,

sorry i didn't see your post previously.

a couple of months ago i tried all the legally free bitmap editors i could find. and a few of them had some impressive tools, but they also lacked either ongoing development, or they had restrictions or bugs that bothered me.

so i tried the latest beta version of paint.net and that's the free app i've decided to stick with for the foreseeable future. i too can't get on with gimp's interface, no matter how much i tried to like it.

i've been using some of the cool plugins available for paint.net, a couple of which i've been beta testing and requesting features from the community devs.

and with a few extra steps to the workflow are now producing results almost as good as what i previous could do with paint shop pro.

also the main dev of paint.net is apparently intending to add in a lot of new features, although as he works on it part time (his day job is at microsoft if i remember correctly) the progress is slow, but it has a lot of potential over the next few years, in my opinion. and i like the clear and uncluttered interface, and how quickly it loads.

i recently worked on a 2d facial morph for a youtube video gamer that plays thief 4, where i morphed a photo manipulated image (done in paint.net) of the gamer into the face of garrett, the thief 4's protagonist. the actual morphing was done in winmorph (another free app) and video edited in blender.

for anyone who's interested in seeing the results, here's a link: