Many DPS readers have requested more and more information about GIMP (sometimes referred to as The Gimp) photo editing software.  As a freely licensed bit of photography software, the high interest is understandable.  Before diving into some specific GIMP tips and tricks in future posts, I’d like to help bring those up to speed who may, after reading this far, still be thoroughly confused about what exactly I’m talking about.  What this introduction will not be is a comparison between Photoshop and GIMP, but merely a stand alone introduction to the software you may find useful.

GIMP is a an attempt at answering the call for freely distributed image editing software.  While Photoshop is widely regarded as the industry standard for all kinds of image manipulation, it’s costly and overblown for the average photographers use (ok, so I let in a *little* comparison).  Yes, Photoshop has a ton of useful tools, support and plugins available, but it was never available for Linux operating system users until the introduction of Wine.  And it was those users of Linux who initially requested something to run on their operating system to manipulate photographs. [Read more.]