And my experience is that people who say the same thing as you do are ignorant who have never used either Photoshop, The GIMP or have no business using either and should stay with something like Picasa.
For the record, The GIMP doesn't even have what we call "Non-Destructive editing" which allows to make a change to some of the filters and transformations you did on the image much later even when the image has been touched by other editions. It has been supported by Photoshop for way more than a decade, already. After all of this time, the Gimp still works like a toy and has zero productivity.
Zero. There is nothing productive about The GIMP. Anything you can do in The GIMP will be done faster with a competitor, Photoshop being the best in the category.
And before anyone comes to tell me that "THE GIMP IS FREE!!!11!ELEVEN!", Photoshop isn't expensive for a Photographer either, so price does not enter the game here. If you're a photographer with one or more DSLR bodies, lots of lenses, travel equipment and so on, spending some money on one measly Photoshop license is not going to kill you. The gain in productivity will more than make up for the money spent anyway, the Gimp truly is an awful tool compared to Photoshop. If you can't afford something like Photoshop it means that you can't afford being in that business in the first place.
I'd like to add that Photoshop Elements is probably fine for the average user / developer that deals with graphics and that costs only around 60 Euros (Mac AppStore). And with all the guides, filters etc... around for Photoshop and the guaranteed compatibility with PSD files, it's a very interesting deal.
Yep. It's great for basic tasks. I used it early on when moving from Photoshop to Gimp... useful for dealing with files from new versions of Photoshop, but disabled enough by its lack of advanced features with layers.
Looking at the roadmap: http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap it seems there won't be non destructive editing for quite some time either (several versions).
I've tried Gimp numerous times, and the lack of smart objects/filters makes it a complete non starter. Generally I found I could do most of the things I wanted to in Gimp, but they required many, many more steps.
Though it won't be several versions; they're looking to move to a much quicker release cycle - so shouldn't be as long as it took for GEGL to get included in the first place.
"Professionals can afford professional tools" is not much of a counterargument against "it's free". Not everyone is a professional, and in this case it's not supposed to unseat the professional product.
The comment you replied to says nothing about professionals, and there is some truth to the claim that compared with a camera/lens that is any good Photoshop's license won't hurt your wallet.
Also, I've used Gimp a bunch and I've read the Gimp book from Apress and as far as I can tell there really is no such thing in Gimp as the non-destructive editing Nicole060 describes (assuming I understood the description correctly--that you can say first apply levels, then sharpen the image with unsharp mask, then go back and adjust the levels some more without the need to re-apply the unsharp mask--I don't think you can do this in Gimp.) So it's really a shame that the comment you replied to, which is truthful and presents a valid point of view, got downvoted into gray. And I'm saying this as a fan of Gimp who never used Photoshop.
I can't tell the price in the US, but here in Aus, Photoshop is $1168. That's around the price of a reasonable SLR body (and 3 times the price of entry level SLRs), so it's a bit over-the-top to characterise it as 'measly'. The only context this price being 'measly' belongs in is 'professional'.
edit: found US price is $699 (before tax, Aus is post-tax). That's still not 'measly' in any context other than professional.
The general idea is that before becoming a professional you're a student, and get a very significant student discount.
Of course, this essentially puts one more barrier for people who can't afford formal studies. And especially with the DRM becoming more and more effective, I've actually seen this being a significant obstacle for designers-in-spe from e.g. Poland (where even the discounted price is quite a lot of money). They deal with it, one way or another, but it's always a huge strain.
As for the established professionals for whom the price isn't terrible -- well, good for you, pat yourself on the back for being rich. Less competition that way, or something.
For the record, The GIMP doesn't even have what we call "Non-Destructive editing" which allows to make a change to some of the filters and transformations you did on the image much later even when the image has been touched by other editions. It has been supported by Photoshop for way more than a decade, already. After all of this time, the Gimp still works like a toy and has zero productivity.
Zero. There is nothing productive about The GIMP. Anything you can do in The GIMP will be done faster with a competitor, Photoshop being the best in the category.
And before anyone comes to tell me that "THE GIMP IS FREE!!!11!ELEVEN!", Photoshop isn't expensive for a Photographer either, so price does not enter the game here. If you're a photographer with one or more DSLR bodies, lots of lenses, travel equipment and so on, spending some money on one measly Photoshop license is not going to kill you. The gain in productivity will more than make up for the money spent anyway, the Gimp truly is an awful tool compared to Photoshop. If you can't afford something like Photoshop it means that you can't afford being in that business in the first place.