Regarding Photoshop
hillga1993
Posts: 0
in The Commons
Hi, so obviously I'm still very new to this, but I couldn't seem to find this questioned answered anywhere. I am really poor at the moment and was wondering if there was an alternative to getting Adobe Photoshop. Is there any way way I could get something else that is less expensive if not free? I understand that Gimp doesn't work but what, if anything, will?
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For what? GIMP is a perfectly adequate image editor, it's what a fair number of people use. if you are watning to use the 3d Bridge then no, there isn't an alterantive, but you can just save and import images to achieve the same results - it isn't a vital component.
Gimp works well, though, as Richard says, not with the Photoshop bridge. Me, I use GIMP almost exclusively unless I'm using Filter Forge. And, GIMP will use most, if not all, of the .abr PS brushes. If you are willing to try the beta version of GIMP 2.9 then you can also combine the .exr files that the Iray canvases produces. There is also a build for GIMP beta 2.9 that is set up to use the NIK collection recently released for free. Do a Google search for Partha and GIMP 2.9 and you'll find it.
Hey, thanks for the Partha GIMP link. I didn't know it existed. The NIK filters work great :D - as well as they do in Photoshop.
Laurie
No problem. I've been using them for the last couple of months and haven't had any problems. You may get a popup box occassionally with notes, but you just have to click okay as most just tell you about something that hasn't been implemented yet or something they are working on. The filters work great and I've been having a lot of fun with them.
There are quite a few PAs even that use GIMP, it's a quite fully funtional 2D Program. I use PS but never the 3D aspect of it, it makes absolutely no sense to me. If I need to paint over seamlines in 3D space I use Blacksmith 3D which is fairly inexpensive and not nearly as brain melting.
I use Photoshop but I know a lot of people who use Gimp and it works just fine, great even. I've seen some incredible art coming from Gimp users! Where did you hear that Gimp won't work? What exactly do you want to be able to do?
You could try photoshop elements I used elements 6 for years it was quite adequate for the brushes and painting, you could pick up an older version cheap.
I use Paint Shop Pro. Has several tools the same as PS. I find it easier to use and it is a lot cheaper.
Paintshop Pro for me too. It can use Photoshop .abr brushes and I have not yert found a PS filter that it couldn't use. But yeah, it does depend on what aspect of Photoshop you are wanting to replicate.
I opted for the photography subscription for Photoshop CC and Lightroom for $10.00 a month. At $120 per year, it would take years for me to rack up the cost of the stand alone Photoshop at full price, and that doesn't include the upgrades available with Creative Cloud.
I started with GIMP, but decided to move to Photoshop because:
1. Most tutorials are for Photoshop and I found it frustrating to try to figure out how to do the equivalent in GIMP. I just wanted to start working already.
2. Some items in GIMP didn't work as well as Photoshop, most notably PS' Warp tool. GIMP's cage tool was clunky by comparison, and I use Warp frequently.
3. GIMP's brush display was WAY too tiny. That said, GIMP's brush tools always displayed on screen made it very quick to adjust the brushes. I could see the brush shrink/grow as I made the adjustment - I do like that better.
4. Tablet and detachable panels. For some reason, every time I use my WACOM tablet I invariably snag and detach the brush toolbox. Having to stop and reload GIMP to fix it drove me crazy.
5. Although GIMP can use the Photoshop .abr brushes, it can't use the styles, and that's a bummer.
6. I picked up Filter Forge and couldn't use it as a plug in with GIMP. I didn't know that ahead of time and it irritated me.
You can zoom in for the brush selection - makes it much easier.
I've started using Affinity Designer which has both bitmap and vector tools. I was primarily looking for a replacement for Adobe Illustrator as I couldn't afford to do a sub for both PS and Illustrator. Affinity has Photo which is more closely aligned with using Photoshop. When they released Affinity Designer 1.5, they had (may still have) it on sale for $39.99. I'm hoping they will do the same with Affinity Photo. These are Mac programs, but there is presently a beta trial for Affinity Designer for Windows, https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/windows/, I recommend you checking out. It's laid out very much like an Adobe Program, follows similar commands, but also has some things unique to the program which are very nice.
This is a vector design I did in Affinity Designer.
left and right bracket [ ] grows/shrinks brushes on the fly in pS. If you cannot see the brush size toggle your caps lock button and the mouse will switch from crosshairs to a circle indicating the size of the brush.
YEEEEEE
Oh my goodness you don't know how excited I am about that. I use the GIMP for everything and have been since 2009 (I loathe Adobe in general) and I have coveted the Nik collection forever. There have been Python script add-on solutions but I've never gotten them to work. Thank you thank you thank you!!
Oh, and with what Fisty said, I use 3d Coat for 3D painting, in case that should be a question that OP might have. It did cost money, and I used Blender for that up until I could afford it. Blender is not the very best at 3D painting but it's certainly capable of doing it when your other options are lacking. Blender remains my anchor for base modeling, simple morph sculpts and UV.
And one of the scheduled items to improve in Blender is the 3D painting...it's just a question of when.
There are even more fun improvements scheduled for GIMP...but the 2.9 ones are big steps forward.