Image manipulation software?

[Hirazi Blue]

Okay, here's the deal: at the moment I am happily using the GIMP for my image manipulation needs. And like I mention (probably too often): I am on a very tight budget. The GIMP works well (albeit quirkily), but it does have certain limitations, like its current restriction of 8 bits per channel (this is about to change in version 2.10 apparently).
But now I was wondering: as I can't afford Photoshop and a program like Photoshop Elements seems too limited, are there any more affordable (i.e. less pricey than Photoshop), but not necessarily free/OSS image manipulators you could recommend? Should I simply start abusing Toxik for any of the more arcane image manipulation or better yet wait until GIMP rolls out the stable version 2.10?

[Bullit]

Second hand photoshp?

[angus_davidson]

The best one I can think of offhand is Pixelmator. ($15) Unfortunately its Mac only. On windows your best option is paint.net

Hope that helps.

[Kerro Perro]

Hmm there are lot of "stripped down" PS clones like Sumo Paint http://www.sumopaint.com but i think they all have less features then GIMP.
There is a good one for Apple OS (snowbunny or whatever) but i'm assuming you don't use a Mac...
EDIT: yeah Pixelmator as Angus said...

But i found this "GIMPshop" that apparently can handle 16 & 32 bit: http://www.gimpshop.com/ and this can too i think http://www.cinepaint.org/

Haven't tried any of them though ;)

[angus_davidson]

Seems Pixel mator stil uses 8Bits formats , so not suitable .

Cinepaint seems the winner here to be honest.

from their docs link. (there is also a windows / mac client coming early this year)

Top Reasons to Use CinePaint
Support for 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit color channels of deep paint.
High fidelity image file types such as DPX, OpenEXR and 16-bit TIFF. These files can’t be opened in ordinary 8-bit image applications without crushing them.
High Dynamic Range. HDR images can go brighter than white. Ordinary images can’t be brighter than a white sheet of paper (0=black, 1.0=white).
Gallery-quality printing. B&W photographs have only one color channel and degrade quickly when manipulated as 8-bit images.CinePaint has higher fidelity and offers a 16-bit printing path to the print-head using GutenPrint.
Color Management System. CinePaint uses LittleCMS.
Flipbook. Movie playback of short sequences of images in RAM.
Innovation. CinePaint offers features that go beyond ordinary painting tools.
It’s used to make feature films at major studios.
Open Source. With various OSS licenses, because it uses code from various sources, including GPL, LGPL, BSD, and MPL.
Free.
Friendly professional developers. Polite discussion forums.
Being a CinePaint developer can be a good career move. CinePaint developers have gotten jobs at companies such as DreamWorks Animation,Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Apple.

Not sure if your a student or not but they can get some incredible discounts (but you cant use the results commercially). Each year when I do the budget for Digital Arts I am incredibly happy of that fact ;)

[Hirazi Blue]

Thanks for your reply! Sadly I am not a student & I am "on" Windows, but a "non-commercial usage" restriction wouldn't bother me (hobbyist).

IIRC the Cinepaint team has been promising a stable Windows version for ages now, the last Windows build I could find was from 2003. They seem to lack any good incentive to create a Windows build (and frankly I don't blame them, even though it would seem to be a nice piece of software). But if I have to wait for them to release a Windows version, I might as well wait for the 2.10 version of GIMP.

@Kerro Perro - I will have to take a look at GIMPShop, thanks for the suggestion!
edit: removed my initial remark as the Sourceforge version is a significantly older one. Must test more...

Additional edit: I would advise against GIMPshop 2.8. My attempt to download and install it seemed to have caused the necessity of a System Restore. I am NOT saying this is their fault, I'm just saying that I won't be trying it again...


Is the situation in the Windows image manipulation world really so dire that there is NO serious/less pricey contender for the Photoshop crown?

[Mathaeus]

there's Photoline too. Feature list looks impressive - and that's all I know about it. Anyway, I think the first must have feature would be decent import of photoshop format. Today, PSD seems to be some kind of standard, if you're in any kind of cooperation, materials are coming as PSD. Not easy to fight against this habit....

[Kerro Perro]

Additional edit: I would advise against GIMPshop 2.8. My attempt to download and install it seemed to have caused the necessity of a System Restore. I am NOT saying this is their fault, I'm just saying that I won't be trying it again...

Ouch! I'm sorry about that !

[angus_davidson]

Is the situation in the Windows image manipulation world really so dire that there is NO serious/less pricey contender for the Photoshop crown?

In some respects the requirements of 3D are normally above what would normally be used for print / design work so its rare for 3d requirements to be met in normal image manipulation programs. Photoshop being the elephant in the room because its used for very high end photography.

The slack to some extents is really being taken up by painting directly onto the model. I personally dont really like this way of doing things.

I think the industry as a whole needs to decide on one file format and then get decent integration of that into the available programs. Perhaps something like openEXR will be that standard.

[luceric]

so did you try paint.net? http://www.getpaint.net

[Rork]

Additional edit: I would advise against GIMPshop 2.8. My attempt to download and install it seemed to have caused the necessity of a System Restore. I am NOT saying this is their fault, I'm just saying that I won't be trying it again...

http://portableapps.com/apps

yes.... GIMP in on that list.... ;)

[Hirazi Blue]

so did you try paint.net? http://www.getpaint.net

Yes, I did. It does seem to be able to handle loading 16 bit per channel tiffs but it is unclear what it's doing with this bit depth internally as you only seem to be able to save 8 bit/c tiffs and it weirdly seems to strip the alpha channel of a 16 b/c image (coming directly from Softimage) on load, which doesn't seem such a bright idea.

At the moment I am testing Photoline (see Mathaeus' post - edit: thanks, BTW). This might take me a while, possibly the full alloted 30 days of trial, though, as I am starting to think happy thoughts about simply waiting for GIMP 2.10.

@Kerro Perro - nothing to be sorry about! I don't blame you! I should have shied away from it the moment I read about their installer.

@Rork - I don't know if I understand your post correctly,
but it wasn't the GIMP causing problems, GIMPShop with its weird installer seemed to be the root of the problem...

edit: edited this post to include some remarks about some of the posts in this thread I forgot to mention...

[Rork]

Hirazi, that's why i posted the link. A lot of software doesn't have to be installed, just like the ones at portableapps.
If you would like to use GIMP, just download the file, unpack and run it. Nothing will be changed on your system, not even after running it. That's the beauty of that setup.

And an installer screwing up your windows install? I haven't seen that since... well... win95 to be honest. Maybe bad luck?

[Hirazi Blue]

First of all, we still seem to talk about two different entities: installing and uninstalling the GIMP for Windows has so far never posed any problems for me. My problems seems to lie solely with its "spin-off" GIMPShop. I agree that installers hardly ever mess up Windows anymore, but this one SEEMED to do so. I used its multi-software downloader ("do you want to install useful app #37 as well?") and when I tried starting the installed software, it automagically forced my computer to reboot (without any kind of prompt, to help make it "understandable"). When I tried to uninstall the software after this reboot, this seemed to be impossible, hence the System Recovery (as an admittedly "stop gap" measure, as I had no time to investigate further). Again, I am not claiming this software to be the sole cause of these woes, I'm just finding it suspicious how actions relating to this software took place just around the same time. I wrote my warning in this light: I personally won't be trying it again and I wanted to warn others just in case it had something to do with the software/its installer/its downloader...

(Smilie directed at the described event, not at you ;) )

[Rork]

Ah... I see. Different things yes.

But the tip still stands. ;-)

[Hirazi Blue]

Just wanted to let you know, after about a week of testing,
I finally went ahead and purchased Photoline.
Special thanks again to Mathaeus for pointing me in the right direction.
It might not be as powerful as Adobe Photoshop CS2, but it's MINE, fair and square, and that's what counts.
I’d rather support a small developer than wait for the dust cloud to settle on that specific SNAFU.
I’ve looked at some other programs as well but Photoline - despite some shortcomings, obviously -
really seems to be the only realistic option for the work I want to do with it
in the price range between €0.01 and € 966.79.
;)