Gimp Vs Photoshop | Detail Comparison For Image Editing

Adobe Photoshop is the most known professional photographic editing tool, which definitely is a professional image editing software for the last three decades. But this is not free and it’s always come with a great amount of price. Just because of the standard photo editing that doesn’t mean it is the only option of image editing. An open-source photo editor called “Gimp” is as powerful and most likely similar to photoshop can be the best alternatives to photoshop tool. Surprised, right? Maybe you are thinking how a free photo editor can be compared to an industry-standard tool? Well, read the whole article, you will get the crisp ideas about industries best photo editing software comparison “Gimp Vs Photoshop”.

While Photoshop also offers $10 subscription plan per month, Gimp is an open-source free photoshop alternative tool. Gimp is defined as “GNU image manipulation program”. It is a cross-platform free image editor which is available for all kind of operating system including Linux, OS X, Windows. If you are a photographer, graphic designer, illustrator, this free image editing tool will help you to get sophisticated editing. GIMP gives top-notch color management, color reproduction features. GIMP help you to:

High-quality photo manipulation.
Original artwork creation.
Produce graphic design elements.

Gimp Vs Photoshop Overview

Gimp vs Photoshop, these two are image editing tools. Both tools have important and necessary image editing features, tools, plugins, options, and other resources that basically make the difference between them. Between these two tools, let’s say this way: GIMP is perfect for personal use and Photoshop is perfect for company and professional level use. Between GIMP and Photoshop, one of them is enriched with features, and the other one may have some extra more advantages. This content is to let you know the similarities and dissimilarities between GIMP and Photoshop software before installing or using or purchasing.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Photoshop and GIMP

Before finding the differences between Photoshop and GIMP, let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of Photoshop and GIMP. Let’s start with photoshop pros and cons.

Pros of Photoshop:

Photoshop comes with lightroom which allows the RAW image editing.
Photoshop has advanced photo editing tools and features.
It works with Adobe’s other products. All the plugins can be easily added from adobe exchange.
Photoshop also has mobile application, including smartphones and tablets.
It has Creative cloud features, which is accessible from anywhere.
It has free version “Photoshop Express” for starters and amateur photo editor or graphic designers.
Photoshop has many built-in features for 3D and for vector graphics. So, it is much easier to learn photoshop.

Cons of Photoshop:

The first cons of photoshop is its price. You have to pay for the tools as long as you want to use the software.
Most advanced features are not available without subscription.
Requires a high configuration PC for the best version of photoshop.
The free version “Photoshop Express” doesn’t support on Mac operating system.

Now, let’s see the pros and cons of GIMP.

Pros of GIMP:

GIMP is zero cost, absolutely free. You don’t have to pay for any kind of subscriptions, or for any add-ons.
Since it is a freeware open-source code, you can also change its source code and also distribute the changes. So, basically, you can enhance your productivity by GIMP customization option with third-party plugins.
Like Photoshop, GIMP has a huge number of filters, precisions and blend modes; honestly speaking, you can find more blend modes in GIMP than photoshop.
GIMP has compatible backward version to Windows 7, macOS 10.9, and most recent Unix version as well.
Older and compatible versions are also available for older version systems.

Cons of GIMP:

There’s no mobile version available.
GIMP doesn’t automatically save as common file types such as jpg, png.
The interface of GIMP isn’t so user-friendly, lacking professional interface.
Updates of tools, features are not frequent compared to Photoshop.
A bit more difficult to use for beginners. Unlike Photoshop, GIMP is like a powerful open source project, which needs to learn and master different programs in order to carry out different things.
There’s no such thing like Photoshop Creative Cloud for GIMP.
GIMP allows you to install plugins, but it does not have such thing as Adobe exchange. So, you need to search for the necessary plugins for GIMP.
Missing some advanced level tools and designing features like CMYK.

Differences between GIMP and Photoshop

Features	Photoshop	GIMP
Pricing	Photoshop is free for general and lower-feature versions. Full Photoshop program subscription starts from $10 per month with creative cloud storage.	Completely free, zero cost program.
Program Platform	All types of platforms. Windows, OS X, macOS, iOS and also Android smartphones and tablets.	Windows 7 and later, macOS 10.9 and up and Linux distributions. No program for iOS and Android.
Cloud Access	Yes. Creative Cloud access with subscription plan.	No.
Plugins and Add-ons	Associated into creative Cloud. Third-party plugins and add-ons are also available.	Free, third party plugins are available.
File Format	Photoshop lightroom enables RAW image file editing. Photoshop allows to save the image file in any general format.	GIMP doesn’t open RAW files directly. UFRAW Plugins is needed to support RAW files in GIMP. But it does not have the ability to integrate RAW files into the layers and edit like Photoshop.
Usability	Features are professional and comparatively easy to use and apply.	Features of GIMP is generally a little more sophisticated but also a little bit difficult to use.
Program Interface	Consider the user interface, Photoshop gives slightly more professional photo editing experience.	GIMP also does pro experience, but it does not easy to do that.
Image Modes	Photoshop has CMYK, Lab-mode, Duotone editing mode.	GIMP doesn’t have these kinds of modes.
Select Subject	Photoshop has the artificial intelligence of creating features like humans or animals inside of a photograph by using the selection of subjects.	GIMP doesn’t have such artificial intelligence.

GIMP vs Photoshop: Which one Should I Choice?

When it comes to preferences, let’s consider some points of view to choose which program should you choose. Choosing basically depends on you. Moreover, pricing is also a factor to make a choice. If you are a professional photographer, or you own a graphic design company and you get paid a large amount of payment you must go with Photoshop photo editing tools. Since you are a professional, you need to create professional and standard quality photography with advanced tools and features.

Likewise, if photography is just a hobby of yours or you are just a student, you simply just want to tweak the exposure, fix color, add filters of your photos, and you don’t wanna spend money for it, go with Photoshop Express or GIMP. Besides these, if you wanna go with the full version of Photoshop package, you might gonna need to upgrade your PC for the best version of Photoshop; in case if your PC is lower configured. GIMP is free and also works on almost every computer, which also has all the necessary functionalities to makes you professional and advanced designer. On the other hand, if you want to develop your photo editing or design skills, to achieve professional photography skills, you can take one of the Photoshop subscription packages.

So, the bottom line is, both GIMP and Photoshop have lots of similarities more than their differences. If you just a beginner, a student, or a hobbyist, GIMP or the Photoshop free version “Photoshop Express” will be the best choice for you. If you enhance your photography and photo editing skills, you can go with the Photoshop subscription. And If you are professional photographers, or a freelancer, for quality job done you must choose Photoshop program.