Gimpshop

My deep dive into Open Source content has commenced!  I have decided to dip my toes in the water with Gimpshop, the Open Source picture editor - akin to Photoshop.  I found that many of the tools I use with Photoshop are found in the Gimpshop, such as burn, dodge, smudge,shading, cutting, image re-positioning, fill, magnetic tools, etc.  It was a little difficult to navigate for me at first, but I am pretty comfortable with the Photoshop program, so anything new is a bit confusing.  I think the beginning user to the experienced editor could find use of this software because there are many options for photo manipulation, and it is free!  If I were to spend the time to really get to know this software, I believe I could use it for just about everything I do in Photoshop.  I found a great blog that explains the few differences between these two programs, but the main differences are that Gimpshop is free (both in cost and as an Open Source program), the user community provides a lot of helpful feedback, it works on all OS platforms the same, and it does not have all of the bells and whistles that Photoshop has because of the revenue it makes.  Here is the picture part of our family Christmas card this year; one I just did real quick on Gimpshop (the zoomed out one) and one is from Photoshop (the zoomed in one).  

~Christina