Bedwyr
11-16-2000, 12:00 AM
I've got to complain a bit. I've got the older version 7 for Winders. I'm assuming that 9 is a bit better than what I have. Linuxworld considers Photopaint to be equal or only marginally better than GIMP. If free rules the roost, then GIMP is obviously the best. But regarding my preferences for manipulating images these are my experiences:
Photopaint has so far been better than even Photoshop. GIMP is pretty darn good and I'm quite impressed... but not impressed enough to dump Corel. The selection of brushes in Corel(soft wet oil/pastel/charcoal) is pretty good. I've got about 17 variations of paint application for each (add, subtract, multiply, boolean, etc) and can change the numbered settings for each brush (frequency of application, pressure, etc) and even 'paint' my own nib shapes. In fact, when I got Photopaint originally, it blew away most brushes for the old Fractal Painter software I had simply because of the options. Masks and layering are surpassingly powerful yet really easy to understand and I can change between three layering modes if I prefer a Photoshop approach. Filters are cool, they're not absolute dynamite but they'll take Photoshop filters so no advantage there (GIMP actually has a few better 'packaged' set of filters IMO). Overall, I've discovered in my use of both that Photopaint is more powerful than Photoshop if you want to futz with numbers, but Photoshop has 'cleaner' algorithms. The final result simply looks smoother coming from the latter. I prefer all the power at half the cost.
Then I tried GIMP when I got into the Linux scene. And then I had to run back to Winders. I'm already used to Corel and found a number of things that afforded more power than GIMP (which equals far less time spent on Litestep themes to make Winders more bearable while I have it). CorelDraw Linux will come when I've got the money.
Thoughts? Esp any who've used Photoshop extensively. I've only used it up to 4.x.
Michael
Photopaint has so far been better than even Photoshop. GIMP is pretty darn good and I'm quite impressed... but not impressed enough to dump Corel. The selection of brushes in Corel(soft wet oil/pastel/charcoal) is pretty good. I've got about 17 variations of paint application for each (add, subtract, multiply, boolean, etc) and can change the numbered settings for each brush (frequency of application, pressure, etc) and even 'paint' my own nib shapes. In fact, when I got Photopaint originally, it blew away most brushes for the old Fractal Painter software I had simply because of the options. Masks and layering are surpassingly powerful yet really easy to understand and I can change between three layering modes if I prefer a Photoshop approach. Filters are cool, they're not absolute dynamite but they'll take Photoshop filters so no advantage there (GIMP actually has a few better 'packaged' set of filters IMO). Overall, I've discovered in my use of both that Photopaint is more powerful than Photoshop if you want to futz with numbers, but Photoshop has 'cleaner' algorithms. The final result simply looks smoother coming from the latter. I prefer all the power at half the cost.
Then I tried GIMP when I got into the Linux scene. And then I had to run back to Winders. I'm already used to Corel and found a number of things that afforded more power than GIMP (which equals far less time spent on Litestep themes to make Winders more bearable while I have it). CorelDraw Linux will come when I've got the money.
Thoughts? Esp any who've used Photoshop extensively. I've only used it up to 4.x.
Michael