GIMP Reviews 75

I have used Gimp for a number of years. I am no photographer, or photo editor, but as an online seller I find it extremely easy to use and it suits my needs perfectly. My only complaint is that I am unable to permanently change my default font and I have to jump through hoops to make the programme work as I would like it. My preferred font (for tagging my listing images) is Times New Roman Bold at 150 px, but the programme always defaults to Monospace, which I never use. This has been ongoing for over a year now, where previously I was able to reset the default to my preferred option. Please return this functionality, thank you

I have used Photoshop for 30+ years. I have tried GIMP a few times, but always gave up after a few minutes. The other day I downloaded it again and am currently doing my best to give it a fair shake. I have nothing but absolute hate for this program. The dev's have done everything in their power to not only be different from Photoshop, but this is different from every other graphical design program I have ever used. Everything is put somewhere you wouldn't expect it to be. Then when you do find what you are looking for, figuring out how to use it is like learning to ride a bike upside down. I absolutely hate it. I give it two stars simply because of the amount of features this software apparently has. I give it two stars because none of those features is where you expect them to be, using them is the clunkiest thing I have ever seen in any software I have ever used.

Then just check out the help. It takes you to a manual setup with links to various things. Index and all. Great job. But they could have at least added a search bar so you don't have to wade through pages of text looking for "Snap to grid" for example. Which is in the VIEW menu for some strange reason? Figure that one out without asking ChatGPT.

This app is awful. Nothing is intuitive. Trying to do anything in this app is a pain. The only reason I use it is because it's free.

i had high hopes for it.
but as others have said it is increcibly difficult to use.
All i wanted to do was crop a picture. there are zillions of options..absolutely zillions but it seems to fail on the basic.
so eventually i went online to search the help and found the path to crop..and i cropped the picture..next difficult part was..to SAVE it under a new name.. i could change the name but couldnt find SAVE button.. they need to go back to BASICS

This software is incredibly hard to use, it's not helpful either, it lacks so many features, and decade old UI,.. there're so many things about this need to improved. I recommend Affinity instead, it's a free software now

I have just spent 20 minutes trying to get an image to print in the correct size. I have a large-format printer and am trying to print a 10x16" image on Super B paper. GIMP keeps changing settings back to letter. I've checked the bug reports and this has been reported repeatedly but nothing seems to have been done about it. Now I have to find some other way of getting this image printed in the needed size. The software does a lot, but this is a very basic problem and appears to be a longstanding one.

This app, once great, gets shittier with every passing update. Versions before 3.0 were stellar. From 3.0 to 3.04 GIMP has been in a steep, downhill slide. The app freezes up. Hot keys don't always pull up the wanted routine. Saving your file brings up a screen that covers up the normal folders screen. You then have to click on a tiny portion of the wanted save screen which is showing, to get to the bona fide save screen. This causes a series of very time-consuming stalls wherein all that one can do is pray that the image you've being working on doesn't get lost in a crash. When you finally save your document to a folder, you then have to CHECK that folder to see if it is, in fact, saved there! Are these new updates being run by Milloonials?

27 years of development and the copy/paste function doesnt even work correctly. If you look up "how to make a shape in Gimp" on Google, it basically says - Step 1 use a different program. Every person involved with this programs development should be embarrassed to have their names associated with this absolute trash.
Further, Ive seen comments from people accusing the developers of making Gimp less user friendly, more glitchy, and removing features over time so im just going to go ahead and assume they are taking kickbacks from Adobe to make them looker better by comparison. PATHETIC!

Piece of shit. i try glued two images. this its impossible. Cutting image? i cut, save with changes, open i "layers" and what? uncuted.

The new updates are really buggy and some of the implimentations of the brushes/ shading/ scaling are actually worse now. It crashes a lot too. Had to uninstall it, i really enjoyed the older versions but the newest version runs really bad.

Sadly had to give up on Gimp. PixlrEditor is so much easier to use. Gimp seemed a great free alternative to Photoshop which I used to use all the time but when simple tasks such as cropping an image or saving as jpg becomes hard work its game over.

I find the low rating of this photo editing software quite unexpected. As a complimentary option to the costly Photoshop, it offers considerable value.

While the interface has room for enhancement, it is important to remember that it is available at no cost and functions effectively.

Overall, the software serves its purpose well, especially for those seeking a budget-friendly alternative.

GIMP is a free alternative to Photoshop. I use it to put together layers for my book covers, mainly. But I also edit Great-Aunt Sarah's photos with it and occasionally create art from scratch using it.

I love the ability to adjust a picture or render's value and colors with Curves.

It does have a learning curve, so maybe that's why people get frustrated and quit soon after downloading. Any professional software will have a steeper learning curve than something like Paint, which is designed for lay-people.

There are plenty of tutorials to learn this software. I've put in many hours learning. Quality of my book covers depends on it. I am an author and do my own. I love art and once wanted to be a professional artist, though I never ended up taking art in college.

GIMP can be a little finicky. If I notice that it's not working as I expect, I just save it and close it. Then I'll restart it and it works as I wanted.

I think all software nowadays, since COVID, is going to have more glitches. All companies are having trouble hiring skilled people. Costs are high on their end and the consumer end.

But, GIMP is written by volunteers who believe in the project. I've watched the capabilities of this software increase steadily over the years I've been using it. I think GIMP is better today than in previous years.

If you're getting frustrated with it, go watch a few tutorials and see if you get better results. It's not Paint. You can do a whole lot more with it.

That said, I now use Photos, part of Win 11, to take backgrounds out before I go to GIMP to clean off the white lines it leaves. A nice short-cut. Cropping is also easier there for me.

However, I wouldn't be getting out nice book covers without it. I often have to layer a background photo with characters I've created in DAZ Studio. I've had to make clothes a different color, or redo eyes to make them how I imagine them, and the smudge tool to make 5-fingered hands into the sleek, flat, 2-fingered hands of the Zheien I write about.

I'll keep using GIMP because I'll never afford Photoshop, and I think GIMP is better from reviews I've seen on artist-centered sites' forums.

If you're not an artist, I suggest you get GIMP and go through some tutorials. You might find that you love the extra capabilities of this software. It also has some really good add-ons.

Gimp won't show effect results until you click OK.

Not the userability I expect.

I don't get the negative reviews. They are people who want instant gratification. Okay there is easier software. I have been using Adobe Photoshop since 2003, but I have now retired and don't want to continue with paying monthly for software. Having moved from photoshop, I found Gimp quite easy to learn. Photoshop and Gimp contain a lot, so of course some effort is needed with both. Gimp isn't intuitive so some searching the menus was necessary, but the tools are there. but with Gimp tutorials and actually Photoshop tutorials work if you are clever enough to adjust them, all is good.
The duff reviews on here must be from people who are looking for a simpler, more basic photo editor. The only way to better Gimp is to pay the annual Photoshop subscription. The other free and many paid editors cannot compete

Great program. Everything works. Found some great Gimp training courses on Udemy.

Its free photoshop what more could you ask for. Dont listen to other comments.

This software is really good if you wanna make a youtube thumbnail/cut something out of a photo. Since it's free, it's obviously not going to be nearly as good as photoshop or any paid image editing software. Contrary to the other comments, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to use basically everything. I don't know if all the other reviewers have sub-80 IQ or if they were high while trying to use it but the layout is extremely easy and simple to navigate. It even has all the necessary keyboard shortcuts. Anyways, if you're debating weather or not to take the 15 minutes to install this and try it out, I suggest you do it since it's only about 250mb.

EDIT:

Still works. Better than ever, actually. I think all the negative reviews are from other companies that want to make you pay for image editing software. These past few months I've noticed worse and worse reviews on every large-scale site, saying "SCAM SCAM" or "LAG LAG" That's just how things are, greedy CEOs who want to make their portfolio look better, and make more money (like they need it XD)

Just try the software out, the quality I'm able to put out on my thumbnails is amazing, completely free and I won't ever get my license revoked by some greedy company, because well, Gimp is free. Paying monthly for a piece of software is ridiculous unless you work with a big company, but if you're an amateur like me it's absolute BS.

When it works (which is most of the time), and when you can get to grips with the UI, it's great, but there are apparently random times when you load a particular image that it simply doesn't like, then it frustratingly refuses to play ball and won't let you change tools, or make a selection for instance. Bear in mind these images are all from the same source and in the same format. Maybe it doesn't like the colors in the image, who knows!?