[kwlug-disc] Is GIMP pro-quality?

[unsolicited]

Paul Nijjar wrote, On 03/02/2010 8:48 PM:
> On Tue, Mar 02, 2010 at 09:14:24PM -0500, Richard Weait wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 8:17 PM, Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>>> I read this on Twitter. Does anybody here have an answer?
>>>
>>> =======
>>> mvc1095: having a debate with some co-workers. are there pro graphic
>>> designers who work on linux with gimp? as in have paid rent for a year
>>> that way.
>>> =======
>> Non-sequitur. Wrapped up in a straw-man.
> 
> Wow. I don't see how either of these accusations are justified. 
> 

Agreed.

> The common wisdom is that you require Photoshop and its proprietary
> friends to make a living, because these programs blow the pants off of
> GIMP and friends. This question asks whether that is actually the
> case. 

One of the things to be careful of here, and you are, is to make sure 
you are comparing apples to apples. As I said, you are, here.

>> How about, does the GIMP do what you want?

Which assumes one knows what that is. A hobbyist photographer has very 
different requirements than a magazine cover studio photographer, and 
won't know what all they need until they're doing it. In the meantime, 
the student needs to start somewhere with something. (Sort of like a 
new programmer may not ever have heard of cvs at first, let alone that 
choosing an IDE with a cvs interface would be a good idea.)

> What if what you want is "to make a living doing graphic design using
> Free Software"? I think that is totally legitimate question; if such
> examples exist it would demonstrate that the tools are good enough,
> even if they lag in features behind their proprietary counterparts. 
> 
> If you don't think that Linux and GIMP are relevant, increase the
> scope to Inkscape or other graphic design tools (but not as broad as
> Drupal; given that this person pays/paid his rent working with Drupal, I
> think he knows the answer to that).

Let us know if you find anything out, Paul, I too would be interested 
in the answer.

Your question startled me in the sense of I assumed PhotoShop to be 
mostly a photographer's tool, assuming other sw would be used for 
graphic artists. So part of why I say be careful is, I wonder if 
PhotoShop really is 'the' graphic artists tool. i.e. Is the question 
'valid?' [Not that I know that it is / isn't.] I wouldn't be surprised 
if it is, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it was a different Adobe 
product (for graphic artists.) [vs. photographers]

PhotoShop is more than just image manipulation, it is workflow and 
publicizing and librarying and a whole bunch of other stuff. The gimp, 
in and of itself, is only an image manipulator.

So, I'm guessing, in the end, the answer to your question, Paul, will 
likely come out as something like Gimp + <x> + <y> + <z> == PhotoShop. 
And I'm guessing that the Gimp is viewed with favour in the industry, 
but that's only an assumption without basis on my part.

I'd also guess that you'll get part of the answer ifs you happen to 
find out as part of asking that .psd is 'the' file format that 
'publishing houses' take in. i.e. much like MS Project has the world 
by the throat because only .mpp is truly pervasive.