If I wanted to de-emphisize the peppercorns I could use the healing tool (middle) or to really take them out of the photo I could use the clone tool (right). This is a crop from the corner of a photo I took of some spices (left). You can make the edges blurry, make what you paste more transparent, and change how the pasted area blends in with the photo underneath. You can choose exactly how to cover the area by picking an unblemished part of the photo to copy, and then stamping or brushing to paste over the blemish. It's great for quick touch-ups, but if you're covering a large area you'll likely leave a big blurry mess in its place.
Healing with a program like iPhoto lets the program decide how to cover blemishes in a photo. While other free editors offer a 'healing' tool that covers or blurs blemishes, GIMP goes a step further offering healing tool and a clone tool. The ability to clone was what brought me to GIMP in the first place. My five favourite GIMP features are the clone tool, layers and layer masks, professional colour adjustment, exposure and contrast control, true graphic design, and GIMP's easy add ons like plugins and scripts. GIMP offers truly professional tools and features that let you take control of your images. Those features are worth the high cost to some people, but for the average user GIMP may be the only photo editing software you'll ever need. When you buy a premium photo editor like Photoshop, part of what you're paying for is customer support and proprietary tools. There are a ton of one-click effects available, as well as more advanced filters to make your photos creative masterpieces.
Easily resize photos for printing or the web, create graphic designs like banners and avatars for your small business, and retouch family portraits to perfection. I'll compare GIMP to free photo editors, and to Photoshop to give you a clear idea of what it's capable of.įor family photo editing and small business editing and design, GIMP's got everything you need. Some people come to GIMP in search of a free photo editing program, and others use it as a Photoshop alternative. While you might be tempted to limit a comparison of GIMP to other free photo editors, it's power, sophistication, and professional level tools make it more like Photoshop than anything else.īut people come to GIMP for different reasons.