I love GIMP - reasons why you should consider using GIMP; ditch Photoshop
GIMP is an open-source image manipulation tool that has been around since 1990, and has been one of the most prominently used image processing tool on computers running UNIX. GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, and although it was originally made for UNIX platforms, Windows XP/Vista, MacOSX, Sun OpenSolaris, and FreeBSD variants have been made available to expand it's number of users.
This tool is completely FREE [I would like to emphasize that it is free] and can be installed via terminal [sudo apt-get install gimp] or you can visit this link for Windows and Mac OS versions. And fear not, photoshop may have more weapons in it's arsenals, but after tweaking and playing with GIMP and it's plugins to suit your tastes, you might want to rethink and use GIMP in the long run. ;)
Here's an overview of GIMP's capabilities.
Paint - has a wide array of painting tools to choose from, high quality anti-aliasing via sub-pixel sampling, powerful gradient editor and blend tool, custom brush/pattern support.
Customizable Interface - you can easily customize your workspace depending upon your project and save such configurations for future use. The interface is module based so you can freely choose what you want to use, and add more via plugins. Full screen editing is also supported by GIMP
Tile Based Memory Management - image size is limited only by available disk space.
Multi-image processing - you can edit MANY photos at once (limited by diskspace)
Advanced Manipulation - Full alpha channel support, unlimited undo/redo(limited by diskspace), editable text layers,transformation tools, selection tools, extraction tools, path tool for bezier and polygonal sections, quickmasking = all readily availbe at your disposal to enhance your photos or create your own digital art
Procedural Database - calling internal GIMP functions from external programs (such as script-fu) = these functions are seamless and will not slow you down while working on your project
Advance Scripting Capabilities - support for scheme, python and perl
Over 100 Plug-ins available - tweak your GIMP based on your needs using these plugins available at GIMP repositories.
Animation - layers are frames, and frames are layers *wink wink*, MNG support, Frame Navigator, Onion Skin, Bluebox
Extensive File support - supports bmp, gif, jpeg, mng, pcx, png, ps, psd, svg, tiff, tga, xpm, etc. (you can add more supported files via plugins)
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