Thanks heaps for this!… if anyone else has anything, it would be much appreciated. Great website HOT Pianoforte Links http://www.en.Grand-Pianos.org Enjoy!…

While I agree that Photoshop definitely has some value simply from being the most used software in a professional setting, I think that in a business/job atmosphere the skills you know are more relevant than the specific software. Even if someone was unfamiliar with GIMP and familiar with Photoshop, you could probably explain to them GIMP’s features and the basic similarity between the two programs. That is, unless your potential job focused maybe solely on very high level functions in Photoshop.

On the subject of tech-support, I do think that would stop GIMP from reaching very large business, or even smaller businesses with less tech-savvy folks. However, in the office where I intern, GIMP is the standard program. I guess it really depends on what you want to do, too. If you’re into really heavy web design or graphic design, you will probably need to go with Photoshop for the support options, as some big bucks can ride on getting a perfect color match/filter setting/etc for a graphic. However even in a moderately sized building, if all you really need to do is fiddle with some brightness-contrast and resize, GIMP is worlds better than any free Microsoft product, and sooo much more reasonable than purchasing office copies of Photoshop.

The second reason, which is often overlooked, is the lack of tech support for GIMP. As with most Free (as in free speech) and Open Source software, all of the support for the program is going to come from forums that deal with the program, and Google searching a problem to fix any specific problem, like I have to do with Ubuntu, is not a serious option for any business. There needs to be someone you can call and e-mail who can work you through any issue you may have with the program. This is where I see Open Source and Free Software making their money:

We’ll give our program out for free, but if you want help, you’ll have to subscribe for our tech support, which includes a small team of dedicated programmers who can write you a patch to solve your problem with reasonable speed.

It works best all the way around to do that. A high school or college student that is interested in / needs experience in a program can download it for free and search forums for help with understanding it, while businesses have to option to get real-time help.

I wonder if this will ever come to pass though….

I guess Superhawk makes a good point, though. Future employers would much rather see “Proficient in Adobe Photoshop” than “Proficient in GIMP” on a prospective employee’s resume. In general, it’s just a more professional program. If both programs do essentially the same thing, though, I have a feeling that the stigma against products like GIMP won’t stay for long.

After all, if the Adobe products continue to be obnoxiously overpriced, I think the amount of people using the free (as in free beer) software will slowly become the majority. And, if the majority of people use GIMP instead of Photoshop, I don’t think employers will continue to have a preference.

I guess that’s one way to “stop” the Photoshop pirating!

I wonder how we could solve this problem through legal means.