[OS:N:] GIMP vs. Adobe Photoshop

[Bill Kendrick]

<snip> Be prepared to counter the following objections:
> 

Which many argue schools aren't supposed to be concering themselves over.
(e.g., "auto shop teaches car repair, not Ford repair" ;^) )


> 
> Photoshop is a well established product and is used by most graphics
> professionals.  The GIMP is an unknown quantity.  It is likely that you
> will be introducing it for the first time to the

Apparently it, along with Inkscape and Scribus (I think?) are being used
by a professional newspaper.  I can dig up the article if you can't find it.
(It was in the news within the last week or so.)

The 16-bit version of Gimp (Cinepaint, prev. known as FilmGimp) is used for
touching up movies.  (Ever hear of the movies "Harry Potter" or "Scooby-Doo"?
;^) )


> then you may need to overcome a bias against it.
> 
> To overcome that objection you will need to give examples where the GIMP
> is being used by professionals and probably have a working copy handy
> (IE:  Knoppix) so you can do a live demo.

Gimp _does_ run on Windows.  If they have Windows machines, no reason to
jump to Linux just to demo it.  (And no reason to force the school to
switch to Linux -- even though that would probably be beneficial -- just to
use Gimp... or OpenOffice.org... or...)


<snip>
> To overcome this hurdle is going to take some luck and probably a
> willingness to teach the teacher.  Alternately there may be text books
> available for the GIMP, but, then you would have to overcome other
> budget issues.

I'm not sure that there are TEXT books, but there are numerous books.
I'm not sure how many are up-to-date (e.g., regarding Gimp 2.0), but many
of the ideas from Gimp 1 should work in Gimp 2.

The Gimp Users Manual is actually released as an 'Open Source' book.
It is(was?) available at manual.gimp.org.  I have the print version. :^)


<snip>
> It's just unbelievable the strength of product lock-in through the ever
> popular "industry standard".

Yep, that's why schools are all still using Apple IIs.  Oh, wait! ;^)

It is kind of ridiculous how people yell about "but this is _standard_!",
and then a year later it's completely out-of-date and incompatible with the
latest-and-greatest from Company X.  *sigh*


<snip> 
> Yes, we are making headway, but it seems to be like taking a sailboat
> into the wind!

We are DEFINITELY making headway.  I've been involved in Linux and Linux User
Groups since early 1999, and even in that short time (5.5 years), there's
been an incredible growth of awareness _and_ interest in the 'general
populace.'

In the past, we'd go out to demo Linux, and people were completely unfamiliar
and not usually very interested.  Now when we do that, people seek us out!
They _want_ to jump on the bandwagon, so to speak. ;)


> The day will come though when the wind shifts and all these commercial
> products will have to face the fury the free and open jet stream.  Of
> this we can be certain.
> 
> Fight the fight.

Indeed. :)

-bill!