GIMP vs. Adobe PhotoShop vs. Adobe XD

GIMP is great for anyone ranging from personal use to a small business. But, if you are a large business and have a sufficient budget, I would recommend you to opt for an expensive paid software like Photoshop, that would provide not only great features but also public recognition. Its great for beginners wanting to start editing photos, there is a small learning curve that could be gotten used to in no time.

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Photoshop is a useful tool for everything from creating social media graphics to editing and sizing photos. There is a bit of a learning curve, so you need to have a bit of experience to master it and use it for a variety of tasks. You also need to have a good sense of file organization so you can find files quickly without losing track of them.

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If its already part of your organization, and they have a license for Creative Cloud, its worth learning. It doesnt take long to get started, but compared to other software in the same field, its lacking in many ways, from quality of life features to just simply not having the option for Darkmode. Even for website design, UX/UI, and mocking up proof-of-concepts, there are much better tools like Figma.

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• GIMP has a large number of tools at your disposal for manipulating any type of image and exporting in any necessary format.
• GIMP does a great job of making everything intuitive so that even a new user can layer images or make an image transparent in little time.

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• The fact is that you may quickly pick things up on your own by spending time without using any other resources.
• It is the program that brings the phrase "to make PhotoShop" to almost all languages. It's not just a photo editing program.
• Practical and beautiful results are filtered by filtering the desired work without drowning in details.

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• Easy and simple animations.
• Good tool for website mock-ups.
• Easy user interface and tools that are like most Adobe products.
• You can share a dev link and it displays all assets for developers to download or user like it's very own style guide.

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• GIMP should make the font tool more intuitive. Make it easier to change fonts during edit process without resetting the typeface selection.
• Build in selection/move ability within tools like the typeface tool... I.e. don't require toggle between selection tool and typeface tool when wanting to move a line of type within a layer. Likewise with shapes, etc.

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• The effect applying time could be faster.
• There could be a smarter way to make mockups using smart objects, maybe by directly selecting an area, and generative AI can automate a few steps.
• If Photoshop can suggest the right stock imagery in case the generative AI doesn't get the right answer.

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• Doesn’t have image editing tools, so having to go back to Photoshop or Lightroom just to make a sight edit can be a pain.
• Could add some text editing functionality. It feels silly that I have to draw a line under text when I should just be able to underline.
• Would be nice to have some real-time collaboration functionality.

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Capability, open architecture, compatibility with Photoshop plugins, wide platform coverage; To me, as an open-source, freely available application, it's the nest-in-class.

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We get a lot of use out of this software. It's vital for work with production in our industry and has a lot of cross-functionality - creating social media images, retouching photos, editing photos, creating gradients, and more. It's pretty fuss-free in that we haven't had to reach out to support and the program hasn't crashed on us. We are trained on the software (so again, this isn't for beginners), but for detail-oriented designers and creatives like ourselves - it's a no-brainer.

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We utilize many of the applications in the Adobe CC suite and our usage of this application came about simply because it was the one that was already paid for. Bearing that in mind we will definitely be renewing the software upon the expiration of the licensing. I am not sure if this is the solution we would go with were it not already included, we would have to evaluate all other options

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I interface GIMP with other software--I need to. I generally use the major calculation, CAD, word processing, and photo editing programs. In my office, my use of this software is not limited to computer-aided design. However, I am sure that if I needed this software for other purposes, it would have no interface problems.

Adobe PhotoShop is a professional-grade tool that requires months/years to get a grasp of how to use it well. Even then, after over a decade of using Adobe PhotoShop both casually and professionally, I feel like I'm still unfamiliar with a large percentage of the available tools. Without a dedicated training program, it can be extremely overwhelming and/or you may not get good use out of it. That being said, once you do get comfortable with it, the layout and workspace are excellent with myriad shortcuts that speed up your workflow exponentially. Put in the time to learn it, and you'll love it.

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Adobe XD is basically on life-support now, there are much better software out there that do everything XD can do, and a few that you don't even have to pay a monthly subscription fee on. While Adobe XD is great as shortcuts that are used in other CC software works, and its integration with CC is great. But it still lacks compared to its closest competitor.

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Adobe Photoshop is very reliable, but is never 100%. There have been times when Adobe Photoshop has had trouble opening, but nothing a little computer restart couldn't fix. I use Adobe Photoshop on a Mac for both work and at home on a daily basis, and I would be lost without it.

Speed can be an issue when you are dealing with large files for large format printing or billboards. When working on web images, speed is not an issue.

We have never needed to use the support functions for GIMP. Any queries we have or had about whether GIMP could complete a task we have used Google and YouTube. There is a wealth of information, guides, and forums dedicated to GIMP and how to perform certain tasks with the application.

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While I never contacted Adobe directly, there is so much content out there in the form of YouTube videos, Lynda/LinkedIn learning that almost any issue, including bugs, can be worked around (and this method is generally faster as there's no turnaround time involved).

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I have not had a need to connect with the Adobe XD support team as of yet, but from past experience when dealing with the other products, the support has been very very good, and I would have no reason to think that this product would be any different. There are a good number of training videos on the Adobe site for this product as well as on other social media sites so a quick search should let you find the answers in several different ways.

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So, I received the training at the HQ and it was train the trainer training. A good time, I spent a week at their campus

As simple as can be. Download from GIMP website and install.

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I took a course so it really helped. I didn’t take the course until much later after beginning to use it, so I wish work would have sent me right off the bat. It would have alleviated a lot of frustratinon

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Implementation was a snap

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Online services like Canva are fine for quickly designing brochures and marketing materials, videos, etc. They're user friendly and fast if you have a good connection. But if you're in production mode and need to do a lot of photo manipulation at once, without being connected to the web at all times and just want to focus, GIMP is the go-to product for you

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[Adobe] Photoshop offers the best photo editing as well as content creation. The layer-by-layer approach of [Adobe] Photoshop helps to work between two apps or even two PCs of entirely different Creative Cloud apps seamlessly. The stability and the speed of the tools in photoshop make it even better to make a canvas of creativity.

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Before XD came to the company, screens were designed in Illustrator or Photoshop and a PDF presentation was generated, which was extremely time-consuming. XD saved us a lot of time (and money) by generating interactive prototypes, which are much more tangible for the client than a PDF. The "fight" with Figma is frequent. Both have features in which they are better than their competition. And, while I still choose Adobe XD, don't rule out moving to Figma with its multiple updates.

It seems expensive compared to the free/cheap programs now available

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• GIMP is freeware, which allows organizations that are not graphics-centered to use the powerful toolset without spending money on very expensive alternatives
• GIMP is fairly easy to learn and does not require extensive user training (especially, if used for basic tasks)

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• Adobe PhotoShop in general is a great time saver.
• It does take a long time for the program to start up, however
• The most difficult task is onboarding new employees into Adobe PhotoShop who don't have experience with it. It's an investment for their future so we see value in it.

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• Ease of use means we are up and running in no time.
• Integrates and is a part of the Adobe CC platform (which we already subscribe to) so there was no additional cost.
• Online proofing and developer handoff links are the icing on the cake. Keeps everything in one place.
• Handles all our assets (mostly created in Illustrator) like a dream. Even imports native Photoshop docs, too, so that saves us so much time round tripping.

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