Free Mac Alternative for Photoshop?

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I have Creative suite CS5 but I only have it on my old laptop and it is now super out of date for my newer Mac laptop. I am doing quite a bit of photoshop work at the moment, but for now I have to do it in my home office (where my iMac is) and I would like to be able to be more mobile. Is there anything that works for Mac and is free that shares photo shop files and works in a similar way? Like Mac pages will open word files and save as word files (to an extent).

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Gimp?

GIMP

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program: The Free and Open Source Image Editor

www.gimp.org

Fairly certain it can open and save to PSD. (I'm testing if it can still do it now)

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Gimp?

GIMP

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program: The Free and Open Source Image Editor

www.gimp.org

Fairly certain it can open and save to PSD. (I'm testing if it can still do it now)

Humm, hadn't heard of that one. Do you use it much? I mainly need something for illustration and editing photos for design and illustration.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

It’s just as versatile and has the same capabilities. It’s fairly intuitive too.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

It’s just as versatile and has the same capabilities. It’s fairly intuitive too.

OK that sounds good. I'll be fucked if I am paying monthly fee for something I bought years ago, it's so infuriating.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

It has some limitations from what I remember (not stuff that I noticed but stuff i read about) but it's fairly close to photoshop at least in the standard stuff.

What Can Photoshop Do That GIMP Can't?

What can Photoshop do that GIMP can't? Quite a lot! Learn more in our comparison of GIMP vs. Photoshop.

www.makeuseof.com

this site lists some issues. most of them aren't that limiting. I think the lack of CMYK is the biggest issue but even then when I last went to get something printed the printers wanted it in RGB not CMYK

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

It has some limitations from what I remember (not stuff that I noticed but stuff i read about) but it's fairly close to photoshop at least in the standard stuff.

What Can Photoshop Do That GIMP Can't?

What can Photoshop do that GIMP can't? Quite a lot! Learn more in our comparison of GIMP vs. Photoshop.

www.makeuseof.com

this site lists some issues. most of them aren't that limiting. I think the lack of CMYK is the biggest issue but even then when I last went to get something printed the printers wanted it in RGB not CMYK

Oh that is a bit of a bummer, I do everything in CMYK. However I did notice the other day that I forgot to switch from RGB when I sent something to print and it made no difference the other end at all. As long as you can have layers without a solid background (greyscale or B&W fucks this up but CMYK and RGB don't).

I guess I could always save it as a photo shop doc and make final adjustments. Did you say you could export to PS?

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

yep it does.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Looks like it will be fine for the most part then. I can't justify buying photoshop, or the monthly subscription or whatever it is now. The sad thing is that one day my iMac is going to die, and I will lose the entire adobe creative suite and never be able to afford to get it back. I can't really subscribe just to 'keep my hand in' and won't be up to scratch on all the all the new stuff to accept any smaller one off jobs (which is all I tend to get when working at home).