Does GIMP have what it takes to beat Photoshop?

If you need a free Photoshop alternative, could the latest version of GIMP be just what you're looking for?

Our Verdict

I love GIMP. After being away from it for many years, I'm happy to finally give GIMP the proper space it deserves on my system. This one is a keeper, for sure. While it may not completely replace Photoshop, at least not for me, it's absolutely something every serious artist should have loaded on their system.

For

  • Modern and bright UI
  • Ease of use
  • Single-Window Mode

Against

  • Still a few bugs
  • Struggled with Cintiq initially
  • Cannot completely replace Photoshop in your toolkit

Why you can trust Creative Bloq Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

GIMP, which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a freely distributed, open source image composition and photo retouching application. It is available for a variety of operating systems including Mac, Windows, and Linux.

The goods news about the Mac version is that X11 is not required. According to the GIMP website, GIMP has been running natively on OS X since version 2.8.2. If you read my review of Inkscape you know this is a huge plus.

Thank you for reading 5 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

The Verdict
8

out of 10

GIMP (Version 2.8)

I love GIMP. After being away from it for many years, I'm happy to finally give GIMP the proper space it deserves on my system. This one is a keeper, for sure. While it may not completely replace Photoshop, at least not for me, it's absolutely something every serious artist should have loaded on their system.

Tammy Coron

Tammy is an independent creative professional, author of Apple Game Frameworks and Technologies, and the maker behind the AdventureGameKit – a custom SpriteKit framework for building point and click adventure games. As an innovative problem solver and industry leader, Tammy enjoys working on projects from content creation – including books, tutorials, videos, and podcasts – to the design and development of cross-platform applications and games. For Creative Bloq, she has written about an array of subjects, including animation, web design and character design.