Photoshop? Gimp?

Hi all,

I am going to start to learn how to make clothes in SL and I was wondering if I can get some advice form you guys.

I am no IT savvy and I want to know if there is an alternative to Photoshop (way too expensive) for designing and manipulate images and textures off-grid. I heard about The Gimp and I downloaded it but it is giving me so much grief and keeps freezing my machine (although it has 2G memory and an excellent graphic card). Also, it seems I need to upload the templates on to photoshop only. On top of all of this, it seems all tutorials are for photoshop too.

Any ideas?

Thanks ever so much

Chelo

Try the "Texturing Tips" forums. They have many sections dealing with just about anything you may want to learn in this field

http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/2006/11/build.html

Try here, she gives excellent tutorials and although they are mostly for Photoshop, I have learnt to use Gimp from them. Also the Gimp website has tutorials on how to use the tools, even thought they are not SL specific.

I am not sure why it would be freezing your machine, but the templates should be able to upload onto Gimp. I use it and have had no problems with uploading templates.

However, If you are having problems with Gimp, I would second the suggestion to check the texture forums. They will be much more able to help. They may have other suggestions for different texturing programs.

As a novice myself, I bought a copy of Photoshop Elements (scaled down from Photoshop proper and much much cheaper) which seems to do the trick for the relatively simple things I want to do and corresponds by and large with a lot of the guides/instructions given for the main program.

I may of course have made an embarassing faux pas by outing myself as an Elements user, but self-deprecation has always been my thing, and a few more people pointing and laughing won't make too much difference

Max, I have both Photoshop and Elements, and for many things - I head to Elements first. So at least one person isn't pointing and laughing

I have Photoshop, Painter, and Corel Photo-Paint (comes with Corel Draw). I also have JASC Paint Shop Pro. Sometimes I think I just collect paint programs for fun, because I don't know how to use more than 10% of any of them.

Photoshop is my preference. It's big, it does it all, and it integrates with a whole raft of other Adobe products to make a massively complete suite of tools for manipulating both still and moving images for every output medium possible. There are endless plugins made for it.

However, ANY of the others will do a good job on the most common tasks, and most of them are nearly as powerful as Photoshop. Painter in particular will do some things easily that are difficult or impossible to do in Photoshop. And it's free, if you buy a Wacom graphics tablet.

Paint Shop Pro is probably the best cost/performance choice. It will do most things Adobe's behemoth can, for hundreds of dollars less. You can download a free trial version, too.

photoshop is so versatile. it's worth the investment, and you'll use it for so much more than just SL.

Guys,

Thanks ever so much for the tips.

I am in the UK a copy of photoshop is about £550, so a little ( a lot!) over my budget....

I will start looking around.... Will try Paint Pro for starters, sounds very good! - Thanks Lindal!

Chelo
xxx

As Claire has already mentioned, Natalia Zelmanov's blog has some great tutorials....she also has one for making a basic shirt using Gimp...

If you're really creative...and really quick....why don't you download a free 30-day trial version of Photoshop.....then at least you can see if you like it or not..... I believe it's on the Adobe site...

Good luck

Although everyone Ive discussed it with has said Photoshop is superior,

I do know one designer who owns her own island paid for with clothing she did solely with GIMP.

So its definitely possible to be a success with it.

I adore Natalia's tutorials, even though I havent had the time to sit and go step by step through one yet. I have a version of photoshop for clothing work (nothing out in world yet though, I am just not getting the hang of it lol) but I adore my PSP for photo manipulations etc. What I want is a tablet, I think thats what the thing is called. Soooomeday!

The only thing I dont like about photoshop is I am really klutzy in it because I have used PSP forever and a day. I make more mistakes than I want to admit and the shortcuts I am used to just arent there. Its big and flashy and does a lot, I just havent a clue how to do any of it! I may have to sneak a peek at gimp just to see what it is.

Paint.net is a free and well-respected alternative, not as broad as Gimp but easier:

http://www.download.com/Paint-NET/3000-2192_4-10338146.html

For what it's worth, I adore The GIMP. I've looked at friends' versions of Photoshop et al, and I prefer the window/user interface of The GIMP. It gives lots of options for window management. Other wise they both do about the same thing, and GIMP is free.

Hi Everyone,

I use gimp as its Free and just as good as photoshop altho I have to say that photoshop has tons of tuts online and in CG mags. but if ur starting out with low outlay I advise Gimp 2.4 - its free and with all the add-ons and plug-ins is just as effective. I use photoshop brushes in Gimp...how cool.

But if u have the budget then go for photoshop and laugh at all newbie Gimp users trying to find decent tuts for SL. BTW I use Gimp to design clothes at my new store (still under refurbishment) XPLICIT DESIGNS - See what its capable of...

I use Gimp, can't afford Photoshop, and Gimp does 99% of what Photoshop does.

As for your Gimp freezing up, are you on a Mac? Mine on my iMac (runs X11) was freezing up. Got some help from the folks in the Mac forum, and it runs perfectly now.