GIMP

During my time in the Windows operating system, there were many times in which I needed an art program to do one of many different things. One of the biggest things that I do is create Power Point presentations at work. In these presentations I use a lot of visual examples of what I'm trying to tell my audience (You would be surprised how many people don't read the words of an instruction manual and instead just follow the pictures).

Back then I was trying to use Windows Paint. If you don't remember Windows Paint, It was that little program that could barely handle the simple task of Cropping a photo. Needless to say, it was not worth using any longer. Then I made the switch to Ubuntu and discovered GIMP.

Here's a little description of the program shown on GIMP's website...

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

I have to say, GIMP is quite the amazing program. It has saved me so much time, but more importantly headache, when I create my instruction manuals. But other than that, GIMP has allowed me the ability to touch up pictures so that they look flawless, I've also used it to create favicons for websites.

The only thing about the programs that really bothered me was that I was not able to use it while I was at work using Windows XP. I was still stuck making everything on my personal computer at home or using RealVNC to access my computer at home and then email the finished product back to my work station. This is when I discovered something wonderful.....

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

That's right folks. GIMP is not only available for Linux, but also for Mac OS X and Windows. My life has become so much better/easier after discovering GIMP. Give it a shot....trust me.


GIMP

Please note that this is NOT me creating this video. Created by GIMP Know How.