Good free software similar to photoshop?

[ZaO]

I'm really not very experienced with these types of programs in any way. I want to start putting together some designs to print on T-shirts so was hoping to find a good, completely free program to do this with. I currently only have Windows 7 running on my machine so something to run on that would be good. However, I will be running some form of Ubuntu again at some point in the future when I've got another hdd going. So suggestions for that in future are also welcome. But for now I'll be using w7 as I said. Thanks

[Splash]

GIMP, pretty much.

[Guy]

GIMP, pretty much.

+1 for GIMP.

[Saracen]

Well, as a Photoshop user, I can't say I'm that familiar with the alternatives these days.

But my only warning would be that Photoshop is a heavyweight tool for professionals or serious amateurs, and requires the investment of quite a lot of time to master. Easy, it ain't.

GIMP, superb though it is, is aimed at that general type of user (IMHO) and while highly capable, is also not the easiest to learn to use.

So I suspect your mistake might be in the Photoshop reference, when from what you want to do, a far simpler, and easier to use, program might be a better match.

What that might be, I've no idea, I'm out of touch. I used to like ACDSee, but while it was cheap, it wasn't free. What about Picasa?

[kalniel]

Paint.net (http://www.getpaint.net/) is a nice alternative - I use GIMP personally, but the interface to paint.net is easier for some.

[scaryjim]

I use both GIMP and paint.net at work - GIMP for serious full on design work, and paint.net for quick logos, graphics, photo edits (particularly cropping and cleaning up screenshots) etc. I'd recommend downloading both (since, you know, they're both free ) and seeing which works best for you - depending on the kind of work you're doing it might turn out to be both (I often clean up and tweak graphics in paint.net before importing them into GIMP for design and layout work).

[pauleden]

GIMP is quite confusing for a Photosop user.

Is there a manual or guide for it?

[ZaO]

Well, as a Photoshop user, I can't say I'm that familiar with the alternatives these days.

But my only warning would be that Photoshop is a heavyweight tool for professionals or serious amateurs, and requires the investment of quite a lot of time to master. Easy, it ain't.

GIMP, superb though it is, is aimed at that general type of user (IMHO) and while highly capable, is also not the easiest to learn to use.

So I suspect your mistake might be in the Photoshop reference, when from what you want to do, a far simpler, and easier to use, program might be a better match.

What that might be, I've no idea, I'm out of touch. I used to like ACDSee, but while it was cheap, it wasn't free. What about Picasa?

Yeh you're right. I just said photoshop because it was along the lines of what I'm looking for and I knew people would've heard of it. I don't need anything that complex really...

Thanks for the replies all I will try gimp and paint.net then!

[joshil92]

GIMP is good but agreed about being quite confusing. Powerful once you've learnt it though.

[KeyboardDemon]

You could go to Corel.com and download a 30 day trial of Paint Shop Pro X5 (I think that's the latest/current version) and see how that works for you. It has many of the tools and features that Photoshop has but it is easier to learn and master and has great help tools, if you find it does what you need it is only a fraction of the cost of Photoshop with prices starting at around £60 SRP for the standard version and £80 for an Ultimate bundle package with extra filters, fonts and other goodies.

[technodean]

Have to agree with Saracen, I only have photoshop elements and find that hard, but i'm impatient lol. If you looking for simple editor and viewer try photoscape from download .com