Re: [OS:N:] GIMP vs. Adobe Photoshop

[Chris Spencer <chris forevergalleries com>]

I love the GIMP.  I think it does a great job and will take care of
almost everything that they need.

However, you will need to be prepared to address several concerns that
the teacher will have.  

Be prepared to counter the following objections:

For starters there is the "image" of teaching the "industry standard".  

Photoshop is a well established product and is used by most graphics
professionals.  The GIMP is an unknown quantity.  It is likely that you
will be introducing it for the first time to the instructor and if not
then you may need to overcome a bias against it.

To overcome that objection you will need to give examples where the GIMP
is being used by professionals and probably have a working copy handy
(IE:  Knoppix) so you can do a live demo.

Then after you have established that the GIMP is a real and viable
alternative used by professionals and is easy enough to use then you can
address issues related to teaching materials and training.

The teacher will almost certainly continue to have reservations about
using a product if they already have textbooks that teach Photoshop and
even if they don't learning the product will cause problems because they
are inherently against change!  In fact the longer they have been
teaching something the more stupid they become about change.

To overcome this hurdle is going to take some luck and probably a
willingness to teach the teacher.  Alternately there may be text books
available for the GIMP, but, then you would have to overcome other
budget issues.

After that you may have the door open with the teacher but you with the
instructor will then need to convince the administrators.  If the
instructor is unwilling to go to them with it then that will probably
kill it too.

All in all there are significant problems pushing through change for the
better in public institutions of every size.  It's much easier for the
employees to just grumble and go with the flow.  

Honestly, Open Office is an easier sell and still schools are very
(very) slow to adopt it.  

It's just unbelievable the strength of product lock-in through the ever
popular "industry standard".

A complete waste of tax dollars in my not so humble opinion.  

In any case presenting it along the lines of "you should use the GIMP
and save on licensing costs" is a good idea.  Even if it fails the
teacher is forced to see that there are alternatives.

I can't emphasize enough how much resistance there is to change though.

Here we are with products that could save billions upon billions of
dollars (trillions?) every year and people steadfastly refuse.

Yes, we are making headway, but it seems to be like taking a sailboat
into the wind!

The day will come though when the wind shifts and all these commercial
products will have to face the fury the free and open jet stream.  Of
this we can be certain.

Fight the fight.

-Chris

On Wed, 2004-09-08 at 19:58, Larry D wrote:
> My daughter has started taking digital photography in high school this year. 
> But apparently the digital photography class is at the bottom of the food 
> chain as far as computers are concerned. They have an ancient version of 
> Adobe photoshop running on 1996 vintage computers. According to my daughter, 
> the students find this depressing as many of them have better stuff on their 
> home computers.
> 
> I occasionally use the GIMP on my Linux machine but I have never used any 
> version of Photoshop. Can any one tell me how the latest GIMP compares to 
> photoshop? Will it run on 300MHz machines? I will be talking to the teacher 
> in a few weeks at open house. Perhaps I can convince her that this is a 
> better alternative than spending scarce resources on new versions of 
> Photoshop.
> 
> Larry
"Why, of course, the people don't want war... Voice or no voice, the
people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders... All you
have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It
works the same in any country." - Nazi Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg
war-crimes tribunal