What are the similarities and differences between Adobe Photoshop and GIMP?

Photoshop and GIMP are both photo editors with the most users today. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, suitable for each need. To better understand these two software, let's compare Photoshop and GIMP in detail below.

1. Overview of Photoshop and GIMP

Photoshop and GIMP

Photoshop and GIMP are two very popular photo editors today. With many similar features, many people often put them on the scale.

1.1. About Photoshop

Photoshop is a powerful graphics editing software developed by Adobe Systems in 1990. It is currently the leader in photo editing software because of its advanced image creation, editing, and manipulation capabilities. Since its launch, Photoshop has become an industry standard, with the latest version released in 2024. It offers a wide range of tools and features, selection tools, cloning, brushes, etc., making it the leading software for professional photographers and designers.

Photoshop is the most popular photo editing software in history. It is the only photo editing software that has a place in the English vocabulary. Now, Photoshop is not only a word but also a verb. The verb “Photoshop” means to edit a photo using software. So you can imagine the weight it holds in the current photo editing industry. In a sense, Adobe has dominated the industry for almost 40 years now. It is a commercial photo editing software.

1.2. About GIMP

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a free, open-source graphics editor that is widely used for editing, manipulating, and drawing images automatically. It was developed by the GIMP team and released in 1998. GIMP has had many versions to date, the latest being version 2024. 

GIMP supports a variety of operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD. It was built using the C programming language and was first created by Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis. The software is popular for its accessibility and flexibility, making it popular with both beginners and experts.

2. Compare Adobe Photoshop and GIMP

2.1. Similarities

Before diving into the differences, it is essential to understand the core features that both GIMP and Photoshop share. Both programs provide a wide range of essential editing tools that are fundamental to any photo editing task:

Crop: Easily adjust the layout of your images.

Adjust Exposure: Fine-tune brightness and contrast to achieve the desired look.

Color Correction: Adjust colors to ensure your photos look natural and vibrant.

Layer Management: Work with multiple layers to perform non-destructive edits and complex compositions.

Both GIMP and Photoshop offer user interfaces designed to cater to beginners, with intuitive layouts and accessible tool sets.

2.2. Different

Apart from a few similarities, these two software have many differences, and these differences help you determine which software to choose.

2.2.1. Features and Characteristics

Photoshop and GIMP have the following outstanding features and characteristics:

Features of GIMP

GIMP photo editing software stands out with some of the following features:

Extremely effective color management for vivid image colors.

Equipped with customizable, easy to use, user-friendly user interface.

Allows editing of digital photos taken from cameras.

Has many basic vector graphics features.

Allows easy enhancement of image quality.

Supports various hardware devices such as MIDI controllers, USB,...

Products can be exported in various formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF,...

Users can open unlimited number of images simultaneously.

GIMP has full alpha channel support.

Can undo, redo multiple times to help fix errors easily.

The software provides variable options and paths.

GIMP also has a foreground extraction tool.

This photo editor has up to 100 plugins available.

Users can load, display, convert, and save GIMP files to many formats.

Easy to use blending and gradient editing tools.

…

Photoshop Features

Photoshop software stands out with some of the following unique features:

Photoshop stands out with its huge filter library, allowing for intelligent photo editing capabilities such as sharpening, blurring, etc.

Images edited with Photoshop on mobile are automatically saved to the cloud.

Smart sampling feature helps print low resolution photos.

Get a useful tool to select multiple shapes and paths.

Photoshop offers one-click color correction.

With Photoshop, you can edit photos very easily.

The software contains many special effects for unique photo editing results.

This software also helps you restore blurred photos.

Users can increase the size of the user interface for ease of use.

Can be undone multiple times.

You can make quick selections by selecting a topic.

Fixing blemishes like dust, pimples, red eyes is simple.

Edited images can be posted online or sent via email easily.

Draw images with pencil and pen tool easily.

Objects can be quickly converted to layers.

Proportionally transform more than one layer without using the Shift key.

Photoshop can connect with the social media platform Behance.

…

2.2.2. Tools used

Let's compare the tools used in Photoshop and GIMP.

Tools in Photoshop :

Retouching and painting tools: includes many tools to help remove background, sharpen such as healing brush, patch, brush tool, red-eye, pencil, color replacement, Eraser Tool, background eraser, sharpen, smudge, and dodge tool.

Brush tools: includes many brushes for drawing capabilities such as mixer brush tool, history brush, art history.

Clone stamp tool: allows you to copy one area of ​​an image onto another area of ​​the image.  

Transformation tools: include tools to adjust direction and size such as rotate, scale, skew, warp, distort, perspective.

Liquify tool: allows you to bend and mold images and objects in images.

Crop and slice tool: helps crop images, cut components with Perspective crop tool, slice tool and slice select tool.

Move and selection tools: includes move tools and various selection tools such as move tool, artboard tool, rectangular marquee tool, elliptical marquee, single row marquee tool, lasso, magic wand.

Measurement tools: includes many features such as eyedropper, 3D material eyedropper, ruler, count tool, color sampler.

Type and drawing tools: includes many types of pens for typing, drawing,... such as pen, freeform pen tool, convert anchor point, add/delete anchor point tool, vertical and horizontal type tool, direct selection tool, path selection tool.

Navigation tools: includes hand tool, rotate view, zoom tool.

Tools in GIMP :

Selections tools: includes many selection tools such as lasso, square region, eclipse, scissors, foreground, fuzzy,...

Brush tools: includes a set of tools specializing in brushes such as blend, paintbrush, airbrush, clone, heal, pective clone, bucket fill. 

Transform tools: includes a set of moving and resizing tools such as move, crop, rotate, align, scale, flip, scale, and perspective.

Colour tools: gồm nhiều công cụ như color balance, threshold, posterize, colourize, brightness-contrast, desaturate, threshold, hue-saturation, levels, curves, brightness-contrast tool,...

Other tools: includes many tools such as path, measure, magnify, color picker tool.

2.2.3. When to use PTS and GIMP?

When to use Photoshop:

You should use Photoshop if you are a professional designer or photographer.

Photoshop is mainly used for its versatile tools and many options for professionals.

Most customers prefer products made with Photoshop.

When experts provide PSD files to customers, you are required to use Photoshop to open them.

When to use GIMP:

This software is free, so it is suitable for people with low budget because Photoshop is paid.

If you are using a Linux computer then you can use GIMP.

GIMP is available on mobile so you can easily use it anywhere.

2.2.4. Advantages

Let's compare Photoshop and GIMP through the following advantages:

Photoshop

GIMP

Automate everything with Photoshop Actions.

Photoshop has a very useful blemish removal tool.

Creating panoramas and stacks is easy.

It provides better complex layer support.

Images in Photoshop can be edited to correct errors.

You can quickly create, edit new artwork images.

Photoshop allows you to reduce red eye problems in photos.

You can whiten your teeth with just one click.

It helps you to adjust the skin tone of people in photos easily.

GIMP is free.

GIMP can run without being installed on your computer system.

It contains all the advanced features like paths and layers.

You can remove background from photo easily.

Photoshop files can be opened in GIMP. So you can use Photoshop brushes and patterns in GIMP.

It has a smarter and more useful menu system than the one in Photoshop.

GIMP has tools developed for working with image masks.

GIMP's image editing tools are faster than Photoshop when you're working with small images, for web design purposes.

It is user-friendly software, suitable for beginners.

2.2.5. Disadvantages

Besides the advantages, both of these software also have some limitations.

Photoshop

GIMP

Adobe Photoshop is only free for the first 7 days and then you will have to pay ~20 USD/month

Photoshop is a heavy program so your PC needs to be good to run it.

Photoshop is suitable for professionals, quite difficult for beginners.

It offers little support for vector graphics.

High quality graphics will be difficult to display.

GIMP cannot handle anything other than 8 bit RGB, grayscale, indexed images.

It contains more limited third party plugins than photoshop.

GIMP does not work well for large image editing needs with many layers.

The software may have difficulty creating arcs.

GIMP has fewer tools than Photoshop. 

3. Should I choose GIMP or Photoshop? 

GIMP and Photoshop both have their pros and cons, suitable for specific needs.

3.1. Choose GIMP if you love Linux

If you use Linux, GIMP is your top choice for photo editing. This editor is Linux compatible and runs smoothly and quietly.

Photoshop may have many errors if running on this operating system.

3.2. Use Photoshop if you love your phone

The growing popularity of mobile devices has prompted Adobe to develop tools for smartphones. Among them, Photoshop Fix and Photoshop Mix contain some Photoshop tools that help professional photo editors with just their phones. 

3.3. Use GIMP if you are on a tight budget

GIMP is completely free, compared to Photoshop which costs about 20 USD/month, it is the best choice.

3.4. Choose Photoshop if you are an expert

Photoshop provides advanced photo editing tools, many smart features, suitable for professional editing activities. It is the top choice for designers and professional photographers.

GIMP is suitable for editing photos for entertainment, personal purposes,...

3.5. Choose GIMP if you don't need it often

If you don’t use photo editing software too often, GIMP is a good choice. Lightweight, free, easy-to-use software that doesn’t require high technical skills is the number 1 choice for you.

3.6. Use Photoshop if you are a designer

A professional designer demands the best and most polished products. And of course, Photoshop is your must-have. No designer would choose GIMP over Photoshop.

3.7. Use GIMP if you don't like Adobe

In fact, there are many people who don't like Adobe. One of the big issues that many people have is Adobe Flash - one of the most common attack vectors for hackers. Although Adobe has addressed this issue, it will still be around for a long time until people stop using it.

3.8. Choose Photoshop if you are a photographer

In addition to taking beautiful photos, post-production is also an extremely important part for a photographer to have beautiful photos.

Therefore, they need Photoshop - the leading photo editor today.  

Above is the summary information about comparing Photoshop and GIMP. Each software has its own strengths and weaknesses to suit different needs. Choose the software that best suits your needs.