At about this time in my blogging "career", I'd have to assess that I'm at least one of the top five online pundits who have made a name for themselves by taking the Gimp's side in the Gimp vs. Photoshop debate on the side of Gimp. And not just Gimp, but Gimp Classic, as opposed to Gimp-in-Photoshop's skin. And not just taken sides, but dug a foxhole from which to lob mortars.

Having used both GIMP and Adobe Photoshop I must say I personally believe GIMP is much better for common folks like you and me who need a relatively simpler set of tools to make quick edits to our Vacation pictures. Photoshop is undoubtedly more useful graphic designers, however for making quick tweaks, nothing beats GIMP.

Most probably, GIMP 2.8 will yet be released 2009, so it has been time to have a look at the current developer version. Though GIMP 2.8 doesn't bring revolutionary things like non-destructive image editing, there are some features you will like.

GIMP Paint Studio is a package that comes with new tools and brushes, designed to improve the drawing capabilities of GIMP. GIMP Painter adds some color blending and line smoothing features [...]

"GIMP 2.4.7 is a bug-fix release in the stable 2.4 series. The source can be downloaded from ftp.gimp.org. Binary packages should become available soon; please check the Downloads section on www.gimp.org ..."

If you've ever tried your hand at The GIMP, you know that, at first, The GIMP can be a bit challenging to learn. That is coming from an adult. Imagine a younger user attempting to use The GIMP.

"The GIMP Animation Package, or GAP, is a collection of plug-ins that extend GIMP with capabilities to create and edit animations. The 2.4.0 version of the GIMP Animation Package is a bug-fix release that makes GAP usable with GIMP 2.4.x releases.A new release for the stable branch of GIMP, version 2.4.4, was released along with the GIMP Animation Package 2.4.0. You should know that this version of GIMP is a bugfix release and no new features were added..."

The GIMP team is preparing for the release of GIMP 2.4.0. Today marks the release of GIMP 2.3.19, which fixes a host of issues to the point where most outstanding GIMP problems are now fixed or will be fixed in the very near future.

GIMP 2.6 is an important release from a development point of view. It features changes to the user interface addressing some often received complaints, and a tentative integration of GEGL, the graph based image processing library that will eventually bring high bit-depth and non-destructive editing to GIMP.