The GIMP

[Odd_Bloke]

I know that Photoshop is the standard program for working on comics, but I prefer to use free/open source software.  The main open source competitor to Photoshop is The GIMP.

Has anyone used The GIMP for comics work in the past, and how did you find it?

[Jim_Campbell]

Never used it for one important reason: if you have any intention to print your colour work, or to work professionally in any kind of graphics environment involving print, GIMP's lack of CMYK support is a deal-breaker.

Cheers!

Jim

[Mike Gloady]

I'm no comics illustrator, hey I've not even had the courage to enter an art competition (my avatar being my sole announcement of any artistic pretentions) but I quite like Gimpshop - easy to use and instinctive, highly useable features and nice, hand-done feel to lines (too much in my case!).  It's also stable and (fingers crossed) I've not lost anything yet, nor has it caused any crashing.  So thumbs up there too.

I'm a fan, but then I've had limited experience of other art programs.  And being free, it gets an extra star.

[Odd_Bloke]

Never used it for one important reason: if you have any intention to print your colour work, or to work professionally in any kind of graphics environment involving print, GIMP's lack of CMYK support is a deal-breaker.

Ah, that hadn't occurred to me.  AIUI, there are some plugins that allow you to produce CMYK, but I can understand why a lack of core support makes it hard to make the switch.

[Emperor]

Never used it for one important reason: if you have any intention to print your colour work, or to work professionally in any kind of graphics environment involving print, GIMP's lack of CMYK support is a deal-breaker.

A quick Google suggests CMYK support has been added to GIMPshop (although I'm unsure if this is true across all platforms):
http://plasticbugs.com/?p=361

GimPhoto does seem to have added CMYK separation support (through a plugin):
http://www.gimphoto.com/2007/08/features.html

Both of those are from back in 2007 so things may moved on a bit since then. However, I can't claim to know much about this so someone else would need to check.

[mygrimmbrother]

I'm no comics illustrator, hey I've not even had the courage to enter an art competition (my avatar being my sole announcement of any artistic pretentions)

Mike - I insist you get something(s) entered in the comps, pronto. Your avatar is wonderful. Get drawing man!