As we create a larger presence for ourselves online, many people need ways to edit images. It may be for a blog, a photo sharing site, a Facebook page, even a LinkedIn profile. Since Photoshop costs over $200 dollars and even the stripped down version of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, is close to $100 dollars, there is a great need to discover a usable and useful alternative. If it didn’t cost nearly as much, that would be a great plus as well. Luckily, there’s a great free image editor called GIMP. GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program.

Image Editing At No Cost

The best part about GIMP is that it is free. No fees, no licenses, no nothing. All you have to do to get GIMP is download and install it. You can find GIMP on a number of sites, but the most reliable source is always from the author. Here is our recommended download link for GIMP.

Plenty of Functions – More Added Each Day

In the short time that I’ve used GIMP, I haven’t been able to find anything that it couldn’t do for me. Minor touchups and alterations are just as simple as they are in Photoshop. Resizing and cropping works just as easy. Doing work with layers is just as intuitive. While I’m nowhere near the level of a Photoshop expert, I found it was capable of handling just about every task I threw at it.

One of the best parts of GIMP is the ability to add plug-ins. Developers are constantly coming up with improvements for GIMP and making them available to all users. GIMP’s authors even do a pretty good job of testing and evaluating the plug-ins, while also letting the community have its say. Check out some of the great GIMP plugins.

One Minor Drawback – GNU Based

One minor hassle that I’ve found with GIMP is that it wants to save the files it creates as GNU files, which have some limitations. Many places on the web will not recognize these files as appropriate image uploads. GIMP does give you the option of saving your creations in different formats though. It’s quick and simple to save as a JPG or a GIF. You do have to jump through one additional hurdle, but it doesn’t negate the great value that GIMP has to offer.