Customer Reviews

GIMP Bible

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is nothing short of excellent. It covers every tool and function of GIMP in detail, and it even includes treatments of a number of plug ins. It also covers features of GIMP 2.8, which has not yet been released. In addition, there is a companion website you can access for associated material, updates and corrections.

I thought at first I could learn GIMP by reading the manual associated with the program and watching how-to videos on Youtube. After struggling a while I bought this book. Now I realize how naïve I was. GIMP has far more features and functionalities than I imagined, and to learn it on my own, or even with the help of Youtube turtorials, would be a cumbersome way to proficiency.

The GIMP bible covers it all, and it got me off dead center. It handles fundamental concepts as well as advanced utilities - I'm glad I bought it. I'm still not very good using GIMP, that will take a bit of work and practice, but I'm starting to use the program creatively, using the GIMP bible as a resource when I get stuck.

I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to become proficient with, or master, GIMP.

I am about half way through this book. It clearly goes through all the different tools and filters of the book explaining every option. For this reason it makes a great reference book. I will keep it at hand every time I am using the program.

The reason I only gave it three stars is because it is short on tutorials. I was hoping more examples of how to use the tools they talk about, not just explaining what they do. This book does have some tutorials, and I have learned some really cool things, but I was hoping it was going to be packed.

The second thing is it is in black and white. How useful are pictures talking about the color tones of a photograph when it is in black and white? Not very. This was huge in my opinion.

I do not regret the purchase of this book as it has been really helpful and I will continue to use it as a reference point.

Before you purchase this guide, ask yourself how serious you are and how much time you are willing to invest in learning the GIMP process. This is not a cheat sheet. It is definitely a Bible of work. There is an enormous amount of information presented in the GIMP Bible. This is both the good news and the bad. Not for the faint of heart, this massive volume can be intimidating. I cannot stress enough that this is a serious and involved look at what GIMP offers and should be considered a text book.

The same things that make this an overwhelming text make it also a valuable resource. Like a massive dictionary or encyclopedia, the GIMP Bible offers a mountain of information at your fingertips. Most, maybe all, of the information can be found online, and most of us utilize online tutorials. However, if you like to have a paper copy you can turn to, like I do, this book gives you instant access to more answers about GIMP than you realized you had questions for.

I do have one major complaint in the use of B&W images in the examples. (Really???) They're absolutely a useless waste of ink in most cases. I understand that color images would have cost more to print, but considering the instructional purpose of the image content, it would have been nice to be able to actually see what the examples needed to show.

I can't give this volume less than 4 stars, because the information is vast. The author's attention to detail is admirable.

I can't give it 5 stars, because the textbook layout is sometimes stress-inducing and the images are basically worthless.

Buy this book at once if you are committed to studying the ins and outs of GIMP. Buy it if you want a physical reference to supplement what you already know. If you prefer a quick and easy-to-understand answer with glossy, color image aids...save yourself the money and look up a topic specific video tutorial online.

I am very pleased with this book. I have been using Photoshop for many years and have grown tired of the large hole in my wallet every time I needed to upgrade to a new version. I have known about GIMP for a couple of years but had difficulty using this program. Finally, with the GIMP Bible I am able to use GIMP to it's fullest. This bible is exactly what I needed to convert from Photoshop to GIMP. It gave clear explanations of all GIMP's abilities from the simplest to the most complex. I would highly recommend this book to anyone how is tired of paying a small fortune for Photoshop and would like to use the opensource application GIMP.

Having saved a few hundred dollars on Photoshop when I downloaded GIMP, I sprang for this book to help me create some simple web graphics. This is something I've never done before. The book is concise and clear with its instructions - exactly what I needed. It's definitely a keeper.

All and more info about Gimp layers and masks are in this book, saving me the effort of jumping from site-to-site regarding "how-to" do special image and light effects.

I honestly haven't had the time to really get into this user guide. Skimming through it, I see tons of information that I can use.