I felt a little lost when I first opened GIMP 2.6.11. For a Photoshop user, it's a little like visiting a foreign country for the first time: Some things seem familiar and others are not. Fortunately, GIMP's tool box includes tips when you hover over a tool; and the options for the tool appear in the lower half of the tool box when you make your selection. Also, the available on GIMP's website can help.

For basic image manipulation, GIMP makes it easy to adjust brightness, colors, contrast, crop, etc. GIMP includes a wide selection of built-in filters and effects, like blur, distort, colorize, and transform. Unlike or (both $90 high-end image editors) there are no shortcuts like red eye remover or Cut Out Studio (PhotoPlus X5), which is a shame because I think GIMP would do them well.

Once you get the hang of the layers system in GIMP, creating original artwork begins and ends with your skill level. GIMP's painting and fine art filters produce moderately nice results, but it you're really interested in creating fine art from photographs, try partnering GIMP with FotoSketcher (free), a basic image editor that excels at this.

GIMP is purely a raster program, but there are also a vast selection of drawing and painting tools included. Unlike , another free and open-source image editing and painting program, you don't have to search the internet for the plugins you need: Most will have already been incorporated into GIMP.

There are little things to dislike about GIMP: When you minimize the program, for example, the floating tool boxes remain floating in the middle of your monitor. You can open as many images as you want, but there's no way to easily locate or keep track of them.