When most of us are looking for a photo-editing tool, we immediately think of Photoshop. Adobe’s program is powerful and popular, but it’s pricey at $100—and that's for the “light” version called Photoshop Elements.

Meanwhile, $20 per month is the standard charge for individual one-app subscriptions to Photoshop Creative Cloud. Adobe offers a free in-browser version called Photoshop Express Editor, but it’s very limited and only allows you to edit JPEG files.

A better free alternative is to turn to the open-source world and a popular program called GIMP. The GNU Image Manipulation Program is the standard photo-editing tool included or available to most Linux distributions. GIMP is also available for Windows (XP and up) and Mac.

I was watching an issue of CNN’s “Forensic Files” early this morning when I was surprised to see GIMP on TV. A murder had been committed and the local anthropologist lacked software to compare a skull with a portrait to verify the identity of the victim. A local computer guru was able to use GIMP to compare photographs of the skull with the portrait. That set the police on a course towards solving the crime. It turned out the truck driver did it. DNA from a tooth compared to some surgical evidence confirmed GIMP’s conclusions.

What was interesting is that Forensic Files mentioned that GIMP was available to anyone for a $free download. I liked that. The software licence, GPL, described in generic terms the public can understand got out there.

That would be the oddly-named GIMP (acronym for: GNU Image Manipulation Program), an open source, high-end image editing and creation alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop and its now open-ended, monthly wallet-siphoning distribution mode for tasks like photo retouching, image editing and composition, and image authoring.

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The split was the result of GIMP’s concern over policies at SourceForge, primarily SourceForge’s use of DevShare, an installer for Windows that bundles third party software offers with FOSS downloads. In addition, the GIMP folks had reservations about potentially deceptive “download here” buttons on ads being served by the likes of Google’s AdSense.

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For those that may have extra time this holiday season to devote to open-source tasks, the GIMP graphics program still has many features they're after and aren't yet up to their v2.10 release.

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gimpusers.com: Celebrate one year of GIMP Magazine! Issue#4 offers very interesting and cool stuff about GIMP and some really awesome photos!

beginlinux.com: GIMP – GNU Image Manipulation Program – has long been recognised as the premier Free Software package of its type. If you want to do serious work with photographs and you don’t want to pay anything (or you like your software free and open) GIMP is the first place to come.

nicubunu.blogspot: My Photoshop course continues and in the classes where my homework was targeting the computer display my plan worked flawlessly: I used GIMP to do all the work and when done just saved as .PSD, I enjoyed the experience a lot. Now this strategy hit a roadblock:

nicubunu.blogspot: I will look at few basic tools in both apps, the tools which one expect to be taught in the very first classes when learning one of those apps. I will highlight the areas where GIMP does better.

gimpusers.com: On the weekend Michael Natterer implemented a new feature that was often requested by painters: Canvas rotation.

gimpmagazine.org: It’s finally official! We can now report from a reliable source at GIMP.org that GIMP software, which has been downloaded over 40 million times, is in the process of changing their name to CHIMP software.

linuxinsider.com: The Book of GIMP is not a magical cure for overcoming the steep learning curve before you can use GIMP like a pro. However, its design takes readers a long way toward achieving success.

• GIMP Magazine – Issue 2

techrepublic.com: Ryan Boudreaux offers an overview of the GIMP image editing features and uses some of them to demonstrate what you can do with this tool.

linuxjournal.com: "One picture is worth a thousand words" stated Fred R. Barnard. No quote could be quite as memorable as this nearly hundred year old one when it comes to GIMP.

worldofgnome.org: What’s Gimp3? Simply the port of Gimp 2.8 in GTK 3, or if you prefer the version after the 2.10 version. Gimp on GTK3 won’t come any time soon, but oh well we can still try it from gtk-3 branch.

phoronix.com: Back in May was the long-awaited release of GIMP 2.8, and while this release was great and packed in many new features, there's still more to look forward to in the future.

ostatic.com: GIMP is one of the most important applications for Linux users. It gives them some of the capabilities found in other popular image manipulation programs without the expense. Well, a group of enthusiasts have banded together to produce a new magazine just for GIMP users.

omgubuntu.co.uk: Despite the project being less than 3 months old all 50 pages in the user-contributed publication have been completed, creating a compelling list of contents aimed at casual and pro Gimp users alike.

Also: Sneak peek at Issue #1 of the all new GIMP Magazine

pclinuxos2007.blogspot: The latest stable GIMP 2.8 is great in many ways such as the sane integration of docks, speed and some nice addons. It installs like a charm on Windows 7 and the aging XP. But if you expect it to play nicely on your reliable CentOS 6.2 or Debian 6.0.5, forget it.