OO equiv to MS Publisher?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 08:12:32AM -0400, Mr Chris Aitken wrote:
> Here is a cut & paste of an email I sent to this list a week ago. It  
> never went through. I stripped off the attachment and am resending it.  
> Is it because the attachment was too big (almost a MB)? I just want to  
> know for future reference.
>
> Chris
>
> I'd like to change this thread name to 'GiMP vs Photoshop'. I don't know  
> the exact format for the subject line: such and such WAS > so and so or  
> whatever.
>
> Anyway, the teacher that's helping me with the poster has a licence that  
> allows him to give copies of Photoshop to other teachers (of which I am  
> one). He made a rough poster for me to look at. I opened it in linux and  
> it opened automatically in GiMP. Of course, that made me wonder if I  
> should edit it with GiMP instead of Photoshop. I mean I don't know  
> either apps so what's the difference? The other reason I'd rather do  
> this in Linux is that my only Windows box is dedicated to recording  
> Music and I've been strongly advised to keep it that way. So, just in  
> the past two days installing Photoshop and trying to edit/create a  
> poster I've had that machine on the Internet more than in the entire  
> year before. I had to go to webmail to get the poster he sent me (as  
> .psd), then grab an image off google, now I need the Bazooka font (from  
> the Internet) which comes as a .zip which means I'll have to download  
> Winzip. This is a recording studio production recording computer - I  
> can't be doing the Microsoft-on-the-Internet-every-two-seconds thing on  
> this box.
>
> The machine I use for Internet and everything else is a Linux box. Is  
> GiMP so much harder than Photoshop that I'm going to regret trying to  
> use it instead?
>
> Chris
>
> P.S. here's the .psd that I can't edit- do I need Bazooka? Is that the  
> only thing stopping me from editing it?

No idea on why you can't edit that.  Maybe the gimp only supports some
versions of photoshop's files.

Now for making a poster, both the gimp and photoshop might be the wrong
tool entirely.  They are bitmap editors.  Things like publisher and
inkscape are vector based, and hence can generate any resolution at
the final stage (great for highres priting) without having to work on
a giant bitmap the whole time.

Just think how big a bitmap you need to a 12x18" poster done at 300dpi.
216 square inches at 300x300 pixels at 24bit (or 48bit if you want to
be able to play with contrast and brigthness) works out to.  At 48bit
colour with 16bit alpha chanel, you are looking at 150MB.  And 12x18"
and 300dpi is rather small and low for a poster.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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