[techieMoe]

Originally Posted by Mad_Hatter73654

Well, now I've changed my mind somewhat on this topic. Although I like the GIMP *way* better... I need some features on photoshop like resizable brushes and little, but important stuff like that.... I wish the GIMP would do something like that....

I'm in kind of the same boat. I'm able to make my comic in the GIMP just fine, except for one final step that just doesn't seem to have an equivalent: Save for Web. I can make my final images in the GIMP but in order to make them reasonably sized I have to open them in Photoshop and choose the "Save for Web..." option, which makes the sizes decent without sacrificing any of the color palette or image quality. I haven't figured out how to do this in the GIMP yet.

[Mad_Hatter73654]

Well, I'm not quite sure you can actually do that without a separate plugin. I don't even know if you'd find one in the plugin registry... unfortunately The GIMP didn't do a very good job with keeping that maintained.

[jsabarese]

As an instructor, I would stand by the general idea of filtering this kind of debate, above all other considerations, with a prejudice for keeping the prospective user's best interests in mind. (obviously this user is under-experienced w/ the apps, or the activity) and then we can weigh the pro's and con's of each Image editor, in order to answer this question responsibly.

realizing that newbs to linux, and / or GIMP, may also be newbs to the idea of digital photo manipulation in general-- or even 'computing' in general... i tend to lead any "apparent" newbs (ie. users who ask the age old "PS vs. GIMP") to use GIMP because you're just going to save yourself the headaches.

what headaches will GIMP save you? well... looking at it from (what i am venturing to fabricate as) the perspective of said enquiring mind:
Pro Gimp

1. 
   if you don't already own Photoshop, the idea of pooling the necessary funds, as spending your children's college money on it might not make you very popular w/ the 'old lady'. (don't buy software [only chumps do, right?] well, then-- to get PS via illicit means is both wrong and risky, so they say. what is illicit? it is against U.S. Federal Law to use your roommate's CD and serial number, for Adobe requires your hard-earned cash before you're permitted to use Photoshop-- be it v.7, or CS2. the Adobe peeps ain't down, unless you be keepin' it real, yo.)
2. if you plan to never buy PS., then why spend your valuable time learning to use it? master what you're able to master, and be done w/ it.
3. Photoshop is made to run on Windows. although it will run under WinE, it does not run well in that environment.
4. unless you are down w/ the idea of frequent 'flip flopping' between Win and Lin... the amount you'll find yourself doing it might give you a headache

Pro Photoshop

1. relatively speaking, GIMP is 'okay'. the development team, and other contributors do a great job with it-- it's plain incredible to find it available at 'no cost' to the end user, but Photoshop is hands-down, no contest, the superior rastor-graphics / digital image / 'photo' editing software. for one to argue otherwise on that particular point, he or she must either be mis-informed, or they are simply impish and foolhardy-- which does the enquirer more harm than good, most likely. (dude, trust me-- paper is a much better structural building material than brick. those brick people just want your money! you know you love my 'paper rules!' t-shirt!)
2. In any production environmnet-- meaning your work, your school, etc., you will find Photoshop, and you will find educators of Photoshop, as it is the Industry Standard. same reason you might venture to program web applications in PHP, or ASP.NET vs 'old asp', Perl or to invest in BlueDragon. The extensive amount of time (likely) required to master the digital image editor should be valued, and a certainly should heavily weigh the inquirer's decision in the matter.
3. look at the results. compare the quality of GIF (or any) format produced by both editors. compare the size (KB) of the images produced for web (ie. the 'optimization' of the resulting product-- the REASON you've asked the question, right?)
4. Google "ease of use interface photoshop gimp tools layer". Read stuff.
5. i like rasperries

funny thing is-- or maybe not funny, but ...
you never hear people talking about Macromedia Fireworks (Adobe Studio 8 for most recent version). MM Fireworks (at least on my Fedora Core 5 sys) runs on WineE (no cost vs other, better emulators) almost the same as it does on Windows XP. this means that a rastor image editor which historically rivals Photoshop in the Windows digital artist camps (a more serious contender for 'the title' than GIMP) is available to you in Linux as well.

Since i've discovered the operability of Fireworks on FC5, i've closed the files on the case of GIMP vs Photoshop. as Fireworks interface is arguably more intuitive even than PS, my image production time has been split in half, and the results-- 'dude, you'd never know this came from a Linux box!'.

problems w/ this technique? try installing FW w/ WinE, slaving your XP drive, and executing the .exe from '/mnt/windows/Program Files/Macromedia/Fireworks/Fireworks.exe' ... the location of the same app on the XP drive. not sure why that has proved more effective., but that's how i have to do DreamWeaver for it to run on WinE. just FYI.

cheers!