{"id":2678,"date":"2018-12-07T10:28:34","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T17:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.natsci.colostate.edu\/cnsit\/?p=2678"},"modified":"2025-07-22T12:49:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:49:03","slug":"gimp-vs-adobe-photoshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/gimp-vs-adobe-photoshop\/","title":{"rendered":"GIMP vs Adobe Photoshop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A common question CNSIT receives is the availability of Adobe Photoshop for their CSU computers.\u00a0 Photoshop has become ingrained in our psyche as synonymous with &#8220;photo editor&#8221;, much like we use the term &#8220;Kleenex&#8221; to name our facial tissue.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Adobe Photoshop is not available as a free site license on campus.\u00a0 If you require Photoshop, you must purchase this using an annual Adobe Creative Cloud subscription from RAMtech (<a href=\"https:\/\/csusystem.freshservice.com\/support\/catalog\/items\/128\">https:\/\/csusystem.freshservice.com\/support\/catalog\/items\/128<\/a>).\u00a0 This cost is a per device charge as well, so you can see how the cost to use authentic Photoshop can get fairly high in a hurry.<\/p>\n<p>Based on our experience, users rarely need Photoshop and all of its power, so the cost doesn&#8217;t always make sense.\u00a0 Fortunately, there exists a free alternative, with a largely comparative feature set called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gimp.org\">https:\/\/www.gimp.org\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>GIMP is a free, open source alternative available for all major operating systems!\u00a0 Rather than run through a direct comparison of GIMP vs Photoshop myself, I will list some articles I found that are already doing this:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.guru99.com\/gimp-vs-photoshop.html\">https:\/\/www.guru99.com\/gimp-vs-photoshop.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.makeuseof.com\/tag\/gimp-vs-photoshop-one-right\">https:\/\/www.makeuseof.com\/tag\/gimp-vs-photoshop-one-right<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colorexpertsbd.com\/blog\/brief-comparison-photoshop-gimp\">https:\/\/www.colorexpertsbd.com\/blog\/brief-comparison-photoshop-gimp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the end, the decision is a personal one.\u00a0 If the GIMP does what you are looking for (and it most likely does that and WAY more, just like Photoshop), then I think you will be pleased with this free alternative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A common question CNSIT receives is the availability of Adobe Photoshop for their CSU computers.\u00a0 Photoshop has become ingrained in our psyche as synonymous with &#8220;photo editor&#8221;, much like we use the term &#8220;Kleenex&#8221; to name our facial tissue.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Adobe Photoshop is not available as a free site license on campus.\u00a0 If you require [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-cnsit","category-knowledge-base"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2678"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5051,"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678\/revisions\/5051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnsit.colostate.edu\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}