The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) - Any users?

I've been a bit bored at work lately and have always been interested in digital manipulation/ design but didn't want to pay for Photoshop and stuff. So a quick little search led me to the GIMP, an open source freeware program comparable to Photoshop (according to what I've read).

I've been messing around with the program and found a few useful tutorial pages through google and such. It's been alittle difficult since most of the tutorials are written for older versions of the program, but I've been able to figure most things out. Seems to be a very versatile and complex program, and the learning is hard.

Would anybody have any recommendations on resources concerning either this program or digital photo manipulation/design? I'm going to continue looking for tutorials and such, just hoping someone may have ideas/links on how I may be able to educate myself more in this field.

Thanks in advance

 

I'm not very familiar with GIMP, but here are a few pages that a friend of mine recommended. First one is a GIMP forum. The rest are various tutorials and resource pages. Hope these help you.

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=451
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/
http://empyrean.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/~nem/gimp/tuts/
http://www.xach.com/gimp/tutorials/
http://www.cubicdesign.com/gimp/
http://www.gimpguru.org/
http://www.beastwithin.org/users/wwwwolf/things/graphics/gimptut/
http://www.york.ac.uk/services/cserv/sw/graphics/tutorials.html
http://www.geocities.com/phillipriley/links/artgimptut.html

 

http://gimp-savvy.com/
http://gug.sunsite.dk/docs/Grokking-the-GIMP-v1.0/]

Grokking the Gimp is IMHO one of the best books for learning the Gimp. Bonus is you can download it for free.

 

I've not seen too too many GIMP tutorials around, but most tutorials for Photoshop can be done in the GIMP with little trouble....

 

I agree with soulless Chaos. I've been a photoshop user for years, and most of the skills seem to be transferable.

 

Thanks all for the links and advice...I'm slowly working my way through the gimp tutorials. It's taken some good 'ol trial and error, but it's for the best. Thank god I'm not computer illeterate...only in the scene of digi photos and graphics...

As soon as I get a better grasp on the processes used to compile and manipulate the stuff I'm working on I'll start perusing through photoshop manuals and try applying them to GIMP.

Thanks again