I have been interested in the Gimp for a while but every time I fire it up, I’m intimidated by the whole thing. I’ve never used Photoshop so either program freaks me out. That’s why I have subscribed to the excellent Meet the Gimp vidcast.
Given all that, I was excited about the possibilties of MacPorts. I installed it, and went to do the install of the Gimp package with it. That’s when the fun ended. For the next 18 hours, packages were downloaded and built until finally it pooped out on an inability to build Python and never progressed. A whole lot of the packages that Macports was working on were already on here from Fink. That all just really sucked. I was really on fire to run the Gimp on this iBook and the whole experience was a big disappointment. Now I’m thinking about just reclaiming that space on the hard drive and forgetting the whole thing. What a downer.
I’ve been a GIMP user for many years now. There’s always been a Windows installer package of the recent versions. It’s quite a shame that the Mac version isn’t that easy to get going considering the typical Mac user.
…and by typical Mac user, I mean creative professionals that would love a cheap alternative to Photoshop, not technically incapable.
Try looking at Gimp.app http://gimp-app.sourceforge.net/ – might be what you need. I have installed it but haven’t used it (whats the point of that?)
You’ll need X11 installed.
Dom, that was a great suggestion. I fired it up and it just worked. I already had X11 installed so that wasn’t an issue. Now I’m just back to the same thing you have – a scary learning curve of this program. From now on, when I watch “Meet the Gimp” vidcast I’ll have my copy open and work along.
Glad to help Dave