Categories: Apps: Utilities

Gimp and Poser

Gimp and Poser: Can you remember that there was once a time when only a few talented people could draw? And talent was a sine quoi non of drawing pictures.

Many more people draw today, because of existing software created to draw, model and render sketches, portraits and even landscapes. Perhaps one of the better-known programs, is Maya, developed and commercialized by Autodesk and Adobe Creative Suite. However, it can be difficult to manage and (what may be even more important for many) fairly expensive.

Luckily, much easier and user-friendly options can be found on the market. While the achieved results differ significantly, Poser from Smith Micro and Gimp are ideal for the beginner.

Poser is a commercial software offered by Smith Micro, which often offers discounts on its products. Many people compare Poser to Daz Studio. However, the two systems are very different. In fact, Poser comes with in-built figures or characters, props, poses and much more. The software is more modelling oriented. It has an excellent rendering capacity. You can choose your figure, pose it, render it and voilà – an artistic image is in front of you! Daz Studio, while offering high quality pictures, is a free software. It requires however, that you add figures, poses, places and so on, which all of these come at a cost. Poser is very easy to use. For added performance, one can always either read the corresponding manual or rely on the thousands of Web tutorials focused on general items or on each and every detail.

Gimp, on the other hand, is a free and open source software. It means that you can simply download it from the Gimp Website and start using it. They often call Gimp the layman’s Photoshop. Users can edit images, draw, add color, special effects and text. Its interface is rather easy to understand and navigate. For example, if you’d like to create transparent text in Gimp, you do it by layers: first you add a text layer, next you write your text and then make that layer transparent. Gimp also has interesting lighting effects. Its Filters tab can enhance, distort or add a special something to whatever image the user wants to edit.