OK, yesterday I talked a bit about PhotoFiltre. For those of us who don’t know a lot about photo editing, or need layers capabilities, PhotoFiltre works very well.

But when you’re ready to tackle a program with advanced capabilities that works on a variety of platforms (which is good new for you anti-Windows fanatics), the GIMP is the program for you.

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It’ll do just about anything that any commercial program will do. A large variety of plugins are available. If you check out the documentation for this program, you will see that it’s capable of the most advanced painting and image manipulation tasks. I won’t bother going into all the features, but suffice it to say that this program could easily replace PhotoShop or any other commercial image manipulation program.

For me, I prefer a simpler program for my photo editing needs. I’ve tried using the GIMP, but I’m unwilling to take the time necessary to learn how to use it. If you’re not familiar with advanced photo editing, nothing will make sense to you with this program. I typically use the manipulation features available in Picasa or PhotoFiltre. But if you’re a graphics fanatic, or want to work with layers, or feel like spending many hours learning how to use a complicated, non-intuitive (but extremely capable and advanced) program, the GIMP is for you.

Read all about it and download it here.