Hello from France, coming really
exceeding late to this discussion!
I do not know if there is an English equivalent (as the saying goes) to the French « Mieux vaut tard que jamais » , but here I am, 9 months later
I've been using linux machines for 20 years now, and I never considered to use any software, be it commercial or free, for my personnal use, outside linux.
I was lucky enough in this period, to work for an employer who did not demand any M....ft (
horresco referens) software.
Hence I've only used linux for my job as well; since 1998. Before that, I used UNIX workstations.
For a short time (nobody is perfect) before the UNIX workstations, I did use PC-236 and -386 machines under MS-DOS (
horresco referens, again), but as soon as linux became available, I switched to linux and I've never considered anything else.
Hence I've been a happy user of GIMP with linux for at least 10 years now.
Now that GIMP 2.10 is able to handle as many bits per pixels as you could dream, and taking into account that, to date, I only use 5% of GIMP features, I'm really
not ready to pay for anything, be it cheap, claimed to be "the standard that everybody uses".
I was trained to frame and expose my film images without any post-processing. Since the sixties, with the 620-rollfilm 6x9 cm camera given to me by my my grandfather.
I'm trained to use film cameras since the sixties of the last century, and I've been continuing so since the Great Collapse of Film Cameras at the beginning of this millenium.
Hence the arguments regarding "the standard that everybody uses" have little chance to make me reconsider my photographic tools, even if they are related to the brilliant world of computer / digital / post-processing / inkjet printing
I do not sell my images, I never considered to get any revenue from my images. I live totally outside the professionnal competition, as far as images are concerned.
The idea that I could be immediately pushed out of business by not using "standard production tools that everybody uses" is simply irrelevant to me.
Hence, in 2018, the very few features of digital processing that I use are generously provided by GIMP at no cost, and I use it seriously only for colour digitised images that I create from film shots.
For my B&W work, darkroom, enlarger and photo-chemistry should be the rule, if I had enough time (this is another story).
The only digital post-processing operations that I use are: cropping, rotating, lightly fiddling with contrast and colour curves, and perspective correction when I am lazy enough to use a hand-held camera with no movements instead of using my faithful view camera (shame on me).
For sure, from time to time, for a joke to be posted on my favourite forums, I succumb to the temptation of creating digital images by cutting / pasting images and playing with them before posting the results to illustrate a message on my favourite photographic discussion forums.
But this is not photography. This is simply playing with pixels, just for fun.
A freeware under linux is perfect for this purpose, no need at all for any expensive commercial software