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Gimp is not only free but is also lightweight and resources compared to Photoshop it feels like. Photoshop's long splash screen makes it feel resource heavy with alot of overhead. Is there technical proof of this?

Finally, why would anyone use Photoshop that's resource-heavy when Gimp can do about every post-processing function it can twice as efficient

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  • Gimp takes five times longer to load than Photoshop for me. I have both, I only ever touch Gimp to see if I can answer questions in here… which I usually can't.
    – Tetsujin
    Feb 1, 2022 at 14:31
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    @Tetsujin - might depend on your OS. I have GIMP and Photoshop CC, using Windows 10, and GIMP loads in 5 seconds, Photoshop takes 20 seconds, and for some reason alos takes a while to close on Windows too, compared to GIMP which closes immediately.
    – Billy Kerr
    Feb 1, 2022 at 14:34
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    Adobes home screen takes a lot of time to load, its essentially just a web framework on top of the software. If you disable it, like i have for illustrator then is shaves 1/2 of the launch time. Mainly because it needs to prefetch a number of thumbnails.
    – joojaa
    Feb 1, 2022 at 16:06
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    I've now voted to close this too. It's comparing apples to oranges with some kind of unstated agenda in mind. If Ps was substantially inferior to Gimp, no-one at all would use it. I think that's argument enough for its 30-year continued existence [whatever anyone might think of their pricing policy, people do pay it.]
    – Tetsujin
    Feb 1, 2022 at 18:58
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    Why does anyone drive a Lamborghini when a 1982 Yugo does the same thing? Why doe people pay for expensive meals at a restaurant owned by a famous Chef when McDonalds has burgers for 99¢? Silly premise overall. Gimp may be great, but it's not the be-all-end-all, neither is Photoshop for that matter. Use what works for you.
    – Scott
    Feb 1, 2022 at 19:53

2 Answers 2

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Well, you could measure a lot of things. Chronometer loading time, disk space, and you could look into the Task manager on your computer and see memory consumption and CPU usage.

Loading time is not a good measure because Adobe has as far as I understand a preloader.

Memory consumption either because a program could load more resources, in fact, to work faster. If you have memory available, why not use it?

In the end, the best way to measure this is you have the work done. Do identical tasks, and feel where you are more comfortable. Probably human-delay times are greater than machine ones, for example thinking what to do next, etc.

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  • You kind of forget that most processes are close to instant these days. I remember way back in the 90s that there was a lot of waiting to do, every time you wanted to process something. Now I get irritated if it takes more than 5 seconds to do anything.
    – Tetsujin
    Feb 1, 2022 at 15:16
  • The first 3D wireframe previews I got some decades ago took all the lunchtime. Not renders... previews... :o)
    – Rafael
    Feb 1, 2022 at 15:19
  • Renders were started Friday as you left work… in the hope they would be done by Monday morning when you got back ;)
    – Tetsujin
    Feb 1, 2022 at 15:35
  • Wonder why anyone would use Photoshop that's resource-heavy when Gimp can do about every post-processing function it can twice as efficient
    – user610620
    Feb 1, 2022 at 15:53
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    @user610620 I do not know if this is now a real question or just a rant. Why people use Photoshop or Gimp is another question. Which loads faster is really not important.
    – Rafael
    Feb 1, 2022 at 18:12
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Its relatively unimportant. Its not like a person who works with the application for a living ever needs to close it. Hell I do not and I still have photoshop running from like 7 days ago, along with 2 significantly heavier CAD applications*, illustrator and matlab.

Photoshop is used mainly because of the things gimp does not do. Its true that by iterating things that gimp does it does better. But its not what people are after either. Mostly all adobe applications are about the print support. Ability to natively do PDF files with vector support. And in case of photoshop the killer features are elsewhere like nondestructive edits design layers automated foregound detection etc.

* though creo which is significantly more rescource hungry than PS in general can be tuned to open in 2 seconds faster than PS because the license is on local network.

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