On most systems, Windows and Linux there are basic image programs and these allow us to rotate, print, scale and more. For example, Window 10 Paint 3D can remove backgrounds from images. Linux UI’s come with a image viewer, Another example is Eye of GNOME (eog) on GNOME based Linux systems. Phones O/S’s, such as Android, have their own image processing, for capture and manipulation built in. Indeed for many these are enough and no more is required.

These sometimes are not enough and we wish to do more. “Photoshoping” has entered into many peoples language, for making changes to images (often with a negative context). This is a paid option and available at https://www.photoshop.com/

There are Open Source alternative to Photoshop and other commercial products. The Open Source application I use is GIMP and this is available on both Windows and Linux. It has a common interface across both Window and Linux. It does take a few moments to overcome differences between the O/S common UI expectation and this; but is worth the effort and helps practice with handling the inconsistancies of cross O/S usage.

• Windows: GIMP at the time of writting is not available from the Windows Store. GIMP can be downloaded and installed, using the installer from https://www.gimp.org/
• Linux: Version of Linux such as Ubuntu has GIMP available from their Application Store. On Linux Systems that use aptitude, such as UBUNTU, GIMP be installed from the command line using “sudo apt-get install gimp”