to me, gimp is almost as powerfull as photoshop, but because i dont have 600 usd to drop on it, gimp is fine with me. i can (but dont like) to do anamations, i can achieve shadow drops, scanlines, many more filters then photoshop, and tons of other stuff... i really dont understand why people are suprised when they see that i use gimp. not only that but the brush and paterns interface is beter imo, and i have over 2k brushes which means that cant be a problem. thanks for trying to explain what those things are but i dont really know how to use em (think ive seen that interface before :-k )