One thing that has been missing on my new iMac is a good image editor like Photoshop. I’m a little strapped for cash right now, so I did some searching for free image editors for the Mac and currently it seems that GIMP is the closest thing to Photoshop for free. So, if you don’t want to shell out $649 for a copy, follow these instructions and use GIMP instead. This install is for an iMac using OS X 10.4.10.
First, install X11. If you have your Mac OS X install DVD, you can pop it in, close the first window that opens and open the finder window. Select the CD/DVD icon and double click the Optional Installs application to the right.
Click continue, agree to the software license agreement and choose the hard drive you want to install on. Next, click the arrow next to Applications and select the checkbox that says X11. Then click the button on the lower right corner (mine says “Upgrade” but yours should say “Install”).
You will then be prompted to enter your password to finish the install and you should be good to go with x11!
Now, all you need to do is download GIMP and install that like you’d install any other Mac application. I went to this Gimp.app site to download the “self contained application bundle of the GNU Image Manipulation Program for OS X”. I installed GIMP like as normal and then was ready to go…or was I? For some reason GIMP didn’t run on the first try. But, when I closed X11 and tried again it worked fine. Not sure what that was all about. There are other ways to install GIMP, but this seemed to be the easiest way.
The funny thing is that I’m not too excited about GIMP as it reminds me of Windows. You can’t use the command key when copying and pasting… you have to use the control key. But, it is packed full of features and is a pretty close contender to Photoshop.
Now that I have it installed, I’ll probably play around with it a bit, but so far my free graphic editor of choice is GraphicConverter. But, I discovered another image editing program that I believe will blow them all away whenever it gets released. It is called Pixelmator. It is a closed beta, and it is going to be agonizing to wait over the next few months until they release it. Check out this video of Pixelmator in action.
Sorry, Adobe… if you’re going to charge $649 for photoshop, people like me are going to look for alternatives… and find them! 
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Hey,
Just wanted to thank you for the easy-to-follow instructions
what if your comp says it has newer oftware than x11 but when you install gimp and try to run it, it shows up in the dock, then disappears… trying to figure out what i am doing wrong.
thanks
Hi,
Thanks very much for your detailed instructions on how to install Gimp on the MAC. It was just what I was looking for. I also have returned to Apple after converting over to the PC/Windows platform a decade or so ago. I used apple 48K’s, Apple IIe’s, and eventually owned a Apple IIc in High school back in 1985-1987. I recently bought the iMac 20″ 2.4Ghz with 2Gb of RAM and am extremely pleased with it. I am running VMware fusion on it so I can still run some of the legacy Windows apps I have. It is a fantastic machine. Thanks again for your assistance.
Cheers..
Regards
Darren C
Hey thanks for writing about this - you explained about installing Gimp very well. Lots of other people seemed to have the same problems i did - “missing X11″ - doing a google search unfortunately did not lead me to your tips staight away , but got there in the end
cheers
Bishan
thanx for the explanation dude, im trying to make a Droste Effect, if you have any tutorial for tha mac gimp, could you please sent it?
a lot of thanx from mecixo city
Thank you so much for this article. I was having trouble installing X11, so I Googled for a how-to and came across your excellent instructions. It certainly helped me from tearing my hair out, as I didn’t realise I had to close that first window. So, Gimp, here I come
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