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I use Gimp routinely and I am very happy with it.
The only thing I wish it had is 16 bit processing. That is why I use The Gimp only for web presentations. I am certain that you can do anything that is done using PShop using the The Gimp instead "as long as the final product will be displayed on the web only". Certainly, you can use it also for printing, archiving etc.; however, I cannot claim that it can rival other software on those regards... yet!

Let us hope The Gimp People are indeed keen on making it capable of working on 16bit images.

I don't think learning it is as cumbersome as we are led to believe; it just does not resemble its alternative!

By the way, thanks "dosdan" for the beautiful and informative post...