This looks promising though.

Unfortunately, the lack of CMYK support in GIMP is a bit of a deal-breaker for me since I do both print and web design, and I often need to open/edit/convert CMYK files to RGB jpegs and gifs. Having to switch back and forth between GIMP and Photoshop would defeat the purpose of switching.

Consider copying and pasting in GIMP. A photoshop user would go “what the? what are those floating selections for?!” They might not even notice the floating layers.

A different/unique interface is not necessarily bad. I like what the Blender team has done by creating movie tutorials (http://blender3d.org/cms/Video_Tutorials.396.0.html), I hope someone will do the same for GIMP.

There are still other areas I feel lacking. I am not an expert on the GIMP, nor am I a graphics professional. I acknowledge some of this could be due to ignorance on my part.
- There is no equivalent to layer styles, which is one feature I find very useful in photoshop. Script-fu can perform some of the function, but very crudely: no preview, can’t turn-off styles later.
- text/fonts. The text tool in GIMP still looks premature and cumbersome to use. Could not scale text layers. The fonts does not render quite as nicely as other graphical applications.
- gradients. is there a way to customize a gradient without creating a preset? Is it even possible to create your own preset?
- brush sizes. is there a way to adjust brush sizes without using the mouse? Photoshop has keyboard shortcuts for this which makes brushing a breeze.
- on Windows, where we don’t have multiple desktops by default, the way that GIMP spawns separate windows really messes up the taskbar and destroys the user experience.