GIMPshop was created by Scott Moschella of Next New Networks as an unofficial fork of GIMP. He encountered resistance from GIMP's lead developers due to the methods he employed to implement his hacks. GIMPshop was originally developed for Mac OS X and is a Universal Binary. It has also been ported to Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
Features
GIMPshop shares GIMP's feature list, customisability, and availability on multiple platforms, while addressing some common criticisms regarding the program's interface: GIMPshop modifies the menu structure to more closely resemble Photoshop and adjusts the program's terminology to match Adobe's. Due to the interface changes, many tutorials for the popular Photoshop can be followed in GIMPshop without modification, and others may be adapted for GIMPshop users with minimal effort. All of GIMP's own plugins remain available. Being based on GIMP, GIMPshop cannot generate CMYK output files by default. Users who need to generate color separations require additional software, since commercial printing requires CMYK, not RGB color channels. A workaround is available through the Separate+plugin, which is not included in the base installation. In the Windows version, GIMPshop uses a plugin called Deweirdifyer to combine the application's numerous windows in a similar manner to the MDI system used by most Windows graphics packages. This essentially adds a unifying background window that fully contains the entire GIMPshop UI. More compatibility with Photoshop can be achieved using a third-party add-on for GIMP that supports Photoshop plugins, called pspi, which runs on Microsoft Windows or Linux. For Mac OS X, GIMPshop is compatible only with Panther and Tiger. It requires the X11.app to render the user interface. Newer versions of X11 are no longer compatible with GIMPshop.
Status
GIMPshop was based on the old GIMP 2.2.11, and is not current with the latest GIMP codebase. In order to maintain usability, some users have taken to manually updating GIMPshop's libraries themselves. Due to pending concerns over rights to the GIMPshop name, and a dispute with the individual who purchased the gimpshop.com domain, plans for an update are on hold. As explained by Moschella in 2010: In a March 2014 discussion, Moschella states:
