I am watching an episode of Forensic Files in which the GIMP figures in the solution because the "investigators," as they call them, could not afford Photoshop.

The GIMP is mentioned quite favorably.

(I've got the flu. Forensic Files is about all I can deal with right now.)

What about cinepaint!!!

then those "techs" are not up on using tools for investigating images

MATLAB !!!!
( GNU-Octave)
*.m files are used

for facial reconstruction from a skull i would NOT use "the Gimp"

first i would use Meshlab on the laser point cloud of the skull

then likely VTK

Note the date of the episode--it was first broadcast in 2008, which means the crime was earlier even than that.

The particular methodology they used was "facial overlay," not "facial reconstruction." They made layers from photos of various missing persons and overlaid them on the skull they found until they found a match. Then they investigated the match and found additional evidence confirming the indentity.

GIMP was not a tool of choice. It was a tool of what they could afford, but the investigators spoke quite highly of it.

(I'm feeling much better today.)

don't get me wrong
i LIKE the gimp, if i did not i would not have been using it since 2001

Oh, no, I didn't get you wrong at all.

I don't know anything about the methodology for facial reconstruction, but I couldn't see using a drawing program for doing that either--you'd need something designed for that purpose. I was just filling in some details. I should have included the other night.

It was gratifying to hear the crime tech on the show speak in glowing terms about the GIMP as equal to That Other Program.