Gimp 2.0

[toughluck]

photogeek wrote:
Sorry, you may be a photogeek, but you are surely not versed in anything else.

I think they'll get nothing, but the lawyers sure will get quite a
bit richer. There will be round after a round of appeals because
their fine is completely bogus. If this goes through, the US should
prohibit BMW, Audi, VW and Mercedes from installing airbags in
their cars, so that it doesn't kill all those third party airbag
manufacturers. Who cares if you run into a tree at 60mph.

Mixing apples and oranges here. Both US and European customers have a choice. You may have an American car, or a European one. In Europe they compete on even ground, because both origins spawn reliable cars, not too expensive and safe. I imagine it's different in USA. I imagine American cars are gas guzzlers, large and heinously loud and European - as European.

What would you rather have on your brand new XP box,

I have a Linux box.

Real Player or
Windows Media Player? The former is the worst piece of malware
ever. The second is the best media player on the market.

What about xmms, xine and totem? Never heard of them, I bet. I can't say I'm surprised.

Who do you
think has initiated the lawsuit?

And what does that have to do with media players and cars??? I have no idea. However, the problem with Microsoft is that M$ products are pushed with every new piece of hardware I can buy and it's excruciatingly expensive. A new laptop costs some ~$1,000 out of which the cost of Windows (quoted as OEM!) is $400. I would prefer to buy a $600 laptop, but I have no such choice. Furthermore, it's impossible (except small shops when you're buying a put together PC - I prefer that way) to get a computer without preinstalled Windows. It's illegal and praise be to the EU for being on a very good way to introduce a law against forcing software down customers' throats. When people learn that you can get a 'naked' computer for ~$200 instead of $400, they will look for what software they can install on it to stay legal and hopefully learn of alternatives.

And against XP - I've had it for a year. Impressive at first - fast, quite reliable. Then it hanged for the first time. Thought to myself: "Hey, it's Windows, it happens." Then it hanged for the second time, the third, and so on and so forth - you get the picture. I thought it was the fault of the aging OS - typical of Windoze again. The time came to format my HDD (reorganising to get more space for Linux - Win had 30 GB of space on a 40 GB disk, so reversing it was mandatory - and so I did) and reinstalled Windows. My first thought was - what kind of a system requires to occupy the primary partition on the primary master HDD??? All Windoze systems require that. Not a biggie, I thought, I reorganised the partitions and installed XP (on a completely clean computer - Linux was deleted). And again, without any warning whatsoever - the XP hanged without any symptoms when I was downloading and installing Service Pack 1 for it (oh, the irony!). I've restarted (without having installed the SP) and the system hanged again. From that day, XP will never again set its foot on my HDD. Me was better in many respects - it failed only once (and then grew fond of my PC's memory), so I've installed 98 (and then XP), but Me never once hanged (and to imagine it's referred to as 'the most bug-ridden version of Windows ever'). My eXPeriences with XP were - you can imagine that - excruciating, so I've given it up.
Thank you, Microsoft, for helping me make up my mind.

That's right, Real.

Now, I have completely no idea what you are talking about.

 

[toughluck]

I would not call GIMP a toy. Several years back I did some work at
some large companies such as CitiBank and AT&T and they were using
some version of GIMP on Solaris for professional image editing for
various production ad and marketing uses.

How can you possibly do ANY serious work in graphics without color
management support? This probably explains why these companies are
not doing well right now.

Citibank isn't doing well??? Yeah, right.

How can you do serious work in graphics without profiles? Very simple - use automatic perception-based colour matchers that understand many image formats. As simple as that. You can get ICC support in many Linux programs, anyway. One of them is the Corel Graphics Suite.

I remember another GNU / Open Source program that many
people called a "toy" a few years back...Linux.

Yeah, and guess what, it STILL is a toy. By year 2004 they've
managed to replicate Windows NT 4.0, only poorly. No component
model, no messaging engine,

Do they help Windows in any way???

no role based security,

Linux's security model is better in all respects. What is that "administrator" "normal user" "guest" "security model" in XP, anyway???

monolithic
kernel,

Layered and highly modular. You must be reading about Windows.

changing interfaces,

The choice of having either a console (with a choice of shells to work with and as many virtual ones as you'd like and easy switching) or a GUI environment that is easily extendable plus full console emulation - you don't have that kind of backwards compatibility in Windows, you know.

poor hardware support,

What do you mean by that? I can get anything running under Linux. If there are no widely available drivers, you can compile them using wine.

ugly UI,

Now you're kidding. Gnome and KDE are far more elegant, more efficient and look really good. There are simpler managers that work faster than original Windows 3.0 will ever work on modern computers. And you must have never seen Enlightenment in your entire life. I mean the desktop environment (X windows shell), not enlightenment. The "ugly UI" point is one of the most archaic ones that are still floating around. In fact, Litestep was originally made for people forced to come from Open Source to Windows - because of their work, for example.

user friendliness issues

It's friendlier than Windows is. It's more reliable, it's faster, it does not hang - ever. I've only had to restart (unplanned) Linux once in my life and it was because I've installed the SMP version of nvidia drivers (I was a greenhorn and had no idea about the differences). Besides that, and a steep initial learning curve, the system is far better than Windows is and will ever be. That's the one thing I fail to understand - M$ has a lot of money. They have skilled programmers in their staff, I don't doubt that. However, how they fail to produce a good, modern and fast OS never ceases to amaze me. They always seem to take not one, but two steps forward, but at the same time they're taking three steps back.

• the list can go on and on and on.

And replies will go on and on and on.

The problem
with linux is that developers don't get any money to develop
software for it,

Wrong. There is substantially less money in the Open Source community, but programmers, developers and associated people do get paid - for customer support, for instance. Besides that, there is huge interest in palmtops based on Linux (Sharp Zaurus, especially the recent mini-laptop with 640x480 screen), and programmers hold a share of profits.

so they do whatever they want instead of whatever
needs to be done. And there's no way in heck they'll care about
some Joe Sixpack who has no clue.

The Joe Sixpack can program his own extensions, and if he is skilled enough, he may just get a group organised around him. I know that's not what you've meant, but there's no other explanation. What could someone possibly want that nobody will do?

Again, don't get me wrong, GIMP is a nice program for a free
product, but even PSP8 totally kills it in all respects, except the
price.

It does (or does it?) now. However, the 2.0 version changes a lot. Especially the policy towards Windows. They've changed it. Very extensively, in fact. This will get people attracted to them and professionals looking for cheap alternatives (for computers that do not need a full PSD version) have just the right thing. They will send in suggestions, you can be sure of that. I can imagine seeing both colour profiles (including custom ones) as well as 16 or even 32 bit modes for working with graphics soon. It can't be that hard to code in. And creating plugins for gimp is really easy - just as for PSD, but PSD has a larger user base (at least now).

 

[photogeek]

Sorry, you may be a photogeek, but you are surely not versed in
anything else.

... that just because he managed to install his fad du jour he's any better or smarter than, say a Mac or a Windows user? You don't have to be smart to install Linux these days. You had to be pretty darn smart to do so in 1995 - the year when I first used it. I have a linux partition myself (Fedora at the time, I've used just about every distro out there, Gentoo included), as I said Linux is a nice toy, very suitable if you need to kill some time tweaking the settings and reading TFM. It is also very useful for small to medium size web sites or something highly specialized (clustering, DB) where nothing but a good TCP/IP stack is necessary. At the very least I need to know what's out there to make informed choices in my job.

You know what? Wake me up when I can copy&paste between every app in X no matter the window manager and when setting up remote printing doesn't take a week and doesn't require surfing three dozen web boards. That'll be a good start. After that it would be nice to be able to put together a working and common model for component based code reuse, so that I could use something like Gecko engine in my app without compiling against it and without caring whether I'm running KDE or GNOME, or automate routine taks in Open Office from an external script (Python would be a fine choice here). Then give me something for business, directory services (with integrated dynamic DNS and DHCP no less), domain-based security policies, centralized logon and Kerberos support out of the box, smart card support, good tools for XML and web services, you know what I mean now? Or all of this sounds like Martian to you?

 

[megapixelmonk_]

Why can't you all just use Photoshop Elements?, and who the heck uses AUTO LEVELS?

That is just silly. You have more control over the image if you use manual levels and that
can be done with Elements.

Full Blown Photoshop CS is not necessary for photographers.
Gimp is pretty decent too.

I'm in OS X btw.

-

 

[photogeek]

So I won't do that. You're totally clueless about Windows in general and you're astonishingly clueless about Windows security. I wouldn't be surprised if you are a 16 year old suffering from acne, either.

Just because home users choose to not use Windows security doesn't mean it's not there. I, for example, don't have Administrator privileges on my machine right now, just like you in Linux (if you really are using linux which I doubt and if you're not logged in as root which if you use linux you probably are). The word is, XP boxes will be a lot better locked down when XP SP2 comes out. The tradeoff is to lock them down enough to make them secure but at the same time usable to Granny Sixpack, and that's a Herculean task to accomplish.

Let's face it, an unpatched Linux box is just as buggy and 0wnable as an unpatched Windows box. The only reason why there aren't that many viruses for Linux is because at

 

[photogeek]

Why can't you all just use Photoshop Elements?, and who the heck
uses AUTO LEVELS?

Well, apparently Photoshop wizards like Katrin Eismann do. The trick is to know that it has adjustable parameters, too. I didn't know that until I read her book. Now I use auto levels with my own parameters quite often.

 

[The Davinator]

I've been waiting forwever for GIMP 2. I must say that I really, really wanted to like it. I wanted it to give PS CS a run for its money. Unfortunately, it comes nowhere close. It's MUCH slower than PS, especially on large image files. I tested it with my wife...who has never used PS or GIMP. She had no problem navigating PS....the GIMP.....forget it. I must say I'm completly disappointed. If this is the big upgrade we've all been waiting for, it's a let-down. I've already uninstalled it from my drive.

Goodbye GIMP, welcome back PS.

Dave

 

[Owen63018]

...but it gave me no joy, so it's been deleted.

Owen

 

[TonyK_in_Texas]

In another thread I mentioned that GIMP does not do color management. That still holds true because you are using ImageMagick to assign the profile.

I like it though and provides a way to get the profile assigned to an image.

Thank you for sharing.

...
A workflow I've used, on a linux box with LOTS of command line
automation of the procedure, is dcraw -> imagemagick (ICC profile),
output to TIFF -> cinepaint (custom curve) -> imagemagick
sharpening.

--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk

 

[Negative287]

In Linux there are options for Color Management with Gimp... In Windows those options don't exist so you're right about it not being good for Windows Users...

As far as comparing it to PS Elements... Lets not go that far because Gimp at least supports advanced tools and such which Elements does not (Curves is a big one)...

I would say though that PSP is the better solution because it has all the features of Gimp, supports Action type Macros, Supports JPEG 2000, Has Color Management and tends to be easier to use for most people.

Also when comparing it to Photoshop I would say the GIMP filters were quite harsh compared to those in Photoshop.

With that said GIMPs biggest problem is that too many Open Source Freaks (not all open source advocates are freaks) were proclaiming it an Alternative to Photoshop without ever really using Photoshop to see what was missing.

I agree... it's a basic image editor that is highly surpassed by
many PS alternatives. Buggy, limited and not worth the effort if
you are a Windows user. PS is overkill for most people, but Gimp is
not the answer.

As with photography, in computing we should be concerned with what
is the best tool to meet our needs. Linux/Gimp or Win/Gimp is a
horrible choice for a photographer. Definitely not the right
toolset when there are so many better options, many really
inexpensive, or even free, like Elements, when we buy a scanner,
camera, etc.

As far as Linux... as of now, it's a Server OS, and a great one at
that. But when it comes to the Desktop, forget about it except for
hobby/entertainment. The lack of drivers and difficulty of
configuration is in itself reason enough to avoid it.

I use Openoffice on Windows, the great alternative to MS Office, so
I'm not totally against Open Source... I like the concept of Open
Source... but just because a program is Open Source does not mean
that it is a good solution... Gimp as an excellent example of good
intentions but not-there-yet.

Edward

--

'The only real currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with each other when we're being uncool.' -- Cameron Crowe

 

[Negative287]

After all he hasn't yet found a reason to switch so he's using what is getting the job done! Crud he could've bought a MAC or even a Linux box (they still exist) but he chose the PC.

No offense intended, just drawing a direct conclusion from what
you've said.

--

'The only real currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with each other when we're being uncool.' -- Cameron Crowe

 

[Scott Marso]

Previous versions of Gimp have had the ability to run ImageMagick via a plug-in.

lcms is a library of callable functions, and ImageMagick calls lcms.

I believe other gimp plug-ins have accessed the lcms library directly.

I expect that gimp-2.0 will have these plug-ins ported shortly.

So I think you're wrong to say that "Gimp doesn't do color management".

It's all about a plug-in philosophy.

I like it though and provides a way to get the profile assigned to
an image.

Thank you for sharing.

...
A workflow I've used, on a linux box with LOTS of command line
automation of the procedure, is dcraw -> imagemagick (ICC profile),
output to TIFF -> cinepaint (custom curve) -> imagemagick
sharpening.

--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk

 

[toughluck]

And you're right - arguing with me is pointless if you only have invectives to back up YOUR claims.

And, no, I very rarely work as root, and usually in console mode only (to change attributes for normal users, for example), and usually suid for root privileges.

So I won't do that. You're totally clueless about Windows in
general and you're astonishingly clueless about Windows security. I
wouldn't be surprised if you are a 16 year old suffering from acne,
either.

Just because home users choose to not use Windows security doesn't
mean it's not there. I, for example, don't have Administrator
privileges on my machine right now, just like you in Linux (if you
really are using linux which I doubt and if you're not logged in as
root which if you use linux you probably are). The word is, XP
boxes will be a lot better locked down when XP SP2 comes out. The
tradeoff is to lock them down enough to make them secure but at the
same time usable to Granny Sixpack, and that's a Herculean task to
accomplish.

Let's face it, an unpatched Linux box is just as buggy and 0wnable
as an unpatched Windows box. The only reason why there aren't that
many viruses for Linux is because at
about it enough to write viruses. If it ever reaches 20% (which I
again doubt), then we'll see.

 

[TonyK_in_Texas]

Color management by plug-in is not color management for GIMP. A application should implement CM via the OS or by its own routines. GIMP does not have direct color management and relies on other applications for this.

Again, I don't think GIMP, in and off itself, can compete feature for feature with PS CS or PSP.

lcms is a library of callable functions, and ImageMagick calls lcms.

I believe other gimp plug-ins have accessed the lcms library directly.

I expect that gimp-2.0 will have these plug-ins ported shortly.

So I think you're wrong to say that "Gimp doesn't do color
management".

It's all about a plug-in philosophy.

I like it though and provides a way to get the profile assigned to
an image.

Thank you for sharing.

...
A workflow I've used, on a linux box with LOTS of command line
automation of the procedure, is dcraw -> imagemagick (ICC profile),
output to TIFF -> cinepaint (custom curve) -> imagemagick
sharpening.

--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk

--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk

 

[TonyK_in_Texas]

I've used GIMP before. I really did try on both Windows and Linux platforms.

I've been in and out of Linux for a number of years (since 1994/95 timeframe) and have used Slackware (since v1.02 or was it 1.22, I can't remember its been too long), SuSE and Mandrake.

So I am not someone who has not at least worked with the application before. I do have some background with it.

lcms is a library of callable functions, and ImageMagick calls lcms.

I believe other gimp plug-ins have accessed the lcms library directly.

I expect that gimp-2.0 will have these plug-ins ported shortly.

So I think you're wrong to say that "Gimp doesn't do color
management".

It's all about a plug-in philosophy.

I like it though and provides a way to get the profile assigned to
an image.

Thank you for sharing.

...
A workflow I've used, on a linux box with LOTS of command line
automation of the procedure, is dcraw -> imagemagick (ICC profile),
output to TIFF -> cinepaint (custom curve) -> imagemagick
sharpening.

--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk

--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk

 

[TonyK_in_Texas]

GIMP is an awesome program. I've seen great works created with it. And you are right, the OSF folks do themselves and GIMP a disservice when they proclaim GIMP is a direct alternative to PS.

Thanks for a well reasoned response.

...

With that said GIMPs biggest problem is that too many Open Source
Freaks (not all open source advocates are freaks) were proclaiming
it an Alternative to Photoshop without ever really using Photoshop
to see what was missing.

--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk

 

[Scott Larson]

Besides all the user interface improvements, everything works a lot faster. Rotating an image used to take a couple of seconds. Now it's instant. Saving a jpeg used to take a second or two. That's instanteous too.

I don't see any changes that are ground breaking but it looks good so far. I use gimp all the time, espcially on systems that don't have the horsepower to run recent versions of Windows but run Linux without any problems (like my old 400 Mhz laptop).

 

[Scott Marso]

You may have experience with gimp -- you may even understand its plug-in philosophy, but you obviously don't subscribe to it.

 

[photogeek]

And, no, I very rarely work as root, and usually in console mode
only (to change attributes for normal users, for example), and
usually suid for root privileges.

RTFM, dude. SUID is not the same thing as SU . :0) See why I don't want to engage into a lengthy argument with you? You know less about Linux than I. And I run Win XP 95% these days.

 

[photogeek]

Number 1 I say! :0)