The Book of GIMP 197
Michael Ross writes "Web designers, graphics artists, and others who create and edit digital images, have a number of commercial image-manipulation packages from which they can choose — such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Fireworks (originally developed by Macromedia). Yet there are also many alternatives in the open-source world, the most well-known being GNU Image Manipulation Program. GIMP is available for all major operating systems, and supports all commonly-used image formats. This powerful application is loaded with features, including plug-ins and scripting. Yet detractors criticize it as being complicated (as if Photoshop is intuitively obvious). Admittedly, anyone hoping to learn it could benefit from a comprehensive guide, such as The Book of GIMP." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.
Authored by Olivier Lecarme and Karine Delvare, The Book of GIMP: A Complete Guide to Nearly Everything was published by No Starch Press on 22 January 2013, with the ISBN 978-1593273835. The publisher's page offers minimal information on the book and its authors, as well as a skimpy table of contents, and a free sample chapter (the fifth one, on composite photography). Lecarme has a companion website where visitors will find additional resources, including bonus filters, a forum (albeit almost empty), and a selection of the example images used in the book.
| The Book of GIMP: A Complete Guide to Nearly Everything | |
| author | Olivier Lecarme and Karine Delvare |
| pages | 676 pages |
| publisher | No Starch Press |
| rating | 9/10 |
| reviewer | Michael J. Ross |
| ISBN | 978-1593273835 |
| summary | A comprehensive tutorial and reference to GIMP 2.8. |
This title's 676 pages are organized into 22 chapters and six appendices. The first eight chapters compose "Part I — Learning GIMP"; the remaining chapters compose "Part II — Reference"; and the appendices compose the third part. In a brief but pleasant introduction, the authors encourage readers to follow along by installing GIMP on a local machine. Installation instructions can be found in Appendix E (which arguably should be the first appendix, to get readers started with a local installation). The book is based upon the most recent stable version of GIMP, namely 2.8, which reportedly introduced significant improvements over earlier versions.
As one might expect, the first chapter introduces the basics of the GIMP user interface, explaining how to find and open images, use the menu system in the main image dock, and perform basic editing operations, such as resizing and cropping. It also presents some essential concepts in GIMP — filters, layers, and drawing tools — and then discusses the use of a tablet in conjunction with GIMP. The next six chapters each focus on a major category of image work: photo retouching, drawing and illustration, logos and textures, composite photography, animation, and image preprocessing. The last chapter in the group covers utilizing GIMP for crafting the visual design of a website. The only problem I found in the narrative is the inconsistency in terminology, primarily the references to something as a "dock" on some occasions, and other times as a "window"; also, the "multi-dialog window" (page 4) is later called the "multi-docks window" (page 18). Nonetheless, the prose is straightforward and concise; there is a lot of information contained in each section. Consequently, anyone reading these tutorial chapters should take them at a modest pace, and frequently compare the authors' narrative and one's understanding of it with the screenshots and/or one's own results if following along (a practice I strongly recommend for this particular book, so one will better internalize the broad ideas as well as the details).
Each chapter concludes with a set of exercises, whose questions tend to be much more open-ended and difficult than those normally found in technical books. In fact, readers may be frustrated how some of the exercises challenge one to perform task completely unmentioned in the corresponding chapter. For instance, the very first one in the book, Exercise 1.1 (page 24), asks the reader to build a new dock with dialogs, even though at no point in the chapter was the reader told how to do anything remotely like this. Appendix B contains tips for a minority of the exercises.
The bulk of the book, "Part II — Reference," offers almost 400 pages of details on every aspect of GIMP: the user interface, its displays, layers, colors, selections, masks, drawing tools, transformation tools, filters, animation tools, scanning and printing images, image formats, scripts and plug-ins, and other methods of customizing the application — with each chapter starting with the basics. All of the information is terrific, but the thoughtful reader may wonder why the book begins with advanced topics — such as photo retouching, composite photography, animation, and website design — and later presents the detailed explanations of all the aforementioned aspects of using GIMP. It seems to me that it would have been better to present the Part II chapters first, and then present the advanced topics currently in Part I, except for what is now Chapter 1 ("Getting Started"), which would still be a fine way to begin the explication.
The third and final part contains half a dozen appendices, the first of which is a fascinating exploration of the science of human vision and the three main models of digital color representation. As noted earlier, the second appendix contains tips and hints for some of the chapter exercises. The third appendix is brief, but contains a wealth of online resources for anyone who would like to learn more about GIMP and its community. The next appendix contains a list of frequently asked questions and their answers, and is well worth reading. The fifth chapter explains how to install GIMP on computers running GNU/Linux, Unix, various Linux distros, Windows, and Mac OS X. The final appendix addresses batch processing of images, including the use of ImageMagick.
The production quality of this book is excellent (judging by the print copy kindly provided to me by No Starch Press for review). It was a smart choice on the part of the authors to request full-color images on every page, and the publisher's decision to do so, given the book's visual subject — even though it resulted in a heavier product (3.4 pounds).
Naturally, as a book discussing an image editor, this one makes extensive use of example photos and other images, which are extremely helpful to the reader. Only a few problems were evident; for instance, Figures 1.24 and 1.25 are so small that the cropping pointers are almost invisible. In some cases the descriptions or screenshots do not match what I saw when following along; for instance, on page 3, the author states that the three startup windows (Toolbox, Image, and multi-dialog) by default occupy the full width of the screen, which contradicts the screenshot in Figure 1.1, which shows the Image window at partial width.
The writing is generally clear and easy to follow, even though some of the phrasing is odd (e.g., "source text" to mean "source code"), perhaps because both authors are French. That could also account for the errata — for instance, "on [the] left" (page 15) and "its there" (page 22) — of which there were remarkably few for a book of this length.
If any reader is looking for a free and full-featured image-editing program, then by all means consider GIMP, as well as this outstanding tutorial and reference book.
Michael J. Ross is a freelance web developer and writer.
You can purchase The Book of GIMP: A Complete Guide to Nearly Everything from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
My experience with the GIMP (Score:5, Informative)
I don't really have much to say about this review or the article, but I'd like to say, as someone who has been using GIMP extensively for the past six months, it's a really fantastic program and probably one of the best, most reliable, and most useful free/open source software packages I've used. I wish there were something like the GIMP, but for music production.
Re:My experience with the GIMP (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, it's almost as good as Photoshop 5.0!
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I've been used Photoshop about 15 years and I would say Photoshop should be the first example to teach on the UIX classes. It's so great that even a 5 years old could get around in couple of hours.
I don't want to troll about it, I'm a developer and I can appreciate the hard work of people behind GIMP. And their influence over Linux world with GTK. Still I hate to see people comparing saying "GIMP is waaaay better than PS".
Guess what! I
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That was sarcasm.
Photoshop 5.0 is from 1998.
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Re:My experience with the GIMP (Score:5, Insightful)
Photosho = $600 dollars. Gimp = $0 dollars.
Ipso facto gimp = winner.
You can make arguments about ease of use and such, but unless your job requires something not available in GImp, then Photoshop isn't better.
Is your time worthless? Are you one of the few who is not routinely infuriated by a program which has long been the poster child for user-hostile open source software? Is your budget too thin to pay $600 for a good tool, even if you need it? Or perhaps you don't use software of this type more than once in a blue moon and therefore can't justify $600? (or even $70 as Desler points out?)
If any of these things apply to you, Gimp might be better. Otherwise... not so much. Price is not the sole determinant of whether one thing is better than another. Arguing otherwise marks you as a fool.
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Actually my time, as charged to clients, is relatively expensive. Therefore I have trained myself (as a web developer) to use GIMP for nearly every occasion, so when needed at the client site I can just download it and get to work without the time or hassle req'd to complete a purchase order and get it approved.
Same is true with Inkscape btw.
In case you are wondering, my clients are mainly enterprises that will balk at a new purchase request of several hundred, or even thousands of dollars worth of software
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It exists. You can download Photoshop CS3 from Adobe for free.
[citation needed].
I know there was a story on BoingBoing a couple of weeks ago where Adobe mistakenly let you download a full old version instead of an update or something. But I can see no evidence on Adobe's website that they have free full versions of ANYTHING to download. The only free versions of Adobe products (even something like Photoshop Elements which you used to get for free with scanners or cheap cameras) I have ever seen are pirated versions.
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Photosho = $600 dollars. Gimp = $0 dollars. Ipso facto gimp = winner. You can make arguments about ease of use and such, but unless your job requires something not available in GImp, then Photoshop isn't better.
That's a stupid argument. Is a Nissan Micra better than a Lamborghini just because it's hundreds of thousands cheaper?
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In which way?
I always read comments like "PS is better" or "Gimp is better", but those are usually just claims without giving any substance.
So please elaborate: What is better in Photoshop Elements than in Gimp?
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Support for more than 8-bits per colour channel/plane:
Works with images in non-RGB/sRGB colourspaces:
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To sum up "better" is just doubleplusgood for "different".
Re:My experience with the GIMP (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My experience with the GIMP (Score:4, Interesting)
Couldn't possibly agree more. For the curious, it's not just about being able to scale/rotate/shear/etc. with one tool - it's about those operations happening concurrently when finalized. Right now, a scale followed by a rotate is lower in quality than a rorate followed by a scale. So if you ever scale something down to roughly the size you need it to be, then realize it needs to be rotated a bit - you'll have to perform the rotation, jot down how much you needed to rotate it, undo both the rotate and the scale, rotate it by the amount you jotted down, and scale again.
And no, the cage deformation tool is not an appropriate alternative - it doesn't do a point-to-point deformation. The perspective tool is also not an appropriate alternative, as you can't retain aspect ratio (why this is still called the 'perspective' tool is anyone's guess).
Preferable using the on-screen pixels for performance sake. This would need quite a few changes under the hood, but GEGL does allow for this.
Yep - and, with it, appropriate support for RAW files.
I don't know if this will come to GIMP in the foreseeable future.
For the curious, think of this as the old (might still be in there, haven't used it in forever) Adobe Premiere workflow of adding effects in realtime, and then having to 'render' to the final output.
So in the above example of scale/rotate - right now if I scale that back up, I get a bunch of blocky pixels (or fuzzy, depending on extrapolator). In a non-destructive workflow, it would reference the original pixels. The down side to this is that you need to keep references to everything and, of course, have to 'render' the final result.
Honestly, I'd keep layers for simplicity sake (for most purposes, it's just fine), but add an additional node-based workflow. I'm guessing you're familiar with node-based workflows, but those who aren't.. google it.. it makes you wonder why we're still using such a simplistic concept of layers in the first place.
Going to have to disagree with you there. I find no logic in Image, Adjust... to adjust something on what happens to be the active layer, considering the effect it has is on the layer, not on the overall image. That's just one of many little bits that confound me.
I'm not saying GIMP's menu and tool layout is better, mind you - just that when looking for ways to improve it, as I said in another comment, not all of Photoshop is gold.
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I personally would place the GIMP somewhere between Elements and CS in functionality. That said, for the vast majority of tasks, Elements is quite adequate. If a little more power is needed, then the GIMP is good, and if you really need / want to have the latest wizz-bang image editing tools at your finger tips, then CS is the way to go... although, if you're patient, something similar often turns up in the GIMP later on anyway.
As a professional photographer doing this for my bread and butter, I am actual
Re:My experience with the GIMP (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you think you might be tainted by your 15 years of use with Photoshop?
Don't get me wrong - I'm certainly not saying that GIMP is 'waaaay' better than Photoshop. Far from it. But a 5-year old (really? let's try 8, at least.) can probably find their way around either of them in the same amount of time.
Just to counter your example, I've mostly been used to another graphics editor and GIMP, and only occasionally use Photoshop. Here's some of the things I encountered in the past that I thought "oh sweet jesus, wtf?"
Panning around an image. Practically any application middle mouse 'button' and drag away. Photoshop? Hold the space bar, and drag with left mouse button. Huh?
Adding a layer mask. Right-click layer, choose 'add layer mask'. Photoshop? I had to actually google this.. it's a funny looking icon of a rectangle with a circle in it at the bottom of the layers dialog. What?
Zooming. Ctrl+scrollwheel - again, almost any application. Photoshop? Alt+scrollwheel. Eh?
Pasting bitmap data on the clipboard as a new image. Edit, Paste as, New image. Photoshop? File, New, OK, Paste. Change to single layer or Photoshop will complain when you try to save the thing. Really?
Yeah, when you get used to it and learn the keyboard shortcuts these really aren't big issues - I don't really think about them anymore. But I wouldn't exactly hold all of Photoshop up as an example in UIX classes.
( Fly-out tools don't help either. Long-press a tool to find other tools that may only be vaguely related to the tool you first saw? )
Counter-counter example - GIMP's transform tools. Who do I bribe to bump those up to the top of the "let's fix this" list?
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Though, latest versions are stuffed with features I would rather pass.
Tried GIMP few times for quick image fixes (using brush, text and layers) but no more than that. Maybe I should read this book.
Btw, the story with 5 years old is truth, too. Although must admit the kid had talent.
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Nobody uses it except a fringe crowd of diehard Linux enthusiasts whose expertise is computers, not graphic art.
No, GIMP is used by people who don't want to pirate Photoshop and who can't justify or afford paying for a license. The competition is not between Photoshop and GIMP, it's between Paint.net and GIMP. I prefer GIMP so far, but then again I don't do enough editing to justify a Photoshop license so my experience with GIMP and Paint.net is limited.
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No, I'm pointing out quirks in Photoshop. Again, I use it from time to time and am perfectly proficient with it. Do I prefer X over Y? That depends entirely on what I need to do, not whether or not it is open source (I certainly don't compile the thing myself, so I certainly have no direct stake in that aspect) or whether it is the defacto standard and big shot photographer/graphics design artist So DeSo lends their name and made-up quotes to marketing material.
Unfortunately you didn't actually address t
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Yeah, I mentioned that change in another comment noting that I think it's the wrong direction to go, and somebody else also mentioned this change as a negative one.
Supposedly the GIMP developers talked to 'professionals' and made the change based on their input. I hope they stop talking to 'professionals'.
That said, I do know of a few other applications where save/save as deal strictly with their own native data formats and you have to use import/export to work with others. None of them are in the graphic
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> I wish there were something like the GIMP, but for music production.
Could your describe your work-flow including type of assets you need to manipulate along with the operations needed so we could better understand the problem please?
Also, could list what open source audio programs have you tried? What functionality did they fail to provide? What UI problems did you run into?
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... I wish there were something like the GIMP, but for music production.
Actually there is. It's called Linux MultiMedia Studio (LMMS). I really like it. it's fast, has a nice UI, and reminds me of Fruity Loops Studio.
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I wish there were something like the GIMP, but for music production.
The way I go about this personally, have jack as the audio/midi backend, rosegarden as sequencer, hooked up to several synths, bristol for analog, linuxsampler for sampled things like piano, yoshimi for other synth things, all hooking up to ardour to record.
It's a little messy using multiple programs chained together, but you get used to it.
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Clap, clap, clap, clap.
I have struggled with Gimp for several years (only intermittent use). I tried to avoid it, because it always took a bunch of work just to figure out how to do something that should be simple.
Just recently I switched to Photoshop. What a breath of fresh air. I'm having very few problems.
Stuff that I commonly did in Gimp through several menus and drill down choices; in PS there are three control key presses that do the same thing. I'm sure you could force Gimp to do something similar, b
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Why does it have to be a question of how complicated it is? That's lazy reasoning. It's about cost-effectiveness.
So what you're basically saying is that you'd rather pay for a product just because it's easier to use than the free one? That's like going out to buy a new car just because it's comfortable, when you already own three or four perfectly good alternatives that you only have to put the effort into driving. Maybe one doesn't have AC, maybe another one doesn't have a radio, but they all get you from
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It's still a crap interface. Saying it's free doesn't make it better.
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I attach value to effort, though yes I do have the time to put forth the effort to use an application that's worth more than the $0 pricetag, where the benefits to using something "easy" that performs the exact same operations is not worth $200-600, even if only by comparison.
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So what you're basically saying is that you'd rather pay for a product just because it's easier to use than the free one?
Well, yes.
Photoshop is a bad example because it's really quite expensive (350GBP at a quick glance, and you can buy a laptop for that) for someone who's not a professional graphics person, but in general I'd pay a reasonable amount for something that was noticeably better than a free alternative.
If the philosophy of FLOSS can be reduced to "it's not very good, but at least it's free" then it's lost the battle. But it's better than that.
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Clap, clap, clap, clap. I have struggled with Gimp for several years (only intermittent use). I tried to avoid it, because it always took a bunch of work just to figure out how to do something that should be simple.
Just recently I switched to Photoshop. What a breath of fresh air. I'm having very few problems. Stuff that I commonly did in Gimp through several menus and drill down choices; in PS there are three control key presses that do the same thing. I'm sure you could force Gimp to do something similar, but what's the point? PS is by far easier to work with.
I can't comment on your workflow, but for the work I do (mostly sprite work or photo enhancing), most everything I need is in the toolbox or on one of the tabbed permanently docked tool windows. I don't dig, I just click or hit the hotkey. For comparison, the few times I've tried my wife's photoshop I usually have to dig or ask how to do something. I'm not saying either interface is better, just that both need time to learn.
Re:My experience with the GIMP (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems like whenever someone publishes a good book on how to use GIMP, the GIMP team immediately overhauls the UI, changing all the menus to make most of the text utterly useless.
Alternatively, the blame can be placed on the authors and publishers for releasing a book when they know a new UI is forthcoming. It's not like they don't have access to the prerelease versions of the new UI.
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Ardour just isn't a product professionals would use. I know several professionals who use GIMP.
At least once a year, I take another shot at open music production tools. I would love to see something, but it's just not happening.
My own theory is that it has to do with the difficulties in using professional digital audio interfaces with Linux. If vanilla interfaces could be easily used with Linux, you'd see a more vibrant community of music producers who use the platform. Also, the proprietary nature of t
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That wasn't my point. For the things it's appropriate for in the music production environment, Linux is stellar.
photoshop USED to be obvious. (Score:5, Insightful)
I picked up Photoshop ver. 4 when I was 15 or so. It was very intuitive. I learned it in a few hours.
However, PS is so bloated with features that I have a hard time learning what the new things are....or how they even "help" me. So no, it's not easy to learn PS these days. Too many icons and menus that's intimidating, imo. But because I've known PS, I can use it and know what tools are fundamental for my workflow.
The problem (or benefit) of PS is that it's used across many industries and it's not limited to photographers. 3D artists use it. Medical imaging professionals use it. And everything in between. I think that's why PS is bloated to help those outsiders "in". I mean, you can configure it to have different workspaces depending on your work field.
Anyways, it's no excuse to GIMP's lack of intuitiveness. Or rather, lack of focus. I see GIMP users as coders who want to do some web design on the side or fix something really quick to fit the website layout. Basically, web-related stuff. I wish GIMP would design the UI to cater to that demographic/ needs. Or maybe it already does, I'm just not the audience.
-an actual professional photographer who actually makes a living taking photos & maintains a studio.
Re:photoshop USED to be obvious. (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty much spot on.
The Book of Gimp should probably have been released as 4 or 5 books, which you have to open all at once,
with all the page numbers in one book, the example images in another and the text, in no particular order, heaped in yet another book.
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Re:photoshop USED to be obvious. (Score:4, Informative)
"The Book of Gimp should probably have been released as 4 or 5 books, which you have to open all at once, with all the page numbers in one book, the example images in another and the text, in no particular order, heaped in yet another book."
The new version of Gimp has a more-standard single-window mode. That was the single biggest complaint before. So now the other large objections are coming to the fore.
For example: among the multiple "select" tools, why is there not a simple "point and click" select tool for drawing objects? Every other major image manipulation program of which I am aware has one.
Re:photoshop USED to be obvious. (Score:4, Informative)
The new version of Gimp has a more-standard single-window mode. That was the single biggest complaint before. So now the other large user annoyances have been added
... ...would be a better way to put it.
The biggest one is the ridiculous and recently added "export" functionality for everything but the native file format. This is completely unlike every other editing application of any kind for anything anywhere. If I open a Word or RTF or plain text file in LibreOffice, for example, I can save it to that format with a keystroke.
GIMP is a great program--I even got used to the floating windows after a few years--but its developers consistently treat their users with complete contempt, and in the case of the new export functionality they are actually doing more work to make the program harder to use.
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GIMP is a great program--I even got used to the floating windows after a few years--but its developers consistently treat their users with complete contempt, and in the case of the new export functionality they are actually doing more work to make the program harder to use.
it seems awfully like an attempt to force me to use their file format, which I almost never want to do. I'm not going to save every source file to everything I ever edited and keep track of it all.
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I see GIMP users as coders who want to do some web design on the side or fix something really quick to fit the website layout. Basically, web-related stuff. I wish GIMP would design the UI to cater to that demographic/ needs. Or maybe it already does, I'm just not the audience.
I've been using GIMP for a long time and I've always found it very intuitive and it does everything I need from an image manipulator. And I'm a coder who usually just needs to quickly fix something to fit into a layout (not a website layout, but close enough). So you may be on to something there.
GIMP 2.8 SUCKS (Score:1, Insightful)
GIMP 2.6 was very good, even on Windows. Then they decided to force GEGL through in preparation for adjustment layers and other functionality to mimick Photoshop features that had been missing for a long time. The trouble is the reimplementation of these features has made them MUCH slower and buggier. For instance where arbitrary rotation was no problem in 2.6 all of a sudden only discrete steps are allowed in 2.8 - if you pick something inbetween on rotation dialog it rounds it to the nearest discreet step
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For instance where arbitrary rotation was no problem in 2.6 all of a sudden only discrete steps are allowed in 2.8
Use Layer->Transform not Image->Transform. I was able to rotate an image by 0.01 degree. I had to create a 5000x5000 image to be able to see such a slight rotation, but it still rotated almost immediately on my old 2.6ghz C2D.
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Open the layer dialog and click on the empty space to the right of the layer thumbnail. You will see a small chain. Layers with that chain are linked, so if you rotate one they all rotate the same. Link all layers, and you can use Layer->Rotate to rotate the entire image.
GIMP vs. Ps (Score:5, Insightful)
I see this battle a lot, but it's inherently flawed. GIMP was never created to compete with photoshop, and photoshop used by industry professionals don't only use Ps. It's usually used in tandem with illustrator, lightroom, etc. Whatever tool is best needed for the job.
Re:GIMP vs. Ps (If PS is free!) (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to be a Gimp basher on here when I had PS and Dreamweaver installed via a pirated copy. I used to be agaisn't piracy but after not working for awhile I used it to justify it. I decided to kick the habbit after going through contstant hacks and other potentially trojaned KMS servers.
Yeah PS is better, but those who say so pirate it 80% of the time! That is not really fair. If you had to actually pay $700 for it would it be worth your value then for its features?
Now since my computer is pirated free and I have my integrity back I have to say no.
In that economical sense NO, for 90% of users. Unless you are a professional marketer or photographer who makes thousands of dollars from it I have to say the GIMP is better. I do like the UI for paint.net better.
It is a shame PaintShop Pro is gone or rather gimped (no pun intended) after Corel bought it. That $79 program could do much photo editing plus create cool textures for websites. Corel got rid of the secondary feature so I can spend more money buying other crappy products they make to duplicate its lost functionality.
Value for dollar you can't beat the Gimp. The only difference is if you work for an advertising agency and get paid serious bucks for production material does PS provide better value.
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If you had to actually pay $700 for it would it be worth your value then for its features?
No, that's why they made Photoshop Elements that you can get for around $70 on Amazon for version 11.
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Yeah PS is better, but those who say so pirate it 80% of the time! That is not really fair. If you had to actually pay $700 for it would it be worth your value then for its features?
Probably not, but when you can get Photoshop Elements for $99 (sometimes lower on sale) or Photoshop CS2 for free from Adobe's website, GIMP looks a lot less attractive.
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Or you can get CS2 for free. http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html [adobe.com]
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Photoshop is "trendy"? Since when?
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Agreed. Even the summary seems to be suggesting by this sentence:
Yet detractors criticize it as being complicated (as if Photoshop is intuitively obvious).
that Photoshop users can't use GIMP because it's too hard. That's not at all what's wrong with GIMP. If you're a Photoshop user it's the fact that GIMP is incapable of doing many of even the basic things Photoshop does that its detractors criticize it for.
People are not at all sold on Photoshop being the be-all-end-all and high end graphic designers and visual effects artists are far from loyal to Adobe. The problem with Gimp is Gimp.
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What programmer or photoshop person even READS anymore?
I mean really?
Anything I wanna know how to do in Gimp or Photoshop I can most likely just google it.
In fact, the author of this book probably google'd everything that is in it. So its plagiarism.
So when you google something, the information just flows magically from your computer into your brain without any of that pesky reading nonsense?
You are so cool, you're like Neon in the Matrix with those glowy 0s and 1s flowing through his fingertips.
From the Gimp to Lightroom (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to use the Gimp, because it was free. I mainly used it for restoring old photos and for some postprocessing on my own digital photos. But then I discovered Lightroom. In the Gimp, fixing the white balance is a manual process using curves, but in Lightroom, you just point at a neutral color in the photo and it's all done for you.
In the Gimp, applying a graduated neutral density filter involves working with layers, but in Lightroom, you just click and drag to create two regions, then set the exposure individually for each.
Lightroom's cataloging and batch features make it easy to work with large numbers of images.
I still occasionally use the Gimp for things I can't do in Lightroom (most recently, to blur out a license plate using a mosaic effect), but for most of what I do, Lightroom is much easier and faster.
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And how much did Lightroom cost? Most Adobe products are outrageously expensive
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And how much did Lightroom cost? Most Adobe products are outrageously expensive
About $150 if you don't get any discounts.
The only reason why I don't buy it for that price is that I already bought a full Photoshop CS5. (Not seen any reason to upgrade to CS6)
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Colors, Levels..., Pick gray point. Same sort of thing. The only problem is that it expects this to be the 50% grey point, so you may still have to shift things around a little afterward. I agree that this is something The GIMP could do better (there's scripts that may be of interest there.
Another problem is that most people don't look beyond t
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+1 darktable.
very active development, very sophisticated tools, a UI that is familiar to lightroom users, and new builds have lightroom import (tags, some filters, crop/rotate, exposure. not perfect but good enough to aid migration). it's database driven so you can search by tag or rating or colour, or even image similarity.
my only gripe is that it relies too heavily on luma-only processing and so a lot of contrast adjustments can look bleached in the highlights and shadows. i really wish for an RGB/Lab
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You then go on to talk about the cataloging and batch features (GIMP can do batch, but let's not get into that), which similarly are not generally features of a photo editing tool but rather something like, say, Picasa (I'm sure there's a FLOSS 'equivalent').
Geeqie is quite a fabulous image manager, for want of a better word. More brilliant than you could imagine, IMHO.
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You shouldn't be adjusting white balance in Gimp or lightroom anyway (nor photoshop for that matter). White balance is a job for your RAW editor.
And if you aren't starting photo-edits in RAW mode, then you're doing yourself such a massive disservice that no program on the market will be able to replace what you lost before you even started.
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While I agree with your comment's latter part, I wonder if you caught what you wrote in the first part after posting - considering that Lightroom is a RAW processing app (among other).
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The blend tool has 23 modes including dodge and burn, 11 shapes (linear, radial, etc), continuously variable opacity and offset. I've found that most of what I need to do can be accomplished without layers.
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Linux is better than Notepad
If you're trying to start a flamewar here, you're doing it all wrong.
I also recommend (Score:1)
Photoshop (Score:1)
Detractors... (Score:2)
"criticize it as having an idiotic interface" would be a more realistic comment.
That and it's branding sucks, which is unfortunate. The person that chose the name "GIMP" should be hung drawn and quartered.
Yes we know what it stands for, but 99% of the new user base that could have used it doesn't. Why? Because he/she read the name first and passed on it, and is now using another image app. If the app can't take itself seriously, why would the user?
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Why? What's wrong with the name?
Even Shakespeare said it: "whats in a name?" (Score:1)
Seriously though, the name has always gotten chuckles and odd looks to the non geek when mentioned. I remember once mentioning "shebang" whilst describing something to a coworker. Just as I mentioned it a women non-geek coworker passed by and gave me a look like "you perv". I have no idea who comes up with these names, but I say keep them coming. : p
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What is shebang have to do with something bad?
I've heard the expression "the whole shebang.." for all my life and never thought anything was wrong with that...??
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Re:Detractors... (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing wrong with the name, per se. It just has unfortunate connotations.
Let's say that after OpenOffice.org had to be split off, rather than than the already baffling 'LibreOffice', they had gone with Phree Open Office Program.
Instead of Blender, it could have been Free Animation/Rendering Toolchain.
Instead of Linux it could have been Free UNIX Command Kit.
And really, nothing would have been wrong with those names per se. Until you try explaining to somebody that you're using FART and The GIMP to make some graphics for your POOP Impress presentation on your FUCK machine. That's when you're treated to raised eyebrows, at the least.
That, in part, is why Film GIMP was quickly renamed to CinePaint; a paint app used primarily in the film industry, which tends to be pretty Linux-heavy as it is and is filled with geeks who would 'understand' GIMP just fine.
http://www.cinepaint.org/more/press/cinepaint.pr.2003.3.1.html [cinepaint.org]
( The other part being that it started to be less and less GIMP-based and more cobbled together from various open source applications, so keeping 'GIMP' in there just stopped making sense anyway. But they still decided on something that "will present a more professional name". )
The GIMP developers, however, brush off criticism with the FAQ entry: "GIMP is comfortable with its name and thinks that you should apologise for your rudeness".
That said, sources are available. It would be exceedingly trivial - short of evil bits of code in the source - to search&replace all of the 'GIMP' strings used for presentation and complying with the remainder of the licenses and publish an alternative build. I don't think anybody does. So as much as people like to complain about the name, it seems it's not enough for an issue for people to do something about it. There's bigger dragons to slay in The GIMP. Single window mode was a big one. GEGL getting fully implemented is another. User friendliness of various tools is next. ( imho they made a misstep with the new 'save as' behavior, but that's more of a personal preference. )
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"GIMP is comfortable with its name and thinks that you should apologise for your rudeness"
Rudeness? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Good for them if they're comfortable with their sexuality, but "gimp" is derogatory slang for a disabled person. These people need to grow up if they want to be taken seriously. Might as well have named it Cripple.
Even a casual observer such as myself can fix this shit:
1. Fire the idiot who wrote the above quote
2. Fix the more glaring UI issues and make single window mode the default
3. RENAME the product
4. RENAME it AGAIN because these people are idiots
5
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Good for them if they're comfortable with their sexuality, but "gimp" is derogatory slang for a disabled person.
And the more people use GIMP, the less derogatory the word will appear.
It's almost as if people here want to preserve a biogted, derogatory word.
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>1. Fire the idiot who wrote the above quote
You can't fire a volunteer. This is free software dude, not corporate cog-in-a-wheel crap. Nobody gets fired, if you believe the quote is that bad, submit a better one.
Nobody is getting paid by you, nobody is subjected to market forces. This is about doing the best possible job, not maximizing profit - and the counter-point is that customers are NOT in fact always right, which is not a problem because unlike with the corporations you don't just have your wallet
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Funny, I'd never heard of the word gimp in that light...maybe it is a regional slang term?
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First, there are other meanings of the word "gimp", some of which are complimentary.
Second, it is simply a lie to say that "gimp" is derogatory. David Niven, one of the most noble actors ever, referred to himself in a film role as having a "gimpy leg." That you or anyone else considers "gimp" derogatory is symptomatic of the liberal tendency to believe that everyone is the same and that pointing out differences is evil. Grow up.
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And "tiny" is a derogatory word for fat people!
No it's not.
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Hmm...new one on me, but then I guess I've not known anyone that was into sex bondage.
You can thank "Pulp Fiction" for coining it. (Score:1)
"Bring out the gimp"
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Hmm...new one on me, but then I guess I've not known anyone that was into sex bondage.
You are aware that there's an invention called the movies, and on this invention they show films like Pulp Fiction, right?
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I remember trying to get GIMP onto the school computers where i worked years ago to replace a bloated expensive equivalent, the name stopped it happening (in the uk)
Or maybe it's because you're a distributed version control system.
Gahnew (Score:2)
I use GIMP 2.8 , single-window. I've used Photoshop before also, and GIMP can most definitely be compared to Photoshop. There is one thing I dislike about GIMP, 'Save As'. Save As in GIMP saves the file in some strange format and doesn't allow me to actually 'Save As'. If I want to Save a Photo as a .jpeg, then I need to click 'Export'; I hate that.
The most important thing is what I use it for, Photo editing/Creation etc, and it suits my needs well. I don't care if Adobe has a version of Photoshop for $70,
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Only three requirements for GIMP (Score:2)
As a "serious" amateur photographer I check out GIMP every year or so for three things:
- 16-bit image processing (yes, I know 8-bit is good enough for 99.9% of cases, but that's not good enough for me)
- proper and intuitive color management
- color-managed printing
Until all three are implemented properly, I can't and won't move from PS.16-bit has been promised for literally years, but last time I checked all three above were missing. Is it still the case?
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Which industry?
I can't remember the last time I needed to use CMYK for my fine art photography. Heck, most of the photo magazines don't even want CMYK any more.
And when I go to develop my website graphics? No CMYK in sight there either.
How about printing business cards, brochures or fliers on a full-color printer? Only if the shop requires it for some bizarre reason - color profiles have pretty much removed the need for CMYK there.
So for some small definition of the word "industry" perhaps CMYK is still use
CMYK is still used. (Score:2, Interesting)
If you're serious about color reproduction on magazines, packaging, and corporate brochures with trademarked colors (i.e. Coca Cola #pantone_red), then you will convert it to CMYK to ensure things don't get lost in translation. True, magazines will mainly accept jpg, but if you're anal about colors, you can talk to the art director about color fidelity and they'll accept images with CMYK profile - but only if you're willing to do some color processing for free in order to fit the layout's colors, and more i
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Re:Perfect Timing (Score:5, Funny)
Valentine's day is next week and my sex slave would love the book of gimps!
The section on masks is on page 119.
Re:Perfect Timing (Score:5, Informative)
Valentine's day is next week and my sex slave would love the book of gimps!
The section on masks is on page 119.
And the Cage Transform is explained in the advanced user appendix. Beginners should stick to crops, and everyone should be familiar with the Healing Tool before starting.
Unconventionally, the safe work is "control-zed".
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Are you hoping to lay 'er?
Re:definitions (Score:5, Insightful)
>I agree Gimp sucks
It's the layers. They are what makes GIMP suck.
An average user, expects that when they select a rectangle, plant the mouse in the middle and drag it, the contents move. This happens in photoshop. It sometimes happens in GIMP, but usually not. This is something to do with layers, it is massively annoying and it is the barrier to entry that leaves most people saying GIMP sucks.
If I encounter this non functionality, I can usually drill through some menus and find something to 'merge layers' so they behave like the bitmap they are supposed to behave like. But most people don't manage to do that and give up.
It is inexcusable that when you import a jpeg picture it comes in as more than one layer and GIMPs tools then interact with a different invisible layer, frustrating the user trying to edit the image.
That is why GIMP sucks. If they fixed the layer interface, GIMP would not suck. I'd do it myself, but I'm too busy designing chips to fork GIMP and fix it.'