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For 16-bit color:

Image --> Mode --> Indexed --> Generate optimum palette --> Max colors = 65536, Convert?

For CMYK support, maybe this?

http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

it's weirder than that, MS scrolls tended to work, Logitech (and the rebranded) didn't.

But FreeWheel (http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/freewheel.shtml) fixes all that, and in Access 97 VBA windows which behaved differently again...and yes unfortunately I still have to use both on a regular basis.

"popular" apps and peripherals in the senior citizen crowd (think of, web-browsing, photo viewing, photo-printing, web-cams etc.) are much more readily available for windows than for linux.

FireFox
kview
PhotoPrint
icam

I'll give that the webcam is a little bit gray area. But maybe MORE SELECTION for windows, but I wouldn't say not readily available.

it took one google search to find a CMYK output plugin for the gimp. Now granted, it's not the most mature or convenient solution, but again, your point that the price of photoshop is too blinking high for even semi-pro's let alone amateurs. If you're not doing press-grade production materials, why would you even bother with photoshop?

I don't know about the truth of your other statements, but stop spreading the lie about lack of CMYK support:

http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

Maybe there's something wrong with it; tell the developers if there is. But don't say it doesn't exist, because it does.

Thanks, now have a nice day.

Perhaps the CMYK Plugin for the ubiquitous GIMP?

No, it's not exactly in the same league, but for many uses, it's plenty good enough...

GIMP
and
CMYK support for The GIMP

http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

Of course, most of "advanced Photoshop users" that still passionately demand CMYK support in Gimp never did anything that actually needed it (hint: printer drivers don't need it in the application).

when I'm spending $80k printing out a few thousand nice glossy booklets, having control over the colors isn't unreasonable.

No but it is unreasonable to expect volunteer developers to spend time on functionality that only a small percentage of users actually need. Black is black is black is black, you can do a faux-CMYK color seperation in GIMP. It's about as useful as PS CMYK to RGB mapping. CMYK is not a pancea, it doesn't magically imbue the majority with pre-press skills or the color perception required to work as a colorist. Your desktop proofs are converted to CMYK on your printer and if you're using a modern digital press then you get your final proof direct. Finally if you're paying $80k for traditional process, there's a fair chance the repro tech doing your plate setting has a clue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP
"For the future it is planned to base GIMP on a more generic graphical library called GEGL, thereby addressing some fundamental design limitations that prevent many enhancements such as native CMYK support. However, implementation of this plan has been continually put off since 2000."

An eternity, eh? Apparently CYMK hasn't been in there long enough to get inclusion in the Wikipedia article. Also, are you sure you aren't just using the plugin? http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

Hmmm, it seems that you can have CMYK support in GIMP: CMYK plugin. Not that I would know what to do with it :)

UF is a great comic, but I'm not sure if illiad knows that Gimp has a CMYK plugin. the site claims its only rudimentary support, but it is a start.
http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

GIMP is nice for images that stay on the PC, but I've had really terrible luck trying to get GIMP friendly with any sort of high-res work.

Personally I love the GIMP, use it all the time, although I find all of the separate windows annoying. There are is a cmyk plugin out there that supposedly will output good print files.

What troubles have you had using a digi cam on Linux, and when was the last time you tried it?

Those are both good questions. I'm a slackware guy myself, and it's not always the easiest to use distro. I actually have a script I wrote that uses gphoto to read the images from the camera to the hard drive. Works fine for me, but not something your average user is going to do. Also, I set this up about two years ago, so there may be much better utilities.

I guess my comment was more aimed at lack of manufacturer support. Even if there are utilities like digiKam out there that are easy to use, our average user has been trained to use the CD and software that come with the camera. Until you see major manufacturers actually supporting desktop Linux I think many people will shy away, even if the ease of use problems are a myth.

If you can produce it with the Gimp (which you obviously cannot when needing CMYK [...] )

A CMYK plugin is here. It's just a simple starting point, and the jury is out on whether it infringes Adobe's patents (but apparently, Adobe has not patented CMYK per se, but some of the color transform algorithms, so it's quite possible that the GIMP could reach the same destination from a different path).

Regards,
Ross

I've written a series of tutorials here. I did thing to address some of what you express. I've noticed that Photoshop has such a massive market share that people simply cannot concieve of doing it any other way, hence the "fog" you speak of.

It's obviously not made for print due to the lack of CMYK-support

I owe Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols a black eye. Here, despite the flat-Earth-misinformation, is a CMYK plug-in. For Gimp. It's a work-around, due to copyright issues.

Gimp can't implement cmyk because of patent issues, but you can grab it as a plug-in: http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

Been done, nobody seems very interested. http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

yes, but (from the aforementioned site):

The plugin is unfinished, but usable for its primary purpose, and since I'm unlikely to have time to develop it further in the near future, I'm releasing it as is.

not exactly a ringing endorsement of cmyk, especially when you read further:

What can't it do?
* Load CMYK TIFFs into individual layers. If you want to edit a CMYK image, save it in XCF format as well as CMYK TIFF, so the layers are preserved for future editing.

you're right, those who need cmyk are not interested, because it's not fully functional.

Is it just a matter of someone saying "I will add CMYK support to GIMP" and writing some code?

Been done, nobody seems very interested. http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

I found GIMP terrible for doing reduced palette work and on the other side
of the spectrum, it it unacceptable if you need to work in CMYK.

You might want to reconsider that statement

Ok, here is the home page of the gimp-cmyk plugin: http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml. Here is his disclaimer:

One thing preventing The GIMP from being useful in a pre-press environment is the lack of support for the CMYK colour-space. This plug-in goes some small way towards rectifying the situation, using a trick with layers to fake CMYK support. The plugin is unfinished, but usable for its primary purpose, and since I'm unlikely to have time to develop it further in the near future, I'm releasing it as is.

Now here is a link to an article discussing GIMP, Pantone and CMYK: http://software.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=05/10/2 5/153221. Interesting, and it looks like the legal issues around Pantone's color lists are pretty fuzzy.

There's no issue whatsoever of "accuracy" in producing nominal colorspace conversions, but if your needs include decomposing an image to a proprietary profile such as Pantone[...]

Well, for pre-press work the accuracy of converting to and from any profile is pretty much everything (btw, the word "profile" in color management deals with devices and not color lists, and it's a standard (ref: http://www.color.org/profile.html). It's true that converting RGB to CMYK is "a simple matter of mathematics" in that it's "just" a transformation, but the difficulty lies in that different devices and colorspaces have diffferent gamuts, and the magic lies in how you deal with the additional or missing information. I don't believe there is a standard for these transformations, and in fact if you perform the same transformation on the same image with different engines you will get different results (I had to compare 4 leading products for a client last year).

In a nutshell, it appears that CMYK support for GIMP is fine if you don't care about color accuracy, but since pre-press DOES care about accuracy GIMP is unsuitable.

Well, I could point to *plenty* of things that you can do in only one operating system. You can only use appletalk on an Apple network. You can only use QBASIC on a Microsoft. You can only compile a tarball built with an IMakefile on BSD. You can only use apt-get on a Debian system. You can only use multi-threading on a POSIX-compliant system. Yadda, yadda. Doesn't inherently make anything superior to anything else. You're pointing to one instance of profession-specific functionality. In point of fact, there is a Gimp plugin project: http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml it seems to be getting some attention http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/pipermail/scribus/2003 -July/001415.html, but, hey, I don't type-set for newspapers so who knows if it's any good?

But I know this from my years of Linux use: There's no such thing as a problem that only one person's encountered. No matter how intricate your solution, there is at least one person who has searched for it before. Some people search, and give up, others search and, finding nothing, hack up their own solution. If it works in a big way, they post it for others to use. That's how it all started! I always figured, better to have the tools to do it myself, than pay somebody else to do it for me. PS: Gimp is certainly not the only graphics program on the Linux desktop, try researching http://www.mediainlinux.org/ MediainLinux live CD, a distro made specifically for media content creators in graphics, audio, and streaming media. Check their package list, see if you can Google about one of their programs and maybe it'll turn out to be what you need.

http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

it lacks the ability to do ANY calibrated color workflow.

Except for the plugin and the built in support in the development version that is...

I have four words for you: C M Y K Until then, shut the hell up.

Go Here. It probably needs some work still, but it's a good start. A few people should try converting some stuff for print and see if they can spot any bugs. The more you know about RBG->CMYK conversion, the more useful you'll be in testing.

Stopgap Measure.

Support is still in its early stages, but from what I hear it's useable.

http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml

http://www.freecolormanagement.com/color/gimp.html

Well, I'm a knowledgeable professional. In fact, I could almost boast you'd be hard pressed to find someone with more knowledge and experience with Photoshop. I say this with pride and arrogance because frankly I can. (though I know, there's always someone better than you out there...).

Now, having said this...The Gimp is "getting there". No, it doesn't have CMYK yet...yet. And it doesn't have color profiles, but those are in the works.

Five seconds and a little googling go a long way. Many "problems" that are reported with opensource software (such as the difficulty of a Debian install) are just a lack of five minutes and some google.

If Gimp was working satisfactory for you until now, then you don't need CMYK. Which is the only fine line difference between them, and user interface, yes.

Actually the GIMP has a CMKY plug-in now too. The author says it was a bit of a hack but it works. I haven't tried it myself as I have no need for that functionality. Still interesting though.

Speaking of the GIMP... What's been going on with GIMP development lately anyhow? It seems to be just crawling along. The GIMP used to be pretty close to Photoshop in funtionality but it's *really* starting to fall behind as of late. Even Paint Shop Pro is more featureful than the GIMP now. I'm not slamming the GIMP devs but I'm just wondering what has happened to this once prodigious project as of late?