GIMP goes SVG

An anonymous reader writes "The GIMP developers released a new snapshot in the development series. Version 1.3.21 (aka the path to excellence release) features an improved path tool with superb path stroking and adds SVG support. You can now export your GIMP paths to SVG and the new SVG import plug-in not only renders Scalable Vector Graphics for you at the desired resolution, it also imports SVG paths as GIMP paths."

Comments

LAMENS TERMS

[Malicious]

For those who think this is written in Greek

Gimp now Works like Photoshop AND Illustrator.

Re:LAMENS TERMS

[arcanumas]

I am Greek and yet i could not understand it. thanks.

Re:LAMENS TERMS

[jonadab]

`o Gimp hdh ergei ws `h Photoshop kai `h Illustrator.

Well, that's what the other poster said, anyway. I don't have a Greek
keyboard, so h is eta and w is omega, and ` is a rough breathing mark.

HTH.HAND.

SVG a Huge plus

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

The addition of vector graphics definitely pushes Gimp over the edge. I used to use Gimp for all sorts of little images, but occasionally had to opt for something commercial because many print corporations only use vector graphics.

Way to go Gimp! If doing practically everything photoshop can do for free didn't put Gimp on the map. The addition of SVG ought to.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[garcia]

we need ImageMagick to support it in covert. Not everyone has the Adobe SVG plugin and saving as a JPG via screenshots is a pain.

Then I would be happy :)

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Jameth]

What would put GIMP on the map is an easier interface (although 1.3 is a vast improvement, it still ain't photoshop)

Also, if you want a good vector graphics editor for free, try SodiPodi. It's good. Especially for a 0.3 level program.

P.S. This isn't meant to be rude to GIMP. It's being compared only to THE BEST. They actually have a better interface than most other programs that compete with Photoshop (that is, programs that I've tried).

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[garcia]

convert even.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[johnnyb]

I'm sorry, GIMP's interface may not be perfect, but Photoshop's is 1000x worse. The reason people "prefer" it is because it's what they are used to, not because of any inherent advantage to it. The only thing nice about Photoshop's interface is their custom-painted widgets. But if Photoshop isn't the only app running in your session, it's a pain to work with.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[iapetus]

From a quick look at Sodipodi (tried to edit the colour of a path with it, discovered that the saved file didn't seem to be compatible with Batik, did it in a text editor instead) it's a perfect example of a program that needs an easier interface. :)

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Eric Ass Raymond]

it is because it's what they are used to, not because of any inherent advantage to it.

I'm constantly amazed by this argument.

As if there was an objective way of comparing user interfaces. The only real measure of how good an interface is is how comfortable people feel while using it.

There's nothing wrong in liking a GUI because you're used to it. However, trying to coerce people to start using "a better GUI" (be it Gimp vs. Photoshop or X desktop vs. Win GUI) is wrong. There's no "better GUI" than the one you're already familiar with!

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[paroneayea]

Ah, making comics will be ever so much the easier now :)

Honestly, this makes me quite happy, because the Gimp is my favorite of all graphic editors.... yes, much better than photoshop or paint shop pro. Makes me wonder if these improvements are going to be ported there way over to Cinepaint?

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[TheTomcat]

AFAIK, The Gimp still has no CMYK support, so it is still [largely] unusable for print.

Correct me if I'm wrong, though.. haven't looked at The Gimp in many months.

S

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[FooBarWidget]

Yes there is: you just have to discover it. I much prefer GNOME 2 over Windows XP. By your reasoning, Windows 95 is the best GUI for me because I was familiar with that before everything else!

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[hey]

I agree the user interface is a mess. Perhaps going what is called MDI (multiple document interface) in the Windows world would be a step in the direction.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[spottedkangaroo]

On usability, I think it's all about what you learn first. I started on gimp and cannot figure out photoshop at all. I had boldly declared once, that I couldn't figure out photoshop and thought the interface sucked.

I learned that I was a victim of learning curve bias. I never did bother to learn photoshop, because I've been able to do everything I need to do in the gimp and don't really want to climb that learning curve without a reason.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[13Echo]

Please read http://mmmaybe.gimp.org/ to see that CMYK *is* now supported. Most of the features that people have been clamoring for will be supported by the next "stable" release.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Xoid629]

However, trying to coerce people to start using "a better GUI" (be it Gimp vs. Photoshop or X desktop vs. Win GUI) is wrong.

In this case, though, your parent post is merely saying that the GIMP's interface is good in its own right -- not that everyone should switch over to it.

The grandparent, on the other hand, is basically saying that the Gimp should be changed to be more familiar to Photoshop users. That may be a valid response to Everyone Should Switch Over arguments, but if trying to coerce someone into using a different GUI system is wrong, than trying to coerce someone into changing their program to a different GUI because you personally like it better is surely worse.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[TheTomcat]

Very cool. Thanks for the info.

Mods: mod parent up.

S

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[BrokenHalo]

I learned that I was a victim of learning curve bias. I never did bother to learn photoshop

It's the same with any tool. The more powerful it is, the longer it takes to learn to use it. I know a couple of graphic designers (familiar with Photoshop, as I am not) who have been impressed with output from the GIMP. That doesn't mean to say they'll switch, of course, since they've already paid for the product, but the GIMP has nothing to be ashamed of from a functionality point of view.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[johnnyb]

"The only real measure of how good an interface is is how comfortable people feel while using it."

No. It depends on the application. For applications that are a part of daily life, then the measure of how good an interface is is how fast a user can accomplish tasks, and how complete their interaction with the tool is. "Feeling comfortable" is really only useful for applications that you don't use very often.

Emacs, for example, is a wonderful interface for programmers, but a horrible interface for people who just want to type some notes. For those that depend on text-editting for their daily existence, it's flexibility and ability to customize to your working environment make it one of the best tools ever made. However, for those users who are on the line with Tech Support just wanting to edit 1 config file, it's not a good interface, but gedit is.

"There's nothing wrong in liking a GUI because you're used to it."

No, but claiming that it is better and others suck just because you're not used to it is.

"However, trying to coerce people to start using "a better GUI""

Not coercing anyone here. Simply pointing out that Photoshop's interface on Windows is not very ideal for people who have to use it all the time.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[ajs]

I *think* you are incorrect (based on my reading of those docs, long-standing usage and development for The Gimp, and my recent usage of the 1.3.x series).

As I understand it there are several problems surrounding CMYK and you're blurring them a bit:

• Output of RGB images to CMYK (e.g. for printing or saving to CMYK formats) -- Gimp has had this capability for a long time, but it's not very good, and continues to be "better but sub-optimal". Why? Because the best known ways of doing this are patented, mostly by Adobe.
  
• Selecting colors via CMYK -- Gimp has long had this feature, but you're really selecting in the RGB colorspace via CMYK controls.
  
• Decomposing an image into CMYK layers for CMYK-process printing -- long standing feature, as well implemented as possible given patents.
  
• Native use of CMYK color space for images -- I'm not sure, but it's my impression that this is still lacking. At least that was the case circa 1.3.18, and I don't see anything in this page you referecne (collected change logs) that indicates that it has changed. This would really be a 2.0 feature as it requires massive changes to the way image data is stored and managed, not to mention overhauling most of the plugins to deal with this data.
  

I think cinepaint (ne "film gimp") is also working on these features, but it's not clear to me how far they've gotten. Most of the cinematic use of digital artwork is, AFAIK still RGB, so it's not likely to be a huge priority.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[pridkett]

According to my version of convert, it does. Running:

convert lion.svg lion.png
eog lion.png

Pops up eye of gnome with the png version the cute little lion cub. No problems at all. I have had some problems with a few graphics in the past, but most seem to work fine. Also, for most SVGs PNG should be the preferred raster format to convert them as they are usually more solid colors than a photo, which is what JPEG is great for. This is done with the version of ImageMagick that ships with RedHat 9 (or maybe was updated with freshrpms), 5.4.7-10.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[ajs]

Hmmm, an interesting point to follow up my post: cinepaint does not have a strong push to do CMYK, according to their roadmap. Instead they cite their primary advantage over The Gimp (32-bit-per-channel color) as negating this need. They can output 8-bit-per-channel CMYK without "crushing" colorspace. Nifty.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[labratuk]

Brilliant. I'm always having this argument with my friends. Everybody kisses Photoshop's arse and talks about how it is such a godlike program. Those people usually haven't had to use it nine to five every day. For those of us who have, lets just say it was the absolute bane of my existance.

Everyone listening? Photoshop is a massive pain in the arse, people! It's not that great! There is a reason I choose to use the gimp at home!

Any volunteers to join my new 'Photoshop Sucks' club?

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[alex_ant]

You were modded down because it's not 1987 anymore

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[pavon]

As if there was an objective way of comparing user interfaces. The only real measure of how good an interface is is how comfortable people feel while using it.

There are indeed objective mesurements of an interface. The better interface is one that takes less time to complete your task, is less prone to errors, and once learned does not require one's attention to be taken from the task at hand. There are laws that allow one to estimate these factors for a given interface, and there are tests that can provide precise emperical data about the quality of an interface.

One of the biggest pet peves of user interface designers is that programmers consider thier work to be a "soft" art, as opposed to a "hard" science. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Just like in any feild, in some ways it is an art, as experience will allow you to jump to a likely solution quicker, but all of the guiding principles are well founded in scientific fact. In fact, half of what the original mac interface designers did was perform rigerous scientific tests to convince Jobs that their carefully designed interface really was measurable better than the random ideas that he would come up with.

That rant asside, there are interfaces that are roughly of equally quality, but different. Also, in different environments, differnent methods may be better than others. For example, it is better to use standard keyboard shortcuts, whatever they happen to be for the desktop you are using. This decreases modal errors (like habitually hitting Ctrl-S to save and getting a search box).

The efficiency of an interface changes as one becomes more familiar with it. Usually what interface designers look at is the limiting factor - how the interface will perform after the user has completely learned it. There are some cases where this is not the case. For example kiosks where most of the users are first time users, or a telemarketing company with high employee turn over. In these cases it is the short-term efficiency that matters. And, yes, what you are used to does factor greatly into this.

But for an artist, it is the long-term efficiency, not short-term efficiency, that matters. So unless the interface you are using is near perfect, there may very well be a better interface than the one you are using.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[mattdm]

I won't argue for Photoshop's inteface being perfect, but at least the menu choices are in the same physical place every time, not buried under four layers of variable-position right-click menus. This makes GIMP incredibly tedious to use.

Also, is it possible yet to make the cursors be actually the same size as the brush? I can't really work any other way.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[derF024]

Also, if you want a good vector graphics editor for free, try SodiPodi. It's good. Especially for a 0.3 level program.

I just installed this program and I've been playing with it for like 30 seconds. Wow. I've been looking for something like this for linux for quite a while.

Thanks!

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[jonadab]

Well, I *know* the best interface for me for many tasks is the
commandline, but I don't know whether it's because I learned it
first, or because it's just plain better.

Of course, I don't use the commandline for editing images. Unless
you count raytracing, but that's different.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[jonadab]

> It's the same with any tool. The more powerful it is, the longer
> it takes to learn to use it.

To learn to use it _fully_, yes. Some tools though have sensible
newbie-oriented defaults. (Emacs, it should be noted, is definitely
not one of them; I had to learn lisp before I could get comfortable
with Emacs; now, of course, I can't live without it.) To a lesser
extent, neither is Gimp. OpenOffice is better (assuming the user
isn't too used to MSO). I gave my mom and sister OO.o to use and
they have little trouble with it. Gimp, OTOH... is way, way beyond
my mom, and my sister still struggles with it.

Okay, so my sister does use Emacs, but only in one one major mode,
which I wrote, which does a hyper-specific thing; if you asked her
to use it for anything else, she'd be lost. I think she knows
two standard Emacs keystroke combinations, excluding the ones that
are specific to my major mode. She uses the mouse and menu for
open and save, and copy-and-paste doesn't come into play much for
the specific thing she uses it for.

Do my mom and sister use all the features of OpenOffice? No way.
They don't even set tab stops. But the interface for setting tab
stops is nicely unobtrusive and doesn't get in their way when they
type stuff in, and that's the key. I haven't seen a powerful
image editor yet that manages this. Gimp and photoshop certainly
don't, and MS Paint isn't what I'd call powerful. But let's face
it, word processing in general is much more seasoned than photo
editing, and the interface has had more time to be developed.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[BadDreamer]

The menus in GIMP tear off and will remain exactly where you place them, if that is what you like.

A quick look on the GIMP homepage will confirm that yes, the cursors can in fact be brush shaped now (in 1.3).

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[mattdm]

The menus in GIMP tear off and will remain exactly where you place them, if that is what you like.

Sort of -- once you've done that, the actions of that torn-off menu related to whichever window you've done something in last -- it doesn't keep track of which was actually last active. Unless this is changed in 1.3 -- I haven't looked. Maybe I'll go do that now. :) Also, the torn-off menu remains an inconvenient vertical column -- still harder to target.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[torenth]

Ugh, MDI for GIMP will be like what happened to the Photoshop interface when it was ported to Windows. I used to like Photoshop, but after I was forced to use the Windows version of Photoshop, due to the job I had at the time, the MDI interface irritated me so much that I switched to GIMP on my home machines even though, at the time, I didn't think it was as good.

If anything, what could be implemented is something similar to the Borland's answer to MDI, where there is a long window with a menu and status bar anchored to the top of the screen, and document windows floating freely over the desktop. MDI has always seemed like microsoft's answer to the macintosh menu bar, and really doesn't work as well.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Tokerat]

Perhaps you'd care to elaborate for us? Some specifics, please: What makes GIMP so much easier than Photoshop?

Not that I don't like GIMP at all, but I def. prefer Photoshop, and therefore wonder what the hell you people are talking about...

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Micah]

> not buried under four layers of variable-position right-click menus. This makes GIMP incredibly tedious to use.

Tried Gimp 1.3 yet? It has a menubar at the top of each image window. Nice.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[RustyTaco]

Maybe it's just me, but "variable-position" means "same motion" to me, where as photoshop's style of menu means I have to make a different (series) of motions to get to the same menu I'm a right-click away from in The Gimp. Also, Gimp/GTK menus are tareable (baring the wrath of the gnome "Make it stupid" interface guidelines), so if you're using a function a lot you can just tear that menu off and put it somewhere convineint. Or, if you really use it a lot you can very easily assign it a hotkey by hilighting the menu item and hitting the key you want.

I havn't seen that much effort placed into easing the workflow in PS, but I don't use PS much.

- RustyTaco

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[FooBarWidget]

It *is* plain better for many tasks. I growed up with GUI (Win95) and now I find any operating system without a commandline (like Windows) to be hard to use for anything complex.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[mattdm]

Cool. Looking very nice in other ways too. Thus reinforcing the "look before posting" rule. :)

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[4of12]

how comfortable people feel while using it

For me, the ideal GUI has a linear learning curve.

That is, it should be manifestly easy to start doing the simple things using your intuition.

Then, as you become more proficient and your needs more complex, additional features become exposed as you need them and are easily digestable within the framework of what you've already learned.

This is especially true for applications which are only used once every 6 months. Each time you need to climb the learning curve, it needs to be fast. For example, if you have to "just know" that you need to click `n claw your way down through a cascade of non-descriptive generic named menus", the application won't qualify in my book. I have to say I've used some customized applications which really suck on this count.

Actually, emacs is designed pretty well. Once the user goes into the "C-h t" tutorial, they can get by nicely (C-f moves Forward, C-b moves backward, C-d deletes, etc.). Later, if you want to know that every single key event can be tied to a customizable lisp function that depends on major and minor modes, then you're welcome to get as deeply customized and accelerated as you feel comfortable doing.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[orasio]

There are objective ways to compare interfaces. It is a discipline on its own, not just a slashdot ranting topic.

For example, GOMS can be used for an objective productivity test, and interfaces can be tested with "virgin" users, measuring response times and such. That studies are, of course, expensive, and that is the reason why there are not many numbers available, although big companies perfom those studies and make decisions according to that.

Apart from that, I had some trouble getting used to PhotoShop back in the Win95 time, but now I feel very comfortable with the Gimp, I like the fact that I can leave some menus floating, accelerating access to functions I need to perform often. I think that it has much to do with the kinds of things you like, and how committed you are to the whole windows GUI thing.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Jameth]

"I'm sorry, GIMP's interface may not be perfect, but Photoshop's is 1000x worse. The reason people 'prefer' it is because it's what they are used to, not because of any inherent advantage to it. The only thing nice about Photoshop's interface is their custom-painted widgets. But if Photoshop isn't the only app running in your session, it's a pain to work with."

You are completely wrong. I do not have photoshop available (I use it at school, not at home) so I cannot be too specific, but there are some general differences which are obvious:

On Custom Painted widgets:
Did you happen to notice that GTK is the GIMP ToolKit? They both have custom widgets. GIMP's widgets just suck. In fact, they have every failure they could for a raster editor widget set:
1) Big buttons: This means that all dialogs must be larger, generally clogging the screen. A raster editor NEEDS open space, and GIMP cannot have that.
2) Inaccurate Sliders: Although improved in 1.3.x, this is still bad in the stable and imperfect in the unstable. In the stable (1.2.x) they only have 100 points, which is horribly innacurate. However, they still do not have a defined center-point. This means that you cannot hit 0 on something from -100 to 100, even though it is an important point.
3) Only applying to 1.3.x: They do not guarantee that all buttons are visible. Open gimp and you will find (by default) that the tool options are an extension off of the toolbox. However, it starts 5 buttons wide and does not resize according to what is in it, and also doesn't get a scrollbar. Many tools have unreachable buttons, unless you resize it, which again takes up too much space.
4) Only applying to 1.2.x: Strangely resizing windows. Several windows, often open (tool options) resize depending on what you are doing, often drastically. This lets everything get seen, but makes it very hard to use.
5) Bad window sizes: The windows are all huge. They manage to convey about the same information (sometimes less and rarely more) yet are all large than the Photoshop windows. Also, they are all irregularly sized, so they do not easily fit together on the screen. On the other hand, Photoshop has carefully selected options so every sub-window is the same width and of one of four heights. What's more they are all small, yet still readable.
6) Issues with Hotkeys: In 1.2.x, they HotKeys aren't noted on the tooltips, a big mistake.
7) Hotkey Errors: Sometimes, hotkeys overlap. GIMP does not deal with this. Fire up GIMP 1.3.x, select an area, then hit any hotkey which uses SHIFT. In addition to switching which tool you are using, the mode of the rectagle select tool will be different next time you use it. It will be set to use additive select instead of replacement select. Hotkey overlap needs to be completely non-existent.
8) The Open/Save dialog is horrible. That is scheduled to change fairly soon (if I recall the GTK roadmap correctly) but it is still an error at the problem.

And, yes, I mean all of those as errors. They may be design errors, code errors, or other sorts of errors. They are all errors.

These were only things I could recall off the top of my head which are errors (mostly with the NEW version of GIMP) that do not occur in Photoshop.

Photoshop genuinely IS a better interface. GIMP has made much progress, but it still is not of the quality of Photoshop.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[justsomebody]

Sorry t let you know, but there are some people on the world that don't like Photoshop interface, and I'm one of them. Xinerama over 3 highres 22" monitors, well Photoshop i just a lame excuse to use on that.

Gimp interface rocks.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[BigSven]

Here's a simple trick to get a more compact GIMP user interface: Uncomment the following line in your ~/.gimp-1.3/gtkrc:

# class "GtkWidget" style "gimp-small-style"

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Jameth]

Just tried that. That does a little, but not much. Some buttons get smaller, which is an improvement, but all other errors I noted still apply.

Thank you for the tip. That should be in the configuration options available in GIMP. It may be, I have not check 1.3, but I did not see it in 1.2.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Jameth]

Photoshop doesn't run on xinerama, in part because it does not run on Linux. Note that xinerama is a Linux thing. And, yes, you can run Photoshop on multiple monitors with other systems. It isn't designed for it. However, people with three 22 inch monitors are a minority. A very small minority, even.

And, as to how Photoshop is a better interface, that's another matter. I responded to someone else as to why it is inferior, so you can look at that if you are wondering:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=81404&thresh ol d=0&commentsort=0&tid=92&mode=thread&cid=71579 02

Note that I am not talking about preference in this post, I am talking about a group of errors in GIMP. And, yes, they are all errors in design or code, but errors none-the-less.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[ajs]

Heh. Try re-reading. They're not trying to map into the entire CMYK color-space, they just want to save RGB images.

RGB maps into CMYK just fine, but at the bit-depth that Gimp uses, it doesn't.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Deusy]

What's so bad about GIMPs user interface?

Is it that it's MDI - quite like Dreamweaver, which nobody seems to bother about?

Ah, it's because, unlike Dreamweaver, the MDI uses separate windows. And Windows just doesn't provide the means by which to manage these windows. How ironic.

You see, in the Free Software world, any window manager worth it's salt provides window grouping so you can focus 'em all at once if you want to.

So I guess the problem with the GIMP is not it's interface, but that it's designed to run in environments that have the capacity to handle it. Choice is a fine thing.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Raphael]

You are raising some interesting issues. Some of them are well-know, but some others (e.g. middle point for sliders) haven't been reported earlier, as far as I know.

Please try to report them in Bugzilla. This is the best way to make sure that the GIMP developers do not forget about these problems. Some of them already have their own bug report and there is no need to submit a duplicate bug report, but you can add some comments to the existing one if you think that you could give a better description of how some problems could be solved.

You can use bugzilla.gnome.org to report GIMP bugs or search for existing ones. Or you can use the friendly interface from bugs.gimp.org if the default interface to Bugzilla scares you.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[BigSven]

GIMP-1.2 doesn't have this option. Support for GIMP user interface themes (in addition to GTK+ themes) has been added in the 1.3 series. The theming support is still a bit rough but in general it allows you make GIMP look different (for example more compact) than other GTK+2 applications on your desktop.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[johnnyb]

"What makes GIMP so much easier than Photoshop"

My _big_ thing is the Photoshop Multiple Document Interface. In order to use photoshop, I basically have to have it maximized on my screen. With GIMP, I can still see and interact with the rest of my desktop while GIMP is running.

I also love right-click menus and tear-off menus much more than top-of-application menus. I don't have to move my mouse to access the menu system, just right-click.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[johnnyb]

"For me, the ideal GUI has a linear learning curve."

Ideal for what?

For me the ideal GUI of applications I use every day is to have the most efficient workflow. It doesn't matter if the learning curve is steeper and higher than Mt. Kilimanjaro. If I use it every day, the time I spent learning it is small by comparison.

However, for the ones I don't use every day, I want the learning curve to be flat. Completely flat. Maybe even downhill. Since I don't use them everyday, I have to re-learn it all the time.

Thus, there's usually multiple interfaces that are optimal for different people based on how much they use the program. For example, Wolfram Research has the Mathematica program, which is somewhat difficult to use but very powerful, and CalculationCenter, which is a much more task-oriented version of the same thing.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Jameth]

"You see, in the Free Software world, any window manager worth it's salt provides window grouping so you can focus 'em all at once if you want to."

You, sir, are an idiot. What Window Manager might you be refering to? Lets see, I use KDE. Does it do that stuff. Actually, no. Even if you set it to group all windows always, it fails because it does not have an option to raise one window from a group and always assumes that the first in the list is the window you meant if you clicked on it, meaning that, although it may work marginally (although difficultly) for The GIMP, it causes all other programs to have broken behavior.

And, if you meant KDE "isn't worth it's salt," your an idiot. It's right up there for being the best window manager.

Furthermore, that's not even what I was talking about, but thank you for pointing out how badly broken it is.

As to what I WAS talking about, here is a short list of errors in the GIMP interface which cause significant problems. This is just what I can recall off the top of my head.

On Custom Painted widgets:
Did you happen to notice that GTK is the GIMP ToolKit? They both have custom widgets. GIMP's widgets just suck. In fact, they have every failure they could for a raster editor widget set:
1) Big buttons: This means that all dialogs must be larger, generally clogging the screen. A raster editor NEEDS open space, and GIMP cannot have that.
2) Inaccurate Sliders: Although improved in 1.3.x, this is still bad in the stable and imperfect in the unstable. In the stable (1.2.x) they only have 100 points, which is horribly innacurate. However, they still do not have a defined center-point. This means that you cannot hit 0 on something from -100 to 100, even though it is an important point.
3) Only applying to 1.3.x: They do not guarantee that all buttons are visible. Open gimp and you will find (by default) that the tool options are an extension off of the toolbox. However, it starts 5 buttons wide and does not resize according to what is in it, and also doesn't get a scrollbar. Many tools have unreachable buttons, unless you resize it, which again takes up too much space.
4) Only applying to 1.2.x: Strangely resizing windows. Several windows, often open (tool options) resize depending on what you are doing, often drastically. This lets everything get seen, but makes it very hard to use.
5) Bad window sizes: The windows are all huge. They manage to convey about the same information (sometimes less and rarely more) yet are all large than the Photoshop windows. Also, they are all irregularly sized, so they do not easily fit together on the screen. On the other hand, Photoshop has carefully selected options so every sub-window is the same width and of one of four heights. What's more they are all small, yet still readable.
6) Issues with Hotkeys: In 1.2.x, they HotKeys aren't noted on the tooltips, a big mistake.
7) Hotkey Errors: Sometimes, hotkeys overlap. GIMP does not deal with this. Fire up GIMP 1.3.x, select an area, then hit any hotkey which uses SHIFT. In addition to switching which tool you are using, the mode of the rectagle select tool will be different next time you use it. It will be set to use additive select instead of replacement select. Hotkey overlap needs to be completely non-existent.
8) The Open/Save dialog is horrible. That is scheduled to change fairly soon (if I recall the GTK roadmap correctly) but it is still an error at the problem.

And, yes, I mean all of those as errors. They may be design errors, code errors, or other sorts of errors. They are all errors.

These were only things I could recall off the top of my head which are errors (mostly with the NEW version of GIMP) that do not occur in Photoshop.

Photoshop genuinely IS a better interface. GIMP has made much progress, but it still is not of the quality of Photoshop.

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[Tokerat]

Ahh, there is no MDI on a Mac, so yes, I'd imagine that could be a pain.

I like the right -click menus too but I'm not sure if I'd prefer full program control or the contexual right-click like Photoshop... perhaps it's time to give the ol' GIMP another shot...

Re:SVG a Huge plus

[ajs]

Heh.

No need to be rude. What you're getting at is right, but irrelevant. You can express the entire RGB color-space in a well defined way in CMYK.

What you're saying is that for any given non-linear conversion there are "compromises" made, and that's 100% true, but totaly ignorable for the cinepaint folks. They don't care about that because they have a job to do: convert RGB images to 8-bit tiff CMYK output.

That conversion is well defined, but given an 8-bit RGB image to start, there is some unfortunate slop that occurs in terms of bridging color-gaps. When you start with a 24-bit-per-channel RGB image you have a much more realistic conversion result in 8-bit CMYK.

THAT is what the cinepaint folks want to take advantage of.

To quote them,

Because CinePaint is 32-bit, RGB to CMYK is a down-conversion and doesn't crush color like other programs. With 8-bit programs 3-channel RGB (24-bit) is up-converted to 4-channel CMYK (32-bit). No need to work natively in CMYK in CinePaint -- simply convert from 16-bit per channel RGB (48-bit).

Feel free to follow the link in my original post....

Re:OFFTOPIC - Alternate story

[Anonymous Coward]

saw it too - clicking got me this message:
"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."

nice treatment.

GIMP website interface...

[chill]

The look of www.gimp.org will be changing.

Re:GIMP website interface...

[buddha42]

Good for them, it Validates, and looks a lot nicer. I'm glad to see they took the navigational links out of images, I hate that practice.

Re:GIMP website interface...

[bobv-pillars-net]

OT, but does anybody know what software they are using on mmmaybe.gimp.org ? I looked at the HTML output and concluded that it might be plone, but maybe that's just my prejudice showing.

Re:GIMP website interface...

[Raphael]

Hmmm... It looks like you posted your question twice, in reply to two different comments. I have already replied to the other comment, so I will simply add a link to my previous reply.

Re:GIMP website interface...

[Raphael]

You may not see it immediately, but we also made some extra efforts to make the site look nicer in lynx and other text-based browsers. This is a nice side-effect of having cleaner XHTML code and using some CSS features for hiding some contents depending on what the browser supports. There are still some issues with the old Netscape4, but overall the new site should be more accessible than the old one.

SVG is the future

[CausticWindow]

Get an SVG enabled Mozilla build and start playing with it. It's fun.

Re:SVG is the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Integrated SVG also avoid EOLAS Plug-in patents!

Re:SVG is the future

[sketerpot]

I'm holding out for a SVG enabled Firebird build. Firebird is a lot nicer for me than the vanilla Mozilla, but compiling my own is, right now, not an option. I'm stuck on windows, which doesn't have the Gentoo ports system or anything!

Re:SVG is the future

[aDc_73]

SVG in the KDE 3.2a also looks pretty sweet ;-)

Re:SVG is the future

[Laur]

I'm stuck on windows, which doesn't have the Gentoo ports system or anything!

Are you sure?

Re:SVG is the future

[sketerpot]

Help, my brain is exploding! Anyway, that's cool but I'd still like to have a native windows build, rather than install xfree86 and use it. I'll check it out, though. Thanks.

GIMP for Windows?

[JeanPaulBob]

I checked the GIMP for Windows website, and it seems 1.3.2 isn't out yet for us poor non-Windows users. Does anyone know when it'll be available?

Re:GIMP for Windows?

[FedeTXF]

See Here and Here

Re:GIMP for Windows?

[JeanPaulBob]

Er, sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say, "for us poor non-Linux users".

Re:GIMP for Windows?

[ScriptGuru]

http://wiki.gimp.org/gimp/WindowsInstall Not sure how old it is though.

Re:GIMP for Windows?

[Zulithe]

And soon, Pirated PS8!

What does this mean for Sodipodi?

[Chilltowner]

I wonder what the Sodipodi developers are going to do with this. Hopefully, there will be lots of cooperation. Sodipodi is rapidly maturing into a truly great vector graphics app for Linux and Windows (and OS X over X11, I'd guess). If the two projects cooperated, we could have an Illustrator killer on our hands!

Re:What does this mean for Sodipodi?

[p3d0]

Could it also be a Flash killer?

Re:What does this mean for Sodipodi?

[Raphael]

One of the goals of adding SVG support in the GIMP was to allow better cooperation between the GIMP and Sodipodi or other vector-based applications.

Until recently, if you were using Sodipodi, you had to convert your SVG file to a bitmap format (such as PNG) before being able to load it in the GIMP. Now it is possible to import the SVG file directly into the GIMP and make some minor adjustments before creating the final image. You can also convert some parts of the SVG (imported as paths in the GIMP) to selections and apply more complex effects that what SVG would allow.

Note that the SVG support in the GIMP is only due to the integration of the SVG plug-in that had been available since a while as part of libsvg. So it's nothing really new, although including it as part of the default GIMP distribution seems to make a significant difference.

Re:What does this mean for Sodipodi?

[BigSven]

Raphael, your last paragraph completely missed the point (while you are perfectly right in the first two). The SVG import plug-in that used to live in librsvg can only render SVG to a bitmap. This is sort of nice but it is indeed not worth mentioning. The significant difference is the fact the GIMP core can now import paths from SVG files. This functionality is not provided by the plug-in. It's just a nice add-on that the user interface for path import was also added to the SVG import plug-in.

Re:What does this mean for Sodipodi?

[Raphael]

Thanks for the correction, Sven. Indeed, the ability to work on the paths derived from the SVG file (as I mentioned in my second point) is one of the main points of the new SVG support.

Re:What does this mean for Sodipodi?

[GreyWolf3000]

Come on guys, be honest. Was that staged?

Re:What does this mean for Sodipodi?

[Raphael]

Was that staged?

Errr... No, honestly.

But I will think about it and prepare some nice dialogues for the next time the GIMP is mentioned on /. ;-)

Three Questions

[Jameth]

1) Did they waste time writing it all themselves, or are they interworking with SodiPodi? SodiPodi is an excellent piece of software if you want to edit SVG.

2) Does it just import them and make paths, or is it a full-featured SVG editor? Someone else commented on it now being Photoshop+Illustrator, but that's a whole different thing. Photoshop also supports importing SVG and AI format, it just doesn't edit them. (see question three)

3) Does it make this simple? I've tried to figure a way to do both Vector and Raster editing in one program before, and had some ideas, but nothing that would truly make it easy. The reason Illustrator and Photoshop are separate is not for the chance to sell two products (although I suspect that influences the idea a bit) but because there isn't a way to do vector and raster editing in a well mixed manner. At best, you end up with something that changes back and forth between being a vector editor and a raster editor depending on what is selected.

Re:Three Questions

[Cyclops]

A long time ago when I still used non-free software, there was this pretty usefull MacOS application called SuperPaint which incorporated Paint and Draw (it rocked...).

As for UI, well, I just had to click a swap view button and the tool bars would change to something appropriate.

So yeah, I think its relatively simple.

Re:Three Questions

[Pope Raymond Lama]

The answer for the three questions is:

All that was added is the ability to
import and export raster files encapsulated
as SVG - AND import and export Gimp vector - The Bezier Paths existing in gimp 1.2.x.

Re:Three Questions

[Jameth]

Bezier paths alone do not a vector graphics program make.

Re:Three Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

1) I can't comment on this one. I hope they are working together.

2) Again, good question.

3) Macromedia Fireworks has had vector and bitmap graphics side by side for some time now. It isn't too great for large file sizes, but it is pretty awesome otherwise. I hope GIMP can compare to it. Once you get used to the Macromedia way of doing things, it is pretty easy to use. Your point is well taken, however, it can be confusing to edit bother vector and bitmap graphics with the same program.

Re:Three Questions

[Jameth]

Sorry. That sounded rude. I should think longer before I say things.

Re:Three Questions

[GundyRage]

Basically, SVG can be imported and then used as paths. It also looks like the paths could be exported as SVG. This is not meant to be an "illustrating" program. Paths are nice to get smooth strokes and masks but you would not use this to generate your line art for a new logo or whatever. More likely, you would take the logo, pull the best vectors out of it, save them to SVG and then import it into the Gimp where you could then use that to simplify the creation of your raster based logo.

I could be wrong about all of this since I was unable to build it last night. I would have needed to many updates to my system. :( I guess I'll wait till it goes 2.0. :)

Anyway it's good to see the Gimp rockin' on. I for one hope Sodipodi (pure SVG) gets a boost by the attention SVG is getting from this. - G

Re:Three Questions

[bolsh]

> 1) Did they waste time writing it all themselves, or are they interworking with SodiPodi? SodiPodi is an excellent piece of software if you want to edit SVG.

We (or rather Sven) used rsvg to read and render the SVG as a bitmap.

> 2) Does it just import them and make paths, or is it a full-featured SVG editor? Someone else commented on it now being Photoshop+Illustrator, but that's a whole different thing. Photoshop also supports importing SVG and AI format, it just doesn't edit them. (see question three)

It just imports SVG to a rastermap, and exports paths to SVG. There is no support for the funky stuff like gradient fills, object groups, etc. This is not a vector graphics program.

> 3) Does it make this simple?

Yes. You load your SVG, specifying the size of the bounding box, and there you go.

Cheers,
Dave.

Re:Three Questions

[JudasBlue]

Actually, the newest rev of Macromedia's Firewworks mixes raster and vector graphics quite well.

That program is the one reason I have to boot a Windows machine now and then. There is nothing I have found that is faster for producing web interface mock-ups. It doesn't have the same range of power as Photoshop + Illustrator, or for raster even The Gimp, but I can do basic work, and 90% of non-print stuff is basic work, in about 1/10th the time.

If The Gimp gets decent vector editing capabilities, I can finally get rid of the annoying Windows machine I keep around just for this.

Re:Three Questions

[TomorrowPlusX]

But, speaking as a reasonably professional graphic designer, I can say you're right. This SVG import/export functionality is nice stuff -- certainly -- but for *creating* complex illustrations I'll stick with software aimed at that target.

Re:Three Questions

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

I've tried to figure a way to do both Vector and Raster editing in one program before, and had some ideas, but nothing that would truly make it easy. The reason Illustrator and Photoshop are separate is not for the chance to sell two products (although I suspect that influences the idea a bit) but because there isn't a way to do vector and raster editing in a well mixed manner. At best, you end up with something that changes back and forth between being a vector editor and a raster editor depending on what is selected.

PaintShopPro can do this! Layers are either bitmap or vector, and you do have to use different tools with each, but it does work fairly well. I've not use Adobe Illustrator so I can't compare, although I suspect it is lacking a lot of the functionality, it is still very feature complete and usable/useful.

So a version of Gimp that can do vectors would rather piss on PaintShopPro's cornflakes wouldn't it?!

Kind of shame actually, as PSP does have a huge number of features, works very well and (okay its not OSS) only costs 90. [I don't work for the BTW - I just think its always been a sensibly priced product as opposed to Adobe products!]

Re:Three Questions

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Sorry. That sounded rude. I should think longer before I say things.

Naaa, it sounded more like Yoda!

SVG rendering engine?

[4of12]

So what does the GIMP use to render SVG and how good is it?

In particular, is it different from the libart that Mozilla has been using?

The world really needs a high quality open source SVG renderer. Adobe's plugins don't exist for every platform and Batik, AFAIK, relies on Java 2D.

Re:SVG rendering engine?

[msevior]

I believe it uses librsvg. The fastest and most complaint SVG renderer out there.

(Maintained by my good friend and fellow AbiWord developer Dom Lachowicz)

Martin

Re:SVG rendering engine?

[dominator]

Fastest? Maybe. Entirely compliant? Hah! In my dreams ;-)

Yes, the Gimp has stolen my RSVG plugin. No doubt Sven and Yosh have since souped it up.

Best regards,
Dom

JPG properties

[javatips]

Any news if GIMP now (or will) retain properties embeded in JPG images when saving as JPG?

V1.2.4 does not support this which make it an inconvenient choice to edit pictures taken with a digital camera. All JPG properties like date the picture was shot and other parameters get lost when saving.

Re:JPG properties

[Captain Large Face]

Apparently, EXIF data is kept in JPEG files from version 1.3.16, which should be what you're after.

Outstanding!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your message is nothing but a sea of errors.

First, it's "layman's." (Lamens? Is that a brand of ramen noodles or something?)

Secondly, no, this announcement does NOT mean GIMP works like Photoshop AND Illustrator. Nothing of the sort, not even close. ALL this means is that GIMP can now save into a scalable vector format designed for the web. The decidedly low- to mid-tier GIMP project still has a long way to go before it even touches Photoshop, let alone Illustrator (although, so as not to seem like *too* much of a troll, I will say that GIMP is pretty darn good as a basic image editor. Can't beat the price, for sure).

I understand it's exciting to post on Slashdot and all, but, you seriously just posted a message that does not contain a single correct statement. That's pretty... err, lame.

Re:Outstanding!

[cosmo7]

I really don't see the big deal. SVG is an exceptionally easy format to parse, not like trying to make sense of (presumably deliberately obfuscated) illustrator epsfs.

Re:Outstanding!

[draphael]

Being able to parse a format does not mean that your application 'supports' the format. SVG is XML, and XML is easy to parse - reader.parse(doc);

But I hardly think that is what this article is about.

There is a lot of work involved in interpreting the nuances of SVG see the W3C Standard for SVG. I think you will find that there is quite a bit of work in order to support SVG bi-directionally in an application.

-dave

rudimentary CMYK separation also

[ubiquitin]

There is also a rudimentary plugin now which handles CMYK color separations here. Also, the MacGIMP site had a story on the SVG changes as well before it was posted on Slashdot.

awesome

[romanofski]

I tested the ex- and import features of the paths with sodipodi and have only three words for ya: This is awesome!

Re:awesome

[radoni]

So, begs the question...

Are you running for office in california?

*karma ducks*

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only confusing if you're an unskilled idiot. Instead of blathering on about things you can't grasp, fuck off why don't you?

I made the transistion from Photoshop to GIMP (with 20 years of graphic design experience behind me) with no trouble. The only people who seem to have problems with it are people who either don't "get" computer based illustration or have no artistic background. GIMP is far more than a basic paint program. I dare you to use Microsoft paint to edit images with the flexibility and speed that GIMP offers. I challenge ANYONE to do this. It's simply not possible. The GIMP toolset is fully featured and usable by anyone with a clue regarding computers and graphic design. Anyone who disagrees has obviously not worked with real graphic design. I wouldn't use GIMP for print work quite yet, but it's amazing for web graphics and stuff to be displayed on screen. And remember professional graphic design != printing 100% of the time. Again, I say go fuck off.

The GIMP New Web Site

[Pope Raymond Lama]

The GIMP is on the road for a 2.0 release that shall happen this year. Actually, this 1.3.21 release shall be the last one before the 2.0pre release series.

Do not miss the new GIMP site, taht will soon replace the contents in www.gimp.org: mmaybe.gimp.org .

Re:The GIMP New Web Site

[bobv-pillars-net]

OT, but does anybody know what software they are using? I looked at the HTML output and concluded that it might be plone, but mmmaybe that's just my prejudice showing.

Re:The GIMP New Web Site

[Raphael]

Well, I can tell you from a reliable source that the software used for maintaining the web site is a combination of CVS for storing all source files (module gimp-web in gnomecvs), good old hand-written XHTML for the contents of a pages, and a custom set of Python scripts for wrapping the page contents into the templates (header, footer, menu bar). Until a few weeks ago, the last part was done using Apache SSI, but now the pages are pre-processed by the scripts instead of requiring the web server to do all the work for every request.

If you want to know who worked on what part of the new GIMP web site, have a look at the team page or simply look at the ChangeLog after checking out the gimp-web module.

Re:The GIMP New Web Site

[imroy]

The GIMP is on the road for a 2.0 release that shall happen this year. Actually, this 1.3.21 release shall be the last one before the 2.0pre release series.

My understanding was that 2.0 is still a ways off and that this 1.3 development cycle is leading to a 1.4 stable release. This 1.3 devel cycle is meant to clean out all of the old cruft from 0.6->0.9->->1.0->1.2, in particular bringing the codebase in line with GTK+ 1.3/1.4. Remember, GTK+ is the Gimp ToolKit. It developed with The Gimp so there was a lot of old code in The Gimp from the days when GTK+ was a lot simpler. Anyway, Gimp 2.0 will use GEGL to handle multiple colour spaces (e.g HSV, CMY/CMYK, YCC, cieLab XYZ) and depths (e.g 48/64-bit RGB/RGBA, floating point, HDR). When 2.0 is released, the abomination that is currently CinePaint (personal opinion) should be largely unnecessary.

Re:The GIMP New Web Site

[Pope Raymond Lama]

Well, what you describe above is actually the roadmap for The GIMP, but not the version numbers.

GEGL and the pletora of imaging modes and models have been postponed to what more likely will be GIMP 3.0, to come out by the end of 2004, or in early 2005, according to the current roadmap.

2.0 is scheduled for release this year, with RGBA - 8bpp color support only and allowing conversions to CMYK. The version number changing was resolved on the GIMP Developers list around July this year.

As it is, we will have GIMP 2.0 this year, followed shortly by one or two bug-fixes releases, and them a bunch of new features in a 2.2 around the middle of 2004 - but still no change to GEGL.

Re:The GIMP New Web Site

[imroy]

Ah man, replying to my own post and after less than ten minutes too. I see a post from BigSven, presumebly Gimp developer Sven Neumann. The next version apprently will be called 2.0, not 1.4 after all. So I don't know what the GEGL-based version will be called, 3.0 perhaps? Oh, and the version of GTK+ it was catching up with was 1.3 at the time, but has since gone stable to 2.0 and with all the GNOME 2 hoopla has made it to 2.2 (at least on my Debian unstable/sid machine here it is). Glad to clear that up... :P

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Jellybob]

Have you tried the development version? (x.3 I think) - they've GTK2ed the interface, and made it a lot easier to use.

Re:OFFTOPIC - Alternate story

[!the!bad!fish!]

WTF?br> RTFA its 100% Sony DVD/PVR and nothing else.

and how about mozilla?

[cyfer2000]

From what I remember, mozilla and adobe have different way to show SVG, so which one does GIMP support better?

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Richard_at_work]

Including the Windows version? I keep trying it and then going back to other commercial packages because the interface is so damn auwful.

Re:OFFTOPIC - Alternate story

[identity0]

Shit! It's a glitch in the Matrix! Quick, grab your guns and head for the nearest landline! They'll never take us al$#@... NO CARRIER

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Eric Ass Raymond]

GUIs are not about logic. They are about comfort.

Perhaps GIMP's weird menu system is more logical, but to most people it's confusing.People in general tend to see confusing GUIs as a bad and unconfortable.

A good GUI is the one with which most of the people are already familiar with. Tweak it slightly and the customers will follow, but radical changes will only serve to annoy people. If you want to develop your GUI do it like you'd boil a frog - slowly.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[theefer]

Good for you you can afford the Photoshop (+Illustrator?) license.

I can't.

And for most non-graphical artists, TheGimp is not only completely sufficient, but also quite powerful. And, of course, Free Software, which is a good enough reason for me to use it over proprietary alternatives.

Other goodies to look foward to in gimp 1.3.x

[Anonymous Coward]

The new improved GUI, complete with easier menus, new docking system, frendlier help.

CMYK support!

Now uses GTK 2, no more ugly fonts, no more GREY, its all in the colour you want!

Hundreds of new plugins, and there is the excellent plug in registry as well. If there isn't a filter you wan't then it can easily be created due to the GIMP's API

Support for standards from the freedesktop project, including thumnails.

The new Docking gui, which allows you to reduce your screen clutter! Just drag and drop those tabs!

Much faster, starts in around 3 seconds, and it uses MMX extentions to accelerate your graphics filters.

Simply put, gimp 1.3.x is really powerful, and Adobe should start to become worried. Remember, if the feature you wan't isn't there, it will be soon due to the extremly rapid development. Even a 0.01 increment == TONS of features!

Also, the "gimp" himself looks a lot cuter in SVG.

How robust is SVG?

[XSforMe]

How well does it scale? AutoCAD seems to be the current champion when it comes to vector graphics. I would not consider SVG until I could see some heavy duty 2D schematics done with this tool.

Our shop has been drawing in dwg format for the last 2 years, but when it comes to integrating our drawings with the final report we have always have to print it out and rescan it as raster to have semi-decent results in word. Its either that or spend a bundle in the Autoview's plugin for Word to be able to import into Word.

Re:How robust is SVG?

[styrotech]

How well does it scale? AutoCAD seems to be the current champion when it comes to vector graphics. I would not consider SVG until I could see some heavy duty 2D schematics done with this tool.

Hehe, while schematics are vector graphics, you can't necessarily say vector graphics are schematics.

I wouldn't want use to AutoCAD for graphic design - and I say that as an ex AutoCAD drafter.

I would be great if SVG ends up becoming a unified format that is widely used for drafting, diagramming and graphic design (and web browsers!). I assume that because SVG is XML that vocabularies for all those areas would be possible.

SVG already has waay more graphic features than needed for schematics - after all they are pretty much just lines (incl splines etc) and text. The hard part is organising and tracking all the metadata - even just low level stuff like blocks, layers, scales etc. Exporting to SVG would be very easy for a 2D CAD app, more work would probably be needed to make SVG a native CAD format though.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[michib01]

Download all necessary libraries and compile them on you own.
They already offer you the source code... Should they also compile everything for Windows for free too?
C'mon...

Almost there

[t_allardyce]

I took another look at gimp the other day (as i do with lots of programs im trying to replace with oss) and noted the bad path features - i couldnt even stretch a path (unless im missing something), although selection -> path was damn good and useful! also i couldnt stretch fonts or export them to paths (unless i used selection -> path tool which probably isnt optimised for that). I'll take another look, but i cant wait for 2.0! thats gotta rock - although i have no idea what they are going to do? - if they added CMYK (which means re-writing all the filters) and they made some sort of effects stack (photoshop has started to do that with layer effects for drop shadow, glow, outline etc. and filter layers for contrast/levels etc.) they could beat photoshop to the ground! Effects stacks are vital in my opinion, which is why blender hasnt caught my eye yet (3D Max has a good stack). CMYK is also pretty vital but i would live without it - not doing print work.

The last thing i found gimp lacking in was a macro feature - obviously it has the most extensive scripting/plug-in ability ive ever seen but it needs a basic macro for 5-min jobs that even art students can figure out how to use.

Re:Almost there

[13Echo]

CMYK is now supported in this version. By the time this branch becomes "stable", it should have almost all of the features that people have been complaining about.

http://mmmaybe.gimp.org/ has more info.

Re:Almost there

[BigSven]

The text tool has a button that allows you to create paths from a text layer. Text transformations (scale, rotate, shear, ...) is being worked on and should make it into 2.0.

Re:Almost there

[Jon Abbott]

It has been my impression that the CMYK whiners have been wanting Pantone along with CMYK support... While CMYK is possible to implement, doesn't Pantone require paying for a license?

Re:Almost there

[thegoldenear]

> (as i do with lots of programs im trying to replace with oss)

If you need more, take a look at our list of Free and other predominantly non-commercial software at http://thegoldenear.org/toolbox/windows/software.h tml

Re:Almost there

[MenTaLguY]

Patent licenses, trademark license, and an expensive certification process. Some of which is actually reasonable, given what Pantone does; some of which is not.

INACCURATE TERMS-GUI expert speaks.

[Anonymous Coward]

"A good GUI is the one with which most of the people are already familiar with."

Apple agrees with you. Up next MacWinLongsteer.

"Tweak it slightly and the customers will follow, but radical changes will only serve to annoy people. "

DOS-->Win3.0
Win3.1-->Win95

"If you want to develop your GUI do it like you'd boil a frog - slowly."

MacOS 9-->MacOS 10.1

SVG support?

[bender647]

A barrier for me using SVG is that the graphics I make are not importable into the (MS) tools the people I work with use. If I was pointed to a good SVG2something tool, I'd be more excited.

Re:SVG support?

[Tekmage]

Visio 2003 has SVG support. I didn't get a chance to beta test it though, so I can't comment on it's capabilities and integration into the rest of M$* 2003 applications.

Re:SVG support?

[Jameth]

If they only need to see it, they can use the Adobe Plugin or you can put it in a raster image as output.

If they want to edit it, tell them to use Adobe Illustrator. It edits SVG perfectly. Import, export, edit, whatever. Of course, it treats it like any other vector in it, so you have to avoid any features not supported by SVG, but those aren't many. (The only one I don't see support for is a gradient mesh)

SVG is not the future

[FooBarWidget]

Not until it's supported by Internet Explorer.
This is not a troll, this is the truth. Joe Average doesn't care; a new vector graphics format is only exciting to geeks. Joe Average only cares about "images", regardless of the underlying technology.
Unless either IE supports SVG natively, or everybody has an SVG plugin, SVG will never become popular.

Re:SVG is not the future

[tomstdenis]

This is what people said about PNG support back in the day too. About flash, about ...

Whoops.

If decent tools are made to support a format it will find it's way in. Heck even pbrush can save PNG files [IIRC] in WinXP.

In fact if memory serves me MSFT just uses a base of libpng for their PNG support in the first place [they prolly mod it up and add some .NET goodies or whatnot].

So some OSS nut writes a non-GPL libsvg and it will likely find it's way into MSFT IE.

Tom

Re:SVG is not the future

[Lussarn]

I can think of one or two places on the corporate intranet where SVG could be usefull. And on the intranet it's easier to push mozilla based technology.

Re:SVG is not the future

[caseih]

IE doesn't support flash either, and it's wide-spread. All you need is to embedd a link to the SVG active-X control and users will pick it up on the fly. No big deal. Average Joe's don't even know flash isn't supported natively. They still use it.

Don't look for any new features in IE for the next several years. By integrating it tightly into the OS and killing it as a standalone product, Microsoft has effectively eliminated all potential innovation in the browser area, since browser releases now equals OS releases. IE 7 won't be out until Longhorn (at least a year away), and even then it won't be widely used as most people will never migrate off XP for the life of their machines.

This is an unprecedented opportunity for Mozilla to win the browser war. Being a standalone installable app (that can run on win98 and up), Mozilla can add new features and support new standards. Just spread the word. Tell your friends. Talk to your favorite web developers.

Re:SVG is not the future

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

What if IE were to lose it's market dominating position? Could happen once it gets far enough behind in technology. IE: the Notepad of browsers.

Re:SVG is not the future

[rmohr02]

The Adobe SVG Viewer that supports basic scripting in IE. If it's reasonable to expect people to download Flash, Shockwave, Acrobat Reader, etc., then they can download the SVG Viewer.

Re:SVG is not the future

[jonadab]

IE will never be Notepad. First, because it's many times as capable
(*Anything* is many times as capable as notepad) but more importantly
because end users don't care about text editing, don't do enough of
it to count, and end users are the people who don't install better
apps. IE, as long as it is bundled, will always have a decent market
share. It may not keep the overwhelming share it has, but it will
have at least 30% or so, as long as it is bundled with the dominant
OS, regardless of all other considerations. And that's if the major
ISPs put something else in their connection kits.

Therefore, websites (excepting ones specifically geared toward
powerusers or developers or geeks) will always have to be sure that
they degrade gracefully into IE. It can never be just _dropped_,
like Netscape 4 has been.

Re:SVG is not the future

[Lars Arvestad]

IE: the Notepad of browsers

Wow, that is such a great insult!

It is almost as if I have to go find/create an enemy to try it on.

Re:SVG is not the future

[tomstdenis]

"Support is awful"???

Um yeah there ain't no alpha channel but the images still render. And for all intents and purposes that's good enough for most cases.

While I'm not a web "artiste" I don't think I've used GIF for anything since I had dial-up ten years ago. JPG/PNG is supported enough that my banners/screenshots will show up as I expect them too.

Tom

Re:SVG is not the future

[westlake]

Most users seem content with Internet Explorer.
tabbed browsing and mouse gestures are an acquired taste, and for popups there is the Google toolbar. You can make a browser smaller and a tad more responsive, but improvements of this sort have become marginal at best.

Re:SVG is not the future

[dimator]

IIRC, I read somewhere that installing Adobe Acrobat reader also installs the Adobe SVG plugin on your system...

Re:SVG is not the future

[FooBarWidget]

"This is what people said about PNG support"

Yes and look at it today: it's *still* heavily underused. GIFs are still more widely used than PNGs. Plus MSIE's broken PNG alpha support doesn't help the situation either.

"About flash"

The only reason why Flash is so popular is because *almost everybody has a plugin*! Which was my point!

Re:SVG is not the future

[FooBarWidget]

"IE doesn't support flash either, and it's wide-spread."

But almost everybody has the Flash plugin (I'm pretty sure it's even included in Windows by default). *That*'s the difference. How many people do you know have an SVG plugin?

"All you need is to embedd a link to the SVG active-X control and users will pick it up on the fly."

In my experience the ActiveX autoinstaller is either very often broken, or takes ages to download. A lot of users will probably get annoyed, go to another site, and yell "OMFG SVG SUCKS!!!".

Re:SVG is not the future

[tomstdenis]

I use PNGs and I'm the center of the universe.

ergo everyone uses PNG.

Tom

Re:SVG is not the future

[FooBarWidget]

By not supporting alpha properly they have effectively eliminated one of *the* most important reasons why anyone would choose PNG over GIF.

Re:SVG is not the future

[WoTG]

Exactly. It also happens to be an older version of Flash that comes with Windows. People on locked down PC's have a hard time with websites that insist on using the latest Flash version (7) - for some reason their support requests to get Flash player upgraded go to the bottom of the queue... =)

Re:SVG is not the future

[rmohr02]

Even better.

I don't mean to gripe but....

[MarcoAtWork]

This is not flamebait, but why instead of focusing development efforts on stuff that has marginal appeal at best, the developers don't try to implement the #1 missing feature in GIMP (for photo retouching, IMHO of course)

Adjustment layers! (with masks)

and no, you can't really 'emulate' them with the currently available toolset unfortunately (remember that they have masks and are non-destructive).

I love GIMP but the absence of this feature (which is not exactly a new thing, even PSPro has it!) is really killing me...

Re:I don't mean to gripe but....

[Mitchell Mebane]

I dunno, maybe you should file a bug for it or something? Just bitching about it on Slashdot won't get you anywhere.

Re:I don't mean to gripe but....

[MarcoAtWork]

there is already a bug for it set with a 'Future' milestone (last updated in July)

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79025

a better bug (marked as a dupe of this one) with links to tutorials etc. is

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98262

and from the various comments in them it doesn't seem the gimp developers really either understand what this functionality is really about or how useful it is.

I am really surprised that the gimp team doesn't have some pro PhotoShop users on board to give feedback on -really important- missing features. At least they could pick up some good books on PS photo retouching (probably what 90% of the users would like to do with Gimp, honestly, does anybody think more than 1-2% would use this SVG thing?) and read up on it...

I don't mean to rib on open source projects, most of the time they are great because the developers are the primary consumers (Apache, Linux, ...) but when it comes to vertical apps often the dev team could use the input of some experienced users so needed functionality would be implemented before whiz-bang stuff...

I know, I should be grateful (and I am) but it really peeves me how such a hugely important piece of functionality is in limbo and other much less useful things (but with probably a more 'cool' quotient) are going in...

Re:I don't mean to gripe but....

[Raphael]

I am really surprised that the gimp team doesn't have some pro PhotoShop users on board to give feedback on -really important- missing features. At least they could pick up some good books on PS photo retouching (probably what 90% of the users would like to do with Gimp, honestly, does anybody think more than 1-2% would use this SVG thing?) and read up on it...

If you use PhotoShop on a regular basis (you do not have to be a pro) and you think that you could describe some interesting features in a better way than what has been reported so far, then please add some comments to these bug reports or join the gimp-user or gimp-developer mailing lists and post your suggestions there. We frequently get some requests saying "I want this" without describing what "this" is in a way that can be understood by those who are not familiar with the program implementing "this". If you think that you can help, please contribute.

Regarding buying some good books on PS, that would be an option, but remember that all GIMP developers are doing this in their spare time and are already busy enough implementing the features that have been planned a long time ago. Also, the goal is certainly not to copy PS or any other program. So instead of trying to copy some features exactly and being accused of plagiarism (which would be a risk if the developers would start reading PS books), it is better to have a clean room implementation, in which some user describes the desired features (but not the details of how it should be implemented) and some other developer starts from this description for implementing something that fits the GIMP way of thinking.

Re:I don't mean to gripe but....

[MarcoAtWork]

actually I thought the second tutorial in the bug that was classified as a dupe was pretty good in terms of showing what adjustment layers are (for a much better exposition my bible when retouching my digital camera shots is Katrin Eismann's)

Basically with adjustment layers & masks you don't have to touch your original image (base layer) at all for correcting things like levels, curves, colour casts etc. etc. etc. and you can use masks to, say, selectively unsharpen only parts of the image, colour adjust others, highlight yet others etc. etc. and it's all in an adjustment layers so if you change your mind you can just hide it or remove it whenever you want and wherever you are in your retouching process.

I am a BIG TIME newbie when it comes to PS, so I doubt I'd be able to explain things very well, that's why I haven't posted to the bugs or anything: I'd just like to say 'trust me, adj layers are really important & useful' :):):)

Re:I don't mean to gripe but....

[BigSven]

A bug being classified as duplicate doesn't mean it's unimportant or not useful. The classification as duplicate is used to keep the discussion concentrated on a single report. Every duplicate of course raises it's weight.

The need for adjustment layers is well understood by the GIMP developers. Any help on implementing this feature would be greatly appreciated. May it be code or any help designing and/or documenting the user interface.

Re:I don't mean to gripe but....

[Bob Uhl]

Well, write it yourself and submit a patch. That's the point of free software: the users have the freedom to add the features they want. The great divide between user and developer shouldn't exist--every developer is a user, and every user should be a developer. It's not that difficult--software development is just writing a set of instructions, much like a recipe.

acronyms?

[Savatte]

well the GIMP may be SVG but CAN someone tell ME exactly what IN the HELL that MEANS?

Re:acronyms?

[BigSven]

It is written in the original article and there's even a link that you could click on. Try this one instead: Scalable Vector Graphics.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Glytch]

I agree that the GTK2 interface looks and feels great, but it breaks the XSane scanner plugin. XSane is GTK1-based. It's not too much of a hassle to scan to a TIFF, and load that up in Gimp, but I miss being able to simply go to the "Import" menu.

Nice, but where's the color calibration?

[StandardCell]

One of the key features of Photoshop is its integrated color calibration tools. Getting your monitor to display the colors that you will see in your final product is a critical issue in both the printing and video production environments. The fact that you can separate CYMK is good if you want your output directed towards a professional printing solution, but it's not enough.

There are solutions for Windows and Mac but not for Linux/BSD. Maybe someone could start an open color matching standard at some point. In any case, this issue is IMO what will hold GIMP back from professional use.

Re:Nice, but where's the color calibration?

[Jeffrey Baker]

Wow, that would be a neat idea. If only we had an open color management solution for X11 ... we could call is "Xcms" ... when we're done, we'll roll it into a system called "X11R5"! Gosh, it could even support ICC profiles. That would be swell.

(Sorry, unnecessary snarkyness. I agree that there is no good UI, nor tools, for color management in X11. However it should be noted that X11 has complete color management support built-in. It's just that nobody uses it on Linux. I bet if I peeked in SGI's X distribution, it would be loaded with color management features.)

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Richard_at_work]

Should they also compile everything for Windows for free too?

Not at all, im willing to pay. When did i say i wasnt?

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Daengbo]

I don't know. My girlfriend had never used a computer graphics program before Gimp, but was quite an artist. After learning all about it, translating "Grokking the Gimp" into Thai, and teaching courses in it, she says that Photoshop is very confusing for her. So why, again, should Gimp change its interface? Because it's not what you're used to? I find the interface quite refreshing, but I don't use it professionally.
Goy does, though, and she agrees with me.

Re:LAMENS TERMS (layman's terms?)

[raphae1]

... but, really, is it gimp with a soft g as in gin or a hard one as in git?
Anyone?

Note: there seems to be no agreement here, but I'd assume the users' community (or better the project's developers) would have it right - I'm not trying to start a war.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[simcop2387]

in the development series, this can be remidied, there is an option to have that menu up at the top of the image window, makes it less confusing for those of you who haven't gotten used to the right click

OpenGL options? (was Re:SVG rendering engine?)

[Tekmage]

I just googled for some OpenGL-based options, and Amaya looks interesting.

Anyone used Amaya or have other recommendations for an open source, OpenGL based SVG rendering API?

COOL!

[SCHecklerX]

Now the only thing missing is layered effects, and I'd be a very happy grfx artist (wannabe) :)

There was an OS/2 program (forget its name) which mixed vectors and layers, and also had the unique ability to layer EFFECTS...for example, I could do black text, put a blur effect layer over that, and then colored text over that to achieve a drop shadow with very little effort. Of course, you could then put an effect layer over the text for texturizing, etc. You could combine effects to your hearts content, and if you didn't like the way it worked, it was trivial to back out, or move the effect elsewhere.

Vector support seems like the necessary first step to this type of thing and I hope that the GIMP developers discover this cool and unique way to manipulate images.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[bickerdyke]

no. GUI are about beeing used to some or some other kind of logic. I think GIMP pute the things where you might expect them you you wouldn't be used to them beeing somwehere completle else - where they might or might not belong. It's easy to make a better user interface, that no one can work with cause the commands are where they belong and not where MS put them.

I just want 1.4stable...

[BrokenHalo]

Have you tried the development version? (x.3 I think)

1.3.20.

I periodically try out the development releases and admire the pretty widgets if the thing will compile or load. As a matter of fact, I built one this morning; compiled fine but crashed within 5 minutes of loading.

Personally, I would be much more impressed if the developers decided on a feature-freeze and cleaned up their mess. I can't remember off-hand how long stable has been at 1.2.5, but it's beginning to look a bit incongruous with GTK-1.x widgets and non-antialiased fonts on a modern desktop. I haven't been keeping track of dates, but it seems to me that stable has been at 1.2.x for years now.

Sooner or later they're going to have to decide what gets put into 1.4 and what gets left out. I would be happy to accept what they've implemented so far if it can be made stable and have all the scriptability put back.

Re:I just want 1.4stable...

[Jellybob]

Agreed! I use 1.3 from Debian unstable because I'm picky about only using GTK2 apps unless I absolutely *have* to use something else.

Apart from the odd crash when I try to edit graphics at the same time as having Epiphany, XMMS, two gVims and GAIM open when I'm doing web design, it runs like a dream.

Re:I just want 1.4stable...

[BigSven]

GIMP-1.3 is actually a lot less messy and even considered to be more stable than the 1.2 releases.
If it crashed on you, you should have tried to obtain a stack trace and file a bug-report then at bugzilla.gnome.org. If you don't do that, the GIMP developers have no chance to fix the bug that hit you.

BTW, the next version will be called 2.0, not 1.4.

Re:I just want 1.4stable...

[Oscaro]

Indeed the situation is so bad that MANY people think Gimp is a dead project. The fact that new distros (eg Slackware 9.1) are packaged with gimp1.2 also doesn't help at all. A new stable version is what it is really really really needed NOW.

Gimp for Photoshop users

[R0]

Gimp for Photoshop users
manual.gimp.org

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Jellybob]

It's a development release - it'll probably get fixed fairly soon.

Re:GIF support ?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTM - This linked right from their front page:
http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/

Been there since 1.2

[linuxkrn]

Yes it does have that..

Preferences/Interface/Image Windows/Pointer Movement Feedback

TWO good settings:

Perfect-but-Slow Pointer Tracking

AND

Cursor Mode: Tool Icon with CROSSHAIR!

Versions 1.2.x+

Even more basic...

[Anonymous Coward]

When will I be able to draw a straight line?

Re:Even more basic...

[Erisian Pope]

You got modded funny but I don't know if you really meant that as a joke. Just in case you honestly don't know and didn't bother to search for yourself, here's a link to the (rather sarcastic) tutorial

Re:Even more basic...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

This is one problem that I see a lot with open source software. Instead of changing the application, the developer expects the behavior of the user to change.

1: How hard would it be to add a straght line tool?
2: How are users supposed to know that you use the shift key to draw straight lines?

That is a UI flaw. Drawing straight lines is a common thing that users do. Including it as a non-apparent feature (which makes the user hunt down the documentation) is just plain stupid.

Re:Even more basic...

[Suidae]

1: How hard would it be to add a straght line tool?

It should be rather obvious that 'straight' is not a tool in itself, but a modifier for the movement of existing tools. More like using a straight-edge accessory with your pen, brush or eraser than having a seperate pen, brush or eraser that only move in straight lines.

2: How are users supposed to know that you use the shift key to draw straight lines?

Since 'straight' is a modifer of movement rather than a tool, its not a huge leap to use a modifier key like shift, control or alt (or apple or whatever your platform uses) to modify the behavour of the current tool. Granted, it might not be completely obvious, but most people who have used graphics programs frequenly know that modifier keys are used to do things like this, and so can be expected to give them a try. Tool pallets should have help hints to clue in newbies and people who don't use the tool often enough to remember the shortcuts.

Re:Even more basic...

[BigSven]

Another easy way to draw a straight line is to use the path tool then stroke the path. This even gives you more control over the line style as if you'd use the paintbrush.

Re:Even more basic...

[nagora]

How are users supposed to know that you use the shift key to draw straight lines?

Personally, I guessed based on the way the selection tools work. That's known as a consistant UI. Also, you could read the manual.

TWW

Re:Even more basic...

[Raphael]

That is a UI flaw. Drawing straight lines is a common thing that users do. Including it as a non-apparent feature (which makes the user hunt down the documentation) is just plain stupid.

You are right: this is a UI flaw. The problem is known and this will eventually be solved. You can have a look at the following bug reports. The second one deals more specifically with the issue that you mentioned (as a coincidence, I forked it off the main bug report today).

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51108

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124040

Re:Even more basic...

[StarFace]

This is one problem that I see a lot with open source software.

That's funny, this modifier key constraint behavior has been a staple of open and closed source drawing packages for as long as I have been using them, which would be around the Photoshop version 2 days (though I am not sure if it had it then.) Furthermore, some programs even let you apply multiple constraints at once! Allowing such things as 45 degree increment straight lines.

Anyway. The purpose of a drawing package is to create a set of tools that allow the user to combine these tools in such a way that they can do much much more than the programmers will ever be able to anticipate. Photoshop functions with a very simple set of tools which can be extrapolated by clever users into doing a wild variety of things. That is why there is no "straight line" tool, because the program and interface would quickly become consumed by thousands (literally!) of very specific tools, all of which could be emulated by a more basic set.

It is not a design flaw. It is a toolset for professionals who have been trained to think and innovate. If you want MS Paint functionality, which is designed for people who might not even know what a pixel is -- there are plenty of programs for that.

Re:Even more basic...

[Bingo Foo]

If you want MS Paint functionality,

Yes, please. Perhaps I should file a bug report with Gimp asking for this. So far in the ten or so times I've sat down with the intention of learning to use Gimp, I have failed miserably. The UI may be self-consistent, but it is not too consistent with common practice in WIMP UIs.

I never had that problem with, e.g. CorelPaint when I learned it without a manual or online help files. The self-documenting UI is still a weak point in OSS, and likely always will be.

Re:Even more basic...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"Also, you could read the manual."

We all know rule #1 of UI design: the user doesn't have the manual, and if they did, they wouldn't read it. Actually, few users will read more than a few words.

Re:Even more basic...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"It should be rather obvious that 'straight' is not a tool in itself, but a modifier for the movement of existing tools. More like using a straight-edge accessory with your pen, brush or eraser than having a seperate pen, brush or eraser that only move in straight lines."

Yes, but that doesn't mean that there can't be a straight line tool. I'm not recommending that we remove the existing functionality (which I find quite useful), but that a simple tool that draws a simple straight line be added. Heck, when I work with bitmap graphics (e.g. drawing buttons on a website) and I want to draw pixel-perfect lines, it's annoying to have to hold down the shift key all the time.

"Since 'straight' is a modifer of movement rather than a tool, its not a huge leap to use a modifier key like shift, control or alt"

For many, it is a huge leap. I originally had to guess. I got it right, but many would not. Users aren't used to having to hold down a key to draw straight lines - it's not particularly intuitive.

I do think that a little hint would be good, but, quite frankly, what's so wrong with adding a straight line tool?

Re:Even more basic...

[nagora]

So would you have a "tool" for every variation on ellipse, rectangle, filter, select etc? The Gimp is too complex to hope that any UI that left room to view the image could cover everything. Given that the manual(s) are on-line there's no real need to go that far.

TWW

Re:Even more basic...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

No, but I would have at least an elipse and a line tool. These are common actions. Having to hold down shift for every line you draw is an annoyance, and having to go through a seven-step process to draw an outlined elipse is unacceptable:

1: Select elipse Tool
2: Draw elipse
3: Switch To fill Tool
4: Fill selection with color
5: Decrease selection size by desired line width
6: Delete the selection
7: Deselect the elipse

Vs. with an elipse tool:

1: Select elipse tool
2: Uncheck "fill" in tool options, check "outline"
3: Draw elipse

KDE 3.2 will have SVG too

[Karma Sucks]

According to this. Screenshots and preview.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[westlake]

Microsoft Paint doesn't pretend to be a professional grade tool like Photoshop. The more meaningful (and uncertain) challenge for The GIMP would be to compare it to the visually appealing and very accessible Paint Shop Pro.

There is an SVG plugin for IE

[bug-eyed monster]

Adobe has one here. Furthermore, if you've installed any of the latest versions of Acrobat Reader (or one of many other Adobe products), it has quietly installed the SVG plugin for you.

Re:There is an SVG plugin for IE

[pacc]

And if you still want to use Mozilla and try out Adobe's SVG plugin it is now possible with the 6.0 beta plugin.

Since it don't install itself automatically you have to copy the files from some "shared files/adobe" directory to "Mozilla/plugins", just search for "NPSVG6.dll" and "NPSVG6.zip"

so when is..

[linuxislandsucks]

so when is the windows version due out?

Re:so when is..

[obotics]

Exactly. I would love to test this version out on Windows, but don't feel too comfortable compiling the source by myself. ;-)

Re:so when is..

[jcupitt65]

There are various test windows builds, check out the gimpwin-users list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gimpwin-users/mess ag e/10439

Reported to fail horribly on win9x.

SVG-Export.scm

[The boojum]

Bah! I tried to submit to them a Script-Fu scheme script to export SVG months ago, back at the beginning of the year to export indexed images to SVG. I never heard back from anyone.

If anyone would like, I'm making it available here. Save it in your shared/scripts directory with the other scm files. Then flatten your images to indexed and go Script-Fu -> File -> Export SVG. Enjoy! (And if any of you have any weight with the GIMP team and still want to include it in the distro, you're welcome.)

Re:SVG-Export.scm

[BigSven]

What your script does is something completely different from the SVG import/export for GIMP paths that has been added now. If I understand your script correctly, it abuses SVG paths to create a SVG representation of raster graphics. This is a neat trick, but is it useful?

GUIs are about organization

[plover]

My first exposure to "decent" quality paint programs was Photoshop LE (packaged free with a scanner.) I found the GUI confusing.

I then installed The GIMP. I found its GUI confusing.

I then bought Paint Shop Pro on the recommendation of a digital photography book I respected. Again, I found the GUI confusing, but at least the book got me started on what I should be looking for. I think if I had read such a book about Photoshop earlier I'd probably be a Photoshop fan right now.

I now switch back and forth between The GIMP and Paint Shop Pro. The GIMP does some things better (script-fu is really slick) and PSP does some things better (scratch and dust repair, contrast enhancement.) But I still have to hunt through confusing menus, pop-up toolbar things, etc. I've simply come to expect that any powerful photo editing program is going to have a confusing interface, and that any program is going to take an investment of time to learn. Paint Shop Pro has some hand-holding tutorials that I found to be excellent at getting me up to speed. I'm sure these things exist for the other programs as well.

Anyway, it's all still easier than the old days with a camelhair brush and hand spotting negatives and prints.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Anonymous Coward]

But Paintshop Pro is a prosumer level product. GIMP is far beyond that. This is why you have so many neophytes who hate the GIMP. They are expecting the usability of PaintShop Pro with the power of Photoshop. That ain't gonna never happen. GIMP is squarely aimed at pros which is why I use it. I am a professional. I wouldn't touch PaintShop Pro with a ten foot pole.

what sucks

[l1nux_guru]

gimp roXors but what sux is that if u build it and u dont have xft installed then when u use the text tool it crashes so i still use 1.2 cos its stable too. i dont have xft cos it screws up kde and my comp is to slow anyway. i dont really like gtk2 either cos sometimes it seems real slow esp on lists and i dont think its so stable either. this is not flame i love gimp!!!! i love wilbur!!!

Re:what sucks

[BigSven]

This is simply not true; there is no dependency on Xft whatsoever. GIMP depends on fontconfig but that's just a library to manage fonts and it doesn't need Xft (although the two used to be distributed together).

Re:what sucks

[l1nux_guru]

wow thanx ur right! and this new version is sweeeeet and so much beter than last time i looked

Re: Fixed URL (was littlecms)

[erl]

A space seems to have snuch into the URL between 2003 and -June. Remove it and the URL works. Here it is clickable: The Link

Brake a bit about CMYK

[Anonymous Coward]

It's rudimentary import and export. GIMP doesn't work with CMYK internally yet, all is RGB and 8 bits per channel. And color management is missing, so not so great for pro work.

superb!

[BiggyP]

this is fantastic, i use The GIMP for vector work anyway, the path tool in 1.2.x was pretty good, but the new one promises to be even better, the main use for me will be to convert selection to path and export for cleanup using sodipodi though.

for all those "it's not photoshop though" comments we're bound to get, no, it isn't, it's The GIMP, and that's pretty much the most important factor here, i don't want a P$ emulator...

isn't it best to keep

[jago25_98]

Raster and Vector delt with in seporate programs to avoid confusion?

Re:isn't it best to keep

[BigSven]

Perhaps. But you also need a way to exchange data between the raster manipulation program (GIMP) and the vector manipulation program (Sodipodi?). That's when it becomes important that your raster app can import/export vectors and that your vectors app can import/export raster graphics.

Re:isn't it best to keep

[t_allardyce]

Not really. Raster and vector is a technical distinction not an artistic one (to most artists, vector means "you can zoom in without it going bumpy"). It would be more intuitive to completely combine them, which no program i know of completely does. Illustrator has lots of raster 'features' and photoshop has lots of vector 'features' so you can see where thats going. Its not to complicated to distinct between raster and vector objects, most programs do it pretty well, and the advantages are endless...

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[alex_ant]

It's a shame she got used to the Gimp's shitty interface before she had a chance to use Photoshop's much better interface. If she had started with Photoshop from the get go, she would probably be twice as productive in it as she is now with the Gimp. (And would have much more power at her fingertips)

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[BigSven]

It should be trivial to port XSane to the GTK+-2.x and GIMP-2.0 APIs. Sooner or later someone will do it.

The one thing GIMP needs to fix....

[kidgenius]

I just want to be able to hit backspace or delete to clear a selected area, instead of Ctrl+K, which to me, could mean "Klear" but it's just hard to remember that when delete or backspace is worlds more intuitive.

Re:The one thing GIMP needs to fix....

[toasty_duck]

You can redefine GIMP shortcut keys by hovering the cursor over the desired button and typing the new key combination. I don't think it's possible to set clear to backspace or delete, but it CAN be changed to something more intuitive than Ctrl+K.

Slashdotted?

[Ossk]

If I'm not mistaken, we've taken down GIMP's FTP. I've found a mirror, but since I didn't get to see the contents of the original FTP, I can't vouch for the completeness of this one. ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/gimp/v1.3/v1.3.21/

Re:Slashdotted?

[morbuz]

Lots of mirrors here:

http://mmmaybe.gimp.org/downloads/

Slashdotted?

[Ossk]

If I'm not mistaken, we've taken down GIMP's FTP. Here's a mirror. I didn't get to see the contents of the original FTP, so I can't vouch for the completeness of this one.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[jonadab]

It has already been conceded that Gimp is cheaper; that point was
not in dispute.

Re:LAMENS TERMS (layman's terms?)

[rifter]

... but, really, is it gimp with a soft g as in gin or a hard one as in git?
Anyone?

Note: there seems to be no agreement here, but I'd assume the users' community (or better the project's developers) would have it right - I'm not trying to start a war.

I have always pronounced it with a hard G, both becase it is the G(uh)nu Image Manipulation Program and because the word gimp is pronounced that way. That said, it is yet another example of why the free software movement suffers from poor marketing. Gimp is a *very* politically incorrect term with derogatory connotations. I don't understand why they chose that acronym..

Re:Am I missing something? GIMP sucks - for me

[BigSven]

What keeps you from installing a Pantone palette in The GIMP? It's just a matter of buying one from Pantone and putting it into your ~/.gimp-1.x/palettes folder.

What? Pantone doesn't sell you one? Perhaps it's time to ask them for it then. I am pretty sure they would do if people started to ask for it.

Off-topic: The Slashdot Gimp icon

[tomzyk]

Whoa, has anyone else been freaked out by that slashdot icon for The Gimp? I never noticed it before, but the eyes twitch every now-and-then. I thought I was seeing things at first and then when I thought I saw it move again, I just assumed that I've been reading too much from my computer monitor over the past several years...

Re:Off-topic: The Slashdot Gimp icon

[Gatton]

That's nothing. I use Privoxy and it blocks animations by default. So all I see are the eyes. Rather creepy but seems appropriate what with that Druish holiday coming up at the end of the month.

Re:Off-topic: The Slashdot Gimp icon

[Nermal]

I was just checking to see if anyone else had commented on that. Yeah. Freaked the hell out of me at first because I just saw it out of the corner of my eye.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[jonadab]

> there is an option to have that menu up at the top of the
> image window

That should probably be the default. Personally I'd turn it off, but
I'm a poweruser and regularly change the settings all around in any
program I install. End users generally are fearful of changing any
settings, and so the defaults should be geared toward them. The
preferences/options dialogs should be geared toward powerusers.

I'm not sure Gimp is ready for end users yet. (Then again, I'm not
sure Photoshop is either, though I haven't seen the current version.)
Too many of the default settings are poweruserish. You have to
understand layers, for crying out loud, to make effective use of
copy-and-paste. Now, layers are great and all, and I will never go
back to an image editor that doesn't have them, but they confuse the
everliving daylights out of newbies. For newbies, the default when
pasting should be to let the user reposition the floating selection
initially, but then when the user goes on to do something else, the
selection should be either autoanchored (if there is only one other
layer, which will be the normal case for end users) or made into a
new layer (otherwise). Of course, it should be easy to turn this
feature permanently off in the prefs, and people upgrading from
earlier versions of Gimp should probably get the old behavior, and
distributions not geared toward end users are free to change the
defaults as appropriate for their userbase.

SVG support is good. I'll probably use it sometimes, for web
graphics that I want to be able to scale a bit. (This is really
useful if you want to set the width to 100%, which with a bitmap
isn't a terribly attractive option.) So I'll be glad to have
this feature.

MDI interface for the GIMP

[Raphael]

Offering some kind of MDI interface for the GIMP has been suggested several years ago. This may be a good solution, as long as it is optional because some people prefer the current interface.

You can find some discussion about that in bug report #7379. The feature may be implemented in GIMP 3.0, or earlier if I find enough spare time to implement it or (more likely) if someone else takes the job and implements this feature.

Note that version 1.3.x and the upcoming version 2.0 offer the option of displaying a menu bar in the image windows, if this is what you are interested in. But if you want a shared menu bar on top of a big container window and a shared status bar at the bottom of that window, then you will have to wait until someone implements a real MDI solution.

Re:MDI interface for the GIMP

[hey]

Thanks for the reply and the link. I am pleased that the GIMP people are considering MDI! I have watched non-expert users try GIMP and they are always baffled. They ask, where's the application? Answer: all those windows. They can't minimize or maximize the GIMP with one click. I know this is counter to the X way but it would be very helpful.

The link your page that shows that Gnome can do MDI is interesting.

Re: the sig

[Suidae]

Then are laws to guide human behavour away from those things that are determental to society and to cause the most desirable emergent or collective behavours?

Or are they to allow special interest groups and politicians to get what they want?

Re:LAMENS TERMS (layman's terms?)

[jonadab]

Around here, gin and git are both pronounced with a hard g (same as j,
rendered by phonemologists as dzh or somesuch, an alveolar voiced stop
followed by an aspirated voiced sibilant), but gimp (and so presumably
also Gimp) is pronounced with a soft g as in frog and graphics.

Regardless of local dialects, I would posit that Gimp should be
pronounced the same way as gimp.

Re:LAMENS TERMS (layman's terms?)

[jonadab]

> a soft g as in frog and graphics

i.e., as a voiced velar stop. I meant to say that in the other post,
and forgot.

Re:Nice, but...

[deke_2503]

If people use The GIMP, it must, by definition, have a usable UI.

Use rectangular selection for n-pixels wide and l-pixels long, then fill with a solid color.

Use a 1x1 brush and click on a pixel to color it any color you want.

Select the transform tool, which is set to rotation by default, then drag your image. This pops up another window with the rotation properties, and that allows you to either check your dragging or manually set the rotation.

No secret key combinations required. Sure you need to know what tools you have available, but this is the same for any image program. Don't pretend that PSP allows the user to do things without learning the method for doing it. The GIMP isn't ridiculously complicated or obscure, and once you know where everything is, you'll find it's pretty usable.

Dave

Re: the sig

[chill]

Then are laws to guide human behavour away from those things that are determental to society and to cause the most desirable emergent or collective behavours?

Or are they to allow special interest groups and politicians to get what they want?

While the former is a possibility, sadly the latter more reflects reality.

SWEET

[Bill Kendrick]

Kick-ass! I'm very excited about SVG. This is excellent news

-bill!
(Tux Paint dude)

Re:flash killing...

[antic]

I think you're comparing a timeline-based animation tool to an image-manipulation program with just-added SVG support.

Flash is in a very dominant position, known and recognised, with stronger database and usability features are being added with each release. It will not be caught now.

I'm already using GIMP 1.3

[steveha]

I run the unstable branch of Debian, and there are packages both for the stable GIMP and for the 1.3 series. I really like 1.3; GTK 2 looks so much better on my screen, the new palette is so much nicer, and I like having a menu on each image. (The right-click menu still works, but a menu at the top of each window is worth the screen real estate, IMHO.)

If you run Debian, "apt-get install gimp-1.3" and try it out.

P.S. My biggest wish right now would be for XSane support for GIMP 1.3. Debian doesn't seem to offer it yet.

steveha

How about

[melted]

1. Adjustment layers
2. 48-bit color support (and don't point me to buggy cinepaint)
3. COLOR MANAGEMENT.
4. L*a*b color space

Sheesh.

Re:How about

[Raphael]

1. Adjustment layers

Planned for a future release. Contributions are welcome.

2. 48-bit color support (and don't point me to buggy cinepaint)

Planned for a future release. Again, contributions are welcome.

3. COLOR MANAGEMENT.

A part of this should already be handled by your X server (see Xcms, xcmsdb and related tools). For the other part, see the next item.

4. L*a*b color space

Also planned for a future release, when GEGL is integrated into the GIMP. Look at the GEGL Task List and scroll down to the item "Additional ColorSpaces and ColorModels". You will see that L*a*b is mentioned there.

For all of these, the GIMP and GEGL developers would be more than happy to accept any contributions from users of developers. Providing a patch implementing the missing feature is of course the best way to contribute, but paying someone for doing it may also work in some cases. Bribing some developer with money, food, books, movies or any geeky stuff may also help. ;-)

Re:How about

[melted]

I see. So all these vital features are either "planned for the next release" (1,2,4) or not planned at all (3). At the same time SVG (which nobody gives a shit about) is included. It's not that I can demand anything from the developers (hey, it's free software), but they definitely should get their priorities right.

Re:How about

[Raphael]

Well, there is at least one significant difference between the "vital" features that you are requesting from the developers and the recently added support for SVG (which is used much more than you think, especially in GNOME and KDE): the SVG support is based on the excellent work that Simon did on the path tool (adding limited but very useful vector support to the GIMP) and on existing pieces of code borrowed from librsvg and the associated GIMP plug-in. So several pieces of the puzzle were ready to be used, some of them written by GIMP developers (the path tool) and some others written by external contributors (the SVG library and plug-in). Adding SVG support to the GIMP required some effort, but most of the pieces were already available.

This is different for the features that you are requesting: so far, there have been very few contributions to the development of these features. I agree that they are important and they would be very useful. But they will only be available in the GIMP when someone finds the time to implement them. So the best way for you to get them into the GIMP is to find someone who can write the code and submit it to the developers. I do not expect that many users have the programming skills required for implementing these features by themselves, but there are many other ways to contribute, including finding someone else who does the programming for you and then submits the results to the developers. Or you could try to help with the documentation, help files, translations to foreign languages, web site and many other things that would save some time for the current GIMP developers and allow them to spend more of their spare time implementing these nice features.

Sodipodi

[Bryce]

Status on Sodipodi is looking good. Work on Sodipodi has been kind of quiet over the summer but we're hoping to see more people getting involved in development through the fall.

A lot of progress was made this past year, including a Windows port and a lot of minor features and bug fixes. Knoppix Linux has picked it up and included it in their distro, so we're hoping to see it pop up in other Linux distros soon.

The development team is looking for people who are motivated to assist in making improvements, from minor bug fixes to new feature implementation to major code restructurings. Adding new features (like text-along-a-path) are probably the best bang-for-the-buck, but we're also looking things like breaking out the renderer code into a separate module, setting up a regression test capability, abstracting the GUI code, fleshing out the extensions system, and more.

The code is in plain C, the interface is fairly vanilla Gtk, and the app builds on many different platforms. There isn't a lot of comments or documentation but the code is not too hard to follow by itself.

Anyway, if you'd be interested in joining in the development, pick a bug or feature to work on and join up on the mailing list and say hey.

The Open Source community is really starting to use SVG more and more, including for creating scalable windowing system elements (vectorial icons, etc.), a Flash replacement, and who knows what else. So there's a pretty broad range of places that Sodipodi could be the right tool for the job.

Re:Sodipodi

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Knoppix Linux has picked it up and included it in their distro, so we're hoping to see it pop up in other Linux distros soon.

I imagine you know, but it is (version 0.30) included with SuSE 8.2 Pro.

Re:Sodipodi

[Bryce]

I imagine you know, but it is (version 0.30) included with SuSE 8.2 Pro.

Wow, thanks, I didn't know.

Wonderful

[theolein]

The 1.3.2.1 release is going to address most of the things that have been irritating amateur (and some professional) graphics users, the terrible user interface. This application will go on to be a true competitor to Photoshop, and I'm willing to bet some money on that. Photoshop has become very bloated in the last couple of iterations and is overkill for some of the things it was originally meant to do.

troll, not a real graphic designer

[VAXGeek]

what about CMYK support?

Re:troll, not a real graphic designer

[Hooded One]

Because, you know, there are no *other* types of grapic designers out there.

Re:troll, not a real graphic designer

[Hooded One]

The current stable version of GIMP is ugly, ugly GTK1, using ugly fonts. 1.3.x looks better with GTK2, but the 763242 different windows approach still really isn't intuitive.

And who forgot to tell me when professions started wanting features, too? I guess they didn't want the professionals to have all the fun.

Re:troll, not a real graphic designer

[Trolling4Dollars]

Fellas, fellas. Settle down. I'm sure we can all come to some kind of agreement. There are plenty of graphic designers who never go to print. If they like using GIMP or PainShop Pro (not a typo), let them have at it. For those who need to do professional quality print work, there's plenty of options in the proprietary world. I use GIMP exclusively myself because I got sick of paying tons of money when the only thing I do is edit web graphics and my own personal photos. Photoshop just weasn't worth it for me especially since GIMP could do everything I needed. I'm NOT a pro, so I don't miss CMYK. There are few home users that would. I tried PainShop Pro and we just didn't get along adn well MS Paint leaves something to be desired. (Especially since I no longer run Windows at home) GIMP is a great piece of software that's fun and easy to use. But it's not for everyone. Some people like paying for something with a name even if they don't need the feeatures. Let them go for it! :) And for the pros who do need the professional print features, they can certainly afford to invest in the tools of their trade no matter how outrageous the prices may be.

Re:LAMENS TERMS (layman's terms?)

[Dirtside]

Around here, gin and git are both pronounced with a hard g (same as j, rendered by phonemologists as dzh or somesuch, an alveolar voiced stop followed by an aspirated voiced sibilant), but gimp (and so presumably also Gimp) is pronounced with a soft g as in frog and graphics.

I was under the impression that the "g" used in words like "gimp" and "give" (and "go" and "gate") is called a *hard* g, and "gin" and "gip" use what's called a *soft* g. (I've always heard "git" with the same "g" used in "go" -- a hard g.) The dictionary.com entry for "hard" has:

18. Linguistics. Velar, as in c in cake or g in log, as opposed to palatal or soft.

and

15 Linguistics. a. Sibilant rather than guttural, as c in certain and g in gem.

The (hard) "g" in "log" is the same "g" in "gimp" and "give." The "g" in "gem" and "gin" is the soft "g".

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[simcop2387]

alot of that is true, that option should probably be true, but i dont think an SVG based website is the best idea unless you hate IE

GIMP Is Man in PVC

[t_allardyce]

At what version will they change the name to something that wont make people laugh at you or think your weird when you say "i like gimp"? Or being oss do i have to start a fork just to rename every occurence in the source ;)

weird name but great program.. i just wish it had an effects stack/effects layers what-ever you want to call it. Or even just the ability to preview filter output without having to do "filter, undo, select filter in menu tree again, tweek settings, re-filter"...

GIMP ain't half bad

[Trolling4Dollars]

And with the new additions it sounds like it's certainly getting a nice upgrade. I can't wait for 2.0. :) Even if some people equate it with Paintshop Pro, it's still cheaper. And as far as it's abilities, take a good look at this excellent, free online book on the GIMP.

What more could anyone who doesn't need to go to press ask for?

Re:GIMP ain't half bad

[plover]

Thank you for that link!!!

Excellent resource!

Re:Am I missing something? GIMP sucks - for me

[MenTaLguY]

I don't know why you're angry at The GIMP for that. Pantone won't license the trademark/relevent patents for The GIMP to (lawfully) implement Pantone support.

You can certainly make GIMP palettes with pantone color names for RGB approximations, but don't distribute them to anyone or Pantone, Inc.'s lawyers will come down on you HARD.

Re:Copy undo. Not exactly.

[AME]

If your undo stack has items 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, then how would you undo item 3 and leave 4 and 5 intact?

Re:Nice, but...Wacom Graphite USB

[deke_2503]

And this is related how...?

Re:Nice, but...Wacom Graphite USB

[deke_2503]

Clearly so, but since the original post was criticizing the user interface, and this issue deals with hardware interfacing and the lack of Linux drivers, it remains hopelessly irrelevent.

is this support in Qt

[QuantumG]

or is it something slapped on by KDE? A Qt component that can display SVG (and cause events when clicked) would make developing many types of application a heck of a lot easier.

to answer my own question..

[QuantumG]

The QPicture class implements the load() and save() functions which read/write SVG. Cool!

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Hooded One]

You can get 1.3.x for Win32 though it's a bit of work to get it to run. The instructions there aren't 100% complete, meaning you'll have to hunt for a few DLLs. A few of them are just in the lib directory, while a few more are in Expat.

It's better than before, but still not great.

Re: Soft vs Hard G

[some guy I know]

I was under the impression that the "g" used in words like "gimp" and "give" (and "go" and "gate") is called a *hard* g, and "gin" and "gip" use what's called a *soft* g.

You are correct (except that it's spelled "gyp" here in the USA (derogatorily derived from "gypsy")).
A hard G is like the G in "garage", whereas a soft G is like the G in "garage".

IE has come with flash for ages

[Nailer]

Since IE 4 service packs.

Not sure where you got your information from, but a Flash plugin has been part of the IE install for years now.

Re:I'm with you ... 0%!

[tigersha]

Maybe he is a big Hentai junkie

What's wrong with the GIMP's UI?

[shish]

Everyone says that the GIMP's GUI is horrible, but I've used both the GIMP (linux) and photoshop (OSX). The only difference I can see is that phososhop's menu is in the mac's menu location, and the GIMP's is right-click. (Personally I prefer the right click). So what's the massive difference that I haven't noticed?

Try Gnu Paint

[gnugnugnu]

If you are looking for something simpler you might like to try GPaint a simple paint program by Andy Tai.

Re: INACCURATE TERMS

[Daengbo]

The queation is how she would get "started with Photoshop" when it costs two months' salary. I've used both, but not enough to become addicted to either, and I don't see that one is necessarily better than the other, and certainly not to the extent that you are flaming on about.
The point (if there is one in this whole thread) is that maybe neither can be said to be a better interface, except by individual preference. Should we continue on a vi vs. emacs war while we're at it?