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A First Look At The GIMP 2.0

Posted by timothy on from the yummy dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Brice Burgess has given everyone a good peek at what's coming in 2.0 for the GIMP in his review over on NewsForge. Don't like the old UI? It's gone. All new. There have also been megawumpus improvements in the text tool. Brice says he sees some room for improvement still, but overall he is "very impressed."" (Slashdot and NewsForge are both part of OSDN.) The new text tools are a big step up, though the interface as a whole remains a love-it-or-hate-it thing.

12 of 713 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mouse pointers? by psocccer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, definately one of the most annoying things about gimp for me, but they've made it so the brush becomes your cursor now if you want, it's a config option.

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    Free Online Woodworking Resources Directory
  2. Re:Mouse pointers? by jnikkel · · Score: 4, Informative

    yes, at least Gimp 1.3.21 does.

  3. Re:UI by forgotmypassword · · Score: 5, Informative

    The second thing you notice about the new version is the GIMP's "dockability." All dialogs (Brushes, Layers, Tool Options, etc.) can now be detached from the main window and shown in a separate window, added to an existing dialog window, or hidden from view. The software saves all changes you make to your view preferences, so that when you next go to work, your tools remain laid out as they were during your last session. This not only allows you to create a custom environment that suits your needs, but also helps reduce screen clutter.

    Like that?

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    A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
  4. Re:This could finally kill my last dependence on M by jcupitt65 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can output to CMYK in gimp2 with an ICC profile, but you can't edit CMYK directly. Gimp is still 1 and 3 band 8 bit only.

  5. Whining about one window by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 4, Informative
    I see a lot of complaining about the Gimp using multiple windows for everything, where people want an MDI interface with just one parent window instead.

    To that, I'll remind you that your Linux window manager probably has multiple desktops. It sounds incredibly stupid for its simplicity, but once you realize it, there's absolutely no problem with the interface.

    I'll also encourage you to use 0x808080 or something similarly neutral for the background on that desktop. You'd be surprised how much the surrounding noise can affect the way you work. I even go to the extent of making all my window decorations a soft grey when I'm drawing up stock schemes or otherwise doodling.

  6. btw, RTFA by bonch · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why that? What can you do with Photoshop that you can't do with the Gimp? Gimp now has the CMYK color scheme, so the only real pro-Photoshop argument has faded...

    From the article:

    "Admittedly, the current rendition of CMYK in the GIMP is far behind that of commercial offerings, but the mere existence of CMYK in the latest version means we can look forward to improved profile selection in future versions."

    And that's just CMYK.

  7. Side by side comparison for JPEG compression. by SharpFang · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ctrl+D or image->duplicate

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    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  8. Re:Flame me if you want... but... by BlowChunx · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use the wonderful part of ImageMagick called 'convert' which will rotate, resize, etc. All from the convenience of the CLI (or scripts). Heck it will even make animated gifs out of your images!

    Try it, it's free.

  9. Re:Will there be an improved Windows version? by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 4, Informative

    The original versions of GIMP used the Motif took kit. Since it was not Free, and Lesstif wasn't up to running the GIMP, the developers started work on a tool kit just for the GIMP. This was also about the time that KDE development started up with QT. Seeing how flexible the tool kit being created for the GIMP was, other developers started writing other programs using the same kit. Thus GNOME was born.

    Seeing all the work the core GIMP developers put into GTK, I don't image they'll put the time into porting it to another widget set. That is not saying it can't be done. Just don't get your hopes up.

  10. There is a Windows version by BurritoJ · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually there is a version of gimp for win32. Gimp for Windows It uses GTK even... There is even a nicely packaged version for those unwilling brave a .zip file here.

    These are up to Gimp 2.0 pre2.

    Cheers,
    Joe

  11. Re:And still... by JonathanBoyd · · Score: 4, Informative
    Elements users, correct me if I am wrong

    You're wrong :^) I'm not an Elements user anymore, but it had most of the Photoshop functionality, including layers.

  12. Well, how the hell do ya' draw a circle by son_of_asdf · · Score: 4, Informative

    When I tried to introduce my wife (graphic designer/QuarkXPress/Photoshop/Illustator ninja) to The Gimp 1.2, the first thing that happened was this:

    Where's the shape drawing tool? Whaddya mean I have to use the selection tool to draw a circle? That's stupid. Weeellllllll, let's make a little text instead. One line? I can't auto-kern? Where the hell's the preview? Ok, there we go.....dammit, maybe not. Where in the fuc.....oh, there it is. Hey, how do I select multiple layers--the damn shift key doesn't work. The hell with this...what good is this thing, anyway?

    There's a lot to be said for standardized user interface elements if you want to get the professionals on board..........

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    Don't Panic!