First Look at GIMP 2.4

Liam30 writes "Newsforge (ed: part of the OSTG family) is running a story that gives a first look at the next version of GIMP." From the article: " A major update to the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), widely regarded as the leading free software raster image editing program, is scheduled for this month. The 2.4 release is expected to include a number of new features and enhancements to existing features ... The first thing most users will notice about 2.4 is the addition of three new tools to the palette: the Align tool, the Foreground Extraction tool, and a new 'Simple' Rectangle Selector. The Align tool lets you vertically and horizontally align image layers -- a task you had to perform manually before. You can align an image to any edge or the center, specify an offset in any direction, and adjust vertical and horizontal alignment separately."

Comments

How I hate GIMP's plugins

[PhracturedBlue]

On Linux, it isn't difficult to write cool plugins in C, which can do effects that are very difficult to do otherwise. On Windows, this is extremely challenging, because getting the build environment setup is a pain. This leaves one with their Scrpt-Fu (scheme)language for plugins. While I haven't been limited by its features, the lack of a decent debugger and manual makes programming in it extremely painful (though I program in scheme (well, one of it's derivatives) nearly every day).

In one case, I found a plugin someone else had written that would do exactly what I wanted. But of course it was in C (and the compiled version only available for Linux), so I had to port it to Script-Fu before I could use it, and it took forever to run (doing pixel-by-pixel operations is very slow in Script-Fu).

Had they chosen a standard scripting language like perl/python/whatever, all plugins could be cross-platform, and would be much easier to write/debug. And don't talk about Pygimp or it's siblings. I am not aware of a single one that works with GIMP 2.2 and has been ported to windows.

The windows port is to some extent a second-class citizen, which is too bad, IMHO.

Re:professional tools

[fyngyrz]

As a Photoshop (and, occasionally, GIMP) user, I would be glad to know of what, in your opinion, is a good photo editing application for professionals? Am I missing out on something?

Could be. Have you tried this?

Much (a great deal much) more powerful layered image handling, faster area selection / masking methodologies, more extensive wand and keying capabilities, a different approach to a lot of things. Many of which were designed specifically with the idea of image editing in mind.

Disclosure: My software, my company.