GIMP's Next-generation Imaging Core Demonstrated

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GIMP's Next-generation Imaging Core Demonstrated

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday October 16, 2006 @11:37AM from the new-and-improved dept.

brendan0powers writes "GIMP developer Øvind Kolås gave a public demonstration of the Generic Graphical Library (GEGL) on Friday at the Piksel 06 festival in Bergen, Norway. GEGL has long been slated to replace the core image processing framework of the GIMP, bringing with it entirely new data models and operations — but development had languished to the point where many critics had written the project off entirely." Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.

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It's about time by Salvance · 2006-10-16 11:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's rather amazing that after years GIMP hasn't been improved to a point where it is a serious contender for graphic designers and photo editors. I love using open source products where I can, but GIMP has always seemed subpar. Maybe I'm underestimating the difficulty of creating such tools, or am just too used to Photoshop. I can't wait to check it out!

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Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
1. Re:It's about time by ben+there... · 2006-10-16 11:51 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I see that a lot. But hardly ever with any real examples of what it is missing that you need for professional graphics work. I'd love to hear specifically what is missing, as I'm sure the devs would too. Is it just the color management for print design, or something else?
2. Re:It's about time by Frumious+Wombat · 2006-10-16 12:29 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Well, there's 16-bit color support, non-destructive image editing (adjustment layers), CMYK and good profiling tools for RGB (lightjets) devices. Text mode could do a better job kerning as well (the third German example on their screenshots web page illustrates the issue), and some of the tools need a little polish. Maybe the problems will go away with 16-bit color, but it tends to posterize images easily if you do harsh curves adjustments.
  
  From over here, I'd like to see the X11 dependence on the Macs go away. Pitch the GTK base and use QT, which is already efficiently cross-platform on Macs, Linux, and Windows.
  
  As for the interface, so be it. If the other issues are fixed, the interface can be learned quickly enough. I used to use it for web images, and still have a certain fondness for 0.54, which ran on our SGI workstations. Maybe someone can ressurect that code-base and issue it as LIMP (Light Image Manipulation Program).
  
  --
  the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
3. Re:It's about time by springbox · 2006-10-16 14:13 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I don't know what the problem is. The WTFPL is pretty straight forward:
  DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, December 2004 Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar 22 rue de Plaisance, 75014 Paris, France Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long as the name is changed. DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION 0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.
  
  When free means completely free!
  I wouldn't be too concerned about the name if the software does something useful
The difference between The Gimp and Excel.. by QuantumG · 2006-10-16 11:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

Ever tried to do basic drawing in The Gimp? Like, say, drawing a circle? Ask any Gimp developer why this is such a bitch and they'll tell you something like: The Gimp is an image manipulation program, not a drawing program, go use Inkscape or something if you want to draw circles. What's this got to do with Excel? Well, Excel is a spreadsheet program. It's ment for making reports or doing accounting or playing "what if" games with money. About 10 years ago the developers of Excel went and did a survey of what their customers were using Excel for. Turns out the vast majority of people were using Excel to make lists. Shopping lists. Laundry lists. People to Kill. That sort of thing. Did the Excel developers say "hey, Microsoft Word has better support for making lists, go use that!" .. no, obviously. What they did was study the way people use the software and make it better for what they are doing. They made it so you could hide the cell lines when you print and so you can print the numbers of the cells if you want. They made it so when you enter something really long into a cell it automatically overlaps the cells next to it, and so it would print that way. That's how software should be made, with a focus on what the user wants out of the software.

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How we know is more important than what we know.
1. Re:The difference between The Gimp and Excel.. by ottffssent · 2006-10-16 12:42 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  That's only half the story. It's equally correct to say that the Gimp is not a drawing program, and that the Gimp developers should not duplicate the work of a drawing program's developers. Unix has been successful with a large array of small tools that do one thing and do it well (and play well with others). Microsoft has been successful throwing more features onto the fire when the flames burn low. To say that Microsoft's success with their method invalidates the Unix way is shortsighted.
  
  It would be nice to have one app that has excellent drawing tools, excellent retouching tools, excellent compositing tools, costs nothing, and makes toast. But even Adobe splits these tools into multiple apps, and they don't have to do it for free. So while "use Inkscape" isn't the answer you want, and it isn't the ideal answer, it's also not an unreasonable answer.
  
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  High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
2. Re:The difference between The Gimp and Excel.. by Waffle+Iron · 2006-10-16 13:36 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  They do?
  
  Of course they do. I've used the GIMP off and on over the years, and I wasted quite a bit of time searching for circle/rectangle/etc. tools before I came to terms with the idea that someone would bother to write such an elaborate program and leave those simple features out.
  So what it's a photo manipulation program: people need to stick circles and rectangle into photos sometimes. The menus are already cluttered with dozens if not hundreds of obscure tools and scripts. Surely adding a set of shortcut commands to do a very common basic task in a non-ass-backwards fashion wouldn't make the clutter significantly worse.
Re:Krita by archen · 2006-10-16 13:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

Krita is already set to run them over, it's just a matter of time. The application has gone to a crash prone app with a barely useful featureset, to fairly stable with a modest featureset in a very short timespan. And it seems like it's just gaining more momentum as it goes on. For now development will probably slow as everyone works hard on porting to KDE4, but make no mistake that this app is the graphical interface many have been begging for on Linux. Many of us use the Gimp because there's no other option (or we don't feel like using photoshop in wine), but there will soon be a point where the gimp is going to end up a rather orphaned application as far as their userbase goes. With QT being cross platform, I might even be a bit conserned if I were Corel - the {now} owners of PaintShop Pro.