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GIMP's Next-generation Imaging Core Demonstrated
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.
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!
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
They need to get this integrated before http://www.koffice.org/krita/ runs them over :)
- barkholt
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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Yeah, like Blender has improved.. oh wait.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I see this as a confirmation of the stagnant GIMP developer pool, led by a few who are not interested in growing that community at all.
If the GIMP team would foster new blood, help new hackers learn the large and intimidatingly complex codebase, give any other reply besides a gruff "you want it, you code it" response to any artist who dreams of a good core feature, give specific progress feedback about modern image demands like 32bits-per-channel, CMYK, or fully functional ICC, then maybe we'd see a real alternative to Photoshop in the OSS world, not a Photoshop 1993 clone.
The only other path is "fork it," but with any complex project, it's very tough to fork away from the few experts.
It's clear the GIMP captains still see GIMP as a pet project, just as some major tech news sites see themselves as a pet blog, and refuse to take on the responsibility of being a leader or even trying to become a leader.
[
Maybe now he can give The Gimp a decent UI instead of the trash it's had for the last 10 years
In the first place, the GIMP's UI has changed a great deal in the last few years, so much so that it doesn't make much sense to call it one UI. Second, the GIMP's current UI is very powerful and very usable. Personally, I prefer it to Photoshop's UI, mainly for the ease with which it can be customized to fit exactly the thing I need to do right now. Then, later, when I'm doing something different, I can flip a couple of hotkey assignments, tear off a different menu or two, and have a UI that is perfectly suited to what I need at that moment. For those who know it well, the GIMP's UI rocks. Much like PS, actually. The biggest difference is that there are a lot more people who know Photoshop's UI well.
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Ahem:
Gimpshop. It's a great attempt at making The Gimp more comprehensible to people with a Windows/Photoshop background. And like The Gimp, it too is free.
Yes, good point. Forking isn't always the best way, but it does demonstrate the power of determined people to turn open source products into exactly what they want or think other people want--for whatever that's worth. I mean, next thing you know, we'll be forking Firefox because of its logo. Hmm bad example...
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I think as various parts of gimp are better modularized and seperated, which is the direction things are moving, you'll see more progress. This is similar to the path that mozilla took. They abstracted out the rendering engine and then other projects are able to make clean fast native ui's on top of it.
The problem is that the GIMP's UI is not consistent with any other UI I've ever come across. Sure, it's probably easy-to-use once you already know it. But why not make it the same as other apps? Photoshop, among many other apps, has a bounding window-- this helps keep your workspace organized. Photoshop has palettes that actually float, instead of getting lost behind numerous other windows. You don't have to navigate through menu hell just to apply a filter. And so on. I'm sure these points have been flogged to death on lists before, but IMHO, until the GIMP changes these very simple UI items, most graphics professionals will stay away. Which is too bad-- the GIMP is otherwise a great program.
The problem is that the GIMP's UI is not consistent with any other UI I've ever come across. Sure, it's probably easy-to-use once you already know it. But why not make it the same as other apps?
Because all of us who know the GIMP would then have to learn a new UI.
;-)
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Pardon my American sensibilities, but I like Øvind Kolås based solely on the difficulty of typing and pronouncing his name. Woo woo alien character set!
Are you using MS Paint? Or Paint.NET? PLEASE tell me it's Paint.NET... once you tried that, you may find that you don't miss GIMP at all.
Comment of the year
You're wanting Sketchup, then, I think. For creating in 3D, that's about as intuitive as it gets.
--- Bwah?
Integrating The Gimp and Inkscape would be interesting.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I haven't used it myself, but it's certainly for real (as in, contributed code back to the gtk trunk)
http://developer.imendio.com/projects/gtk-macosx
Cheers... -Geoff
Hiya, I happen to be the developer of SharpConstruct. SharpConstruct is no longer under active development; I've been moving the source code into Blender over the summer (Google Summer of Code 2006) and the sculpting tools will probably be in the next version of Blender. I don't plan to develop SharpConstruct any further as an independent app.
I personally prefer to the fact that I can access all the windows I need the same way -- from the task bar, or by alt-tabbing. Once I'm in an MDI application, I have to change to its window-switching method, and identify what documents I have open in a different way. If I've got a maximized document in most MDI applications, I have to minimize it or go to a menu to see what else is open.
Excel 2003 actually has the worst of both worlds. It's an MDI application that pretends to be an SDI application, with its default maximized documents. Each document shows up in the task bar, but if you do the logical thing and close the current window (instead of the subtle and nonstandard 'document close' button below it), it closes the whole application instead!
I have a dislike for permanent floating palettes, particularly when working with images. In MDI apps I tend to work maximized, as the document frame clutters the already limited space. This means palettes are floating on top of the page I'm trying to draw on -- and unless I'm zoomed in, I often can't pan the page past them. I have to keep moving palettes around, or close them entirely (and then have to go menu hunting when I want them back). The GIMP lets me bring the document in front of the palettes when working.
There are however plenty of legitimate complaints about the GIMP GUI, but they don't seem to be the ones people usually make. It's insistence in popping up operation windows (scaling, cropping, filters etc) in front of the image, for example. I've already got a Tool Settings palette docked under the main palette; they aren't modal prompts, so why can't these things be shown there? (It looks like the development version is looking at this, but they've made some other annoying decisions, like overloading ctrl, alt & shift during selection. I'll be providing some feedback on that front...)
I think GIMP is a fantastic cross-platform photo manipulation tool. I had been using and advocating it for awhile now. In fact, all the logos on my sites were done with the GIMP Script-Fu routines.
HOWEVER - I am still sick of the horrendous UI that is presented to me. No matter how many times I argue with the developers and the "holier than thou" Gnome community, I cannot see their reasoning for a trashy un-comforting UI. Make a MDI interface and they will come. I see no reason why they couldn't have a two-option interface. SDI for the really geeky people and MDI for us normal users.
GIMPShop was a nice step in the right direction. Now, fix the bloody UI and the File Open/Save dialog (talk about garbage!) and you'd have a decent app.
Oh, wait - Krita is out. Oh - it doesn't work on Windows, and I still use Windows once in a while. Bummer.
Okay, guys, mark me down as a troll. I've said what I feel. GIMP could be a great tool, if only the developers would get off their respective high horses and listen to us normal users.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
I have a degree in graphic design. I currently work at a photography studio doing Photoshop work full-time. I've used Photoshop for around 10 years now. That is my background.
Let's assume for all purposes that GIMP can do everything that Photoshop can do (yes, I know it can't). For me to learn the GIMP UI and become as proficient as I am now in Photoshop would take some time. If it took me more than 8 hours (which is pretty much assured) then it makes no sense for me to use GIMP. I could buy a Photoshop upgrade for less then the productivity time I lost learning GIMP. Even if I had to buy a full new version the time lost learning the new program would be more and would actually cost me quite a bit. Although GIMP may appear to be be free, it really is not to anyone who uses a image editing program such as Photoshop to make a living. It may be great for the hobbyist, but not for the professional.
I use Paint Shop Pro 9 and I sometimes have to use both things, shape drawing tools and photo manipulation tools in the same file.
The shape drawing tools adds what... One button to the toolbar? And are easy and intuitive to use.
Having said that, I like the way you describe Gimp doing the same task, as long as I can edit the circle properties at any time afterwards, like stroke width and color.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I don't think the developers really want to know, else they would have responded long before since I've already told it several times. While the graphic drawing power of Gimp isn't disputed, Gimp sports the most uncommon GUI an application could have. This (and only this) GUI leaves a bad taste in the users mind so they start looking for other minor annoyances one finds in any application if looked for. Yet since most users a pre justice because of the bad taste they won't forgive any other annoyance.
This is all known in the Gimp community yet they don't want to acknowledge this simple fact but prefer to discard this as a flame bait. So it's now wonder Gimp gets flamed at all the time, rightfully or not. On the other side it's incredible easy for Gimp to drop off this flaming, they simply should change their GUI to the one outlined in wyoGuide (http://wyoguide.sourceforge.net/). All it needs is some willingness on the Gimp side and a little work. It might be that wyoGuide isn't the best but it certainly is good enough for Xara (http://wyoguide.sourceforge.net/projectlist.php) and many other fine applications.
O. Wyss
PS. You are free to rate this as flame bait but that won't help Gimp.
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
Let me tell you a little story, a story about the little school kid who used Gimp (which was functionally equivalent to Photoshop) while all his buddies used Photoshop. When they all become professionals, the Gimp user still has free software, updated regularly for free, which is very powerful and useful. The other kids all use Photoshop, which is expensive, updates cost a lot, and it's not as easily scriptable, nor are the developers as approachable for feature requests. Who is wasting more money keeping their technology up to date now?
What you're bitching about is that you're basically too lazy to learn something new, because different is bad. Still using an abacus to calculate your finances, because them newfangled calculators use numbers, and they aren't what you're used to and it'd take you more time to learn how to use 'em?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I too like the GIMP interface in many places, and use it exclusively for retouching my photographs (professionally published, as for instance in the Spaish edition of Rolling Stone). I export my results to a Photoshop .psd file, including a layer with the untouched photo for the editors to have a reference of what came out of the camera, and I send it to the photo editors. I don't miss CMYK or colour matching because, you know, they have that at the magazine.
;)
However, it would be good to have a completely tweakable interface. I have already commented somewhere that right now many 3D modeling apps are configurable to work like other apps, and that you have a vi mode for Emacs and Emacs bindings for vi, and nobody finds it strange that people like it that way. Problem is, vi and Emacs are used by coders, and coders can build their damn interface themselves. Most users of GIMP (and certainly most advanced graphics manipulators) can't. But they are right in saying they work better the way they do. Users are not idiots, and they know how they work better. What we need is not really "reskinning the Gimp, and more", but just the ability to tweak what really matters to you.
Not all features are equally important, or used equally frequently. Right now one can reassign shortcuts and move menus around, but modificator keys (keys that act as a "shift" to active tools) are still hard-coded, or were last time I looked. (Caveat: I haven't tried to configure it in a Photoshop way in a long time, as I am already used to the GIMP's UI, so I don't miss Photoshop's that much).
The thing I would love to have in GIMP is the space-alt-ctrl trio of modificators to invoke the hand tool and the zoom-in and zoom-out tools while in any mode. This is so powerful a way of working that I am almost religious about it, despite having retrained my muscular memory not to hit the spacebar with my thumb every time I want to readjust the working area. Also, later versions of Photoshop has evolved really nifty docked option palletes for tools (like the search feature in Firefox) that I haven't really used (as I am now a GIMP user), but they look fantastic.
Finally, some of us liked the MDI interface behaviour: sometimes, when you are editing photos, it is all you are doing (see below for single-app computing), and the focus behaviour of Photoshop is much saner than the Gimp's in many places. I know this is not the Gimp but the X11/WindowManager combo that provides window management; maybe what some users need is a PhotoGimpWM.
Contrary to popular Slashdot opinion, some of us who ask for certain Photoshoppy-features in Gimp don't want a clone of Photoshop. What want is the ability to really customise the way we work in a Photoshop-like app (and, like it or not, Gimp is Photoshop-like, see below) in the features that matter to us. Other people would like a Gimp preference option that adds a complete "behaviour" of the most-used and learned photo editor in the world. Think PhotoGimp on steroids, and if I were a coder working on the Gimp (sadly I am only a punter), this would be my first feature to add for propietary-software refugees' sake. Free Software being coded by volunteers, we can't make them do what we want... but that doesn't make our needs and wishes irrelevant or wrong. Just unenforceable
I have worked in TV with people using the Quantel series of graphical pallettes (concretely the superb HAL), and their gestural interface had nothing to do with Photoshop and Gimp's WIMP paradigm. However I would love the Gimp to have support for its dedicated clicker [note] for my left hand while I work with the pen in my right hand. I wouldn't mind to try the HAL's gestural interface either: it seems like a right timesaver, although I don't know how it would fare in a multi-purpose computer running other programs at the same time. In non-windowed environments where the only thing running is the graphics editor, however, gestural interfaces to be the right thing for bringing up pallett
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GIMP explicitely allows non-free plug-ins and the main reason for doing that is to allow such technologies to be added. Someone just needs to do it.
Yes, you can use a gamepad with GIMP, assuming that a driver exists that makes it available as a Linux Input device. Otherwise you could also write your own GIMP input module. That's a pretty small well-defined interface and there's example code that you can base your module on.
e l=url2html-27183http://gimp.org/unix/howtos/gimp-m idi.html> for a HOWTO on controlling GIMP with MIDI devices.
On a related note, see ahref=http://gimp.org/unix/howtos/gimp-midi.htmlr
Gestures might be a nice idea for the future. Perhaps you want to try to come up with a more detailed proposal on how this would work?
Looks like you've been reading bad instructions.
1. Draw shape using appropriate selection tool.
2. Choose whatever paintbrush tool and options you want the shape drawn with. (optional)
3. Edit -> stroke selection.
4. Write text using text tool and style it appropriately.
5. Adjust colors / transparency.