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GIMP 2 for Photographers
Jon Allen writes "A glance through any photography magazine will confirm that Adobe Photoshop is the accepted standard image editing software, offering almost unparalleled power and control over your images. However, costing more than many DSLR cameras, for non-professionals it can be a very hard purchase to justify (and of course for Linux users this is a moot point, as Photoshop is not available for their platform). Luckily, the free software community has provided us with an alternative. The GIMP, or Gnu Image Manipulation Program, offers a huge amount of the power of Photoshop but is available at no cost. Additionally GIMP is cross-platform, available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix." Read below for the rest of Jon's review.
GIMP 2 for Photographers
author
Klaus Goelker
pages
185
publisher
Rocky Nook / O'Reilly
rating
9/10
reviewer
Jon Allen
ISBN
978-1-933952-03-1
summary
A great book for anyone with more than a passing interest in improving their photos
The one downside to using GIMP is that most magazines and photography books use Photoshop in their articles and tutorials, so if you do choose GIMP there's a bit more of a learning curve. Now once you're used to GIMP you'll find that many of Photoshop's features have equivalents, albeit with a different user interface, but getting that initial level of experience and familiarity with the software can be rather difficult. The GIMP does come with a manual, but it is really more of a reference guide and while very comprehensive it is not particularly friendly for new users. GIMP 2 for Photographers aims to rectify this.
Written clearly from a photographer's point of view (the author is a photographer who also teaches image editing), this book takes a task-oriented approach, looking at the types of editing operations that a photographer would require and then showing how to perform each task in the GIMP.
Rather helpfully, the GIMP software (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) is included on the book's accompanying CD. This means that you can follow each tutorial using the exact same version of software as the author, which really helps to build confidence that you're doing everything right.
I already have GIMP installed on OS X, so to test out the instructions in the book I performed an installation from the CD on a clean Microsoft Windows XP machine.
The exact filenames of the installation packages on the CD differ slightly from those in the accompanying README file, but the instructions in the book do list the correct files and after following this procedure the installation went without a hitch. The setup files do not ask any overly 'techie' questions, so it literally took less than 5 minutes to set up a fully working system.
As well as the GIMP application, the CD also includes all of the sample images used in the book, and for each editing tutorial the "final" image is provided so you can check your own work against the expected result.
Even more usefully, the CD contains an electronic copy of the complete book as a PDF file, so you can keep it on your laptop as a reference guide, invaluable when editing images on location (or on holiday).
I'd have to say that this is without a doubt the most useful CD I've ever received with a book. Providing the applications and example files is good, giving readers instant gratification without needing to deal with downloads and websites (which may well have changed after the book went to press). But including the complete book on the CD as well is nothing short of a masterstroke, and something I'd love to see other publishers adopt.
As for the book itself, the author takes us through basic GIMP operations — opening and saving files, cropping, resizing images, and printing. Once these basics are out of the way, the book moves on to a series of examples based on "real-life" image editing scenarios.
These examples are very well chosen, both in the fact that the vast majority of the techniques shown are genuinely useful, but also in the way that they are ordered. Each example introduces a new feature of the software, building up your knowledge as you work through the book. By the end you can expect to be skilled not only in "standard" editing — adjusting color balance, fixing red-eye, removing dust spots, and so on — but also in compositing, perspective correction, lighting and shadow effects, and building panoramic images.
Between the examples there is a good amount of more "reference" type material, with detailed descriptions of the various menus, tool bars, and dialogs you will encounter while using the software. Combined with lots of well-labelled screenshots this strikes a very good balance, ensuring that even after going through all the tutorials you'll still get value from the book as something to refer back to.
Overall the quality of the writing and general production standard is very high indeed. There are some points where it is noticeable that the book was originally published in German, but this never becomes a stumbling block to the reader's understanding. Most importantly though, the author employs the "show, don't tell" philosophy throughout which is key to successful teaching.
In conclusion, I would have no hesitation in recommending GIMP 2 for Photographers to anyone with more than a passing interest in improving their photos. And even if you already use image editing software, the book is well worth a read — I have been using GIMP for several years and still learned a great deal. The accompanying CD is the icing on the cake, making GIMP 2 for Photographers a simply essential purchase.
You can purchase GIMP 2 for Photographers from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Written clearly from a photographer's point of view (the author is a photographer who also teaches image editing), this book takes a task-oriented approach, looking at the types of editing operations that a photographer would require and then showing how to perform each task in the GIMP.
Rather helpfully, the GIMP software (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) is included on the book's accompanying CD. This means that you can follow each tutorial using the exact same version of software as the author, which really helps to build confidence that you're doing everything right.
I already have GIMP installed on OS X, so to test out the instructions in the book I performed an installation from the CD on a clean Microsoft Windows XP machine.
The exact filenames of the installation packages on the CD differ slightly from those in the accompanying README file, but the instructions in the book do list the correct files and after following this procedure the installation went without a hitch. The setup files do not ask any overly 'techie' questions, so it literally took less than 5 minutes to set up a fully working system.
As well as the GIMP application, the CD also includes all of the sample images used in the book, and for each editing tutorial the "final" image is provided so you can check your own work against the expected result.
Even more usefully, the CD contains an electronic copy of the complete book as a PDF file, so you can keep it on your laptop as a reference guide, invaluable when editing images on location (or on holiday).
I'd have to say that this is without a doubt the most useful CD I've ever received with a book. Providing the applications and example files is good, giving readers instant gratification without needing to deal with downloads and websites (which may well have changed after the book went to press). But including the complete book on the CD as well is nothing short of a masterstroke, and something I'd love to see other publishers adopt.
As for the book itself, the author takes us through basic GIMP operations — opening and saving files, cropping, resizing images, and printing. Once these basics are out of the way, the book moves on to a series of examples based on "real-life" image editing scenarios.
These examples are very well chosen, both in the fact that the vast majority of the techniques shown are genuinely useful, but also in the way that they are ordered. Each example introduces a new feature of the software, building up your knowledge as you work through the book. By the end you can expect to be skilled not only in "standard" editing — adjusting color balance, fixing red-eye, removing dust spots, and so on — but also in compositing, perspective correction, lighting and shadow effects, and building panoramic images.
Between the examples there is a good amount of more "reference" type material, with detailed descriptions of the various menus, tool bars, and dialogs you will encounter while using the software. Combined with lots of well-labelled screenshots this strikes a very good balance, ensuring that even after going through all the tutorials you'll still get value from the book as something to refer back to.
Overall the quality of the writing and general production standard is very high indeed. There are some points where it is noticeable that the book was originally published in German, but this never becomes a stumbling block to the reader's understanding. Most importantly though, the author employs the "show, don't tell" philosophy throughout which is key to successful teaching.
In conclusion, I would have no hesitation in recommending GIMP 2 for Photographers to anyone with more than a passing interest in improving their photos. And even if you already use image editing software, the book is well worth a read — I have been using GIMP for several years and still learned a great deal. The accompanying CD is the icing on the cake, making GIMP 2 for Photographers a simply essential purchase.
You can purchase GIMP 2 for Photographers from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I was quite confused by this article at first. Does this mean there is a new verison of Gimp out for Photographers? What's wrong with the current version of Gimp? Surely this is not an article refering to the release of Gimp2, that was released a while back.
After reading and rereading the article, I think I have come to the conclusion that this is a review of a book, and the review was aimed at the non-slashdot community.
You just have to look at it from programmer's point of view. For example, there is no separate commands to draw geometric shapes. Instead you define a selection and then stroke or fill it. The upshot is that it's much easier to, for example, draw an intersection of two shapes. Default settings in photoshop also leave much to be desired. For example, only several undo levels are enabled by default. In Gimp you can review a long undo history and snap your project back to any point.
I am sure PS is a great tool for professional artists, but it's horrible for programmers who want to do a little icon drawing. On the other hand, price of Photoshop and lack of Pen tool in Photoshop Elements make it unsuitable for most hobbyists and shareware authors.
Not even close.
Spencer: Bring out the GIMP.
Peter: The GIMP's not installed.
Spencer: Well, I guess you'll have to compile it now, won't you?
Picasa is good enough for my photo needs (i.e. straightening, lightening) and it is free too.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
No 16bit support on Gimp, and so it's NOT a good solution for prosumer or pro photographers. And Cinepaint has forked a long time ago and so many other features are missing from it, so don't even mention it as an alternative. 16bit support on Gimp was first promised in 2002, but it's still not here...
I would imagine that a large number of photographers have switched over to Adobe Lightroom. It's tailor made for photo work (workflow, organization and processing). It's a very nice piece of software and a lot cheaper than PS CS3!
1. How do you change the shape of your selection outlines, or make small adjustments to it? In Photoshop, as they're defined by vector shapes, you can do this.
2. Photoshop has the history palette (and even history branching, if I'm not mistaking, in the later versions)
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
Comparing GIMP to the full version of Photoshop is a straw man argument. Compare it instead to Photoshop Elements. Elements is about $100, not about $700.
I have used both Elements and GIMP and find Elements much more intuitive. This is even though
I used GIMP first. Elements also supports the RAW mode for my Nikon D70.
I now only use GIMP when I don't have access to my home machine, where the one licensed copy I have is installed.
Elements also allows you to organize your photos into categories without having to create a directory structure. It has built in partial and full backup functions.
Of course, YMMV.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
I want to love the GIMP, I really do, but until that changes, I can only love it like an indifferent uncle.
Unless they have recently added support for higher depths than 16 bits, no one will be able to take it seriously. I'd love to use gimp for something more than a quick rescale of jpegs, but when you're constrained to working with 8 bits per channel, everything just gets too tedious. :/
c++;
We have heard this story thousand times. It seems it will never die, like the old war between Good and Evil. With the twist that meaning of good/evil are left to the reader.
Nothing new, move along. I wonder if the "I welcome our new overlords" will appear here.
There are a number of really good books on doing web comics with Photoshop. Are there any equivalent books for GIMP?
So, the stuff that you're able to do with the GIMP by the end of this book is the stuff that's covered in Chapters 1-3 (of 12 or so) in any decent Photoshop book. That says quite a bit right there.
Gimp doesn't have the gray application background that hides whatever is behind it, making it much easier to multi-task and work with different applications.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
I know this won't win me any friends from the OSS crowd, but the last time I tried using GIMP the GUI was an absolute nightmare, and the application was buggy as Hell, and the documentation was all over the map (some of it well written, most of it garbage that read like it was written by an engineer with English as his second language). Perhaps this has changed in recent years, but a few years ago, it was most defintely NOT comparable to Photoshop. I would compare it more to something like Corel's Paintshop Pro. Personally, if you want something like Photoshop, but without spending the $, I would recommend Pixel.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
1. You create a path, edit it until you are satisfied and then convert it into selection
2. Nice to know, but when you just install the thing, Apple-Z stops working after just several undo steps. They could have easily used an adoptive algorithm that discards old undos when running low on memory or resorts to slower strategy of storing images every N steps and redoing operations in the middle.
I've been using photoshop for about 10 years now and have become very proficient. I recently made the switch to linux. The only real application i havn't found a replacement for is photoshop. I have tried using GIMP but their are just too many problems with it. While it is probably acceptable for those who have never used photo editing software before, anyone who has touched photoshop will feel severly handycapped. When i first heard about GIMP i was hoping it would simply be an attempt at cloning photoshops capabilities and interface. Perhaps someone has an answer to this question: why during the design stage did the developers not simply stick with the industry standard interms of interface/menus? Does anyone know where the developers are planning on taking GIMP in the future?
...there being a /. poster whose .sig referred to some software that claimed to have something like 70% of Photoshop's functionality at 10% the price. It intrigued me when I saw it, but I never bothered to follow the link. Does anyone know what that software was, or if it's a viable alternative?
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
The problem with this is that for everyone with google and 30 mins or less, Adobe Photoshop can be free. People won't stop using Photoshop until they have to actually pay for it... at this rate, that should be never. (well, atleast until they create the web based version)
Since time is money, the time spent in becomming proficient in the GIMP, which may actually be similiar in the time a newbie would spend learning PhotoShop, is still a cost to reconcile if you are switching from PhotoShop to the GIMP.
Photoshop CS3 retails for $649 and the "extended" version is $999
Last I checked, the lower-end pro-sumer segment DSLRs are on par with the cost of the standard Photoshop and just under Extended. For the full-on pros, the DSLRs are $1,200+ some ranging in at $7,000.
But it's all expensive compared to Free. ^__^
One problem I've continually had with gimp is loss of image quality when scaling pictures down. I spent a good several hours trying to find settings that would do a clean job.
Sent the images to a buddy with photoshop, and they came out significantly better. Perhaps I'm missing something? Can anyone make a recommendation?
PS users frequently work with images that take up many megabytes, and if there weren't a default 20 or whatever undo steps then out of the box PS would be maxing out the amount of memory you let it work with nearly every time. Anyway this is all very easily configurable, and if you're actually serious about using a tool like PS, you're going to be doing some configuration and personalization to it anyhow.
I like basketball!!1!
I'd love to ditch Photoshop on Windows (Win2K) for the GIMP on Linux but I simply must have a fully color managed environment. Color management is REQUIRED for high quality photo editing.
Actually GIMP's support for raw files has improved dramatically in the last few years. Install the UFRaw plugin, which most Linux distros package up and which supports the D70 as well as many others.
Because that's just what every photographer wants.
You did notice this is a review of "Gimp 2 for Photographers," right?
Why would super-expensive software be so dumb that it can not detect that I am editing an 128x128 pixel icon and adjust undo steps automatically?
Gimp has had a decade to blossom into a 16 bit application.
It's stuck at 8 bits.
Serious photographic manipulation is impossible.
What I want to do with GIMP, and cannot find the place for it is adjust a selection edges after I've made the selection. In PS you go to the Select menu and you can specify the current selection, say a rectangle, for adjustment. Then I can individually move the edges in or out to fine-tune it in a way that's most useful to me, and I CANNOT FIND on GIMP. Maybe this book explains that feature.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Is there an alternate installation of Gimp on the Mac that provides a more OS X interface? The default X11 setup is an abomination of an interface; it's essentially unusable. With a halfway more normal GUI, GIMP would be significantly better. Any options out there? Thanks.
ShoutingMan.com
It's not about the oft-slagged interface, it's about actual capability falling behind the curve.
It's going to be a common rant in this thread, I am sure, but the fact is, GIMP is falling behind because it has not yet mainstreamed any support for "deep color." It is stuck in an 8-bits-per-channel world, which is fine for many forms of web graphics and proofing, but has some serious limitations in advanced photography. Many photographers are getting quite interested in HDR, RAW, and ICC. What few plugins exist for these in the GIMP world are incomplete and only allow you to import their results back into the limits of an 8-bits-per-channel world.
[
You just have to look at it from programmer's point of view.
This is why most linux applications are nowhere near ready for the desktop.
not flaming.
Isn't this The Usual Suspects?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You might be intrested in GIMPShop. I've never used it, but it is a modified version of GIMP designed to have an interface that is closer to that of Photoshop. There is some Photoshop fuctionality that is missing in GIMP, and this does change that, but it might help long-term Photoshop users become comfortable with GIMP faster, especially if you're in a situation where you need to use both. Again, I've never used it, so I can't speak as to how much it helps.
Zed: Bring out the Gimp.
Maynard: But the Gimp's sleeping.
Zed: Well, I guess you're gonna have to go wake him up now, won't you?
I have installed Neo-Office on the Macs belonging to our graphics designers, plus a couple other open-source tools(main tool is In-Design).
In all honesty, if my boss saw the word Gimp on screen in our open plan office, he would go ape-shit.
They should have also taken this opportunity to re-Brand....its not nessacarily an indicator of failure.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
I do not understand the fascination with GIMP. I have used Photoshop for basic editing for years, and found GIMP to be a nightmare when I tried it.
Paint.net, on the other hand, is easy to use, works in basically the same way as Photoshop (many of the shortcut commands are even the same), and is free. I now use it almost every day at work for basic web stuff - resizing, erasing undesirable elements with the clone brush, converting formats, etc.
Maybe I misunderstand GIMP (maybe because I'm running XP), but you know Photoshop and you're looking for a free version, Paint.net will be a much easier transition.
How do you change the default JPEG quality from the measly 85 (to say >90)? As a photographer this is the most annoying setting that I end up having to change all the time.
Cinepaint does 16 bit, which I'm now starting to find MUCH more useful, as I now have a RAW capable digital camera. I really do wish that the Cinepaint and GIMP would de-fork. There is SO much good stuff in GIMP that's not in Cinepaint, and vice-versa (and that includes expertise). Keeping them separate seems stoopid !
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
http://cameras.pricegrabber.com/digital/p/48/form_keyword=dslr/rd=1/sortby=priceA
Hmm..
I see TWO DSLR cameras for less than the price of photoshop, one of them (the one that is 5$ less) comes with a lens.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The problem is not that it can't detect that you're working with a small file and give additional history steps. The problem is that if you consistently work with small files and get used to having a long undo trail then you may get surprised when you only have a short history when you open a big file.
For example, in your system a user might usually edit 128x128 px images and have 150 undo steps available. They'd get used to being able to undo 100 brush actions in a row if they needed to revert. But when they edit a larger image they'd inevitably scream with frustration when their history has been silently taken away and they can't undo the stupid change. It's a risk.
I'm not saying that Adobe made the right design call, but there are positives and negatives on both sides.
Uh, no.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Cn7n17wxE
01:48
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
[quote]Default settings in photoshop also leave much to be desired. For example, only several undo levels are enabled by default.[/quote]
Um, the default undo level in Gimp is 5 undos. Of course, anyone sane adjusts that, but the default is only 5.
The world of pro/semi photography has moved on to tools like Aperture/Lightroom. When you are shooting hundreds images working with them in PS or Gimp is far too time/labor intensive. With the next generation for tools I can efficiently deal with hundreds/thousands of image to grade and quick edit images then if required do fine editing with PS/Gimp.
I wish I was clever!
Well PS is kinda overkill for 128x128 icons. I'm not even sure you can save in .ico format out of the box with PS or not...
If you are dealing with such small files (unusual for a PS user) then like I said you can go ahead and set the number of steps it saves in its history to much higher than default. Automatic adjustment like that is not really a feature that PS users have asked for, though, and that's why you don't see it. I'm not really sure I'd want it, either.
I like basketball!!1!
Much easier for a photographer to use, IMHO.
Back in the 80s, good software was always around $500. 20 years later, Photoshop can be had for about $500. Buy a Wacom tablet and get a $250 off PS voucher, so you get a "free" tablet, or a half-price PS. Always the complainers about price. But it once and you're done. Quit your crying. Or use Gimp. Why do you think it's called Gimp?
goes the GP's point over your head
You don't need to install or compile it. Just plug in your flash drive with GIMP Portable on it. :-)
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
It's very sad to me that Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo (XI, or X2, or whatever) doesn't get mentioned in this conversation usually. It's a very full-featured, robust program (built on the former Jasc Paint Shop Pro) with most every feature (including a "lightroom"-like addition to X2) that photoshop has. It's very reasonably priced, and I would place it (in terms of functionality) somewhere between GIMP and Photoshop, and way above Elements, even though the price is basically Elements.
Last time I looked, here in the UK they were about the same price - £569, although it'll be more for the camera (maybe £900+) if you're going to be wanting a decent lens. You're also assuming that said DSLR fanatic already has a computer, which you can also argue is a requirement.
If you're going to pony up between £500 and £1000 for a camera, then it's worth factoring in the price of software, especially as you don't need to buy film.
I mean that's like getting a film SLR and moaning about the cost of darkroom kit... it's the same with any hobby; horse riding isn't just the price of a horse, fishing isn't just the price of a rod and digital photography isn't just the price of a digital camera, you have to account for all the necessary extras as they say...
I am not sure if this is true, so someone correct me if I'm wrong:
You can convert a selection to a path. This turns the outline of the selection into a curve that has nodes with Bezier-style controls. Then you can reposition and adjust the path. After that, you can convert it back into a selection.
Note that while the selection is an area (2 dimensions), the path is a curve (1 dimension, assuming it's not a Peano curve or something).
Another possibility is to convert the selection to a mask, but that's still working with areas rather than curves.
I wonder what happens if you make the path intersect itself, like a figure-8, and then convert it back into a selection?
Anyway, a bit of a coincidence that I only discovered this book today. (I was shopping for the Solveig Haugland book, OpenOffice 2 Guide, and saw it recommended on the web site where I purchased the book.) I did buy Professional GIMP, by Akkana Peck (sp?), which has been a very handy reference.
By the way, in case no one else mentions it, Grokking the GIMP is a great book available for free online from which I learned a great deal about using GIMP. It talks about removing colour casting from photographs, advanced selection techniques, etc. I downloaded a copy, and use it when I don't have the dead-tree book handy.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
keep telling yourself that.
Sheesh. You're really stretching to find a reason. It doesn't do it because Adobe hasn't put it in. And the reason they haven't is probably because there's not a lot of call for it. That seems like a perfectly reasonable answer.
Photoshop is an amazing program. I'm surprised the reviewer wrote "almost unparalleled." It's flat-out unparalleled. But it's undo, and even its history feature, are not as good as they could be.
For a professional, you have to have high quality CMYK support. Period. Doesn't matter how good the other features are, if you're stuck with RGB, you're never going to be accepted in the world of the printed page.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Avoid.
Read my blog.
Imagemagick does, on the command line, 90% of what I do when I manipulate photos: resize, rotate, change formats, lower the jpeg quality for posting online. Easily scripted.
There are still a few things that Gimp either doesn't do very well, or takes too many keystrokes to do: Adding text to a photo (why do I have to f*** with "layers"?), and autocropping is still brain dead (can't adjust threshold above zero-black, or at least I have not figured out how.)
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I'll give you two features that alone make Photoshop easier to use:
... give it a couple years.
- Unified move/scale/rotate/perspective/etc tool with transparency. Want to paste a person on top of a building? A flower on a hat? Paste your logo on a billboard on a photograph? You move, scale, rotate and do everything else in one shot until it looks right. Scale a bit, move, scale, move, rotate, rescale, change transparency, doesn't match quite right, rescale again... ok. On the Gimp, you have to do scaling and rotation separately, which is harder to get right and you lose quality, especially if you do it repeatedly. The best I found was to use the measuring tool on an axis on both source and destination, and then calculate scale and rotation and enter it on the two dialogs, then move. Even the transparent move wasn't implemented until recently, and you have to make sure to disable visibility of the layer before you move. (Or at least you did a month ago)
- Adjustment layers: Nondestructive editing is good. Adjust the colors. Adjust the colors of another layer. Doesn't look quite right? Readjust the colors of the first one. In the gimp I end up making copies before a color adjustment so that I can redo it if I need to.
Notice I'm not talking about high powered features, or 256 bit color in YMCA palette or whatever. I'm talking about every day things. Even the layer grouping in Photoshop is very useful even if you don't put in the layer blending effects, making it easy to implement.
There are a couple features from the Gimp I miss when I'm using Photoshop, but the end balance is in photoshop's favor.
For simple editing the Gimp is good. If you don't have Photoshop, the Gimp is good. One-on-one comparison
First post? Dude, you're like, an hour late. Were you just masturbating to your link too long and lost track of time?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Well you see....you actually aren't that far off. The GIMP libraries are the basis for gtk graphics if I heard right. That's right, it draws your UI in GNOME. It is not only a photo program.
5 gets you 10, there are dozens of posts abouthow gimp doesn't have necessary features in photoshoop. instead of the usual /. flamewars, how about all the people who say gimp must have feature x to compete get together and make a list...
naw, that would make to much sense
I know what you are saying, and you know what I meant.
People who complain about Gimp's interface aren't just whingeing for the sake of it. Gimp is immensely capable, but dear god, why is the interface split across so many windows? Photo editing in Gimp is a chore, chasing little windows around the desktop with the mouse.
It's a terrible pity, because so much work has gone into making Gimp. To can do almost everything an amateur photographer could want, but after a few weeks using it I went looking for an alternative and bought Photoshop Elements. Elements is missing a few features, but it's a pleasure to use, and that's why so many people use it instead of Gimp.
That's the definition of "not intuitive". Something is "intuitive" when you can pick it up and use it without having to think. If you have to think about how to use it, it's not intuitive.
(There's an old saying that makes the point: the only truly intuitive interface is the nipple. All others are learned.)
Read my blog.
And what on earth makes you think I'm anywhere near the USA?
Only if you're working in pre-press. Photographers, even professionals, don't deal with CMYK. Cameras and film scanners are RGB, all retouching is done in RGB, and final images are delivered to magazines/newspapers/whatever in RGB (usually TIFF, sometimes 16 bits per channel, usually 8). Then the pre-press production work begins by moving the images to CMYK and adjusting the colors so they look good in that colorspace and in the print system's color profile.
This book is for photographers, not pre-press production. For photographers, the real issues that make Photoshop better than the GIMP are:
Only item 2 above is a real showstopper, and that's only for images that benefit from greater dynamic range. Item 3 is huge convenience, but can be worked around. Item 4 is also just a convenience factor, but there are some plugins that do stuff that would take hours to do manually. If you need one of those regularly, you're best off getting Photoshop and the plugin.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Actually, I didn't think that.
I was just bored and decided to pretend to be an American and troll.
You just have to look at it from programmer's point of view.
That's what I've been telling all my designers, but they keep looking at design from the designer's point of view.
For example, there is no separate commands to draw geometric shapes. Instead you define a selection and then stroke or fill it. The upshot is that it's much easier to, for example, draw an intersection of two shapes.
It's just easier to merge vector shapes or selections in Photoshop. With the difference I can scale, rotate, and use the pen tool to adjust the shapes inside, and with selection, I can't.
Default settings in photoshop also leave much to be desired. For example, only several undo levels are enabled by default. In Gimp you can review a long undo history and snap your project back to any point.
That's the best example you have? You're 3 clicks away from changing the default once and for all.
FYI Photoshop defaults to *20* history states, and that doesn't include the unlimited state snapshots you can create and store within the document itself (you'll see those snaps the next time you open the document, how about that?).
The reason is that Photoshop is frequently used to edit gigantic images, so the default spares the memory in this case. Otherwise you can have up to 1000 history states. And again, unlimited manual history snapshots.
I am sure PS is a great tool for professional artists, but it's horrible for programmers who want to do a little icon drawing.
You know: I don't care if Linux programmers want to make little icons in GIMP. No one ever doubted GIMP's ability to do little icons. Hell, Paint.exe can do little icons.
The issue is people keep putting GIMP against Photoshop, and recommend it to designers and photographers (check the book review above), and that's just hilarious.
lack of Pen tool in Photoshop Elements make it unsuitable for most hobbyists and shareware authors.
O_O You said just few sentences above that selection is superior to vector tools. Now suddenly the lack of Pen in Elements is unbearable. Oook...
You just have to look at it from programmer's point of view.
:)
That might be the best UI insult I have every seen
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
The photo part of the name scared me away (sounds feature stripped), is it useful for painting?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Ever, ever, ever. Guess I should have previewed that one.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Why does everything in computing have to be dumbed down? Why aren't other professions subject to this?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
To take the two best known brands:
Canon Digital Rebel: $449.95
Nikon D40: $499.95
Nikon D80: $874.95
Canon 40D: $1,299.95
Nikon D300: $1,799.95
Canon 5D: $2,499.95
Canon 1D MkIII: $4,499.95
Nikon D3: $4,999.95
Canon 1Ds MkIII: $7,999.95
Aside from the cheap, plastic, bottom of the line, heavily cropped sensors, minimal functionality, non-environmentally sealed versions, PhotoShop is cheaper than just about any DSLR out there. One in four or five cameras in a line doesn't really count as "many".
However, even then, most photography magazines will also discuss techniques for PhotoShop Elements - which runs all of $99 ($79.99 upgrade) - or Lightroom which for $299.
You've also got the upgrade path: The next version of Photoshop will set you back $199. The next version of your DSLR camera will still cost you full retail.
Also, if you're not a professional and qualify for the educational discount, a full copy of PhotoShop CS3 Extended will only set you back $299. The educational version of your DSLR... doesn't exist.
What about OS/2?
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Because "Computing" isn't a profession. A computer is a tool/household appliance, not a job.
While the parent is clearly a rant. I agree, i'm sick of the "open source is holier art than thou..." attitude.
I own this book and I enjoyed it very much. Not only is the book well structured, a high quality printing process is used. In other words, the paper is nice, the pictures are in color and well done (not the case with all books). I own a few books on Gimp and this is one of my favorites. Perhaps I should note that Gimp is my only option because I use Linux. I also use Bibble to handle conversion from RAW. It has numerous features to handle the conversions in an efficient work flow for multiple photos. For many items, this is sufficient and I must only use Gimp for those rare items not easily supported in Bibble, like whitening teeth. http://www.bibblelabs.com/ The book targets photo manipulation, so it is not the best book if you want to create things such as icons. This is the first time that I have seen perspective correction demonstrated in a book. I also have a comment on the people that choose to comment. Why must mention of Gimp turn into rants and arguments related to Photoshop versus Gimp? This is silly and non-productive for reasons that are not worth stating.
wrong choice of word when i said computing. Isn't a vehicle a tool? Mechanics don't go around dumbing things down.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Why doesn't it just do what GIMP does, and have both a maximum undo step limit and an undo memory limit?
(There's an old saying that makes the point: the only truly intuitive interface is the nipple. All others are learned.)
Sorry, but that interface is a learned one too. If you've ever sat and helplessly watched a new mother and baby trying to work out how to get some milk INTO baby, you know what I mean.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
Unfortunate pop-culture reference, but using the GIMP reminds me a lot of the episode of South Park in which Mr. Garrison involves an alternative form of transport with a rather unfortunate control interface.
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
"The user interface is just horrendous."
You should try the release candidates for version 2.4 - the UI has been significantly improved. It's still not "OMG SEXY" or anything, but it's *far* better than the 2.2 series' was.
You're overly harsh on the low-end DSLRs - they are quite capable. The only one that has major things missing that the more expensive models have is maybe the Nikon D40. The original Digital Rebel had some limitations as well (some of which are improved by a firmware hack), but there are two newer models of that camera that are greatly improved. In any case, saying any of these cameras have "minimal functionality" is ridiculous. For 90-95% of uses, the lowest end DSLRs have all the functionality that the higher end models have. Most of the more expensive cameras use cropped sensors too (only in the past several years, as technology improves, have even the ones that cost several thousand dollars had full-frame sensors.) There's good reason for it, primarily cost-gain benefits. The quality of a cheap crop sensor is going to be much much better than a cheap full-frame sensor, at this point.
Additionally, the choice of lens makes more of an effect on the quality of the photograph than the body does, at least for general usage. Given comparable high quality lenses, the photographs taken with a low-end Rebel XT and a higher-end 40D or 5D will be indistinguishable in prints or on the web, again for general usage, particularly if the photographer knows what they're doing. Those with more expensive gear also tend to know what they're doing (usually), so their photos are generally better (usually).
That off topic argument aside, I think the whole comparison between the price of photoshop and a camera is ridiculous to begin with - even if your camera cost you a lot of money, $650 is... still a lot of money. For $650, you can get a VERY nice lens (or a helpful portion of one anyway) that could mean the difference between getting the shot or not, even with your brand new $2500 5D.
Also - when you upgrade, the potentially thousands of dollars you've spent on lenses were not wasted as you can use those with your new camera too.
I had no idea Corel was still in business.
I just mentioned Corel Paint Shop Pro to my girlfriend who is a fashion photographer. Turns out she actually had to become familiar with it back in college, as its evidently popular among fashion designers.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Two reasons why I've tried GIMP and will *NOT* return to it unless it has: a) a better GUI b) better documentation How do you expect ordinary users to use it, regardless of how wonderful it is, if its hard to use and isn't intuitive? Even MS Paint is better, and easier to use than GIMP's functionality!
My web domain.
Because that's the job of engineers, not mechanics...
And what's with stupid generalization that "easier = dumber"? Do you honestly feel that the current key-start engines on cars are "dumber" than the old crank-starts?
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
If appearances, didn't matter, we wouldn't need image manipulation programs! Time and again, I've seen professional photographers reject the GIMP. Why? Not because it lacks patented color spaces or features, though it does. Simply because the name is cringeingly embarrassing. They'll use some awful shareware app if they can't use photoshop, not the GIMP.
Now, as some borderline autist developer, you may not care about such things, and think their embarrassment is stupid and irrational. but arty types - including digital media workers - tend to be emotional and less than entiely rational. They're *all about appearances*. When they're talking shop to their colleagues, they don't want to be saying "I just opened up the gimp".
You fuckwit, they DO, this is why we have automatic transmission, power steering, ABS and so on.
You don't really understand what dumbing down means, do you ?
They don't dumb down the innards of the cars. Just like you are not dumbing down the code running the software. You are making the UI easier to use. In the case of your vehicles, they make it easier to steer, brake and so on. And they make them safer and safer.
A driver is not a mechanic. And a photographer is not a programmer. Photographers don't care for UIs designed by programmers for programmers.
No, it isn't. Fucking asstunnel.
Bless you. You even got modded up!
Because unlike programmers and more tech-minded types, designers don't really like to think about memory usage and tweaking data structures.
He's not stretching. It's generally a good idea to avoid modes when designing UIs.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(computer_interface):
My coworker just opened a four gig file. I don't know if that system would allow her to undo!
That being said, Photoshop is way overkill for ICO files and actually need a plugin to properly save to that format. I think the emphasis and audience exists in the title: Photoshop.
Specifically the 2.4 betas out, most certainly do support Lanczos.
No, it's not. I just opened an image and made loads of different brush strokes; each one is present in th undo history, right back to the creation of the image.
You might want to try Cinepaint: http://www.cinepaint.org/ -- supposedly, in all its 32-bit glory...
Paul B.
It makes no sense to you that these authors are trying to make a living? Seems perfectly sensible to me. Still better than buying a book on Photoshop, learning the skills, and still having to drop a huge chunk of money on the software.
A few months ago I did a little poking around to see what my son was doing on the internet.
Well, besides all the obvious things a 17 year old looks for on the net, he was hanging out on a discussion forum for video games. The first post of his that I found was this:
paint sux use gimp.
As a father, I'm conflicted.
http://seashore.sourceforge.net/ might do what you want, but it`s not all of Gimp
Seashore is an open source image editor for Cocoa. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP's technology and uses the same native file format.
However, unlike the GIMP, Seashore only aims to serve the basic image editing needs of most computer users, not to provide a replacement for professional image editing products. Seashore was created by Mark Pazolli who, together with a handful of other developers and helpful users, still develops it to this day.
It deserves more attention. There's nothing that runs under Linux that even remotely matches what it can do for photographers that capture in raw. It's a bargain.
Umm, or something.
I am not a professional, but I've toyed with PS and work fairly extensively with The GIMP. What are some of the features that PS has, besides CMYK output, that makes PS worth $649 more ?
More basically, what is it feature-wise that puts PS so far ahead of the very solid product that is The GIMP (even the Windows version doesn't suck...)
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
What exactly is modal about sizing history to available resources? It's been an accepted human practice since the invention of the palimpsest.
If you want a non-modal design, it's an easy constraint to satisfy: have Photoshop maintain a complete undo history to the beginning, all of the time. What could be less modal than that? It might thrash like a pig on 90% of projects within 30 minutes of enaging in any serious work, but it won't be modal.
Responding to another post, if the average design artist doesn't wish to wade into discussions about technical tweakage, then that's the way Photoshop should be configured by default. Why are the software people busy implementing arbitrary tradeoffs, such as a twenty step limit on the undo history, when the artists themselves regard this as beneath their notice?
Let's get serious about non-modal design. No arbitrary limits on undo history, or internet disk cache, or colour palette depth, or anything at all that the user doesn't explicitly enable themselves. If the user complains about sluggish performance we can explain that the UI design is the least modal design possible, is full compliance with the mother of all GUI manifestos concerning ease of use. However, being open minded as we are, we also added some user controls to activate modal parameters, for those users who don't find it beneath their diginity to adjust them.
Fucking moron.
Your post gave me a hearty chuckle. Thanks!
Did you report it as a bug? On Linux, it seems to be able to get a fairly decent profile from the X server, so it works there. Maybe it can't on Windows? If not, it really shouldn't ship with CM turned on. I used a tool (lprof) to create a rough profile for my display. Someday I'll get a colorimeter and do it right, but I've found that even a rough profile for the display plus an accurate profile from my printer makes my prints look a lot better.
But after I failed to get the hang of the new, more obtuse selection tools, I uninstalled it and went back to 2.2.17.I really prefer the new selection tools. I was always dragging a selection by accident when I meant to create a new selection, and I really like being able to adjust a selection before confirming it, rather than having to get it right the first time.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I work as a news photographer at a daily paper full time. We use Photoshop on OS X at work. The only thing GIMP really lacks that would make it unattractive for news work is the lack of CMYK. But I understand Krita can handle CMYK just fine. The other standard stuff -- dodging, burning, adjusting levels and curves, resizing, applying unsharp mask -- GIMP does fine. But I don't think the newspaper industry is interested in GIMP. $600 for Photoshop isn't an issue with most newspapers, plus it's a standard so everyone knows how to use it and you don't need to re-train everyone.
... some individual portraits and some group portraits.
... [The IT guy at work] told me we have a book in our professional library on how to use GIMP. I checked it out on Thursday before I left for Helena. I am looking forward to trying it out. It will be good to have a new interest occupying my time every so often."
8bits per channel vs. 12-16 bits per channel isn't really an issue for newspaper work. I've never noticed any fellow photographers use these extra bit depth modes. Everybody seems to stick with 8bit/channel jpegs. RAW is slow and takes up a lot of space on memory cards. Also, bear in mind that newsprint is "axle grease on toilet paper" so any advantage that higher bit depths provide will not be especially noticeable. Heck, just getting the CMYK registration to line up on a press is a big enough challenge!
8bit/channel images are the standard for Web images. So for newspaper Web sites, GIMP, of course, would be perfectly adequate.
For personal work, I use GIMP. All my flickr photos are processed using GIMP. When I make prints at the one-hour lab, I bring in my media card full if images adjusted only with GIMP. For me, price is an issue. I strongly prefer not to spend $600 on Photoshop. But also, and just as important, I am a fan of the Free Software philosophy. It appeals to me. For these same reasons and more, I use GNU/Linux and BSD at home, also.
Regarding GIMPs interface, coming from a Photoshop background, it did seem to be awkward to me at first, but now that I'm familiar with it, GIMP's interface seems fine to me. It all depends on what you're used to.
I've also used GIMP for personal paid projects
As an aside, I recently installed GIMP on a family friend's computer. They love it! Here's an actual email I received from them:
"... I took the copy of the rooster photo you had on my CD to send to Costco to make a large print for my sister. The color was dull, so Drew helped me with GIMP and we got vibrant color and an amazing print. I will send it to my sister framed for Christmas; it will be the perfect gift. Thank you for giving us copies of your terrific photos. I want to learn more about GIMP this year, and this experiment has me excited about the possibilities
There's a place called a library, it has a wealth of free books. Of course, it does involve leaving the basement during daylight hours...
The modal issue I'm referring to isn't really about discrete modes like in Vi. I'll refer back to the wikipedia entry:
In the case of undo history, the current locus of the user's attention is the image, not memory constraints. When undoing a series of actions, the ideal response as you suggested is to have no limits on undo history. This obviously isn't feasible, so what's the next best option? Having a fixed number of undo operations in this case is at least predictable, compared with the variable number of operations when it's dependent on image size and how much disk is available.
I don't personally know anyone (personally, anyway) that works on the photoshop team, but I would be willing to bet that they chose 20 based on user observation. I'm pretty sure they designed and prototyped an unlimited undo, but chose to budget their development time elsewhere. I doubt they chose 20 out of a hat out of laziness (although software developers are universally lazy to some extent, right?).
So from a development perspective I do like how gimp's undo history is only limited by disk space. It's definitely more flexible/powerful than photoshop undo. I just think it could be better designed. If it's going to be limited by diskspace then the undo window should show a how much "undo" space is available, and offer the choice to reclaim space beyond a certain point. Yes, I know this is configurable in preferences (min, max, tile cache size, etc), but this is tedious. Just expose the control right next to the information that it's constraining. Photoshop is guilty of this as well in some cases, so Adobe isn't off the hook either.
But all this takes extra dev time, QA, usability testing, etc. In the end it comes down to product design choices, and it's clear that Adobe went the more simple route and focused resources on other features.
This fellow: http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/ has an excellent free book.
I tried photoshop some years ago, of course kept mucking things up because I didn't know what I was doing so went looking for "undo". With no access to a manual and limited time on that machine I turned to USENET and a photoshop newsgroup. "I'm learning photoshop - how do you undo things" was the simple message that started the flames. For a dabbler like myself something like the gimp was better instead of being told "real professionals don't need it, they save before every step". Now photoshop has undo as well but gimp has also improved to be superior in most ways to that old photoshop that professionals were using back then. For large numbers of small images I find the gimp GUI is superior at least on X windows - it only makes sense if you have virtual desktops which is probably why the windows users don't see it as an advantage and prefer the single window approach.
Unfortunatly when graphics professionals are asked how things can be improved in the gimp they almost always say "make it look exactly like photoshop right down to the menu options and then we'll talk" - which is fairly counterproductive - it's not about being a free photoshop clone.
Gimp doesn't have GOOD support for raws from my Canon camera.
For some reason the Unsharpen Mask filter never seems to produce as nice looking results as photoshop or some of the other applications that are easier to use with raws.
That's why I don't use Gimp for photos.
And its not just because photoshop is proprietary, its just better suited to what the professional photographer and artist need to make a living.
If something as poor as Photoshop could take over from the professional photo editing software available when Photoshop first came out, I think Gimp will easily be able to take over from Photoshop.
Having done both photoshop for years (and now using gimp also) in the industry im appalled not only at the lack of more than about 3 decent comments (and at the rediculous modding up some posts have gotten) here but the pure lack of understand of either application, what 8bits v 16bits per channel actually means.
Now you idiots who sit there talking about prosumer and even pro digital cameras and use 16bit in the same sentence, go and get a clue.
16bit was NEVER EVER EVER EVER made for prosumer/pro digital cameras, and if you think it was you know alot less than you think you do.
Thing is, it isn't, and never has been as good as photoshop, so the professional world aren't going to accept it while photoshop is better.
I keep coming back to this topic, because there is something important here that hasn't been said yet. Parent post is as good a place to hang this as any.
First, others have pointed out that TFA does not suggest that the Gimp has any kind of role in professional photography. Parent post should be modded to oblivion as it is way off topic. And it is attempting to drag a lot of the discussion away from the topic.
Now to my rant:
I am a hobby photographer. I got my first 35mm camera around 1967. I went digital in 2003. I went digital because I could afford Paint Shop Pro, and in it I saw the promise of being able to do all the neat things that could be done in the darkroom that I could never afford.
It didn't turn out quite as I expected. Software like PSP, Photoshop, or the Gimp is not a "digital darkroom" as I had thought. And all those techniques I had read about in wet photography magazines didn't apply. Ansel Adams has little to say about manipulating digital images: this is a different art form. The only thing wet photography and digital photography have in common is the use of a camera as the initial capture device.
Here's the thing: I'm not a terribly inspired photographer. That Muse doesn't speak to me. I take pictures that are usually technically adequate under good conditions, but the composition is flawed or there are background or foreground problems, or the conditions were not good and I lack the techniques to know how to manage difficult situations. The black labrador retriever in front of the black rock at dusk... if you take photos, you know what I'm talking about.
PSP or the Gimp let me work with these images and extract something that is consistently better than what came out of the camera, and sometimes rather good.
But the key here is realizing that this is a subtractive process. I am making my pictures better by selectively removing information. I am deliberately taking away chunks of reality. I am not a painter who treats the photograph as a canvas to which he adds stuff. I am a sculptor working with mallet and chisel to get the hell rid of the junk that doesn't belong in my picture.
There are probably tens of thousands more bits of information in a good wet photograph than any person can absorb. There are hundreds more bits in my poorest photographs than what I need to make the impression I want on the viewer. The Gimp is perfectly adequate at getting rid of the stuff that is in the way. Photoshop might offer a few more techniques, but I don't need to use those. I've got more than enough different techniques available to me.
While most casual users don't have their monitors calibrated for color management, GIMP 2.4.0 RC3 for Windows turns on color management when first installed, and it applies some wild guess at a monitor profile.
Did you report it as a bug? On Linux, it seems to be able to get a fairly decent profile from the X server, so it works there.
It doesn't help to report colour management as a bug, nor does it help if the monitor is calibrated when GIMP is first installed. Monitors have to constantly be calibrated and a colorimeter is needed to calibrate the monitor for predictable colour reproduction.
Should there be a Law?
1. in the new version of GIMP on the image in the bottom left is a button that will switch you over to selection mask mode. After that you can use normal paint tools to adjust your selection.
You can also use Wand and lasso.
2. on the image window go to "Dialog" menu and select "Undo History"
Oooh, ooh, hear that, Apple fans? Look what he called OS X. I say you organize yourself a lynchin'.
Photoshop runs on both OS X and Windows, what it does not run on natively is Linux.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why would super-expensive software be so dumb that it can not detect that I am editing an 128x128 pixel icon and adjust undo steps automatically?
Why in the world would you use Photoshop to edit icons? That's not what it's meant for, it's meant for editing photographs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
And with new coming version, 2.4 selection has better operations. Dont anymore just referr to 2.3.x series when 2.4 RC3 is out... it has got much good usability for it. Like when you make selection, you can move and adjust it easily with mouse. You get draggers etc.
And 2.4 version has color profiles for printers, monitors, pictures, scanners etc etc... you can easily swap those or just preview how it would look as printed.
For windows i use 2.2.17 version but on GNU/Linux, i use RC3 and most of time i have develope version installed next to stable so i can test new ideas. And 2.4 is MUCH better than 2.2.x series...
I am surprized that so few people have mentioned gimpshop. stop complaining and try it. Gimpshop is MUCH easier to use than gimp.
As a professional Artist (not a pro-photographer, but an artist) I am constantly photographing my work in many different environments and lighting situations, and i need to crop and colour correct many jpegs. and for that, GimpShop works fine. But I can rarely get a shot lined up right, and Photoshop has an excellent rotate/distort/scale feature that Gimp lacks. this reason alone makes gimp mostly useless to me.
I'll stick with my pirated photoshop 7 for the time being. maybe in 5 years, when i need to upgrade, gimp will be ready.
-I only code in BASIC.-
Gimp is not "most linux applications". It isn't even representable for "most linux applications".
Cinepaint has forked a long time ago and so many other features are missing from it, so don't even mention it as an alternative.
What is CinePaint missing? As I don't want to fork over money I could use elsewhere, like my new Macbook Pro, I've been planning on trying CinePaint. I know it supports 32 bit colour depths like Photoshop so what's missing? What I might do is get an older version of PS off of eBay, I'll make sure a transfer form from Adobe is filled out first. I could then use it, to upgrade. I'm pretty sure that by getting an old version then upgrading it will cost less.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Whoah!
I happen to agree with your points, but gratuitously insulting the guy does NOT help your argument. Oh wait! This is Slashdot. Carry on.
The two main reasons I'm not using Gimp for editing photography is that it is not possible to import RAW formats, and there is no support for 16 bit per channel color resolution. When this change, I might replace Photshop with the Gimp.
:)
The user interface is no problem. I like having free floating windows. I hate the doctrine where all windows are locked to a single larger window. This makes the actual working area smaller. I have desktop, that is my "larger window". I use Linux, that gives me several virtual desktops so that I can devote one of them to Gimp if I want to. If a window I need is behind another window, I use alt+tab to quickly find it again.
In my oppinion the interface is good. People are just not used to it. Or they use it with windows which offers less flexibility since it lacks a good way of handling virtual desktops. I can understand it gets cluttered when you have lots of other applications on the same screen. Then one window per application makes more sense, since it becomes some sort of a virtual desktop substitue.
Wow, this post got much longer than I intended.
not flaming(sic), just trolling.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Whenever I use that program, I always feel like a GIMP. Even though it is free, and is the PS equivalent for Linux users, more or less, the UI is terrible. Most people aren't programmers, so I find that point moot. Luckily, however, I recall a digg story indicating on a blog the GIMP team were taking in suggestions on how to improve the UI (as well as the program itself).
If you don't like GIMP's GUI interface, there's a version of GIMP with a Photoshop type interface, GIMPShop.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Well, what do you propose for photorealistic truecolor icons with proper lighting that combine retouched photos and custom art? I don't need an .ico plugin. png files drag and drop just fine into the Icon Composer.
so, the Nikon D40 doesn't count because it's too "limited" but Photoshop Elements does? what's your definition of "limited functionality", exactly?
not to mention that having to pay around half of the price of a professional-level dSLR for a piece of software is still highly retarded in my not-at-all-humble opinion, but still, your argument took an "apples to oranges" comparison and turned it into an "apples to pink, flying elephants" one.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
90% of the power, 10% of the price. Good enough for the vast majority of people that want to fiddle with their photos. Before some pedent chips in and points out the lack of some feature or other, it's not for *all*, just most.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
No it's Pulp Fiction but there's an interesting connection between the two films: Peter Green who plays Zed in Pulp Fiction also plays Redfoot in the Usual Suspects and says the word "gimp". When McManus asks him what he's supposed to do with the coke found in the bag, Redfoot looks at Verbal and says "I don't know, feed it to the Gimp, ease his pain."
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
what are these deep colors you speak of? Can you show me a picture saved in gimp and one saved in photoshop that uses deep colors?
Unfortunately I doubt the web, browsers, can handle colour bit depths past 12 bits. While GIMP has 8 bit colour depths Photoshop has 32 bit colour depths, as does CinePaint aka Film GIMP. It may not make much difference here, both on the web and on /., but it matters a lot for any sort of professional graphics.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have installed Neo-Office on the Macs belonging to our graphics designers, plus a couple other open-source tools(main tool is In-Design).
A few weeks ago I installed NeoOffice on my new Macbook Pro and I plan on trying out other FOOS programs. Maybe the next I plan on trying is CinePaint aka Film GIMP.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I can't understand why people are till stuck to The GIMP while it still can't deal with color profiles, and many features that are required when using modern digital camera that shoot using 16bits per channel. Digikam (photo management and manipulation tool) and Krita (photo and painting program) are able to handle those very important stuffs (expecialy color profiles as they are essential when importing raw 16bits per channel photos). Aside that, those 2 tools have a real user interface that is intuitive and efficient. On the counter part, I was never able to draw an arrow on a photo (to show a detail) using the GIMP. No way draw a straight line using the GIMP..... GIMP was an excellent solution for Linux, but now it becomes old and moves slowly. Better alternatives are emerging; that's IT darwin laws ;-)
I know nothing of Paint.net but so far GIMP is the best and most functional free software of it's nature out there.
If you like GIMP you may like CinePaint aka Film GIMP more.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You've also got the upgrade path: The next version of Photoshop will set you back $199. The next version of your DSLR camera will still cost you full retail.
Sometime back I was talking with an employee in one of the Camera chain stores, Ritz I believe, and mentioned I was concerned about getting a DSLR and finding out it was outdated some months or a year later. He said that with the extended service plan they had if a better camera with the same price came out before the service plan expired if the camera covered by the plan was brought in ruined it would be replaced with the new camera. He even went so far as to suggest checking the store occasionally to see if a better camera came out and if so then drop or throw the old camera on the ground and bring it in to be replaced. I got a kick out it but was wondering if that was a scam, I don't think so because I've had stuff replaced before, or a selling tactic for the service plan.
Also, if you're not a professional and qualify for the educational discount, a full copy of PhotoShop CS3 Extended will only set you back $299. The educational version of your DSLR... doesn't exist.
The educational version of Photoshop doesn't qualify for an upgrade. However some camera manufacturers do offer educational discounts. Several years ago I got a list of companies that did at the college I was attending. Searching Photo.net you can find some companies that offer educational discounts. However you might have to have a professor sign a statement, when I got the list instructions came with it saying an order had to be signed by a professor certifying that you was a photography student.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I don't think the point here is "moot" at all. Sure, there is no native version of photoshop for linux. But I would think that one of the most popular programs for windows would be a top priority for the wine developers and community. my 10 cents.
I remember I downloaded a trial version of Elements. It was a piece of crap. Elements is slow and less fun the zero cost Picasa for photo organizing and quick editing. Elements is handicapped when it goes to a little bit more advanced editing. I stick to Picasa + GIMP combo for my amateur needs. P.S. Yes, I used Photoshop 7 at work, long time ago. It was a good tool. But I have never tried newer versions.
An important point to make about GIMP vs. Photoshop is GIMP has support for all the features you need to do great artwork: layers, brushes, masks, and some great filters. The artist always remains more important than the tool and anybody who understands visual design principles will excel with GIMP just as well as Photoshop. Knowledge is more important than the tools; I like this article's body more than its introduction.
"...and of course for Linux users this is a moot point, as Photoshop is not available for their platform..."
Funny how, when talking up a Linux-centric product like the GIMP, Windows-based competitors are considered not to be available for the platform. Yet, when talking about the readiness of Linux for the desktop, if someone mentions the severe lack of game support millions of zealots will point to WINE and shout "Look! Look! It'll run all the games you want!"
Get your story straight. Is Linux a Windows wannabe or is it an operating system that can stand on its own two feet without resorting to desperate measures like WINE?
...neatimage. There are no easy to use and professionally capable noise removal programs/plugins for GIMP.
...16 bit color. Why would I have an unbelievable scan and then throw away half the data to work with a free program? That's information, and in RAW that's a huge loss.
GIMP is fine as a paint replacement, but is not in the league of photoshop. Now a linux port of Photoshop, that would be nice. Course it won't help those who wouldn't spend the money anyway... But adobe does support acrobat reader on linux, so maybe someday...
Disclaimer: I am not a photographer, however, I support users who are photographers. Macs, of course.
Maybe it's not a pattern, but I haven't seen any photographer touching Photoshop some two years at least. Yes, Bridge for casual browsing (Now next Windows/OSX/Linux should support thumbailing for RAWs), yes Aperture/Lightroom for touching up basics, but Photoshop is left for tweaking pundits and photographers even don't care about it. At least it's how it happens in our studio for now.
When you have to sort/manage/tweak light settings for thousands of pictures (thanks to clueless "clicking" with digital cameras and eight gig monster cards), then Photoshop is simply defeated. Even more, photo cameras get better and better, people get better in how to use them and in result Photoshop is leveled to some auto balansing tool.
Article is about GIMP and it's not a Photoshop replacement (and I never expected it to be). However, it stands very good by itself and I use it every day for my web/photo jobs. Even more, GIMP is expected to get GEGL library support somewhere in future (half-year, year), which will increase feature set rather seriously. Also I want to see a plugin/switch for people who wants to use classic aka Photoshop interface (just to give a change for them to check out GIMP instead of rejecting it). I love spatial, but I would like to have it more advanced.
GIMP is used and that's the main reason why I am rather calm about it's critics - yes, it would be cool to be popular and used like Photoshop, but I love it like it is.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Well, that's not surprising. The applications that run on Linux are (with a few irrelevant exceptions) Open Source. This means that they will work, possibly subject to some slight modification, on any hardware that has a compiler for the language in which they were written; and nobody is allowed to try to deny you access to them.
People who write software for Windows are only interested in making money from it, so they usually release it as closed-source "shareware" where you are expected to pay money to enable certain features. Patches partially to circumvent this extortion are available from various malware-ridden websites.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Most of what you think is "intuitive" is, in fact, learned behaviour. There's not a lot about a motor car that's intuitive -- for a start, there are more pedals than you have feet, and the one that's smaller than the other two is the one you use the most. In addition, the position of "reverse" varies from make to make; on a Ford, it's right and back, but on a Vauxhall, it's left and forward.
People seem to have lost the ability to deal with abstract concepts anymore.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
In my opinion, 16Bit is by far the most important, since the cameras normaly capture 12-14bit/channel and that gives you a gread headroom for recovering highlights and shadows or pimping your contrast, without degrading the final picture. A great raw-import would be nice, also, but there seem to be some (I heared not too great) raw-importers.
But without this feature a professional picture processing is unthinkable, or, at least, mediocre -- which makes me think about the author (the author is a photographer who also teaches image editing).
Most of the effects in Gimp are not standardised in their user interface Look, they never open where I last put them. The user is asked to learn each separate one as they use different methods. This increases the learning curve of GIMP.
PS allows you to see the effect of say a blur in the main window before you render it. Gimp doesn't, it give you a poky wee preview window.
Plus Gimp is slow, really slow. I've only got PS 7 but Gimp 2.4 is so slow at rendering its filters. See PS zoom through a Gaussian blur...
Once I had used the PS liquify tool and discovered Gimp doesn't have it, I made the move across to PS7 I got second hand. No contest. Yet this important tool is not yet in Gimp 2.4.
Also things like the zoom tool in Gimp are really screwed up.
When I select an area to zoom up to, it makes the image window bigger!
As a User if I've set a image window to a certain size, I'd like it to remain that size thank you very much! But no, Gimp decides I need it bigger.
It even has an option called 'Resize window on Zoom' which is initially on. But even with this option off, Gimp still resizes the image window!
This really slows me down and I charge by the hour!
It is this lack of thought into the user interface where PS wins over Gimp every time.
One thing I also missed in Gimp was being able to set up preset tools so I can have say two settings for a filter like Gaussian blur and choose quickly between them.
Time for Gimp community to think more of the User than programmers simply putting in more and more exotic effects we'll never use?
Stuart http://stuarthalliday.com/
Amen.
Most users -- even those of us who enjoy playing under the hood -- don't want to have to think about the 'car' to drive it.
The best UIs are as invisible to the user as possible from the get go (everything involves SOME learning, but some UIs get in the way of themselves becoming transparent to the user).
I love Photoshop, but it's UI hasn't been and isn't as easy as most of us fans seem to think (have been using profesionally since early v3 -- Adobe loves them their palettes). CS3 is a great improvement, however.
GIMPs main failing, IMHOP, isn't it's interface (though I don't care for it), but its lack of CMYK support, 8bit only, and lack of non-destructive layers. I don't consider it to be a professional tool for *my* needs -- but I'm sure others do for theirs.
This has to be perhaps the worst book review I've read on /. yet. Could you be more vague about the book? Other than "9/10 BUY IT FORM AMAZON" ?
Photographers just need to learn to use hex editors, then they can simply tweak their photos at the bit level and get perfect results every time.
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
Agh! Looking at it from a programmer's point of view is exactly the problem-- with OSS in general, and with GIMP in particular. It blows my mind that whenever this comes up, everyone's like, "Photoshop is better because it has adjustment layers". Having feature X IS NOT what makes PS better (I'd take Photoshop 5 over GIMP any day). Photoshop is (politics aside) worth paying for because it is made with merciless attention to usability details, and the design is clearly controlled by people who seriously use the thing.
/.ers can't understand paying money for.
Sure, if you make a library for other developers the question is "can it do X or not?" But when you make software for people, it's more about "HOW do I do X, and does it make me want to stab myself with scissors?" That's why people buy iPods, Photoshop and all the other things that some
Sometimes the OSS community seems to have a massive attitude problem with respect to users, either patronizing them like retards or ignoring them completely. GIMP seems to fall into the second category-- I cannot believe the developers ever tried to use it themselves for anything substantial.
GIMP answers all the technical challenges of Photoshop, so why is it... well... such a worthless piece of shit? Sorry to be so cranky, it just bugs me that so many good developers are wasting their effort because they couldn't spend like 1% of their time thinking about human beings.
I'd prolly have ditched Photoshop in favour of Gimp ages ago if it didnt suffer from the classic linux problem.. ZERO USERFRIENDLYNESS..
its like Blender.. loads of great features but only available in a torture chamber.. the gui and workflow is just awful.. awfully horribly BAD BAD BAD.. good if ur a geek who will use it regardless.. worthless if ur an artist that wanna do some work..
its sad.. and whats even more sad is the countless linuxers who refuse to acknowledge this problem and just bashes ppl for using windows instead of fixing the damned thing so I can switch away from windows....
why should you have to understand programming in order to paste a moustache on a photo of the Queen?
because you may have to explain precisely how you did it when you get arrested...
You just have to look at it from programmer's point of view.
Unfourtanately, that seems to be the prevailing view here on slashdot - the only point of view in the world worth considering is that of the programmer. It's unfourtanate because - while this site is primarily a place to hang out for programmers - the best UI based software is designed with the users in mind. If GIMP is aimed solely at programmers (not infeasible, given the oft repeated mantra "by programmers for programmers") someone needs to tell the thousands of non-programming people around the world that it's time to move on.
I'm surprised your biggest complaint about The Gimp is lack of 16-bit support. Who gives a shit about 8 vs. 16 bit when The Gimp's color management is so awful?
Even if The Gimp supported 16 bit, it would still be worthless because the colors will still be wonky. Incorrect 16 bit color is hardly an improvement over incorrect 8 bit color in my book.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Why do you care about color depth when The Gimp's color management is so bad?
Personally, I don't consider incorrect 16 bit color to be a serious improvement over incorrect 8 bit color.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I've tried Photoshop and the GIMP and neither impressed me.
Real artists use Deluxe Paint!
*woosh* That was a troll, and not a very good one. :P
Anything a commercial plugin does can also be done manually if you actually know Photoshop well. The point of the plugin is to automate and speed up the process and produce better consistency (the manual steps involved lead to some variability in adjustments from image to image).
:).
I have not yet seen anything done with a plugin that I could not reproduce manually, ever. Also, the newer things in PS CS2 like shadow-highlight command can also be done in PS7 is Lab color space.
And you are also welcome to download the Photoshop SDK (free for personal use), and develop your own plugins. You basically run photoshop processing steps and photoshop writes API calls in a C++ file. All you need to do is write nice UI around that file, compile and make some extra cache selling plugins for uesrs who don't know how to do stuff in Photoshop
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
It doesn't help to report colour management as a bug, nor does it help if the monitor is calibrated when GIMP is first installed. Monitors have to constantly be calibrated and a colorimeter is needed to calibrate the monitor for predictable colour reproduction.
Yes, but the point is that since most users don't have a colorimeter, the GIMP shouldn't try to do color management by default. On my Linux boxes, it is turned on by default, but that doesn't seem to do any harm, since it gets a default profile from the X server that appears to be fairly neutral, and at least doesn't change the colors in any weird way. On Windows, however, at least according to tepples, the default profile that it uses is so far wrong that it distorts the colors. That is a bug.Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I guess that those 16 bits are per color (16x16x16 = 48 bits??) but I am not sure (could someone please better explain this?).
I thought CinePaint had 32 bit colour depths, however it only has 16 bit per colour which as you state has a total depth of 48 bits. Photoshop though does have 32 bit depths per channel, colour, for a total of 96 bits.
FalconShould there be a Law?
why couldn't you say that? Because it is allowing the option of Photoshop to be likweise wrong?
PS for falconwolf, when someone's paid £600 for a program, why NOT use it for Icons? Another poster wanted to use PS/GIMP for art drawings...
Honestly, your opening comment was like the MS fan saying "I know that this will get me modded down" knowing that the other MS fans are going to mod them up where the FOSS fans couldn't give a shit.
unless you've updated to the very latest.
For GIMP, you update ufraw (for free) and you've got your camera sorted.
lmao, how many windows users are going to click that link, try to get the download, then nut up when they wonder wtf a tarball is? (you'd think there'd be a zip version for cross platform niceness)
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
Well, there's an online HTML version, too. One is not required to work with tar files.
corel painter (latest, version "x") is the app for "painting" ... while I wouldn't call paint shop pro x2 photo "stripped" for photo editing needs (its feature set is very comparable to Photoshop CS), it's not got as robust a painting engine as painter, with its natural canvas and complex brush nozzle simulators.
The 20 is just a default number anyhow. Go to options and change it, up the scratch space PS uses while you're at it; if you have a monster machine with 8 gigs of RAM you're easily able to use all of it if you wish. Most folks who use PS are professionals (everyone else has pirated it anyway so Adobe doesn't care about them as much :-P) who will probably go in and change these settings once per version release, and it will take about 1 minute to do. Indeed, I'd say you're right when you suppose that replacing this with some other implementation, like the auto-adjustment of max undo steps based on disk space (btw if you set your history to some really large number I guess you give yourself that limitation as a side-effect anyway) or file size coupled with some target fraction of available disk space, is simply not worth the time. The benefit to that approach would be negligible, if there would be any at all.
I like basketball!!1!