Slashdot Mirror
First Looks at The Gimp 2.5
desmondhaynes writes "The GIMP team announced today the first release from the 2.5 development series. It is true that this version is unstable, but a little bird told me to give it a try and see what's it capable of. First of all, let me tell you that its interface is quite redesigned and I think that some users will have problems adjusting with it, but that's just my two cents. On the other hand, version 2.5.0 of The GIMP includes some hot new features, like the integration of GEGL (Generic Graphics Library) which will finally get support for higher color depths, more colorspaces and eventually non-destructive editing."
So call it the "GNU Image Manipulation Program" around your bosses.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Well, 2.50 is the first development release, there's going to be a ton more (2.3 had over 20 iirc) so we'll see it take shape in the coming months or years. 2.4 was in development for quite a while, so I'd say 2.6 (the final stable version of 2.5) won't be here for quite a while, and it that time it could well be a very important release to end users. This version will probably feature some GUI reworking, which is definitely welcome considering how a lot of people seem to complain about the UI. Personally, the change in this development version seems to be for the worse (according to the description from the picture), but then it will probably be unrecognizable from these pictures by the time the final version comes around.
All your base are belong to Wii.
Wrong. Finally getting higher than 8-bit depth is great news for anyone who does more than a bit of hobby work with the gimp.
To take myself as an example I take photos with a digital camera that gives me RAW files. Those are 12-bit files, which means 4096 colors per pixel rather than the 256 you get with 8 bit. Now I will be able to edit those in the gimp without loosing any quality, which means alot less posterisation when adjusting contrast and settings like that. The output image will simply look alot better, with the same tools that we already have in the gimp (assuming that the input image is of good quality of course).
Posted by a Debian GNU/Linux user
Yep. My first thought exactly. You know the guy doing the writeup/review really has no clue about the GIMP's shortcomings when he touts a new splashscreen as an exciting improvement.
This guy's the limit!
This is a word for word, picture for picture copy of the original at Softpedia (I'm guessing, as the Softpedia article was posted 4 days earlier). The article linked is full of adverts as well. You would be better off reading the offical GIMP release notes.
Hmm, I'm getting malware popups from 'trustedbrowser.com' from the site in TFA.
If you want to add shapes to a raster image, try making a selection in the desired shape and then doing Edit > Fill or Edit > Stroke. Useful selection tools for this include the box tool (press r), the oval tool (press e), and the path tool for polygons and Bezier shapes (press b).
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Dear Slashdot admin, be aware that the current article (http://techrunch.blogspot.com/2008/04/first-look-gimp-250.html) was completely stolen from Softpedia (http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-Look-The-GIMP-2-5-0-83090.shtml) which was posted, as Stuidge said above, 4 days ago....
...the very first item in the list of "noteworthy" improvements is a new splash screen.Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
http://techrunch.blogspot.com/2008/04/first-look-gimp-250.html Resulted in the jre kicking in on my machine and a bunch of virus mumbo-jumbo from my (crappy) avast software.
first time avast has ever found anything.
This is also one of my biggest complaints about gimp. I solved it using xnest.
http://xubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/09/05/howto-run-gimp-in-one-window/
It... uh. sort of solves the problem? Kind of? It's a bit better anyway.
You might want to try CinePaint (formerly called Film Gimp). It is a fork of Gimp aimed specifically at touching up frames of film. It supports 8, 16, and 32 bit color, CMYK, HDR, Onion skinning, etc.
It is mainly developed by film production, special effects companies and has been used on many major motion pictures (Harry Potter, Spider Man, etc.).
It may well be more what you're looking for if you're working with film images.
WHY is /. linking to a spam blog. look at the name for pete's sake. here's the original: http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-Look-The-GIMP-2-5-0-83090.shtml
The blog is just a giant redirect. Way to editorially review, slashdot. I'm on IE here at work, but Opera kills the scripting on this blog at home. forbid anyone the other way around reads this article.
Adobe's marketing department, a.k.a. Photoshop Enthusiasts, will never get done bashing the GIMP. As long as the GIMP is "not" Photoshop, it will be unsuitable for serious or professional use. End of story.
My understanding is that the multi window interface is actually very similar to Photoshop on the MAC. Photoshop only has a single window MDI in windows. I could be wrong, but that's the way I understand it.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The problem with GIMP is that the interface is so far gone, so weird, so bizarre, so non-standard - that it is really tough for anybody to sanely explain what's wrong with it. It's just so darn self evident.
Having not used it in 2 years, I'll try:
1) The multiple windows thing
I think this is the most often cited issue so I will list it first. GIMP opens multiple top-level windows which means that normal shortcuts and window navigation doesn't work. (Alt-tab on Windows -- apple-tab on Macs, etc.) The only way to use GIMP is to have multiple virtual desktops, which not everyone likes. The barrage of windows clutters the interface, and windows move around a lot because when you select new tools they resize or change. You can see through to the desktop which is distracting. I know at least on the Windows version, the keys that hide windows so you can get to your image don't really work right. Maybe my experience is skewed though because of the Windows and Mac ports. But IIRC, this same stuff happened on Linux.
This problem has garnered enough hate that there are several open-source projects that are either modifications to Photoshop, or programs that re-parent the window so that it behaves more normally. Unfortauntely, all of them are hacks and don't work super-well.
2) Unusual use of menus
- The menus are just... oddd. To a new user, the app is useless because once you open something, you get a window with no menus. After much frustration, the user monkey-clicks the mouse and realizes the menus are on the right-click instead of at the top of the window. That might not actually be a bad idea, but it is definitely counter-intuitive. Especially for "file" operations where people are used to seeing File-New/Open/Save/Save As/Close and those just aren't there.
This is not an issue for an advanced user, but it is strikingly odd to someone new, and it might force a lot of people to give-up right away.
3) Things that are NOT problems
- I'm browsing the comments and I see comments about Photoshop having an odd user-interface. I see comments that one particular tool or another doesn't work the way someone expects. I think these people are missing the point. The problems with GIMP aren't that some particular tool is not as easy to use as a Photoshop tool, or vice-versa. The problem is that nobody can even find the tool in GIMP because the overarching user-interface is so strange. Once people can get to the tool in the first place, then think about how the tool behaves.
4) Other
If you really want to know, this comes-up on Slashdot every 6 months or so. Probably some searching will come-up with obvious things I've completely forgotten over time.
I guess the long answer is: GIMP was initially designed for systems that didn't have taskbars, and did have multiple desktops; the result was the interface you seem familiar with, which, I agree, had serious shortcomings when ported to Windows. Over the years various efforts have been made to clean this up, and are still ongoing. Windows, of course, is still not the best platform, though there are plugins like Portable Background Window which provide a single background window which contains all the GIMP windows, providing an MDI style interface for Windows. Unusual use of menus...To a new user, the app is useless because once you open something, you get a window with no menus. This was fixed in, I believe, 2.0 (or possibly 2.2). All image windows have menu bars with a menu that replicates the right click menu. This means users can simply use the menu at the top of the window as they might expect, or use the right click menu if they prefer. The latest version from TFA goes so far as to remove the menu from the tool window and provide a default empty image window (with menubar) upon start up. While the last problem is still potentially somewhat irksome depending on taste (though with plugins it can be "fixed") I think this one has been safely dealt with since the last time you used the GIMP... indeed, it was dealt with some time ago.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
we need an easer gimp!! its extremely frustrating and falls short of requiring a masters degree in order to use! why is it some dam complicated...
Try Krita. Based on Qt, with all those new hyped features of GIMP (like 16bit channels) available since long time. Sane GUI as a bonus.
In GIMP 2.4.5: File->Preferences->Window Management: Set "Hint for the toolbox/other docks" to "Utility Window". This also takes them out of the taskbar.
Mr. Period: Nine is the one that's right by ten!
Nine: One day I will kill him. Then, I will be Ten.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts