GIMP 2.6 Released

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Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday October 1, 2008 @02:47AM from the pimp-your-pixels dept.

Enselic writes "The GIMP developers are proud to announce the release of GIMP 2.6. The release notes start with: 'GIMP 2.6 is an important release from a development point of view. It features changes to the user interface addressing some often received complaints, and a tentative integration of GEGL, the graph based image processing library that will eventually bring high bit-depth and non-destructive editing to GIMP.' The notes go on to say the toolbox menubar has been removed, the toolbox and docks now are utility windows, it's now possible to pan beyond the image border, the freehand select tool has been enhanced to support polygonal selections, and much more."

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Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now by marsu_k · 2008-10-01 03:05 · Score: 4, Informative

Make an oval / rectangular selection, stroke with the desired width. Wasn't so laborious now was it? But for a more drawing oriented program check out Krita. There should be a Windows port soon as well.
Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now by mrchaotica · 2008-10-01 03:07 · Score: 3, Informative

Then you want Inkscape instead.

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Re:CYMK by morgan_greywolf · 2008-10-01 03:08 · Score: 5, Informative

CMYK support for the GIMP - Why you might not need CMYK support in the GIMP.
Separate+ CMYK separations plugin for GIMP -- And if you really need it, get this. Very nice. Supports ICC color profiles.

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Re:Windows version still lagging. by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-01 03:09 · Score: 5, Informative

The 2.6.0 installer for Windows is basically ready. It just needs a little more testing and should become available in a day or two.
Re:CYMK by gEvil+(beta) · 2008-10-01 03:25 · Score: 4, Informative

Don't you just love the number of times people say "You don't really need CMYK support"? For those of use who work in the professional publishing world and see our work printed on real presses, YES WE DO!

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It's still essentially 8-bit. by Glytch · 2008-10-01 03:25 · Score: 3, Informative

It's a long story, but the short version is that there's a ton of archaic, horribly outdated 8-bit legacy code gumming up the works. Until it's all replaced with 32-bit capable code, GIMP will continue to be unusable for photography beyond the party snapshot level.
1. Re:It's still essentially 8-bit. by fabs64 · 2008-10-01 04:53 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The vast majority of DSLR's only have 12 bits per channel in raw mode to begin with, and certainly only 8 bits in jpeg. Get a grip.
2. Re:It's still essentially 8-bit. by photomonkey · 2008-10-01 05:01 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Actually, that's not necessarily the case.
  I am a professional commercial photographer and editorial photojournalist. Sure, CS3 is still my editor of choice, but the GIMP is moving ever-closer to being a viable option.
  There is not a single application I can think of where someone working as a photojournalist would ever need more than what the GIMP offers.
  File submission standard for newsprint is still 10 inches on the long axis @ 200 ppi. Files are then compressed to clock in at betweek 650kb-900kb. sRGB colorspace and 8 bits-per-pixel are more than enough. Pre-press does the CYMK conversion and Web crop, usually.
  The level of editing (painting) done to editorial photos is minimal by standard ethical practice; and so really the tool need only be able to crop, resample, dust spot and adjust the exposure.
  In fact, for funzies, I just did a complete start-to-finish editorial shoot post in GIMP 2.4. The EXIF/XMP/IPTC stuff hurts bad (please, please, please, please FIX THIS), but the actual post went fine.
  Making stuff screen-ready can easily be accomplished in the GIMP as well.
  I don't have a whole lot of experience with making multimedia presentations (audio slideshows, etc.) for Web and screen display in the GIMP/Linux, so I'll leave that alone for now.
  On the commercial, every-photo-is-a-painting side, the GIMP might be a bit of a hindrance. The more advanced layering, color conversions, spot toning, etc. typically deployed in, say, advertising post is probably more than can be reasonably handled by the GIMP.
  Admittedly, some of that sentiment may come from my being a lot more comfortable in Photoshop than GIMP.
  Generally speaking, some of the resizing plugins and effects plugins that we have come to count on are not available for GIMP, and even if the same thing can be accomplished with a different set of tools, we're disinclined to learn them.
  Keep in mind that more than half the professional photographers out there are self-employed, and the time required to learn a new toolset can be killer.
  The GIMP has come a long way since I first started playing with Linux about 10 years ago.
  It even plays fairly nicely with RAW files from my cameras.
  Today, I have it (under Hardy Heron) installed on my non-production workstation, and have no doubt that in years to come, it may very well become a full-fledged alternative to Photoshop.
  
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3. Re:It's still essentially 8-bit. by Animaether · 2008-10-01 07:34 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I think that what GP is getting at is that...
  - Unless you're shooting RAW (DNG, 16-bit TIFF, EXR or whatever your camera supports there), you're not going to get those 12 bits anyway.
  - Not too long ago, Photoshop didn't do 16bpc itself.. and it still doesn't on a ton of commands. That never stopped anybody from processing photos in the past, why should it now? Clearly it's nice if you -can- work in 16bit, but it's not going to stop hundreds of thousands of people from working with photographs for the sole reason that 16bit is unavailable.
  In short, GP's parent poster acts a bit like an audiophile, claiming that every non-goldplated-connector is completely useless for listening to music the moment goldplated-connectors became available.
  Oh, and I'm a graphics professional - I work with 32bpc imagery all the time as sometimes that's what you need to run film footage through extensive colorgrading processes without incurring losses.. so yes, I know very *very* well what the advantages are.. and I certainly agree that Ol' Gimpo needs at least 16bpc, but preferable 32bpc, workflow. ( Cursed lack of support for Cinepaint. )
Re:The future of GIMP by aurb · 2008-10-01 03:33 · Score: 3, Informative

Ditch GTK? That's kinda funny, because GTK was created as the toolkit for GIMP (GTK stands for The GIMP Toolkit) :-)
Re:I just got 2.4! by Anonymous Coward · 2008-10-01 03:36 · Score: 5, Informative

I experienced the same problem with crappy looking fonts, specifically when printing. I have gotten around this by changing the ppi to 300 (the default is 72) when creating a new image. This has made a huge difference and the fonts look much better. The option is under the advanced section when you create a new image.
Re:It really didn't have this? by MightyYar · 2008-10-01 03:45 · Score: 5, Informative

Does he advertise projects he works on in his spare time as being comparable to Photoshop?
Where does GIMP advertise? And where do they claim to be comparable to Photoshop? In fact, I found
this document, which has the "Gimp Vision", part of which includes:

What GIMP is not:
* GIMP is not MS Paint or Adobe Photoshop

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Re:I just got 2.4! by gEvil+(beta) · 2008-10-01 04:00 · Score: 3, Informative

I haven't used GIMP in a long time, but what you describe sounds more like an issue with how it handles antialiasing. Photoshop gives you several different options for how it applies antialiasing, which you adjust depending on the character shapes and how they interact with the background imagery you're dealing with (for instance, you might use 'smooth' for small text on a dark background, or 'sharp' for a large headline). With GIMP it looks like it's just a single checkbox--on or off.

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Re:It really didn't have this? by The+Moof · 2008-10-01 05:06 · Score: 3, Informative

From the FAQ:

In their own words, "GIMP is our answer to the current lack of free (or at least reasonably priced) image manipulation software for GNU/Linux and UNIX in general."

It is a raster editor, which means that it performs operations directly on the pixels that make up the image, and not a vector editor. Other (proprietary) raster editors include Adobe Photoshop, Jasc Paintshop Pro and the humble Microsoft Paint. An alternative free editor is the KOffice project, Krita. Users wanting to edit photographs will certainly want a raster editor like GIMP. Graphic designers and illustrators may prefer a vector editor depending on their tastes.
If you're not trying to compete, perhaps you shouldn't mention them and critique their pricing in the official FAQ.
Re:No native OS X support? by Doctor+Crumb · 2008-10-01 06:03 · Score: 3, Informative

I would tell you that, no, you should not install the Gimp if those are your requirements. Congratulations, you're free to use whatever fits your actual needs! However, the Gimp does fit my requirements and plenty of other people's, so kindly stop bashing it and go quietly use whatever your tool of choice is instead. Thank you.