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GIMP Core Mostly Ported to GEGL
A longstanding task for the GIMP has been porting the core graphics code from the ancient implementation (dating back to version 1.2) to GEGL. Progress has been hampered by the amount of code relying on details of the implementation of image data: tiles are directly accessed instead of linear buffers, and changing that detail would break the entire core and all plugins. A few weeks ago, two GIMP hackers got together to do some general hacking, and inadvertedly ported the core graphics code to GEGL. They work around the mismatch between GEGL buffers and GIMP tiles by implementing a storage backend for GEGL using the legacy GIMP tiles; to their surprise things Just Worked (tm), and their code branch will become the 2.9 development series once 2.8 is released. With this, 2.10 will finally feature higher bit depth images, additional color spaces (CMYK for one), and hardware accelerated image operations. There's still work to be done: to take advantage of the new features, plugins need to be ported to access GEGL buffers instead of GIMP tiles, but the conversion work is straightforward and current plugins will continue working as well as they do now in the meantime.
A few weeks ago, two GIMP hackers got together to do some general hacking, and inadvertedly ported the core graphics code to GEGL.
Is it just me, or does that not pretty much sum up GIMP development since day one?
Now if these guys would just inadvertently fix the user interface, or perhaps trip and fall into a total redesign, or accidentally re-organize and re-name all the tools using bumbled into industry standard names, and serendipitously selected value scales, they might unintentionally come up with something that, purely as a side effect, resembled, ever so slightly, the principal of Least Astonishment.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
"How do I draw a circle? I CAN'T DRAW A CIRCLE WITH IT YET AFTER LIKE 30 YEARS" --lowuserid1997
"Does it still suck at CMYK...because where I work we are focusing *so hard* on CMYK right now, it'd be ridiculous for GIMP not to support that" --a_complete_liar
"I noticed that the interface is still a series of 'windows'...my granddaughter's IPAD allows her to paint the entire mona lisa with her pinky finger, never even showing a single window. WHAT HAPPENED TO OPEN SOURCE???" --300baud
"Anybody know of an alternative to GIMP that lets you publish to ebook formats like Kindle? I need to be able to import a 1200 page scientific text, and I want to have drop shadows on the letters and a parchment background. Also something that exports to iBooks would be great but I can't pay any money for this, and I don't want to have to work for an hour to make it all just work." --cluelessphd
"Oops! Oh, it worked?" ...
"Crap. WHY does it work? It totally shouldn't work!" ...
*shrug* "Ship it."
Yup, I don't get it, for example, why rotating a photo to get the horizon straight is not just a matter of drawing a straight line over horizon, and have GIMP figure out how to rotate the photo to get it straight.
Here's how to correct a horizon in GIMP 2.6.11:
As a photographer I disagree with your statement. The advantage of working with raw picture files is that you have much more data available then you have after a lossy compression has been applied to your image. Shooting in RAW allows you to do all sorts of neat tricks that with a standard jpg are extremely difficult if not impossible.
Believe me, you do notice the difference between a processed jpg & a processed raw file.
I'm a digital artist and iOS programmer and I haven't had Photoshop installed in 10 years. I've developed 3 design-heavy iOS apps and shown artwork in museums in New York made with GIMP.
Recently I got fed up with the long absence of GIMP updates and decided to finally switch to Photoshop. I was sure it was going to be a lot better if I just got over the hump and learned it. After converting my latest iOS project to Photoshop and learning how to do the basic operations I needed to get around, I found that many of the basic tasks I do regularly are a bit more cumbersome to do in Photoshop. I went onto forums and found other people on Adobe's forums trying to figure out the same thing, and then coming to an inpass. I even discussed my issues with long time Photoshop users. Photoshop is definitely easier and has more features, but is inflexible compared to GIMP in some ways, like with keyboard shortcuts.
I eventually went back to GIMP. For what I'm doing it just makes more sense. Everything in GIMP is hard to do and the interface is weird, but if it fits your needs and you spend the time to learn the interface, it's great. It's always been more stable than Photoshop for me, and it's free.
Really excited there's a new version on the way.