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GIMP Book
Anthony Ball writes
"Michael Hammel's new book "The Artist's Guide to the
GIMP" is now available at SSC. "
How long before we can see that on the shelves right next
to the Photoshop books?
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Is it possible that GIMP could be any more overrated? It is basically a glorified paintbrush tool. Any serious artist would use a package like Photoshop, instead of the amateurish hack that is GIMP. Maybe version 2.0 of GIMP will be better, but as it stands it simply lacks too many key features.
could you be more specific, on which features GIMP lacks, instead of this FUD?
That's part of the beauty that is OSS. You find something is missing? Add it in yourself
And conversely that's the beauty of proprietary, commercial software... someone else will do it for you.
If you beg.
If there's enough demand.
And only after extracting the contents of your wallet.
David F. Skoll.
You are a faggot. You sound like Bill Gates himself.
The Anonymous Coward
The Man Who Thinks You Should FUCK OFF
EFNet's Own...Doommaker!
...But only if I found it in a bookstore. I like to flip through a book before I decide if I'm going to buy it. And I don't mean just a few pages. Even if I just have one question that I need answered about something, I'll find the answer and then buy the book based on that. Then there's books I buy just for fun. For instance "Newton's Telecom Dictionary". I was going through this and I said to myself "if this book has the definition for 'warez' I'm buying it". Sure enough it did and the book has been part of my collection (and often used for it's vast array of knowledge) ever since. I use the Gimp on a weekly basis and will be glad to buy this book if I see it at a bookstore.
The Anonymous Coward
The Man Who Is Annoying
EFNet's Own...Doommaker!
Hehehe... I know it wasn't the best response to his statement. But as far as I'm concerned, The Gimp is better than him. He was bashing a program that is still in the 1.x version series. I'd like to see him compare it to the 1.x version series of Photoshop. I guarantee you Gimp blows it away.
The Anonymous Coward
The Man Who Sometimes Has Something To Say
EFNet's Own...Doommaker!
Hehehe...
:)
Warez - Warez is commercial software that has been pirated and made available to the public via a Bulletin Board or a Web site on the Internet. Typically, the pirate has figured out a way to remove the copy-protection or registration scheme used by the software. The use and distribution of warez software is illegal.
Ok Ok, granted it's not the most perfect definition, but I didn't buy it for the definition. I bought it for humor value
The Anonymous Coward
The Man Who Spends Money When He Has It
EFNet's Own...Doommaker!
There exists panatone palets for Gimp. But no one dare distribute them for fear of the lawsuits.
Sorry GUYS, GIMP is not there!
Does Gimp support onscreen CMYK? Does it support HexaChrome? I dont know? But unless these features are added, no serious designers or prepress shop will use it.
GIMP does not have the LAYER functionality of a professional tool such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, you look only to text layers and distortion layers, GIMP has no support for this!!
GIMP will not be what it has until these are in!!!
BTW does PhotoShop have a full featured macro/
programming language like the Gimp so you can
automate your work. And I don't mean just a
keystroke recording mechanism but a fully
functional language with conditionals, functions,
loops, etc. And can we access the functionality
over the network like the Gimp? Without this,
PhotoShop is a piece of shit!!
A "serious artist" doesn't blame his tools.
This manual is available for downloading and
- 1.0.0.pdf
printing (it's about 550 pages or so, with
outstanding graphics)...
ftp://manual.gimp.org/pub/manual/GimpUserManual
Such as an enormous pricetag? Face it, no matter how good Photoshop is, it's well out of the price range of anyone but professionals. I'm a Windows/Paint Shop Pro user who has yet to use GIMP, but I can certainly see a place for an image editor that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, even if it doesn't have certain "professional" features. Photoshop may very well be worth the price for those who can afford it, but there are lots of artists ("serious" is not necessarily the same as "professional") who can't.
Also, Photoshop is a much more mature program; version 5.0 as opposed to GIMP 1.0. GIMP may not be serious competition for Photoshop... yet.
Have you ever tried to WRITE a script in brain dead SIOD scripting of GIMP??? If so you would not make these claims...don't you WONDER why there are more C-LANGUAGE plugins than this stupid impossible SIOD???
I downloaded the Frozen River manual a few months back and from what I understood there was going to be a printed version. Unfortunately at 600 pages it was a bit to large to print, even at work! The manual was really well done and it was a good text for basic computer photo editing. Does anyone know if the book ever got printed?
Because if you had you'd never make a stupid comment like that. Lawyers will sue you over anything and everything. If GIMP is going to be free, is has to do things in such a way as to not be proprietary.
Actually, a lot of people care. My roommate for one - he's assistant art director for a small ad agency in Cambridge, MA and he has told me a number of times that they've looked at the GIMP and the only reason they don't use it is b/c it has no CMYK support. There is a whole industry out there that works with publishing re-touched photos, etc. that need CMYK. The Web (contrary to what many believe) is not the _only_ publishing medium. I love the GIMP and I use it for just about everything image related (except viewing, where xv is a little more efficient for me). Four years ago, before the GIMP, I thought that the only thing the Linux platform really needed was a good photo imaging tool and now there's the GIMP. However, for the industry of print publishers to even look at it, it needs CMYK. Until that day, they'll get a freshy ripped for every copy of Photoshop they need to buy. Hopefully that won't be much longer - as Adobe is the Microsoft of the graphics and publishing world.
Just my two lumps of copper and zinc.
nick
nbarry@isolation.net - too lazy to log in.
You have to actually *say* something. "Professional," being a totally subjective marketing buzzword, means absolutely nothing. If you actually *had* an argument, you would say something concrete, such as: "You need a tool that will implement this algorithm..." or "To be much more powerful, the UI should be done this way..." This is how opensource projects grow from a crappy little skeleton alpha release of something into a robust and powerful system that can do all the expensive packages can do and more. By people who have knowledge about the "right" way to do things contributing. So, if there should by some chance happen to be something you know (which I doubt) then don't just sit there using meaningless terms like "professional"--do something!
The image printing business is HUGE, and an image editor that does not support CMYK is worthless. If all you are doing is editing small WEB images, then use GIMP, but for print production DONT.
You can design in Quark or whatever, but you still sometimes need to edit the final eps (or whatever) in an image editor.
Yep. I've. And i believe it's a great language.
If you like a more c-like language, the cvs version has perl/gimp.
Yep. I've. And i believe it's a great language.
If you like a more c-like language, the cvs version has perl/gimp.
Horacio J. Peña. horape@balug.org.ar
While I accept GIMP has it's limitations for print work, it's great for touching up rendered frames from Soft or PA.
Ancient versons of Dpaint are still put to good creative use in the games industry, and Dpaint has only a fraction of GIMP functionality.
I know you're desperate to paint Microsoft in a bad light about everything, but try to at least confine it to things you know about, ok sparky?
Adobe a great company to deal with? Maybe if you only use their Acrobat reader. Try dealing with all the bugs in Capture and Exchange. Tell me how wonderful they are to start forcing customers to use a dongle with Capture 2.0. Think paying all that money will let you make as many Acrobat documents as you want? Guess again -- the dongle comes complete with a counter which forces you to pay extra for a new one after so many documents.
Adobe's great if you're into shelling out dough for upgrades of questionable value. Then there's the cute versioning fun with things like FrameMaker.
We use almost all of their products, and I like them generally, but spare us the Adobe Is Wonderful garbage -- they're no different than anyone else. Then again, I've never seen any other company's CEO start crying on stage like John Warnock did at Seybold '89. Hehe.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
The GIMP has FULLY FEATURED AND COMPLETE layers.
You really haven't used it at this point, have you?
The GIMP is pretty cool. There are some features Photoshop has, which it lacks.
So what. Photoshop didn't have those features until fairly recently either.
And the GIMP has a number of features Photoshop doesnt have as well.. Lets face it, they are completely different programs.
The major point about the GIMP is that regardless of it's capabilities and shortcomings, the program is free, and if you don't like it, you can change it till it meets your needs. This is something you can't do with Photoshop, short of writing image filters.
I am amazed at the quality of the GIMP, and particularly like the way it handles blurs etc.. they have quite a different look to the same type of filter applied in Photoshop.
To be able to release a program thats even in the same ballpark, feature-wise as a program like Adobe Photoshop, which has had many well-paid developers dedicated to it fulltime for years says a lot about the skill of the coders behind the project.
Keep up the good work. Many of us appreciate it greatly.
The only reason I'm not getting this book (yet) is that the 1.1 features (and I guess 1.2 when everything is 'stable') aren't in the book (or I assume not, as 1.1 was only non-cvs 10 days ago). I know there are not huge amount of new stuff in 1.1, but enough that a bigger book could be made.
:)
I'd be interested in a review of this when people read it, because there is a LOT of the non 1.1 stuff in gimp I just have no clue about
Posted by Charles Bronson:
As much as I'd love to have that book to play with, $40 is a steep. But that's about how much any computer book is going to cost, which is, I guess, why I don't buy them.
Posted by Phantom of the Operating System:
I'm sure you would be dissapointed if it wasn't
Posted by Sandlily:
The best place to start is a how to draw book, that doesn't focus on computer work. This will teach you how to translate what you want into shapes. Once you can do this with your eye and transfer it to paper, then it won't be hard to start foing the same sort of thing in a computer. Next to a drawing book, a good graphic design tutorial book would help. you would find these in any art section of a book store. Then, after you understand the basic principles of drawing and design, learn to use the programs out there, with their tutorial books if you choose.
all though many skills can be taught in a book, in the end it could always come down to a question of having an artistic eye for creating graphics. if all else fails, find a graphic artist willing to do the work for you.
Posted by Sandlily:
I agree. As a graphic artist who has joined the field of web design, or simply just as a graphic artist, I found GIMP amazingly easy to use, efficient, and worth it! Within minutes I was creating some effects that take quite a few steps in Photoshop at times. Other then a few odd quirks here and there, which was propbably due to using the program for the first time and not knowing how it works exactly, I found Gimp to be worthy of standing next to Adobe Photoshop in many ways.
I hope Gimp continues to improve, until some day it ranks above and beyond Adobe Photoshop.
WilberWorks will do it for you. And for what? Oh, money. The same thing you're shelling out for proprietary, commercial software. But you don't get the code that way, either.
He hits all the hot buttons in one swoop:
* it's overrated
* it's just ms paintbrush (like the Halloween doc)
* it's not for serious artists
* it's a hack
* it lacks many key features
Plus, instead of leaving quickly after doing his damage, he stuck around to respond to the responses. Even tho he's an AC, his style is very distinctive. By inflaming the already inflamed, he's really taken this to a new level.
NOW, please ban AC's, or at least fix moderation so it moderates something.
EFNet kills BRAIN CELLS!
Well one thing gimp is good for is scripting. With Gimp you can Batch produce graphics. Yes anything you can do in script-fu you can do *MANUALY* In photoshop, but I can automate it with gimp. (And have done so for a number of key things)
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Are there any other GIMP books being worked on?
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I think $40 to $45 would be fair prices for GUM, and I would definitely shell out the money for it, and so would others I suspect. There's no problem buying GUM because you're able to look at the electronic version first to see if it meets your needs. I also recently purchased the Blender manual, which after shipping ended up costing about $60, but it has to be the most beautiful manual (or coffee table book) I've ever seen. If you haven't checked it out get it, or find somebody who has a copy.
Scheme is braindead? Well, that's the Outrageous Claim of the Day...
... Scheme is a fine language for a scheming canid like me. =) Yes, it's bit confusing but it's basically a very simple, yet powerful language. Does its job.
Sorry GUYS, I'm just not all there!
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
If you don't like Scheme scripting (and not everyone does), use the Perl extension instead.
(I don't know why I'm joining this thread, I'm pretty sure you're just a horrible troll who needs to get back under his bridge)
That's all very well for those that can afford it, but if you just want to make a dang picture, rather than a work of art, gimp kicks the ass off of anything else i've seen on any platform, period. As for features, well, we'll assume you've not used it too often :) There is absolutely nothing missing there, i've never been disappointed by it...
If RGB is good enough for human eyes (neurologically) it ought to be good enough for good enough for GIMP and the professional world, but alas, CMYK support still matters in the professional realm.
I like to print directly to RGB style printers, like the Fuji's printers.
I've been a programmer for years and years, but have never been much of an artist. Scratch that. I've never had even the tiniest exposure to the basic principles of art, like ... well, like how to create images, period.
Every book I've seen on graphics programs concentrates on how to apply your existing drawing knowledge to the new and alien world of the computer.
What about a "Graphics software for computer professionals" book that starts with the assumption that you know what the mouse is, you know how to start and run programs just fine, but you don't know beans about how art works or how the contents of the various tool boxes in graphics programs are used in real life.
It seems to me that a lot of us are being pushed towards doing art just so we can design our own web pages and those of clients, and that we're at a tremendous disadvantage without artistic training of any sort.
I know I could go to art school and sit in classrooms for ages, but that would take way too much time -- and, more importantly, that's not really the way I learn anyway. I learn from books.
Thoughts?
D
That book, while a very good book, tells you about design - not about the nitty gritty of generating graphics.
For instance, I'd like to learn how to make good looking buttons, and how to draw icons like the Linux penguin here on Slashdot.
There are a few books that are strictly cookbook (do this, do that and uou get something like this), but I haven't found anything that shows you the basic principles of drawing/creating images.
Any other thoughts?
D
You've got to chill brother, I haven't seen anybody get so upset about someone giving them something for free since my mother got handed a condom in a shopping mall.
GIMP is somewhat oeverrated ( specially as compared to tools available on Win and Mac platforms) but, well, there is really nothing else available on Linux that could even approach power of Photoshop and having GIMP around is probably a saving grace for people who completely abadoned Windows.