Interview with Gimp Maintainer

palpatine writes "Linux.com has an interview with Manish Singh (yosh), the chief maintainer of the Gimp project. " Yosh mentions that they are in a feature freeze now (and here is the list of frozen features) for Gimp v1.2. Tons of cool stuff to lust after.

Comments

Re:gimp needs photoshop plugin support

[kijiki]

This could be done by linking with winelib and writing a custom binary loader (similar to the origional wine binary, but for DLLs). I looked into doing this for x11amp, to load winamp plugins, but it would take some unholy hackery. It'd be a lot of work that would be better spent making cool GPLed plugins.

GIMP in schools.

[afeinberg]

Well, I suppose I should mention this. Myself and some others are currently writing a proposal to use GIMP/Win32 as the program of choice for a Digital Art course at our high school. I'll keep the slashdot population posted. Meanwhile, has anyone tried something similar? Thanks.


Andrew G. Feinberg

Re:Professional Color Matching?

[Max von H.]

"I've heard rumblings that this is the only major feature preventing a lot of professional graphics people switching to GIMP from Photoshop."

I wonder where you may have heard such rumblings...really. I'm a graphic designer and, although the GIMP is not bad, it doesn't approach Photoshop 5 when it comes to functionality. GIMP is closer to Photoshop 3. The text tool is a dog, among other things.

The GIMP is a good tool, but I won't call it professional yet. Remember that most graphic designers are not the kind of people who like putting their hands down the OS. Look at how many of them are using MACs!

I'm sure the GIMP will keep improving (I hope so), but sometimes you have to face the hard reality of the facts: out of Photoshop, Fireworks, Freehand or Illustrator, there's nothing much a professional graphic designer will work with, me included. Maybe e-picture on BeOS...

Now, I' d love to see all my favorite apps ported to Linux or BeOS, so I won't have to boot NT anymore...although it works_well_for_what_I_do, without crashing (yes, it's possible). Maybe it'll all happen with the Corel/Debian distro...

Keep on the good work!

Just my .02

Reluctant Realeases.

[adnan]

The GIMP is definitely one of the jewels in the open source crown, but the distance between stable realeases is a worrying factor. As with the 2.2 Kernel the 1.2 GIMP seems to have taken a very long time in deveopment.

Linus has pointed out the increased activity in bug fixing and less on features adding to current Kernel builds to reduce release time cycles. This is a very good thing. As what is the point of having excellent and reveloutionary features when the users cannot get a hold of a stable product to utilise ? The GIMP is a prime target for such a criticism.

As mentioned in the article (though a little short) 0.99 took a long time to mature. Condsidering the complexity and simply the number of features that were integrated into the product this is quite understandable. Though a cleaner and more functional interface (a common complaint from profesional users) would have been desired over some of the more esotoric features.

The feature list for 1.2 is simply mind-boggling. That a team of open source developers could achieve so much in a 0.2 realease. It shows the effective and effecient and creative nature of open source projects. Though this realease could easily be a 1.4 realease. And if so, we could have had a 1.2 realease 2 months back. Most users i know would be most happy with the ability to use atleast half of thee new feautures in a stable realease 2 months back rather then wait on for this long. Finally i must stress that i fully support the GIMP projects as it clearly shows to the world the productivity of open source and "free" software and any complaints i have made are from a satisfie user.

Taking GIMP further

[kzinti]

I've been using the GIMP since about 0.54 and I couldn't live without it. I scan a lot of images for a family history project, and I take lots of photos with my digital camera. I use the GIMP for all sorts of color adjustment, cropping, touch-up, and special effects in my photos, as well as creating the graphics for my web site.

Although I'm not a professional photographer or the like, I still want to organize and manage my images in a professional manner. In my job as a programmer, I use RCS and directory hierarchies to organize and care for my code -- why shouldn't I treat my images with as much care?

I have needs that GIMP doesn't meet by itself. For example, I want to organize my images. Not just into folders, but according to varying criteria, such as date taken, subject, exhibit (whether an image has been used in a web site or document), etc.

Also, I want to track different versions of my images. I typically keep several versions: the raw scan, the first touch-up (after scratch removal, color correction, and other tweaks), a cropped version (because I might crop differently for different uses), and several scalings: the full original, a 640x480 web-site size, and a thumbnail. I want a tool that helps me manage all these versions, track where they've been used, and jump among them (or call them up in GIMP).

Organizing images is an area that's coming along nicely, with the development of gPhoto and Photodex, but these tools only address that one area of concern. And to be truly useful, they need to be well-integrated with the GIMP, so that one can edit an image with a double-click.

I have heard that Photodex will eventually have integration with the GIMP, but that appears to be some way away. Photodex also has the problem that it isn't open source, and probably won't ever be.

GPhoto shows great promise, but it appears to have some overlaps with the GIMP. For example, it has its own color correction dialog. I'd prefer to see gPhoto integrated with the GIMP for image editing, rather than trying to provide its own. GPhoto has great digital camera support so far, its greatest strength. Good digicam management is another need for a complete image management tool suite.

What about version control? No one out there seems to be thinking at all about this. Maybe because it's a wacko idea -- but I for one would find it useful.

Version control of images needn't be difficult. Of course, you couldn't do it the same way RCS does it, with content diffs. Storage requirements would get way out of hand; just saving the individual versions would require less.

A better idea, one that could be accomplished with the help of the GIMP, would be to record all the mousing, keystrokes, and dialog interaction that goes into the editing of an image; these are the "diffs". This data could be stored far more compactly than storing all the image versions. You could play back the edits on the original raw scan to produce any intermediate or final version. If it takes too long to play back from the original, you could store full binary versions of significant intermediate versions.

None of this is intended to slam the GIMP, Photodex or gPhoto. Just some ramblings on where I'd like to see image management go in the open-source world.

--JT

Re:Version control

[kzinti]

The xdelta plugin is only a small part of what I need. It's like saying that diff is all I need for text version control. Of course, that's not so; the diff capability needs to be embedded in a framework that knows about versions and history and change comments and locking and yada yada yada. Diff and even patch are not sufficient for doing text version control -- that's why we have RCS.

My point is that a complete image-maintenance environment needs to go beyond the GIMP. It needs to integrate the GIMP, and a good organizer, and a history/version control tool, and probably several other tools that I haven't thought of yet. Trying to cram all this into the GIMP will lead to Emacs-like bloat. Instead, I'd rather try to seek a framework that allows the tools to work well together, but still enables them to work separately.

--JT

Gimp Is cool and there's a win32 version

[linuxonceleron]

Gimp is one of the best reasons to use linux, I don't see who would buy photoshop when gimp is so well done. I even have it on my windows partiton(the win32 gimp). Its a ton better than pirating photoshop. By the way, if you have the gimp that comes with redhat the 1.0.x versions, get the 1.1.x or 1.2.x(is it out?) versions, they are so much better, anyway Hurrah to gimp!

Is it that simple...

[vyesue]

these companies haven't "taken over" GIMP. They are paying some developers to expand it. I personally consider this a good thing. besides, GIMP seems (to me) to have completely replaced Photoshop; I think now is as good a time as any to expand the GIMP's development goals to fill an area which no other OSS has a presence in.

I for one would love to see motion video editing capabilities in a free software package. GIMP rules; might as well carry that ruling-ness into the motion video arena.

I sorta wonder whether it might be smarter to make a motion-video-only program that shares a lot of code with GIMP, sort of like how Adobe has Photoshop and whatever-their-motion-video-product-is-called.

Professional Color Matching?

[maelstrom]

I've heard that GIMP can not implement professional Color Matching (used in pre-press work, etc) because of Patent/License issues.

Is it possible for someone like Corel or Red Hat to step forward with the license fees or a patent-free implementation? I've heard rumblings that this is the only major feature preventing a lot of professional graphics people switching to GIMP from Photoshop.

I'd appreciate any information/URLs as I'm not that familiar with who holds the patents and/or licenses.

Re:Professional Color Matching?

[vyesue]

not to be an ass, but maybe if you'd read the article...

there's a link in there to a page that contains info on the applicable patents. in fact, the interviewer asks pretty much the question that youre asking.

Re:Professional Color Matching?

[Straker Skunk]

You might want to start here :-)

Anyway, while it should be possible to come up with a new, unpatented color-matching system, I'd imagine there would be two problems:

- It would be very VERY costly to develop (esp. if it's to be on par with Pantone), and
- Then you have to convince almost every graphic designer in the world to switch. (Compatibility is good, but 100% is unlikely, methinks)

The solution I've heard mentioned is for someone to produce a non-free [binary?] Gimp plug-in. I think this will happen someday, once the app has matured enough to raise eyebrows among professional artists. (Still need CYMK support!)

using Photoshop

[Indomitus]

I personally use Photoshop more only because it's better documented and it's what I know. I just haven't had the time to sit down and relearn all the stuff I know how to do in Photoshop. I think that's a major stumbling block that the Gimp people need to get over, how to convert old Photoshop guys like me. I'd love to be able to use Gimp for everything but it seems like a lot to learn over again. If I'm wrong and there are good tutorials and books out there, please let me know.

Re:using Photoshop

[vyesue]

dude, dont you read slashdot?

(someone's review of some GIMP tutorial book)

Where are the Gimp companies/business models?

[HenryFlower]

The Gimp seems like a perfect project to found a Cygnus-type company around (or perhaps Apache with IBM is the better analogy). Rather than having companies such as those mentioned sponsoring individual developers, why not sell support/consulting/development services to those companies? One could also sell branded, tested, supported releases a la Red Hat.

If the software development world really is going to change radically towards open source development, these sorts of businesses have to start popping up.

Re:Where are the Gimp companies/business models?

[Matthew Kirkwood]

http://www.wilberworks.com/

Their web site looks rather stale (over a year since the last obvious update) but they're exactly the kind of business that you're talking about.

Matthew.

"Taking over"?

[MenTaLguY]

I really don't see that in terms of the project being "taken over". It's just another set of users who need specific features in a free software project and are helping to implement them.

It's not as if they're taking away from other areas, because if they weren't doing these things they likely wouldn't be contributing at all.

Again, I can't see how it's anything but a win/win situation. Free Software development is not a zero-sum game.
Berlin-- http://www.berlin-consortium.org

Re:Win32??

[seanb]

This info is buried in the "about the gimp" section of the gimp website. Gimp32 is at http://user.sgic.fi/~tml/gimp/win32/.

Gimp user interface

[Stormie]

I've seen various people say things about the Gimp's interface, like: "I don't like it", or "I'm used to Photoshop, so learning a new interface is a pain". Anyway, this idea bubbled up in my brain as I was walking home yesterday:

One of the projects in the Gnome Software Map is libglade, a library which allows an app to load a user interface definition from Glade (the GTK user interface designer) at runtime, thus enabling user interfaces to be changed and used without a recompile.

My idea was, if the Gimp's interface was designed in Glade, and loaded via libglade, surely it would be possible for people to customise it to their heart's content, and enterprising souls could design and release custom interfaces, eg Photoshop clones, for those who need a tool that "just works" and don't have time to fiddle.

(when I was coding on the Amiga, I originally used an editor called CygnusEd. Then I replace it with one called GoldEd, which had an extremely customisable interface, so I could make all the menus, hotkeys, etc. the same as CygnusEd. This was fantastic, but obviously a lot of work for the programmer - surely something like libglade could allow our major applications such flexibility without demanding too much effort from the developers at all?)

What does anyone think?

Gimp on Win32

[Cycon]

I was surprised, upon following the links in the article to the Gimp/Win32 maintainer's website ( http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/ ) that it appears only one person is covering this program to Windows. I don't understand this, as I can think of many users (schools, libraries, small businesses, etc.) that could use a powerful, yet "free" alternative to Adobe Photoshop on the Win32 platform. It seems to me that if we (as in the Open Source Community) are going to suceed in bringing Open software to the masses, the GIMP would be the perfect starting point. Anyone else have any comments?

Re:Gimp on Win32

[Mars Saxman]

This is just one of the many ways the open source world manifests its delightful anarchy. If there's only one guy working on Win32 GIMP, it's because only one guy feels like working on Win32 GIMP. If you want more people to work on it, do it yourself, or convince somebody to work on it for you.

People don't write code because The Masses(tm) need it. People write code because whatever program they (or their friends) need doesn't exist, or because the project cool and an interesting challenge, or because someone is paying them to write code, or because they are showing off, or just because they can.

It's all wonderfully banal, and it works fine.

-Mars

What I want to see

[mattdm]

My coding skills aren't up to it, or else I'd help, but what I'd really like to see is an option to make your cursor = the size of the brush you're using, as photoshop does. That way, you can see what you're doing!

--

Re:Text Anti-aliasing

[maelstrom]

I've only seen problems in anti-aliasing of text when I use a poor font. Give one of the true type servers a shot. True type fonts seem to work a lot better than some of the crud that got included on certain Linux distributions.

I now use TT fonts for most of my X apps. Netscape looks much better now. Especially since I have fonts like MS Comic Sans that novice web designers love to throw in.

Color Matching info

[raph]

I'll see if I can fill in some info on the color matching issue.

There are basically two types of color matching that are relevant. The first is Pantone spot colors, and the second is ICC. The latter is generally what you'd use when preparing photos and related images for CMYK offset printing. ICC is gaining ground, and is used as the color matching standard in such emerging technologies as SVG.

Pantone is basically a named collection of colors. The cool thing about Pantone is that you can communicate Pantone colors to professional printers, and they know how to match it. Let's say for example that you're doing a business card, and you want your logo to be in black and a nice deep blue. By specifying Pantone 280, you can be assured that the printers will produce the same nice deep blue that you intended. Incidentally, it's not hard to find a Pantone palette for Gimp if you're skilled at Web searching.

Pantone colors are far less useful when dealing with natural images. The Pantone palette is only a few thousand colors, while the standard for scanned images is sixteen million. These are all the colors between "nice deep blue" and "slightly deeper blue than that". That's where ICC comes in.

ICC basically specifies a transformation from a source color space (say, a calibrated RGB such as sRGB) to a destination color space (say, CMYK values for your particular printing press). In theory, this allows exact color matches between scanned, displayed, and printed images, but in practice things are a lot more complicated because (a) people don't perceive color the same way from an emissive display such as a CRT and reflected color from paper, and (b) not all devices can reproduce the same range of colors. Category (b) is especially tricky because the only way to ensure an exact color match is to use a lowest-common-denominator set of colors. As you can imagine, that's not a good idea. It doesn't look very good. In any case, ICC goes at least partway to solving these things.

Now we get to the patent problem. It appears that Electronics for Imaging has some patents that cover the generic idea of colorimetric matching between scan, display, and print. These patents have recently been upheld in court, so they'd appear to be pretty strong. I don't see a way around them.

As far as I know, these patents only apply in the United States. There is some very interesting development of color management code going on outside the US. Perhaps in 2003, when the most important of the EFI patents expires, this means that color management will be free for all to use.

Hope this clears things up.

Version control

[BigSven]

As you mention version control. There's a plug-in for the GIMP that does what you are searching for: Check out the xdelta plug-in from the plug-in registry: http//registry.gimp.org.

PS: Eeek, I'm so happy my server (sven.gimp.org) survided the /. effect. It's a 486-DX33 with 8MB RAM and it's still alive...

Gimp progress

[ajs]

For those who haven't checked out 1.1.x Gimp, you really should It's a horse of a different bitmap. There's so much that's new. The Gimp/Perl plugins (my favorite, as a few are mine) have really come of age. The user-interface is still a little quirky, but gods is it nicer than 1.0.

The fast unsharp mask is amazing. Try sucking in a photo of some forest scene or people. Use Image -> Equalize and then use Filters -> Enhance -> Unsharp Mask. You will see detail you couldn't see when you were taking the picture!

1.2 is going to really rock. Suck it out of CVS if you want to see the latest, and/or work on the code. There's a great CVS tutorial for accessing the Gimp here:

CVS Tutorial.

Also you can find Gimp News here.

Also, as a shameless plug, you could find out how to write plugins in Perl from my recent Perl Journal article. You can find out more about the Perl Journal at http://www.itknowledge.com/tpj/ It's kind of a funny article, since in it I plug my company, and I no longer work there ;-)

Another thing

[mattdm]

I'd also like to see something like Photoshops "Variations" tool, which lets you preview and choose betweeen various image-adjustment options.
This might be doable in script-fu....

--

Re:aww naw

[spinkham]

Not really, sounds like a RedHat tactic to me...
Putting out a competing product in a comercial setting adds options for the end user, gets the word out about Gimp, and makes someone some change... Nothing is lost for the comsumer, only to the $500 mad overpriced drawing programs. And I personally have no problem with this ;-)