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GIMP 2.6 Released
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Oct 01, 2008 09:47 AM
from the pimp-your-pixels dept.
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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I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, just after I updated 2.2 to 2.4! @#@!#*!!!
One area I hope the GIMP team focuses on in the future is font rendering. I absolutely love working with GIMP, but the fonts still don't come out as nice as they do in Photoshop. I'm not graphical design savvy enough to know why, only that my fonts look like crud when compared to the smooth output of Photoshop.
Other than that, GIMP is an incredible product. Anyone doing casual graphical editing, just learning, or otherwise does not need the top-end features of Photoshop will be well-served by this package. Kudos for doing such an incredible job, guys! :-)
Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Funny)
A more needed update....
SOMEONE PLEASE FORK THE PROJECT AND GIVE IT A NEW NAME!
My Point of sales machine died a few days ago, and the tech asked if I had installed anything on it. I told him that I loaded up "the gnu image manipulation program" just to avoid saying "GIMP". Can't we rename it to something better?
I suggest we use: GNU Photo & Image Manipulation Program.
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Funny)
Fantastic.
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Funny)
But does it have electrolytes? It's what artists crave!
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Insightful)
Gimp developers don't care what you think. People have been very vocal in requesting this product undergo a name (as well as UI!)change to something less silly, childish, and stupid since it came out in the late 90's, and they haven't done it so it ain't going to happen now. GIMP is destined to always conjure images about either: a) that disturbing dude from pulp fiction as you mentioned, or b) children who have some affliction or disability that causes them difficulty when walking.
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:4, Insightful)
Last I checked, GIMP wasn't a Linux product. It is also for Windows, MAC, *BSD.
As soon as Apple drops the lame i prefix, and Sun drops the j prefix.
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Insightful)
Winamp
[a digital current measuring program]
Photoshop
[an ecommerce program for selling Polaroids]
Yahoo Messenger
[a yodel-to-text converter for arranging bicycle deliveries].
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate to feed the troll but...
"Drop the lame prefixes"
iPhoto, iWork, iPod, iMac, iPhone.
Prefixes are far from unique to Linux. Also, how long is it since you looked at Gnome apps? I can't of any that are "gSomething" or "gnSomething". Plenty are called "Gnome Something", but how is that different from the hundreds of "Windows Something" or 'WinSomething"? 'Winamp', 'Winzip', 'Windows messenger', 'Winrar'. Uhuh.
"This basically goes to show that the Linux desktop folk know they're names are completely dissociative, so they have to spell out exactly what each one does."
Skype, Flash, Adium, Daemon Tools. *Most* desktop apps have random names that don't mean anything, the only difference is that Ubuntu added labels to the names other people gave their apps to make it clearer.
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Mod this man to Mount Olympus! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sir, I wish I could mod you to infinity. That's one of OSS's biggest hurdles right now, keeping it locked out of mainstream awareness. OSS has great coders, but a real dearth of UI designers, technical writers, and basic marketing people. So you end up with coders (who think they don't need these people) designing great software that is rendered completely inaccessible by horrid UI's, poor to non-existent documentation, and stupid marketing moves (like this kind of poorly-thought-out naming).
Just look at 99% of OSS websites, done by coders who have no idea how to present their software to anyone but other coders--leading to my tip:
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:4, Insightful)
The last time I loaded Ubuntu (5 minutes ago), the menu looked more like this:
How much clearer can it possibly get?
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:4, Insightful)
So call it by it's full name. Gnu Image Manipulation Program.
If you must rename the icon.
I am pretty sure that Photoshop Elements is actually called PSE or some such thing.
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Funny)
The LaTeX name hasn't hindered its adoption because it references neither extreme sexual domination or physical deformity. GIMP does both.
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:4, Funny)
Where do you work, Starbucks?
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Re:Your workplace is scary! (Score:4, Funny)
You should have seen the shit-fit a colleague threw when I remarked on the picture of her hairy pussy(cat).
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:5, Funny)
gPimp, lol, sounds like an evil Apple product.
gPimp is actually google's pimping product, which I prefer since it is far more open. iPimp is way too locked down, it'll only let you work with ho's that Apple has approved.
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GEGL (Score:5, Interesting)
So now with GEGL worked into GIMP, how long will it be until we see something equivalent to Photoshop's Layer Groups? Is it already in this release? (I didn't see anything about it in the release notes.) Sometimes simple projects grow in size to the point where it'd be very convenient to be able to better organize layers in groups and sub-groups. I like GIMP, and it would be much more practical for me to use it more often with this feature.
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Re:I just got 2.4! (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.
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Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:4, Informative)
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CYMK (Score:5, Insightful)
A question, is there CYMK color separation support already?
Sorry if this was implemented already, I havent checked on the Gimp in a while.
Re:CYMK (Score:5, Informative)
CMYK support for the GIMP [archlinux.org] - Why you might not need CMYK support in the GIMP.
Separate+ CMYK separations plugin for GIMP [yellowmagic.info] -- And if you really need it, get this. Very nice. Supports ICC color profiles.
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Re:CYMK (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:CYMK (Score:5, Insightful)
The default response to "does open source software do X?" is "you don't really need to do X."
I've gotten that response so many times, I can't count them. "Can open source apps paste spreadsheet cells into an email?" "Is there an open source app to do Gantt charts?" (Disclaimer: these are old examples; for all I know these scenarios work perfectly now.)
The second-most common is, "oh, you must have something weird." I usually get this one when I install a driver that claims to run some model of hardware, and then my hardware still doesn't work. "Sure, IVTV says it supports Hauppauge WinPVR 150 cards, but it doesn't work." "Oh, you must have something weird, maybe Hauppauge changed their chipset."
Whatever. I don't like the whole "pass-the-buck" culture.
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Perspective adjust (Score:3, Interesting)
Still no high colour depth? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not completely clear from the release notes: does this mean that the GIMP can now load and save images with 16 or 32 bits per colour channel, or is it still limited to 8-bit RGB despite the new GEGL engine under the hood?
Re:It's still essentially 8-bit. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:It's still essentially 8-bit. (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. )
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Re:It's still essentially 8-bit. (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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The future of GIMP (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's be honest here. I like GIMP, I generally prefer it over photoshop (for what I do). But it's not photoshop and it gets shit on for that reason. The solution: GIMP should ditch GTK/GDK and use GNUStep/Cocoa. This provides a number of advantages - free CMYK and pantone support, better font rendering, an improved UI, and direct access to artistic types. Photoshop on OS X is a dog -- the look and feel doesn't match and Adobe won't provide a 64-bit version until CS 5 (if then). An OS X native GIMP would kick it's ass.
Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now (Score:4, Insightful)
Why create entirely different "line", "rectangle", "polygon", and "ellipse" tools when "stroke selection" and "stroke path" do all of those -- and more?
For one reason because they don't. Stroking a selection gives a rather ugly [seul.org] circles [seul.org] compared to a real circle tools, since to much information gets lost along the way. And of course also usability, lack of proper circle tools has been an issue for a decade and yet it is still not fixed and still continues to be an issue and the issue won't go away by pretending its not there. Name a good reason why Gimp shouldn't have a set of geometry tools. I frankly can't think of one. If somebody worries that the toolbox is getting crammed, just add a way to remove tools from it.
All that aside, there is also a larger issue with the lack of those tools, namely that tools can't be plug-ins, so any new tool has to be done directly in Gimp and can't be supplied as an add-on. If they could be this issue would have already been fixed long ago.
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Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now (Score:4, Informative)
Then you want Inkscape instead.
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Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now (Score:5, Interesting)
Then you want Inkscape instead.
No really I want GIMP to be able to do this.
Example: Take a family photograph and circle somebody. Or add a cartoon speech bubble.
These things should be single step operations from the main control pane.
Rich.
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Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now (Score:5, Insightful)
No really I want GIMP to be able to do this.
It can.
Example: Take a family photograph and circle somebody. Or add a cartoon speech bubble.
Circle somebody: Ellipse select tool, select an oval. Stroke selection. Choose a line style, you're done.
Cartoon speech bubble: Ellipse selection, shift-lasso select the arrow (if you can't draw a straight enough line, convert to a path, edit the path to put an arrow in, then convert back to a selection). Fill with background colour using the paint tool (fill whole selection). Stroke selection, choose line style. Put the words in it with the text tool. If you're doing that a lot, make a generic text balloon and save it, then insert it as a layer when you need one.
These things should be single step operations from the main control pane.
Why? What's wrong with a 2-step operation? It's still relatively quick considering how often people want to do what you described (not very often; heck, the people who just want to do that generally get by with MS Paint).
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Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now (Score:4, Funny)
Cartoon speech bubble: Ellipse selection, shift-lasso select the arrow (if you can't draw a straight enough line, convert to a path, edit the path to put an arrow in, then convert back to a selection). Fill with background colour using the paint tool (fill whole selection). Stroke selection, choose line style. Put the words in it with the text tool. If you're doing that a lot, make a generic text balloon and save it, then insert it as a layer when you need one.
I'm seriously waiting for someone to mod this +1 funny ...
Rich.
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Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a complicated process, and it even makes a bit of sense, looking at it in hind-sight. But it is not intuitive. When practically every new user of a program has the same issue, the user may not be the problem. Maybe the process is fine, but it needs to be told to the user more clearly.
I use GIMP nearly every day, and really like it. I'm a fan. I'm glad to see improvements.
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Re:Windows version still lagging. (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.
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Re:It really didn't have this? (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to 1985 [wikipedia.org], GIMP developers...
Care to point us at a project you work on in your spare time so that we can mock it?
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Re:It really didn't have this? (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 [gimp.org], 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:It really didn't have this? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Re:It really didn't have this? (Score:5, Insightful)
For what 99% of people do with graphics, The GIMP DOES compete with Photoshop.
Or is Linux not a competitor to Windows because it doesn't do everything Windows does (even though it does many things better)?
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Re:It really didn't have this? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've got Gimp and Photoshop on my machine. Until this latest version of Gimp was released, I had the most current version of both.
I'm always grabbing Gimp for the simple photo editing I do, because I'm more familiar with it than I am with Photoshop.
What's amazing is that my daughter, who was not familiar with either application, has decided on her own to use Gimp more often for her (admittedly basic) photo editing.
Yes, I've made a cash donation to gimp.org more than once in the past several years.
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Re:It really didn't have this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does he advertise projects he works on in his spare time as being comparable to Photoshop?
I've never seen any "advertisements" for the Gimp anywhere. I guess I haven't been paying attention.
That being said, the Gimp is comparable to Photoshop. You can compare anything to anything if you want, obviously. I myself enjoy comparing apples and oranges in my copious free time.
More importantly the Gimp is a free alternative to Photoshop, with different strengths and weaknesses. Both products seem to have a hellish learning curve, so you would be foolish to abandon Photoshop if you are already invested in it, and I suspect it'd be equally foolish to start an investment in Photoshop today when there is a free alternative available.
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Re:It really didn't have this? (Score:4, Funny)
I myself enjoy comparing apples and oranges in my copious free time.
that sounds like a really boring hobby, you should try comparing apples with jet engines and oranges with elephants, it will make you a much more rounded individual who is happier about life in general.
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Re:I just love Gimp (Score:5, Insightful)
I just love Gimp. But why does Gimp have to separate the windows like that? Can't it have everything as a multi-document all under one window?
Because MDI interfaces are an obscenity before god, and implementing one should be a corporal offense. Let window management be handled by the window manager.
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Re:I just love Gimp (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't it have everything as a multi-document all under one window?
Please, no! Multiple windows are great for multiple monitors and / or multiple documents being edited at once. I can't stand programs which force you into one window. If you want, you can combine all the tool docks into one, and thus have just a document window and a tool window, but please don't force us to do so!
Cheers
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Re:Gimp fork. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:No native OS X support? (Score:4, 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.
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