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Graphics Software

First Preview of GIMP 2.0 Ready for Testing 563

molnarcs writes "The first preview of GIMP-2.0 is available. It can be installed side-by-side with GIMP 1.2 - so there is no need to uninstall 1.2 to test it. According to this README, some parts (gimp-perl and GAP) were removed from the main package, and will be released as separate modules. Use the mirrors listed on the homepage to download the source code. (Also available for FreeBSD via ports)." Apparently the GIMP is finally adding CYMK support, for those of you working in the print world.
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First Preview of GIMP 2.0 Ready for Testing

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  • Re:Yes but.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:16AM (#7914121)
    To copy money on Photoshop CS, its easy. Here is how to get around it.

    1. Open up image in ImageReady.
    2. Click import image to Photoshop
    3. Have funny money fun :D

    Adobe are stupid.
  • screenshot link (Score:2, Informative)

    by ubiquitin ( 28396 ) * on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:17AM (#7914132) Homepage Journal
    There's a screenshot of the GIMP 2.0pre1 for Mac users here [macgimp.org].
  • Re:Screenshots? (Score:4, Informative)

    by locutus_borg ( 36786 ) <olocutus@noSPAM.hotmail.com> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:19AM (#7914153)
    There is one here....
    http://openosx.com/gimp2/screenshots.htm l
  • Re:Yes but.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by capoccia ( 312092 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:21AM (#7914163) Journal
    Does it allow me to copy money? I hear programs like this are in short supply. :)

    I copied some currency with the GIMP recently. No problems at all.
    http://kandent.com/archives/2003_11/funny_money.ht ml [kandent.com]
  • by chrestomanci ( 558400 ) * <david@@@chrestomanci...org> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:22AM (#7914180)
    Africa ftp://ftp.is.co.za/applications/gimp/ [is.co.za] Australia ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/gimp/gimp/ [planetmirror.com]
    http://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/gimp/gimp/ [planetmirror.com]
    ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gimp/ [aarnet.edu.au]
    http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gimp/ [aarnet.edu.au]
    ftp://gimp.zeta.org.au/gimp/gimp/ [zeta.org.au] Austria ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/graphics/gimp/gimp/ [tuwien.ac.at] Finland ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/sci/graphics/packages/gimp/ [funet.fi] France ftp://ftp.minet.net/pub/gimp/ [minet.net]
    http://ftp.iut-bm.univ-fcomte.fr/pub/gimp/ [univ-fcomte.fr] Germany ftp://ftp.fh-heilbronn.de/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/gim p/ [fh-heilbronn.de]
    ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/grafik/gimp/ [ftp.gwdg.de]
    http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/grafik/gimp/ [ftp.gwdg.de] Greece ftp://sunsite.ics.forth.gr/sunsite/pub/gimp/ [forth.gr] Ireland ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/ [esat.net]
    http://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/ [esat.net] Japan ftp://SunSITE.sut.ac.jp/pub/archives/packages/gimp / [sut.ac.jp]
    ftp://ftp.u-aizu.ac.jp/pub/graphics/tools/gimp/ [u-aizu.ac.jp]
    http://www.ring.gr.jp/pub/graphics/gimp/ [ring.gr.jp]
    ftp://ftp.ring.gr.jp/pub/graphics/gimp/ [ring.gr.jp]
    http://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/gimp/ [nucba.ac.jp]
    ftp://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/gimp/ [nucba.ac.jp] Korea ftp://ftp.kreonet.re.kr/pub/tools/X11/ftp.gimp.org / [kreonet.re.kr] Netherlands http://gnu.kookel.org/ftp/gimp/ [kookel.org]
    ftp://gnu.kookel.org/pub/gimp/ [kookel.org] Norway ftp://sunsite.uio.no/pub/gimp/ [sunsite.uio.no] Poland ftp://ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl/pub/Linux/gimp/ [szczecin.pl]
    ftp://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/graphics/gimp/ [icm.edu.pl] Romania ftp://ftp.kappa.ro/pub/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/ [kappa.ro]
    ftp://ftp.iasi.roedu.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/ [roedu.net]
    http://ftp.iasi.roedu.net/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/ [roedu.net] Russia ftp://ftp.sai.msu.su/pub/unix/graphics/gimp/mirror / [sai.msu.su]
    http://gimp.tsuren.net/mirror/gimp/ [tsuren.net]
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:28AM (#7914227)
    Apparently you don't know what you're talking about..and neither do the people who modded you insightful GIMP 1.3.x/2.0 does a lot to address the user interface issue; (most, AFAIK) of the previously isolated windows can be docked.
  • by tgd ( 2822 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:29AM (#7914242)
    I generally find Gimp very easy to use, even easier in some ways than Photoshop (although I think the difference between which you're comfortable with largely comes from whether or not you find top menus or context menus more convenient).

    The actual methodologies you use between the two are very similar, although newer Photoshops have some interesting capabilities that Gimp doesn't have. For even very advanced graphic design, Gimp can certainly do it. Its got more features than people were using to do any imaging work a few years ago with things like Photoshop.

    Courses that cover techniques could certainly be useful, with the understanding that the actual steps may be different in Gimp. Knowing what to do is more important than how to do it.
  • by Pope Raymond Lama ( 57277 ) <gwidionNO@SPAMmpc.com.br> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:30AM (#7914250) Homepage
    It is difficult for people who have never used it. As is pretty much anything else.

    The "big difference" is that instead of oppening the whole program, images and sibblings in a single window, The GIMP opens the toolboxes and images in separate windows. This allows a serious user to make an optimal use of the multiple desktops avaliable in almost all window manager for X11 out there.

    As for making a phtoshop course, go for it. But make sure to pick a good course. If you pick a crappy one, that instead of teaching you some of the fundaments behind image manipulation, just mention a couple of the latest Photoshop automagic wizards, that will do you no good, either for using The GIMP, or for doing any serious work.

    On the other hand, with a good course, you will find that most of the really usefull stuff on Photoshop or the like is in the GIMP, sometimes even more powerfull.
  • Re:Screenshots? (Score:4, Informative)

    by jcupitt65 ( 68879 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:32AM (#7914278)
    Here's a shot [ng-london.org.uk] of 1.3.23 (I think), the final is pretty similar.
  • by Götz ( 18854 ) <`ten.xmg' `ta' `khcsaw'> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:34AM (#7914288) Homepage
    The package gimp1_3 in the Mandrake Cooker contribs is already at version 2.0pre1. Users of 9.2 should be able to install it too.

    Go to Easy Urpmi [urpmi.org] and add a Cooker contribs source if you don't have one already. Then type urpmi gimp1_3 and you're done.

  • by Ianoo ( 711633 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:36AM (#7914310) Journal
    Your "intuitiveness" about MDI applications is false intuitiveness brought on by using too much Windows software. MDI applications are horrendous for inexperienced users, and even Microsoft tried to phase them out (witness Word 2000). Macs and most X windows toolkits don't even have them. Tabbed user interfaces are generally considered better (but aren't great).
  • by ubiquitin ( 28396 ) * on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:37AM (#7914319) Homepage Journal
    I wanted to clarify one point from this slashdot posting: GIMP 2.0pre1 has plugin or two that can handle some CMYK functionality, but this is not the release that uses gegl, or the generic enhanced graphics library [gegl.org]. GEGL is the project that will bring all the bells and whistles necessary for proper colorspace support.
  • by jcupitt65 ( 68879 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:40AM (#7914350)
    There's a thing to output to CMYK using a colour profile via littlecms [littlecms.com].


    What GIMP is missing is native CMYK (ie. it's all still RGB for editing). Next version!

  • Re:Screenshots? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jeremymh ( 702977 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:46AM (#7914400)
    screenshot of the default setup running under gnome. [iinet.net.au]

    The interface has some very nice improvements. Each tool window can be dragged around, to dock things together (see the tabs on the layers window? Behind that are paths, undo history etc)

    You don't have to right click on an image to do functions to the image, it has them up the top of that window, making it more friendly to new users.
  • Re:Windows version? (Score:5, Informative)

    by dylan_- ( 1661 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:47AM (#7914407) Homepage
    So, will there be a Windows version anytime soon for us Windows users (over half of ./), or are we stuck with the ancient 1.2.5?

    I'm running 1.3.23 on my Win2K machine. Download it from http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/downloads.html

    You may have to wait a bit till gimp.org gets back on its feet...

    I had a problem in that it didn't detect my fonts, and I had to grab fontconfig from http://wiki.gimp.org/gimp/WindowsInstall to fix it. The new interface took a little getting used to, but I like it now.
  • Screenshots (Score:5, Informative)

    by ghostis ( 165022 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:48AM (#7914418) Homepage
    Here are some decent screenshots [golem.de]

    -ghostis
  • Grokking the Gimp (Score:3, Informative)

    by CapnKirk ( 201123 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:48AM (#7914419)
    It's an online book [gimp-savvy.com], best I've ever read on the GIMP. The instructions for how to retouch photos is fantastic. You can also buy a hardcopy.

  • Re:Screenshots? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Raphael ( 18701 ) * on Thursday January 08, 2004 @10:53AM (#7914457) Homepage Journal

    There are several screenshots of version 1.3 (pre-2.0) of the GIMP on the developer's site: http://developer.gimp.org/screenshots.html [gimp.org].

    Other screenshots of version 2.0 will be available later, when the new GIMP web site goes live.

  • Copying? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Theatetus ( 521747 ) * on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:11AM (#7914638) Journal

    The image is the easy part. Getting your hands on the right kind of paper is what's tricky.

  • by aug24 ( 38229 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:15AM (#7914675) Homepage
    I use it, but not on Windows. In terms of performance, I use an old box for my web stuff and it's plenty responsive enough for me.

    In terms of ease of use, it's quite a different interface, although it sounds like 2 can be made closer to PS in MDI/floating terms. I understand that many people *really* didn't like the original The GIMP design of 'all windows float so there', but I got used to it really quickly. The tools system is very similar, but the menus are set up completely differently. It's like switching between Windows and KDE for example: a competent user of either will find it frustrating for a while.

    I'd say *really* strongly "try it" - not just for your own potential benefit, but because people like you can offer feedback to the project that is vital: if you believe in FOSS, use it and report back what you thought.

    Justin.
  • by zlel ( 736107 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:16AM (#7914680) Homepage
    Before i had actually switched to photoshop proper, i used to use some gimp and some psp and some his and some that.. but several things make me wish that photoshop were open source and available on linux and i have to think thrice abt switching back - cos i luv photoshop for these:

    (1)factory preset shortcut keys: these make sure I can be productive on just anybody's computer - esp useful when i have to fix someone else's artwork, though sad to say, i prefer to work on a PC 'cos Mac has its menu bar out of reach of the keyboard (2)more shortcut keys like space bar (temp switch to the "hand" tool), multiple ways to zooom in/out without needing to click on the zoom tool etc (3)filters,(quick)masks,paths(PS7),curves/levels,L AB/CMYK/RGB/Multichannel yes channels and yes LAB (4)gamut alert this colour can't be represented in CMYK (5)pantone colours? (6)argh can't remember offhand (8)oh yes did i mention shortcut keys? the ones that pop up my palettes (methinks freehand sucks at this) only when i want them? oh yes and the ones that make me forget that people actually use the tool palette :P (9)ah fullscreen mode always makes me like a pro :PP

    yeah but i do have lotsa complaints too - (1)photoshop's a bit too dummy at times. where're all the DIP tools like 2D FFT and convolution matrix? (2)text on path. does Adobe not do this in PS so that they can sell you Illustrator as well? (3)Text - can't they store vector data as well so that on comps without those fonts i can still safely resize based on vector data? (4)sharks i can't nest layer groups (5)shit that drop shadow and inner glow effect i used on my layour didn't scale automatically when i resized that layer just now. (6)crap i need a 2-colour artwork that separates easily for my printer. gotta do it in illustrator again (7)the colour prints weird. oh no wonder it's CMYK artwork, gotta print it in Illustrator or Pagemaker. (8)can't i resize my canvas and not get my bitmap layers cropped??

    ah well. sometimes i also wonder if Photoshop secretly aspires to be Illustrator. But that's a different thread altogether. i'm on PS7 btw. and ya, to add on to the other thread i read, there's colour profile, monitor calibration and PPD's too - but thankfully half of those are my printer's worries.

  • by vidarh ( 309115 ) <vidar@hokstad.com> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:19AM (#7914710) Homepage Journal
    MDI that uses nested windows consistent with the current window manager is a "problem", though it shouldn't be hard to provide an X protocol extension to allow windows to have managed sub-windows (I think, though I'm not sure, that it might be feasible to do it even without a change to the server itself, by letting apps ask the window manager directly to reparent it's windows, but there might be restrictions that stop this). The reason nobody has bothered doing this is that MDI is a giant hack which had as it's sole purpose to "work around" a problem created by the menu-per-window mechanism of Windows, which is the defacto standard also for X apps.

    It's confusing as hell to most users, but was considered more or less a necessity due to avoid reproducing toolbars etc. for all document windows.

    AmigaOS and MacOS avoided similar issues with an app-wide menu at the top of the screen, and in AmigaOS' case with "screens" as a more generic type of grouping (because screens weren't restricted to having Windows from one app)

    In X you can get the same grouping by keeping an app on a virtual screen, so MDI serves very little purpose. Using virtual screens gives you the advantage that there is one less mechanism for the user to understand.

    Increased screen real estate and configurable and draggable toolbars also lessen the problem of losing screen realestate by duplicating toolbars in each document window.

    To sum it up, MDI was a hack to solve a problem that's mostly gone away.

  • by Thornae ( 53316 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:27AM (#7914805)
    the one thing on my list of needed software is a SIMPLE photo editor

    Well, a quick search on Freshmeat [freshmeat.net] (bookmark it, you'll find it very useful) suggests the following:
    If you're not after actual re-touching capability, VIPS [soton.ac.uk] might be what you want. (Oh, you are. Oops.)
    Well, for the princely sum of US$25, JPhotoBrush Pro [jphotobrushpro.com] looks good (there's a trial version available for download).
    For very basic manipulation, IV [twu.net] might do. And if you want something really basic... [newbreedsoftware.com]
    If you're willing to play with something considerably less mainstream, PyWiew [lycos.co.uk] caught my interest for being pure Python. Does sound a bit esoteric, though.

    Finally, you could see for yourself [freshmeat.net] what else is out there. There's more than freshmeat, of course. Like the Linux section of Tucows [tucows.com].

    Incidentally, if you have the time to learn it, Gimp can be very useful. Best way (like all *NIX at home learning) is to find someone who knows what they're doing and get them to teach you.

    P.S. - If you like Linux, try FreeBSD sometime. Not as popular or well covered, but has advantages too.

    HTH, etc.
  • by ScottGant ( 642590 ) <scott_gant@sbcgloba l . n etNOT> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:28AM (#7914814) Homepage
    wow, in all the years I worked in the pre-press field I never ever once used color calibration nor colour profiles. Not once.

    We scan, make a Kodak Approval or similar proof (depending on what the customer/pressmen wanted), looked at it in a light booth, went back and made adjustments...taking readings here and there and using curves and masks to color correct areas, then made a final proof. The customer would then look at it, approve it or want more adjustments. etc etc.

    So to say that you wouldn't get far in printing without profiles is kinda wrong. We saw them mainly as a crutch to people that simply didn't understand color, and generally ran circles around them in terms of speed and accuracy.
  • Re:Good news! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Deusy ( 455433 ) <charlieNO@SPAMvexi.org> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:38AM (#7914920) Homepage
    I am happy to hear that there is a Gimp 2 on the horizon.

    The development version has been very good and (for me) very stable - more-so than the stable version - for the last 3-6 months, althoguh YMMV.

    They've made a lot of improvements in usability as well as improving on and adding features. It's like comparing Photoshop6 to Photoshop4. It's that much better than the ugly, awkward, and sometimes crashy Gimp-1.2.
  • by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:39AM (#7914929) Homepage

    It's not exactly a technical problem. StarOffice and old versions of OpenOffice.org used to do that. Of course, I believe these things were "faked"; they were not properly X11-managed windows, but rather, the application drew them as widgets inside the window with their own windows-like title bars.

    In X11 applications can themselves be in "one cohesive group" already. I hit Alt+H in GIMP (or select Hide from window bar menu) and the whole app gets hidden. I can give the GIMP a whole desktop for itself if I want using virtual desktops.

    Also, I can move individual GIMP windows wherever I want on the window, or even to different virtual desktops. Would be extremely cool if I had a dual-head (Xinerama) setup, too... One monitor for toolbars and alternate views, one for the picture itself.

    Just a few of the things I could think of off-hand.

  • by Crayon Kid ( 700279 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:40AM (#7914944)

    That combined with the philosophy of "everything is done from the context menu", the fact that said menu is broken down into hierarchies several levels deep (however logical) with few shortcuts (Adobe spent an insane amount of money on this part of their UI design and it shows) and the messy array of tool and property boxes that inevitably clutter the screen (on that point, Photoshop isn't much better), makes the Gimp slower to work with than I'd like, regardless of how impressively powerful the underlying framework is. I'm looking forward to see what has improved so far, though, and I have good hopes for the future.

    That's not really true. The GTK toolkit that Gimp uses allows you to redefine the keyboard shortcut for any menu entry, anywhere. In Photoshop you're restricted to whatever Adobe has set up for you.

  • by sootman ( 158191 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:43AM (#7914970) Homepage Journal
    Book links:

    Grokking The GIMP [gimp-savvy.com] - 100% free online or you can buy a copy.

    ORA GIMP Pocket Reference [oreilly.com] -- prettty handy. You might find that in your local B&N or Borders or whatever.

    Of course, both of these are for The GIMP 1.2.
  • by Deusy ( 455433 ) <charlieNO@SPAMvexi.org> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:47AM (#7915015) Homepage
    The largest problem with learning The GIMP right now is that ... you will be hard pressed to find a "Teach yourself" or "24 hours" type book, especially for the current version. There are tutorials online... ...such as the Gimp User Group which can teach you a lot of very good techniques with a collection of very good tutorials. [sunsite.dk]

  • by Darren Winsper ( 136155 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:56AM (#7915126)
    Err...The GIMP doesn't spawn separate toolbars for each image. It didn't in 1.2 and it didn't in 1.0 (Which is many, many years old). In fact, it doesn't even use toolbars as such, there's just a set of toolbox windows which aren't associated to any one image.
  • by Raphael ( 18701 ) * on Thursday January 08, 2004 @12:16PM (#7915345) Homepage Journal
    The answer to the grand-parent - no win32 gimp-2.0 available yet - unless you compile it and debug it yourself :)

    <pedantic>Well, there is no gimp-2.0 for any platform yet. We are only talking about a pre-release here.</pedantic>

    This pre-release version (2.0-pre1) is not very different from version 1.3.23, which is available for Windows in a convenient installer from Jernej Simoncic's page [arnes.si]. The release of the source code is rather new and it will take a few days until binaries are available for all platforms, but you can probably expect a 2.0-pre version for Windows soon.

  • by Tet ( 2721 ) * <.ku.oc.enydartsa. .ta. .todhsals.> on Thursday January 08, 2004 @12:22PM (#7915405) Homepage Journal
    Err...The GIMP doesn't spawn separate toolbars for each image. It didn't in 1.2 and it didn't in 1.0 (Which is many, many years old).

    For those of us with longer memories, it didn't in 0.99, it didn't in 0.54 (the last Motif version) and it didn't in whatever the previous version that I used was (0.38? I can't remember; it was a long time ago now!). In fact, I think I can quite comprehensively state that Gimp has never behaved like this...

  • by t'mbert ( 301531 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @12:28PM (#7915467)
    I think the responses here are typical. Typical of those who think "different is better" and that we all have time to devote to this.

    I tried and tried to use Gimp over the years, I tried to read through the manuals online...it was PAINFUL. Even the easiest things escaped me. I just wanted to do X very simple procedure, and I spent hours trying to figure out how to do that. I even found newsgroup postings from people trying to do what I was doing and getting responses like "it's just a little different, you have to hold shift-alt drag the mouse and stand on your head to draw a box." Duh.

    And then I picked up a trial copy of Elements 2.0, figured it out in about 30 seconds and was doing what I needed to do. I paid my $100 two days later and will never go back. It's super-fast on my machine too.

    The lesson: Gimp is different for the sake of being different, which means it's a higher learning curve than I'm willing to give it. I'll gladly pay someone who's taken the time to make their software work in a way that users expect these days.

    Take a page about design from Joel on Software [joelonsoftware.com], guys. The Gimp isn't worth my time.
  • by craigmarshall ( 679127 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @12:30PM (#7915489)
    Apparently 1.3.23 is basically it. I've been using 1.2.5, and the new one is totally different. The new one is gorgeous!

    Here's the download page: http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/unstable.html [arnes.si]

    I recommend gtk-wimp too: http://gtk-wimp.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
  • by dylan_- ( 1661 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @12:32PM (#7915508) Homepage
    We discuss here Gimp-2.0 remember?
    1.3 is the same as 2.0. The 1.3 is the development branch. I was pointing out that he is not stuck with 1.2 on Windows.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 08, 2004 @12:38PM (#7915567)
    Put the mouse pointer over any menu option (drop downs, right-click, nested, whatever..) and press the button you want to assign the shortcut to. It's really neat.
  • Re:My beef with Gimp (Score:4, Informative)

    by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @01:21PM (#7916132)
    It's like 7 icons wide by 4 deep, which means you end up with a large box, rather than a taller slimmer one like in Photoshop.

    You can resize the tool selection box window.. make it 1 icon wide by 30 deep if you wish. Just click the corner and drag, just like resizing any other window.
  • by BigSven ( 57510 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @01:36PM (#7916327) Homepage
    GIMP is actually a lot superiour than PS when it comes to "straighten" an image. You should try the Corrective mode of the transform tools. It makes the tools work the other way around. If you need to rotate a scan, choose "Corrective" and align the grid with a line that's supposed to be horizontal. GIMP will do the appropriate rotation for you. This also works for perspective transformations which makes it the ideal tool for correcting perspective distortions.

    BTW, there is Auto-Levels as well and the Crop functionality you are describing is considered to be done at some point.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 08, 2004 @01:53PM (#7916570)
    I got this bad boy running pretty quickly after I heard the news, and I've been experimenting... but, alas, I've got a few big gripes about Gimp 2.0. 1) That toolbar is rediculous (i'm referring to the one where you select tools... i know "toolbar" could technically mean a number of different UI aspects). The fact that the items are arranged in a more square-like grid instead of something resembling the PS column means that you have to move your eyes back and forth to find the tool you want, rather than shooting down the list with one quick nod. All those different shape rotations as individual tools? I use Photoshop frequently thoughout my week and I only have to use those once in a while (but when I do use one, w/ the exception of transform, I usually use the rest of them too). So a) do they really need to be a tool thing and not just a right-click thing? and b) any particular reason why they're not made into one button where you click-and-hold for various other options? 2) The selection arrow. It just makes sense, visually. 3) Gimp seems to be very slooow. I'm running a P4 2.4 Ghz, 512 RAM and editing a measly 32 MB picture causes some lag unheard of with photoshop. That's all I have to say for now. Nonetheless, i'm going to try to use it until it makes sense.
  • Re:screenshot link (Score:2, Informative)

    by graffix_jones ( 444726 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @01:57PM (#7916626)
    What screenshot?

    I don't know about you, but when I click that link it takes me to a GIMP order form where I'm led to believe that you have to pay money to use the GIMP on a Mac.
  • by rebelcool ( 247749 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @02:02PM (#7916702)
    its still a bit of a voodoo science to get the colors "just right", even with OSX and windows, but canon for example distributes its own photo print tool that uses canon provided profiles (based on their OEM paper and ink).

    You still need some sort of monitor calibrator though to get the right colors. This can be as simple as the adobe gamma software, or the more accurate colorimeter packages which come with a sensor that suction cups to the monitor.

    I just can't take a photo editting package seriously if it doesn't have at least some support for color profiles. Joe Point n' shoot might not use them, but Joe Point n' shoot doesn't use Linux either.
  • by akoni ( 732590 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @02:21PM (#7916985)
    Anyone who lives print will tell you (or should tell you) that color profiling and calibration, while a nice touch, just is not important to getting the work done. When you are working on a CMYK coated/uncoated print job for making anything from movie posters to marketing slick-sheets, for instance, it's all about owning one or more PANTONE color guide swatch wheels. You should never, NEVER design for print interpreting color on a monitor as the color you will get from your printer. Logically, the whole idea of including profiling and calibration in the software was supposed to change this, but it has not. I cannot tell you how often I hate opening up client work in Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. and having that stupid profiling box pop up. Turn profiling and calibration off and go invest in a new set of PANTONE Spot and Process color guides. And when your new designer underling who only knows about print from inside photoshop says they do not like how it looks on screen, just smack over the head with the two-pound color guide! DOH!
  • by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @02:30PM (#7917193) Homepage Journal
    On the other hand, it's quite frequent, when using the GIMP, for me to inadvertently click on a program in the background, and have to manually re-raise each GIMP window. Additionally, the unnecessary window decorations (full titlebar, outline, etc) waste a great deal of screen real estate when applied to several windows of the same program.

    That's the downside of GIMP for windows - which I presume is what you are using: it is designed for Linux, so doesn't work well with Windows slightly more spare window management facilities. With Gimp 1.x I just kept my palettes and toolbox in the same window group, so they all raised simultaneously. Should I have several images open and I somehow raise a window above them, "send to back" (opposite a window raise) does the job very nicely. Multiple desktops also make this sort of thing easier - I usually have all my GIMP windows layed out on one desktop and do other work on different desktops, so it is rare that I would have other windows interfering with my GIMP work.

    On the other hand, to try and adress the growing market for Windows and Mac, they have made pretty much all the palettes etc. dockable in 2.0, and I hear Windows is getting multiple desktops soon (and at least has a powertoy to do it already), so some of your issues may be remedied.

    Jedidiah.
  • Re:SVG Support?! (Score:4, Informative)

    by ianezz ( 31449 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @03:13PM (#7918119) Homepage
    Am I seeing this correctly?

    Yes and no.

    The Gimp has had for some time (since version 1.2 IIRC) some support for vectorial drawing: you can define paths using bezier curves, which may be adjusted, saved and restored, and drawn on the current layer using the current brush. But drawing (and selecting the layer) must be done manually.

    The next version of The Gimp adds the ability to save and restore paths as SVG paths (before, it used an ad-hoc simple textual format), and also the ability to import an SVG image by rendering it on a bitmap (like it did with PS images).

    That's it: a useful thing to have, but it has little to do with vectorial drawing.

    There was a GNU project (which apparently failed) that was trying to create a vector art authoring tool. I can't remember the name of it.

    You are talking about GYVE [gyve.org]: its developement has stopped in 2002.

    OTOH, for Free vectorial drawing programs, check out sodipodi [sodipodi.com] (and its IMHO nicer branch Inkscape [inkscape.org]) and the good ol' Sketch [sourceforge.net] (now called Skencil).

  • by jonadab ( 583620 ) on Thursday January 08, 2004 @11:26PM (#7924208) Homepage Journal
    > A lot of people say Gimp is difficult to use. Is it difficult for people
    > who are used to Photoshop or is it difficult for everybody?

    If you are accustomed to low-powered tools like MS Paint (the thingy in
    Accessories in Windows), the Gimp will set you back for a few minutes. For
    example, there's no rectangle-drawing tool, because you don't need one. You
    just use the rectangle selection tool and then do one of the various things
    you can do with a selection (e.g., stroke around the edge of it with the
    current brush). This is actually a much more powerful approach, because
    it's more flexible. You're not limited to selecting one of six line
    thicknesses for the rectangle; you can use any brushtip, including a soft
    brush (i.e., one that fades toward the edges), a shaped brush, et cetera.
    Plus of course you can do that with any kind of selection, including one
    you've made with the magic wand or the bezier tool. However, when you
    first start drawing with Gimp, your immediate reaction is, "Hey, how do I
    draw a rectangle? All I want to do is draw a simple rectangle!"

    There are a couple dozen gotchas like this one. Most of them are covered in
    the tips that come up (by default) one each time you start the Gimp. The
    biggest one is getting used to layers, but once you do, you will NEVER go
    back to a non-layered image editor. (Photoshop of course has layers too.)
    Another gotcha I can think of off the top of my head is the alpha channel.
    This is an *extremely* useful feature, but if you're not used to it, you'll
    erase something and then expect to be able to draw on the erased area of
    the same layer, but that will only change the color, not the alpha channel.
    For that you have to use the eraser in unerase mode. (Once you get used
    to this it's definitely a Good Thing, being able to unerase and get back
    whatever color was there before. If you want to draw over it without
    unerasing, just use another layer; you should be using a new layer for
    each part of the image anyway, as in the long run that makes the image
    easier to work with.)
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 09, 2004 @01:56AM (#7925391)

    I've heard people say that there things you can do in PS that you can't do in Gimp. Yes you can - it's called Script-Fu. Any functionality that exists in PS that is not included in Gimp, can be extended to Gimp via Script-Fu.


    It's fairly hard to Script-Fu your way around the lack of prepress features.

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