GIMP 2.6 Released 639
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."
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?
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.
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.
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.
Re:I just love Gimp (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
I thought that was the whole point of:
This enables window managers to do a much better job of managing the GIMP windows, including omitting the Toolbox and Docks from the taskbar and ensuring that the Toolbox and Docks always are above image windows.
Frankly, I liked it as it was. I hope there's an option to get back the old behavior. I often have different images in different work spaces.
16bit depth support, yeah! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:3, Interesting)
How about non-GNU apps? Not so much. Why My theory is that most GNU Developers don't care as much about software but the license. Which is too bad and helps the stigma of poor quality GNU Software.
Re:I just love Gimp (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Helloooo, tabbed interface?
Damn you, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, and unnumerable other applications with your ungodly tabbed interfaces! Why won't you just let the window manager do its job?
Re:I just love Gimp (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if you hit the option to not have all the toolboxes show up in the alt-tab window (under ubuntu), then you have nothing to alt-tab to once all your documents are closed and you want to start a new one.
It's crufty and it shows. I use linux on all my machines, and despite trying my damndest to get the gimp to play nice, it simply won't.
Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:3, Interesting)
Since they've already taken GNU out of the acronym, why not just go with IMP? The mascot is kinda impish anyway.
Realistically, I don't think a name change will ever happen. There should just be a fork with literally nothing changed but the name, so that people who want to deploy the software but feel the name will impede them in doing so have another option. GIMP not only has unpleasant associations, it implies that the application is "crippled" in some way.
Re:I just got 2.4! (Score:2, Interesting)
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. There is a happy medium, where a programs function can be implied by a relevant name: Winamp, Photoshop, Yahoo Messenger. Seriously, get a clue.
Re:But does it look like Photoshop yet? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Gimp fork. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I just love Gimp (Score:2, Interesting)
Let window management be handled by the window manager.
I think that is the reason why some people bitch about the GIMP interface. I used to bitch about it too, when I was using the GIMP on Windows.
The problem is that the default window management in Micorsoft Windows is awful, reduced to minimze, maximize and restore. Therefore, using the GIMP there is an absolute hell.
In contrast, when using The GIMP on Linux, you have several other functions like Virtual Desktops, always on top, always on back, pin to all desktops, among others.
That is why I would suggest getting something like Dexpot or other decent window manager for Windows which provides some of such features (I use VirtuaWin, unfortunately it only provide the virtual desktops and no other functions).
What about non-destructive text manipulation? (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing that causes me problems in the Gimp is that text is rasterized as soon as it's scaled or otherwise manipulated by any means other than changing the point size in the text dialog. This means that if I have a block of text that I've resized by drag handles, or if I've rescaled the image, as soon as I edit the text content it reverts to the original point size.
Has that been fixed in any recent versions?
Thank you! (Score:1, Interesting)
Special thanks to Jernej Simoni for the Windows installers.
Keep up the good work!
Re:No Binaries (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe some /. developers would like to volunteer to do a Linux version or two?
Re:Mod this man to Mount Olympus! (Score:3, Interesting)
The first page of your application's webpage should explain what the software *IS* and *HOW TO USE IT*, not just provide a long list of your bug-fixes.
The same could be said about a lot of /. stories:
Technology: FRXM 4.0 is out!
posted by: CmdrTaco
from the It's-Like-Christmas-Morning dept.
FRXM_Fan37 writes: FRXM 4.0 is out with a brand new Python API, and now runs on Windows as well as Linux and OSX. The community has been waiting a long time for the bugs in the 3.x version to be sorted out, and with 4.0 you can be sure that this will be the best version of FRXM ever. Art Linkletter says, "I heartily endorse this application."
I mean, how hard is it, during a long day of not editing spelling and grammar errors, is it to say:
FRXM 4.0 [a popular app for herglesnorzing your brindlefreen] is out...