9 ms·

GIMP 2.9/2.10 Feature Preview

155 points by diminish 14y ago

veeti 14y ago
Could they rip off the layer effects feature from Photoshop? There is a plugin for it but it's honestly pretty useless. It takes forever to generate the effects, you can't edit them afterwards and they are on a separate layer.
- esbwhat 14y ago
  well, all it takes is for someone to tackle it, seeing as how the project is open source.
- ergo14 14y ago
  They needed to implement GEGL for all image operations, now that this is done, we might actually see "live" effects on layers in future.
- tsahyt 14y ago
  What I really want to see on GIMP would be a rip-off of content aware fill. I'd really like to have a look at how it's done. Obviously I can't look at Adobe's code.
  - benjiweber 14y ago
    http://linuxers.org/article/adobes-content-aware-fill-huh-gimp-already-had-it-years http://linuxers.org/article/adobes-content-aware-fill-huh-gi...
  - aw3c2 14y ago
    try resynthesizer
jiggy2011 14y ago
Who is the target user for GIMP? Professionals are almost all heavily invested in Adobe and it's interface is much too hard for a casual user?
- rplnt 14y ago
  There's also amateur pro - usually people using it for a hobby. And of course people on Linux that don't want to switch for various reasons.
  - stevekemp 14y ago
    I'm an amateur[1] and I use rawtherapee to process my RAW images to JPG, then the gimp to process the JPGs a little. I've been using Linux since 96, or so, and GIMP is about the only image editor I've ever used. [1] - http://edinburgh-portraits.com/ http://edinburgh-portraits.com/
    - hnriot 14y ago
      For family photos the GIMP is perfectly adequate, overkill even, editing on an iPad would give you just as good results. It's only if you need a professional workflow that the Adobe tools would be necessary.
- coffeeaddicted 14y ago
  My guess: Casual users who don't think the interface is too hard and people liking free software. I seem to fall into both groups. But more generally - a lot of people I know which are starting out with game programming work with The Gimp. Also pretty much anyone who wants to learn serious image manipulation, but not willing to either make illegal copies or spend hundreds of dollars on such an application (don't know, maybe that's not much money for you, but for most people it is a lot). And certainly people on Linux where PS simply isn't available.
  - onli 14y ago
    No. Gimp recently - or by now some time ago - defined their target group and work with a HCI-expert to get the software in shape for them. The target users are pretty much professional users (or "for intense use", like they put it), see http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/User_Scenarios http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/User_Scenarios and http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Vision_briefing http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Vision_briefing. Casual users are no longer the target.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
afandian 14y ago
Just a usability thing about that site. There's so much stuff at the top that when I clicked on the 'lastest news' thumbnails I thought there was some JS preventing the page from loading. Turns out that the actual content was below the fold of my (large) browser window. But it took a while to notice.
rhizome 14y ago
Meanwhile, Ubuntu still only has 2.6 as an available stable version.
- hosay123 14y ago
  aka the previous stable version. 2.7 and 2.9 are dev branches, as will 2.11 be. 2.8 was only released in May last year, which is a little over halfway through the Ubuntu release cycle. It's probably safe to expect it in April's release.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    Thanks
- ISL 14y ago
  My Debian testing installation runs 2.8.2. Is Debian actually ahead of Ubuntu for something?
  - zokier 14y ago
    Keyword here being testing. Debian stable has 2.6.10
    - ISL 14y ago
      For years, testing has been the defacto 'stable' distribution for anyone who wanted something remotely current and quite stable. Debian 'unstable' is the true testing branch, where bugs can actually impact a user. Going back to 2000, Debian's stable releases have emerged about once every 2.1 years (median 1.9) [0]. Unless you're hosting a server, the continuously-updated 'testing' branch is the place to be for stable and modern software. I haven't experienced an important 'testing' bug in perhaps at least 7 years. [0] http://www.debian.org/releases/ http://www.debian.org/releases/
- unhammer 14y ago
  2.8.2 is in the latest stable release of Ubuntu (12.10 Quantal) http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=gimp http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=gimp (Not in the latest long support release, but can't really expect that.)
daenz 14y ago
Floating point images have been something I've been waiting for for awhile. For a game engine I'm working on, I need floating point textures to represent emissivity (how much light an object might reflect...anything greater than 1.0 means the object is generating its own light, think a neon sign). Without the ability to draw floating point textures, I've been limited to using regular 8-bit monochrome (which maps 0-255 to 0.0-1.0 in the engine), and having a special "multiplier" pixel in the corner of the image, used for multiplying the 0.0-1.0 value, so I can have, for example, emissivity of 3.0. Floating point images eliminate the need for all of this :)
- gnosis 14y ago
  Could an alpha layer be used for this purpose?
  - daenz 14y ago
    You could but it would waste space. In my setup, I only need a single pixel to serve as the multiplier, but if I added a whole new layer, that's width x height more pixels.
    - Arelius 14y ago
      Do keep in mind that a floating point buffer is 4 times the size of a normal buffer. And an alpha mask can be gray scale, or even one-bit color. Not that this couldn't be a good use of floating point textures for other reasons (A full HDR pipeline for example) But it sounds that using floating point textures is actually the real waste of space.
- aw3c2 14y ago
  how does it compare in size though? why can't you use an image with 3 channels instead to achieve the same goal (avoiding inaccuracies)?
  - daenz 14y ago
    Yeah, Arelius pointed out that the single channel float textures are 4 times bigger than a single channel signed byte texture. I think the convenience of using a float image in gimp though, is that I can easily draw the levels that I want in the texture in a single channel, vs trying to draw the levels in multiple channels.
jm3 14y ago
It's hard for me to imagine any software reaching adoption "escape velocity" with a name as noxious as The Gimp. Rather than adding more features, a more evocative name might make "GIMPing" more appealing to a larger community.
- K_REY_C 14y ago
  This has been brought up before -- but for different reasons. The newly renamed "Reglue" project, that installs Linux on computers for needy kids in Texas, brought this up a long time ago. That the acronym/name of the program you can use to paint on your new computer is also somewhat offensive is just unfortunate. At any rate, the program itself is useful and I've supported the project in the past financially. http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2011/05/your-vote-counts.html http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2011/05/your-vote-counts.html
neya 14y ago
On a side note, Adobe is giving away its flagship Photoshop (actually the entire creative suite) away for free, with VALID serial numbers. However, they're giving away only the CS2 version though. EDIT: It's a semi-official free version. But it's still a great deal! You can fetch it from here: http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html
- McGlockenshire 14y ago
  http://forums.adobe.com/message/4974662#4974662 http://forums.adobe.com/message/4974662#4974662 "You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2! What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don't require activation but do require valid serial numbers are available."
- michaelbuddy 14y ago
  It's not a give away it's for existing owners. It's not a great deal, it's for valid CS2 owners.
  - neya 14y ago
    Actually, these serials are legit and they seem to work. It WAS earlier only for existing users, but I read somewhere later that adobe changed that. That's why you don't even need to sign in to download these (usually you are required to sign in) LINK: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/adobe-almost-does-something-amazing-by-accident/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/adobe-...
    - kibibu 14y ago
      Did you actually read the article you linked? "Adobe says in order to legally use CS2, users still require a purchased license."
      - 14y ago
unhammer 14y ago
If you use GIMP, I highly recommend chipping in on the new work on resamplers: http://www.freedomsponsors.org/core/issue/78/add-other-samplers-that-properly-reduce-downsample-and-warp-images http://www.freedomsponsors.org/core/issue/78/add-other-sampl... The guy working on it has already contributed lots to GEGL and ImageMagick, and the work is already going straight into GIMP (no forking). You do want your rescaled images to look good, right?

155 points by diminish 14y ago

veeti 14y ago

Could they rip off the layer effects feature from Photoshop? There is a plugin for it but it's honestly pretty useless. It takes forever to generate the effects, you can't edit them afterwards and they are on a separate layer.

esbwhat 14y ago
well, all it takes is for someone to tackle it, seeing as how the project is open source.
ergo14 14y ago
They needed to implement GEGL for all image operations, now that this is done, we might actually see "live" effects on layers in future.
tsahyt 14y ago
What I really want to see on GIMP would be a rip-off of content aware fill. I'd really like to have a look at how it's done. Obviously I can't look at Adobe's code.
- benjiweber 14y ago
  http://linuxers.org/article/adobes-content-aware-fill-huh-gimp-already-had-it-years http://linuxers.org/article/adobes-content-aware-fill-huh-gi...
- aw3c2 14y ago
  try resynthesizer

jiggy2011 14y ago

Who is the target user for GIMP? Professionals are almost all heavily invested in Adobe and it's interface is much too hard for a casual user?

rplnt 14y ago
There's also amateur pro - usually people using it for a hobby. And of course people on Linux that don't want to switch for various reasons.
- stevekemp 14y ago
  I'm an amateur[1] and I use rawtherapee to process my RAW images to JPG, then the gimp to process the JPGs a little. I've been using Linux since 96, or so, and GIMP is about the only image editor I've ever used. [1] - http://edinburgh-portraits.com/ http://edinburgh-portraits.com/
  - hnriot 14y ago
    For family photos the GIMP is perfectly adequate, overkill even, editing on an iPad would give you just as good results. It's only if you need a professional workflow that the Adobe tools would be necessary.
coffeeaddicted 14y ago
My guess: Casual users who don't think the interface is too hard and people liking free software. I seem to fall into both groups. But more generally - a lot of people I know which are starting out with game programming work with The Gimp. Also pretty much anyone who wants to learn serious image manipulation, but not willing to either make illegal copies or spend hundreds of dollars on such an application (don't know, maybe that's not much money for you, but for most people it is a lot). And certainly people on Linux where PS simply isn't available.
- onli 14y ago
  No. Gimp recently - or by now some time ago - defined their target group and work with a HCI-expert to get the software in shape for them. The target users are pretty much professional users (or "for intense use", like they put it), see http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/User_Scenarios http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/User_Scenarios and http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Vision_briefing http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Vision_briefing. Casual users are no longer the target.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

afandian 14y ago

Just a usability thing about that site. There's so much stuff at the top that when I clicked on the 'lastest news' thumbnails I thought there was some JS preventing the page from loading. Turns out that the actual content was below the fold of my (large) browser window. But it took a while to notice.

rhizome 14y ago

Meanwhile, Ubuntu still only has 2.6 as an available stable version.

hosay123 14y ago
aka the previous stable version. 2.7 and 2.9 are dev branches, as will 2.11 be. 2.8 was only released in May last year, which is a little over halfway through the Ubuntu release cycle. It's probably safe to expect it in April's release.
- rhizome 14y ago
  Thanks
ISL 14y ago
My Debian testing installation runs 2.8.2. Is Debian actually ahead of Ubuntu for something?
- zokier 14y ago
  Keyword here being testing. Debian stable has 2.6.10
  - ISL 14y ago
    For years, testing has been the defacto 'stable' distribution for anyone who wanted something remotely current and quite stable. Debian 'unstable' is the true testing branch, where bugs can actually impact a user. Going back to 2000, Debian's stable releases have emerged about once every 2.1 years (median 1.9) [0]. Unless you're hosting a server, the continuously-updated 'testing' branch is the place to be for stable and modern software. I haven't experienced an important 'testing' bug in perhaps at least 7 years. [0] http://www.debian.org/releases/ http://www.debian.org/releases/
unhammer 14y ago
2.8.2 is in the latest stable release of Ubuntu (12.10 Quantal) http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=gimp http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=gimp (Not in the latest long support release, but can't really expect that.)

daenz 14y ago

Floating point images have been something I've been waiting for for awhile. For a game engine I'm working on, I need floating point textures to represent emissivity (how much light an object might reflect...anything greater than 1.0 means the object is generating its own light, think a neon sign). Without the ability to draw floating point textures, I've been limited to using regular 8-bit monochrome (which maps 0-255 to 0.0-1.0 in the engine), and having a special "multiplier" pixel in the corner of the image, used for multiplying the 0.0-1.0 value, so I can have, for example, emissivity of 3.0. Floating point images eliminate the need for all of this :)

gnosis 14y ago
Could an alpha layer be used for this purpose?
- daenz 14y ago
  You could but it would waste space. In my setup, I only need a single pixel to serve as the multiplier, but if I added a whole new layer, that's width x height more pixels.
  - Arelius 14y ago
    Do keep in mind that a floating point buffer is 4 times the size of a normal buffer. And an alpha mask can be gray scale, or even one-bit color. Not that this couldn't be a good use of floating point textures for other reasons (A full HDR pipeline for example) But it sounds that using floating point textures is actually the real waste of space.
aw3c2 14y ago
how does it compare in size though? why can't you use an image with 3 channels instead to achieve the same goal (avoiding inaccuracies)?
- daenz 14y ago
  Yeah, Arelius pointed out that the single channel float textures are 4 times bigger than a single channel signed byte texture. I think the convenience of using a float image in gimp though, is that I can easily draw the levels that I want in the texture in a single channel, vs trying to draw the levels in multiple channels.

jm3 14y ago

It's hard for me to imagine any software reaching adoption "escape velocity" with a name as noxious as The Gimp. Rather than adding more features, a more evocative name might make "GIMPing" more appealing to a larger community.

K_REY_C 14y ago
This has been brought up before -- but for different reasons. The newly renamed "Reglue" project, that installs Linux on computers for needy kids in Texas, brought this up a long time ago. That the acronym/name of the program you can use to paint on your new computer is also somewhat offensive is just unfortunate. At any rate, the program itself is useful and I've supported the project in the past financially. http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2011/05/your-vote-counts.html http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2011/05/your-vote-counts.html

neya 14y ago

On a side note, Adobe is giving away its flagship Photoshop (actually the entire creative suite) away for free, with VALID serial numbers. However, they're giving away only the CS2 version though. EDIT: It's a semi-official free version. But it's still a great deal! You can fetch it from here: http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html

McGlockenshire 14y ago
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4974662#4974662 http://forums.adobe.com/message/4974662#4974662 "You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2! What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don't require activation but do require valid serial numbers are available."
michaelbuddy 14y ago
It's not a give away it's for existing owners. It's not a great deal, it's for valid CS2 owners.
- neya 14y ago
  Actually, these serials are legit and they seem to work. It WAS earlier only for existing users, but I read somewhere later that adobe changed that. That's why you don't even need to sign in to download these (usually you are required to sign in) LINK: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/adobe-almost-does-something-amazing-by-accident/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/adobe-...
  - kibibu 14y ago
    Did you actually read the article you linked? "Adobe says in order to legally use CS2, users still require a purchased license."
    - 14y ago

unhammer 14y ago

If you use GIMP, I highly recommend chipping in on the new work on resamplers: http://www.freedomsponsors.org/core/issue/78/add-other-samplers-that-properly-reduce-downsample-and-warp-images http://www.freedomsponsors.org/core/issue/78/add-other-sampl... The guy working on it has already contributed lots to GEGL and ImageMagick, and the work is already going straight into GIMP (no forking). You do want your rescaled images to look good, right?