A major update to the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), widely regarded as the leading free software raster image editing program, is scheduled for this month. The 2.4 release is expected to include a number of new features and enhancements to existing features.
Gimp is a damn cool application and it’s getting better all the time. But there is one thing that I would like. I would like selection to be similar to selection in Jasc Paintshop Pro. You have only one shaped selection tool and its shape is an option. Just imagin having separate icons in the Gimp for square, rectangle, rounded edge square, rounded edge rectangle, circle, ellipse and so on, that would be a mess.
I wish more people using tools other then Photoshop would pipe up more on the mailing list, since Photoshop isn’t really the standard for power in image manipulation programs, its lacking lots of cool features of other applications.
I really like the gimp but I often find it tricky to use when I have multiple windows open. It would be great if you had an option to consolidate each tool window into a main one. I know about regimp but it would be nice if it was a built in feature. Apart from that its great.
I really like the gimp but I often find it tricky to use when I have multiple windows open. It would be great if you had an option to consolidate each tool window into a main one.
As I said above, it already IS a built-in feature. Look for “Window Management” section in preferences 🙂
Gimp is an undoubtedly amazing piece of software. But when are they going to address usability?
Its not the lack of MDI, its the lack of coordination between the multiple GIMP windows! Why does each one get a spot on the taskbar?
When you unfocus gimp, they should hide!
Also, simplify the menus and such, it would help so much.
This brilliant idea, was brought to you by my PowerBook, Photoshop, and SeaShore.
(this goes for more than just the terrible Mac port of Gimp, mainly for the Linux/Win version)
Its not the lack of MDI, its the lack of coordination between the multiple GIMP windows! Why does each one get a spot on the taskbar?
Because you haven’t set the relevant option in preferences? Hint: find a section there called “Window Management” and unclutter your taskbar 😉
>Also, simplify the menus and such, it would help so much.
Thats part of 2.4 already.
Any news on CMYK support for gimp (I mean like Photoshop has, not the crappy way it has now – either with or without additional plugins)?
The people that where once working on GEGL are MIA (AFAIK) and the GIMP developers are working on getting GEGL into shape for GIMP. That’s slow work unless more people start working on it.
You know the drill, limited amount of programmers, more help accelerates the process and so on…
Apparently the new version still has a maximum of only 8 bits per channel! Quantizing to 8 bits after each filter/effect creates truly awful results. Are the GIMP developers living in some kind of Bill-Gatesque parallel world where 8 bits are enough for everyone?
And how about making a special kind of layer that applies a filter (whose parameters of course could be adjusted anytime, even when adjusting another such layer’s filter parameters)? Now it is extremely cumbersome if you want to apply two or more filters. You have to apply the first filter, then apply the second etc. and only when applying the last filter the results can be previewed, and then if you want to change parameters in the first filter you have to undo the filters and start over again. This is so time consuming that it makes filter combinations pretty much useless. As if the GIMP developers never heard of unix pipes.
Try this snapshot of Krita:
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=16550
“I created a klik image of a Krita developer snapshot you can try. This snapshot includes 16 bit/channel and cmyk, among other things.”
It’s not the stable version yet but it shows quite some promise for the next version already.
> Try this snapshot of Krita […]
In the future Krita seems to be getting support for 32 bits/channel, too, which is nice:
http://wiki.kde.org/krita+todo
Even adjustment layers seem to be on the todo-list! Hopefully the implementation won’t be as moronic as in photoshop, but instead work with all filters.
Definitely a project to keep an eye on.
I guess this SIOX algorithm is going to be a nice tool for all the Photochoppers out there (example: http://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/MessageTopic.asp?p=1166195&Pg=1 )
Now GIMP will have an Extract-like feature on its next major release and it looks good so far. One less argument for the naysayers and counting…. 🙂
many times GIMP cut and paste into another app like OO or impress doesn’t work quite well.
also printing from GIMP is another problem always
and GIMP interface on KDE looks ugly
> GIMP interface on KDE looks ugly
Have you tried the gtk-qt style ( http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/gtk-qt ) to adapt the look of your GTK apps to the KDE theme?
I hate it when people send you an e-mail containing an MS-TNEF (outlook only binary encoding) of a word or powerpoint file including several large windows meta images several megabytes in size. This is possible because those people use copy-paste in their whole proces s and never think about file formats, file size and interoperability. copy-pasting everything is evil!
Will they have another competition for this all-important facet of the release?
I like gimp2 a lot. I use it for all my image work on linux. There are two things about it that really drive me bonkers. I wish there was a setting to always keep the toolbox glued to the side of the current window or at least have it come to the front when a gimp window is clicked on.
The other maddening thing about the gimp is working with alpha channels and transparency. In photoshop it is very easy and intuitive to use. With the gimp I always am digging through tutorials to find out how to do common things. But it is free and I understand it is not commercial software.
It would be great if you had an option to consolidate each tool window into a main one[i]
[i]Why does each one get a spot on the taskbar?
For all the noobs and boobs who can’t seem to grasp why there are multiple winodws: It allows you to control the windows with your window manger. Get your heads out of adobe’s world of photoshop for once! This is Linux where you can do all kinds of customization with the window manager so that you can set it up to work in a way that best fits your working style. If you’ld actually take the time to learn how to use a window manager you’ld find that this it offers so much more than the one window approach.
For the people complaining about CMYK and limitations of 8 bits per channel:
Neither of these are of much use without proper color management, which is comming in this release. 16+ bit and other color spaces are comming, but you have to implement things in a logical order.
Oh yeah, and this takes time too. Of course, you can always donate money to the project….
CinePaint http://cinepaint.movieeditor.com/ is a very old fork of GIMP. It is the art tool formerly known as Film GIMP.
It supports 32bits per channel even.
Hmm, maybe Gimp developers would need CinePaint staff for creating a better application. I heard about conflict with film studios.