GIMP Core Mostly Ported to GEGL 312
A longstanding task for the GIMP has been porting the core graphics code from the ancient implementation (dating back to version 1.2) to GEGL. Progress has been hampered by the amount of code relying on details of the implementation of image data: tiles are directly accessed instead of linear buffers, and changing that detail would break the entire core and all plugins. A few weeks ago, two GIMP hackers got together to do some general hacking, and inadvertedly ported the core graphics code to GEGL. They work around the mismatch between GEGL buffers and GIMP tiles by implementing a storage backend for GEGL using the legacy GIMP tiles; to their surprise things Just Worked (tm), and their code branch will become the 2.9 development series once 2.8 is released. With this, 2.10 will finally feature higher bit depth images, additional color spaces (CMYK for one), and hardware accelerated image operations. There's still work to be done: to take advantage of the new features, plugins need to be ported to access GEGL buffers instead of GIMP tiles, but the conversion work is straightforward and current plugins will continue working as well as they do now in the meantime.
Inadvertently... (Score:5, Funny)
A few weeks ago, two GIMP hackers got together to do some general hacking, and inadvertedly ported the core graphics code to GEGL.
Is it just me, or does that not pretty much sum up GIMP development since day one?
Now if these guys would just inadvertently fix the user interface, or perhaps trip and fall into a total redesign, or accidentally re-organize and re-name all the tools using bumbled into industry standard names, and serendipitously selected value scales, they might unintentionally come up with something that, purely as a side effect, resembled, ever so slightly, the principal of Least Astonishment [wikipedia.org].
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably not to your satisfaction, though.
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:5, Insightful)
Being address and have been address are sometimes very distant things.
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yeah.
What I personally find really messed up, is that GEGL is homed under "gimp.org" and has been for a long time.. yet it is only now being merged into gimp core... and only "accidentally" ? !!
GIMP: Needs Moar Planning
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Oh, fuck!
What happened?
I think I just ported Gimp.
So. THAT'S what you're calling it, these days.
Well, it beats "Stinky Pink Twinkie Time".
Are you SURE?
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well, it's nice that after 12 years, GEGL is finally making its way into everything. Progress has been a little slower than I'd have liked....
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:4, Insightful)
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You sound like you've lost hope. I have just the tool [lmgtfy.com] for that.
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:4, Insightful)
I use GIMP all the time and love it, but the multi window interface still drives me insane.
The GIMP is designed to work well with quality window managers. I, for one am glad that they cater to people who understand that X11 provides the best GUI.
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X11 hardly provides a gui. It just provides core drawing routines.
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I, for one am glad that they cater to people who understand that X11 provides the best GUI.
It's all well and good, but how many graphics designers are among those people?
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:5, Insightful)
Single Window GUI (SDI) is terrible in photoshop.
Have you ever heard about window managers? What manages windows (not Microsoft Windows) for you?
Have you ever heard that you can attach multiple displays to your computer and that your working speed improves with it?
I can not find the slashdot article about multi-screen efficiency but http://www.multiplemonitors.org/index.php/multiple-monitor-solution/multi-advantages [multiplemonitors.org] says it is 20-50% overall improvement and that is what I remember from slashdot discussion of different study as well.
At that point, you want just to have MDI = every image as own window and tools in own window. Then you can use window manager to actually manage your windows so you quickly find what you need and you can see all of them at glance, get them in full screen and tools pop-up only when needed by pressing a TAB. You can organize images to second screen or make a duplicates of images and place them to side by side to compare when you want to have a new try of something fancy without undoing everything if it isn't successful.
Since GIMP 2.3 development branch the UI has been very powerful and logical. Much better than in Adobe Photoshop what is illogical but works for those who have born with knowledge to use it. That is one reason why Adobe went and made a Adobe Lightroom for photographers because Adobe Photoshop was designed to totally different work than for photographers. And even Adobe has said that Photoshop UI is terrible and needs tweaking as now it is "one for all" what does not fit at all for everyone, but they need "one for one, everyone gets own". And now they are coming there with customization possibilities per user needs.
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/11/photoshop_as_seen_through_johnny_cash.html [adobe.com] http://slashdot.org/story/07/11/09/0226215/adobe-to-unclutter-photoshop-ui [slashdot.org]
So go and get yourself a good window manager (like KWin) so you can get functions like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktTNcj0fAM4 [youtube.com] and virtual desktops and so on.
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:5, Interesting)
There should never be a huge feature gap between stable and dev versions of software, really. I always grab stable versions because I don't want my programmes crapping out on me when I'm trying to do something important.If the stable version is 2 years old while features are being added to the dev version every day, then something's gone wrong.
Call it a need for a more "agile" development approach. They should be picking a feature, building it, trying it out in dev, then rolling it into stable where they can move it to regular support. Rinse, repeat.
Happens in all my favourite FOSS projects, though. Games are especially bad at it, where a million great new feature are always nearly-ready, but never quite seem to be polished enough for show time.
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This is a problem that we have in Inkscape as well. I would say that in general, people are excited and motivated to add new functionality. The problem is that it's not nearly as satisfying when it comes to refining and bug fixing for most devs when it's all volunteer work.
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Luckily gimps tend to be accident prone.
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Re:Inadvertently... (Score:5, Insightful)
The user interface wasn't the problem. It was fixed in 2.0. A lot of what was hampering the gimp was the lack of support for larger bit depths and support for non-destructive editing.
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The user interface wasn't the problem. It was fixed in 2.0. A lot of what was hampering the gimp was the lack of support for larger bit depths and support for non-destructive editing.
Just loaded GIMP 2.6 - and I'll tell ya' it's not fixed. it's still a hairy mess to figure out. Though has been reported they are working on a new interface (one more Photoshop like); but I don't know the status or what version it was to come out in.
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The original GIMP UI was a photoshop ripoff IIRC. "Too hard". The next UI was something windows-ish "too hard". Now idiots are trying to get gimp single windowed. (WTF? Lots of people have multi-monitor setups these days. And when was single window ever good since windows 3.1? )
I have a feeling most people who can't use GIMP probably can't use Photoshop either. (I've used both, and many other bitmap/photo editors besides, and really don't get what all the hubbub is about. )
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2.8.0 RC1 is out, but it doesn't look too different on a cursory inspection.
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:4, Informative)
2.8.0 RC1 is out, but it doesn't look too different on a cursory inspection.
Windows -> Single Window Mode
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:5, Informative)
Just loaded GIMP 2.6 - and I'll tell ya' it's not fixed. it's still a hairy mess to figure out. Though has been reported they are working on a new interface (one more Photoshop like); but I don't know the status or what version it was to come out in.
2.8 does the single-window interface thing. It looks like this:
http://tapewolf.wildernessguardians.com/gimp28-screenshot.jpg [wildernessguardians.com]
...whether that's now a single window hairy mess is not something I can really comment on. Personally, I find Photoshop to be an unintuitive horror and gimp works just how I'd expect, but that's probably because I started out with Autodesk Animator and weird things like that. If I had started on Photoshop my opinion would probably be very different.
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GIMP's interface is a nightmare iff your window manager doesn't support virtual desktops. With those, it's a single window interface that's the unintuitive horror.
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No, it was and still is the interface.
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Re:Inadvertently... (Score:4, Insightful)
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Bookmarking a folder for Save As (Score:2)
Ditto for the "Save as". Why isn't there an option to set the default "Save to" directory in that dialog window?
I already see one, at least here on Xubuntu. When you Save As... or Save a Copy..., try right-clicking a folder and choosing "Add to Bookmarks". Then you'll have easy access to this folder every time you open the save dialog box.
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:4, Informative)
It would've been nice if there was an option in that dialog to "use these values as default".
There is, for all tools at once. In the settings you can ask to save all current settings as default. You can set up all the tools you use the way you want them, then go to settings and save it all as your normal set-up.
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When "accidents" like this can happen, that says very nice things about GEGL's architecture (and the accidental heroes, of course).
Re:Inadvertently... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which I assume you mean ``do things exactly like Photoshop''. That's what most people critical of the GIMP mean when they want something changed. (And, frankly, it's getting more than a little old.)
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No, it really isn't. I want a piece of software with a simpler interface that Photoshop. Not much more complex and a hell of a lot more ugly. Do better than Photoshop, that's what the people want.
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My step-son thought the same after formal training in Photoshop, interestingly I had a copy of Photoshop Essentials installed so I had him demonstrate some routine editing tasks in PS Essentials, I then did the same thing in GIMP much faster than easier than he did in Essentials. Then for a kicker I did the same editing tasks in Essentials and again was faster and easier than the way he was taught; just learn the keyboard shortcuts and 90% of the time you will not care where they hit that stupid button.
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And Blender *must* be a mimic of 3dStudio and Maya...
Happy Blender, Thunderbird, LibreOffice and Gimp users everywhere disagree.
Great! (Score:2)
Now can we pleeeaaase have a new release? Gimp 2.8 is what, 2 years behind schedule?
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Now can we pleeeaaase have a new release? Gimp 2.8 is what, 2 years behind schedule?
Have you tried RC1?
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Have you tried RC1?
Does it force a stupid command prompt window to appear at all times, like the 2.7.x betas did? Does it still have an obscene graphic as the splash screen, like the 2.7.x betas did?
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Come on.
We all know that splash screen was awesome.
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I don't know that. I never saw it. Doesn't seem to be in the splash screen archive. :P
Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)
Here it is.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GIMP_2.7.3_splash.png [wikimedia.org]
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THAT? That's what he's crying about?
I find it's lack of obscenity... disappointing.
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*headdesk*
Yes, Grammar Nazis, I know it's supposed to be "its" and not "it's". I started out writing "It's less obscene than I'd hoped for" but decided to rewrite for the Star Wars reference.
Stupid Slashdot and its lack of an edit button. They'll shit ajax all over the UI but not implement "features" (rather, basic functions) that have been in place for fifteen frigging years.
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Obscene, no. But it's a little creepy.
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You can see her tits!!!!
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OMG Teets!
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That is not a *release*. That's a *release candidate*. That's what RC mean.
hackery (Score:5, Insightful)
My sentiments are somewhat similar to the poster above, although a bit less... aggravated.
This sounds like a "cool hack". Which, .. ya know.. is "cool" an all... but usually not a good idea for a major piece of software such as GIMP.
IFF what they're describing is some kind of transition phase, where it allows dual-mode backend sort of stuff, and a concrete plan of action to eventually port all existing (standard) plugins to the newer methods, and then DITCH the old way.... then great.
But otherwise, having heavily layered interface/mechanics conversion code, is a Really Really bad idea. The bigger the software, the worse idea it is. It would be better to just toss it all out and start from scratch, if this is going to be an indefinitely lived hack.
Re:hackery (Score:5, Informative)
GIMP 2.10’s core will be 100% ported to GEGL, and all of the legacy pixel fiddling API for plug-ins is going to be deprecated.
I'd say read the article before assuming the authors of a major piece of software are idiots, but this is Slashdot..
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Time for 2.10 (Score:4, Insightful)
This should be the only objective for 2.10 other than bug-fixing the single window interface which debuts in 2.8. They should get feedback on the UI, tweak a few things (not rework them) go full GEGL and get 2.10 out the door ASAP. The 2.8 is going to get a lot of people to look at it again, but when the features of GEGL are found to be missing they'll walk away AGAIN and it will be some time before they check in again. So let's not advertise 2.8 so much, but hurry with 2.10 and then make a push for people to switch.
16-bit? (Score:3, Insightful)
While we are first at it, how is the 32/24-bit support for the images? I mean.... for so long, the 16-bit limitation has been a serious disadvantage.
Things GIMP needs to do:
1. 32-bit support for images
2. Buildt inn Normal Map plugin
3. Buildt inn direct X image support, patents be damned
4. Finally finish of the fight with the monster GEGL, how many years has it been? For a saga, a few months is ok, but not years.
Re:16-bit? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. I'm not sure what you're saying. The 32/24 bpp support has been there since day one. The same maximum depth as my video card, and probably yours as well, It's only 16 bits per channel (128/96 bits per pixel) that isn't supported, and that's mainly an issue for those who work in the dying industry of paper-publishing, and those odd individuals who want to work on "raw" photographic images despite not being able to see the results of their manipulation.
2. Why does a "plugin" need to be "buildt inn"? You're not making any sense here.
3. Why on earth should a UNIX program depend on proprietary Microsoft technologies that aren't available on UNIX? If you want to make a Windows-only fork, feel free.
4. That's what this article is about, dummy!
Re:16-bit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe me, you do notice the difference between a processed jpg & a processed raw file.
Re: (Score:3)
http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/
Who cares about "natively" when the job gets done in full?
Re:16-bit? (Score:4, Informative)
1. I'm not sure what you're saying. The 32/24 bpp support has been there since day one. The same maximum depth as my video card, and probably yours as well, It's only 16 bits per channel (128/96 bits per pixel) that isn't supported,
Correct, although I think you mean 64/48 bits per pixel, not 128/96.
and that's mainly an issue for those who work in the dying industry of paper-publishing, and those odd individuals who want to work on "raw" photographic images despite not being able to see the results of their manipulation.
No, that is wrong. While most pictures are saved in 24 or 32 bit formats, once loaded in a graphics program any workflow involving colour or level manipulation at 8-bits per channel (a paltry 256 shades of gray) very quickly shows up artifacts, compounding with every operation. This is a very real problem and it has been solved for pretty much every other photo editing program out there (including Krita and the GIMP fork CinePaint).
Re:16-bit? (Score:4, Interesting)
It has not been solved. 16-bit integers are not the answer because you lose resolution when you multiply brightness levels. 16-bit integers are actually a huge impediment to doing things correctly but they were forced on us by people who did not know better, and for machines that were not as fast as current ones they did offer a bit of benefit.
The correct method is to use *floats*, and ideally a linear colorspace. There is even a 16-bit float so it takes no more memory than 16-bit integers. When you multiply a float by 2 you still have the same number of levels between the darkest and brightest visible colors.
I have no idea what GEGL does but I suspect it gets it wrong still...
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First bullet point on the front page of www.gegl.org:
"Floating point handling and processing and output of larger 8bit, 16bit integer and 32bit floating point per component buffers larger than RAM."
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Printing and publishing are not the same industry. The people printing labels, packaging, billboards, and junk mail are not particularly threatened by ebooks and digital editions of periodicals; even if the entire publishing industry goes entirely nonphysical they'll still be around. And they'll still need high-bits-per-channel CMYK for best results.
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I really need to learn how to spell English, yes.
There are three types of software engineer (Score:5, Funny)
Those who deliberately engineer masterpieces, those who "inadvertently" engineer masterpieces and those who write the (cough) software that causes the other two groups to act.
In this case, these accidental geniuses are responsible for work that mainstream GIMP developers had long claimed was impossible. From the looks of it, six impossible things were achieved, so said developers should round things off with a meal at Milliways.
Just a Matter of Time (Score:2)
Those who deliberately engineer masterpieces, those who "inadvertently" engineer masterpieces and those who write the (cough) software that causes the other two groups to act.
In this case, these accidental geniuses are responsible for work that mainstream GIMP developers had long claimed was impossible. From the looks of it, six impossible things were achieved, so said developers should round things off with a meal at Milliways.
Clearly they will when they attempt to add Photoshop plugin compatibility to GIMP inadvertently create the world's first time machine.
Typical GIMP questions from /.ers (Score:5, Funny)
"Does it still suck at CMYK...because where I work we are focusing *so hard* on CMYK right now, it'd be ridiculous for GIMP not to support that" --a_complete_liar
"I noticed that the interface is still a series of 'windows'...my granddaughter's IPAD allows her to paint the entire mona lisa with her pinky finger, never even showing a single window. WHAT HAPPENED TO OPEN SOURCE???" --300baud
"Anybody know of an alternative to GIMP that lets you publish to ebook formats like Kindle? I need to be able to import a 1200 page scientific text, and I want to have drop shadows on the letters and a parchment background. Also something that exports to iBooks would be great but I can't pay any money for this, and I don't want to have to work for an hour to make it all just work." --cluelessphd
Re:Typical GIMP questions from /.ers (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is not Features, but finding them.
This is what I often do in photo shop.
Take Basic Shape, Rotate it, Apply Color, Apply a Texture, Bevel, and Apply Shadow, Create a new layer and repeat.
I can do this stuff easier in HTML5 then in GIMP.
It isn't that this cannot be done in GIMP but it doesn't make it easy to do so.
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Yup, I don't get it, for example, why rotating a photo to get the horizon straight is not just a matter of drawing a straight line over horizon, and have GIMP figure out how to rotate the photo to get it straight. Instead one has to tweak in a preview window. I use the top of another window (from a different program) to check if it's straight... Yes, I guess there are better ways to do this, using a grid in Gimp itself, but this is easier and faster to me....
I use Gimp mostly for: cropping a photo (4:3 sele
To fix horizons, use Rotate with Corrective + Grid (Score:5, Informative)
Yup, I don't get it, for example, why rotating a photo to get the horizon straight is not just a matter of drawing a straight line over horizon, and have GIMP figure out how to rotate the photo to get it straight.
Here's how to correct a horizon in GIMP 2.6.11:
CMYK (Score:2)
Re:CMYK (Score:4, Informative)
Use of CMYK inks does not mean that RGB images cannot be printed. I think you will find that a vast amount of those images you are thinking about were never anything other than RGB before they were converted by a printer driver to CMYK.
CMYK is vaguely useful for exact control of a known output device. It is useless if you plan to print on more than one type of printer, or if your printer does not accept raw control of the CMYK guns (most every non-professional device will not print raw CMYK, doing things like turning on the black 100% will turn the others off). Modern software has floating point so mismatched gamuts are no longer a problem.
You're a "hacker" if... (Score:3)
A few weeks ago, two GIMP hackers got together to do some general hacking, and inadvertedly ported the core graphics code to GEGL.
You're a "hacker" if you start playing with something in an effort to make it better and you not only succeed in a reasonable amount of time but do it for free. But if you have three meetings per week, the project drags on and on and on, the bill escalates ever closer to the stratosphere, and the project never does work?
Then you are a professional consultant.
that "Eureka" moment in every program's dev cycle (Score:5, Funny)
"Oops! Oh, it worked?" ...
"Crap. WHY does it work? It totally shouldn't work!" ...
*shrug* "Ship it."
Pippin the Goatkeeper (Score:2)
You just know some pretty crazy things are going to happen when you pair-program with a name like that.
Mostly ported? (Score:2)
What does "mostly" mean?
Most programmers I know think it's "mostly" done when they've written enough code to get through a few seconds of testing. They don't think about all the little quirks, hidden features, bugs, and refinements that took a long time to discover and implement the first time around. Rewriting code often looks like an attractive option (clean code, new technology) until you get half way into it (you know, that "mostly done" point) and discover why the old code was so messy...it had to do
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/. no longer has an animated gif for Gimp?!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Long Live the GIMP (Score:2)
Long Time GIMP User (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a digital artist and iOS programmer and I haven't had Photoshop installed in 10 years. I've developed 3 design-heavy iOS apps and shown artwork in museums in New York made with GIMP.
Recently I got fed up with the long absence of GIMP updates and decided to finally switch to Photoshop. I was sure it was going to be a lot better if I just got over the hump and learned it. After converting my latest iOS project to Photoshop and learning how to do the basic operations I needed to get around, I found that many of the basic tasks I do regularly are a bit more cumbersome to do in Photoshop. I went onto forums and found other people on Adobe's forums trying to figure out the same thing, and then coming to an inpass. I even discussed my issues with long time Photoshop users. Photoshop is definitely easier and has more features, but is inflexible compared to GIMP in some ways, like with keyboard shortcuts.
I eventually went back to GIMP. For what I'm doing it just makes more sense. Everything in GIMP is hard to do and the interface is weird, but if it fits your needs and you spend the time to learn the interface, it's great. It's always been more stable than Photoshop for me, and it's free.
Really excited there's a new version on the way.
thanks (Score:3)
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Welcome to "how version numbers have worked for at least twenty years". Enjoy the stay.
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Meh, they shoulda jumped to Microsoft versions.
Gimp 2009 ..etc.
Gimp 2009 (sp1)
Gimp 2013
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While I'm not a fan of MS numbering, at least it's a number that keeps going up.
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Windows 3.1, 95, 98, ME, 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, 7, 8...
Um, say what?
(For the pedants, I'm sure I missed some, but I don't think that any I've missed will actually make that list "[keep] going up")
Re:Version math (Score:5, Informative)
Versions are not decimal numbers!!!!! what number is 2.8.4?
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2.10 IS NOT HIGHER THAN 2.9.
It's two dot ten, not two point ten.
Yes, this is a big difference.
It's not so confusing for those who use a language where . isn't the decimal separator. Where comma is used, 2.10 > 2.9 while 2,10 2,9
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2.10 IS NOT HIGHER THAN 2.9.
Take your bigotry towards alternate numeric systems elsewhere, sir!
Re:Version math (Score:4, Funny)
I'd love to see the brainfuck that ensues when you're tasked with figuring out whether 192.168.0.1 comes before or after 192.168.0.10.
I'm hoping for something on a similar level to that video that went viral of the blonde trying to figure out miles per hour.
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Emphasis.
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Yep. Emphasis on the fact that you did not understand how version numbers work, despite your claim to the contrary after the fact. You're just making it worse now.
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Understanding, and agreeing with, are two vastly different things. I emphatically disagree with the practice. Which I can only do because I understand how it works, and find it to be a poor method.
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Perhaps they could accidentally rename the program to something that isn't offensive...
GIMA. Graphics Image Manipulation Application
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"Gimp" is a derogatory term for disabled people. The BDSM thing is an offshoot of that, i.e. "that guy in a fetish suit is like a spastic cripple, har har har".
It's not exactly the nicest name for a piece of mainstream software.
Re:While we're all accidental... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wow, this is just amazing and surprising news...that people still use GIMP. One word...Pixelmator [pixelmator.com].
I wonder why everyone doesn't run this, then?
Built exclusively for Mac OS X
Oh, that's why.
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
Pixelmator
Price to anyone who owns something other than a Mac: $630.
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Can I point to apps like Acorn [flyingmeat.com] and Paint.Net [getpaint.net] and Pixwlmator [pixelmator.com] and Krita [krita.org] and others instead? These are all apps that were started long after GIMP was, and yet have managed to support things like 16 bit colorspaces, and other things.
While they might not all be FLOSS, I would argue that all of them are better than GIMP because they are far more usable, have far better support for colorspaces and high bit depth, were developed AFTER the GIMP was (and in less time), and don't have insulting names. I am not kiddi
"GIMP" is not an offensive name (Score:3)
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The summary makes it sound like these guys just started bashing their heads on the keyboard and out popped functional code. It's kinda funny when you think about it.
Actually, that's how a lot of functional code looks. ;)