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posted by takyon on Friday April 27 2018, @08:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the 79-octillion-colors dept.

After 6 long years, GIMP has finally released version 2.10 using the Generic Graphics Library (GEGL) for high bit depth processing. This release comes with a brand new interface, better integrated color management, a new unified transform tool for scaling, rotating, and correcting perspective, and many other improvements and tools.

takyon: More detailed release notes and NEWS file.

High bit depth support allows processing images with up to 32-bit per color channel precision and open/export PSD, TIFF, PNG, EXR, and RGBE files in their native fidelity. Additionally, FITS images can be opened with up to 64-bit per channel precision.

Multi-threading allows making use of multiple cores for processing. Not all features in GIMP make use of that, it's something we intend to work on further. A point of interest is that multi-threading happens through GEGL processing, but also in core GIMP itself, for instance to separate painting from display code.

GPU-side processing is still optional, but available for systems with stable OpenCL drivers.

[...] Some of the new GEGL-based filters are specifically targeted at photographers: Exposure, Shadows-Highlights, High-pass, Wavelet Decompose, Panorama Projection and others will be an important addition to your toolbox.

The WebP lossy image format, which is now supported by GIMP, was updated by Google to v1.0.0 on April 2.


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:24AM (7 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:24AM (#672855) Journal

    I wonder if they have discovered an even more annoying way to handle files than their previous 'You MUST save in our own format, because we, not the user base, know best, but we will let you export in any format, however we wont let you have a hotkey for that, and we will complain about changes not saves even if you do that'

    I like it. That is the way it should be done. Use their own format for layers, etc. and just export as PNG/WUTEVR when you need to, likely at the end. Takes all of 2 minutes to figure this system out. I'm sure that I've seen other software take a similar Export/Save approach.

    And what do you know, there is a hotkey for export.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @02:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @02:15AM (#672880)

    Before, the system had "save a copy" and you could save XCF and save copies in WUTEVR. Or save WUTEVR and not care about XCFs for that file. But they had to force everyone with their "We Know Better" SuperPower... and including conditions (was it exported already?), so we got Overwrite (yay, yet another command to eat a shortcut). Now "save a copy" is mostly worthless (=duplicate and save that) except for (maybe, I don't remember) a bit less typing while picking filename.

    A fucking mess inflicted into everyone, because some were unable to self organize. Oh, BTW, XCF doesn't save everything... where is the undo stack? So XCF must be in the Export group too. :P

    BTW, have they finally added timed auto saves? It was on topic when all the "save/export is serious business" took place (new in 2.7/2.8), it was still not fixed even if old by then (2.6 was released in 2008, editors had it for decades). https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=138373 [gnome.org] It seems they didn't, 2004-2018 and counting.

    Someone did a hack in Perl or Python (comments 50, 45 and others, GIMP devs want the thing "perfect", so hacks don't count). I had forgotten they even said Gimp was stable (comment 17), so it was not prioritary to code autosave... what about hardware issues (comment 32)? Or something killing GIMP, like the desktop or OOM killer (maybe self inflicted, maybe other program triggers it and Gimp is sacrificed... see comment 26)? Yeah, "We Know Better" over and over.

    Now you know why GIMP lost steam, people got something called life or/and got pissed. Years ago they got offers to be paid, but the core was opposed, now, a bit late, some GIMP devs are OK with getting paid for the job. TLTL.

  • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:13AM (2 children)

    by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:13AM (#672937)

    I wonder if they have discovered an even more annoying way to handle files than their previous 'You MUST save in our own format, because we, not the user base, know best...

    ...Use their own format for layers, etc. and just export as PNG/WUTEVR when you need to, likely at the end. Takes all of 2 minutes to figure this system out...

    Takes all of two minutes to fix it properly [shallowsky.com], too.

    --
    It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
    • (Score: 2) by qzm on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:31AM (1 child)

      by qzm (3260) on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:31AM (#672941)

      Ah yes, the 'proper' way.
      Just install a plugin, which also needs another plugin, which works on some version/OS combinations of gimp and tends to be somewhat touchy (the python stuff.)
      Then use the rather 'interesting' hotkey remap to get it hooked, along with hacking some xml files to hide the old menus (optional of course).

      Or they could have just given people the freedom to decide if they wanted to use xcf by not forcing save to it, and perhaps kept some of their developer base, and not taken
      over half a decade to move up one minor version number.

      Yes, I know, endless complaining about something, but when you put a ton of work into a project then see it hijacked by people who appear to hate their own community,
      and insist on doing stupid things 'because they know better' it makes you bitter.

      • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday April 28 2018, @08:13AM

        by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday April 28 2018, @08:13AM (#672948)

        Ah yes, the 'proper' way.
        Just install a plugin, which also needs another plugin...

        Not my first choice, but better than any of gimp's options. My point was that a quickly installed kludge is at least as good as what the current gimp developers provide.

        ...they could have just given people the freedom to decide if they wanted to use xcf by not forcing save to it...

        This would have been my preferred Plan A.

        Yes, I know, endless complaining about something, but when you put a ton of work into a project then see it hijacked by people who appear to hate their own community,
        and insist on doing stupid things 'because they know better' it makes you bitter.

        I never contributed directly to the project (not a coder, never got experienced enough to help with documentation) but I did get a few people to start using it - despite the name; I don't recommend it to anyone any more.

        I'd like to get away from it because of fearless leader's attitude, but Krita doesn't yet do everything I need (or I haven't found it yet).

        --
        It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
  • (Score: 2) by qzm on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:21AM (1 child)

    by qzm (3260) on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:21AM (#672939)

    Excellent, so your position is also that it was correct for them to turn their back on a strong majority of their users, and force a 'solution' on people who also used the software in other workflows where such a way of operating was a bit pain in the arse, for reasons that can only be seen as political?

    Remember, before that there was exactly ZERO problem for either kind of workflow, and they gained no extra functionality for doing things 'their right way', they just removed the ability for others to do things other ways.

    Oh, and since you decided to smartarse it up a bit at the end.
    a hotkey for 'Export' is not the issue, and is of no value. I suggest you actually try, open a png file in gimp 2.10.xx (just tested RC1), make a change, then look for the key that will save that change back to the same file without you needing to interact with a dialog box.
    Ctrl-S wants to force it to XCF - which is no use as it is not the original file, and is not compatible with any other uses...
    Ctrl-E? closer than it once was, but it opens the export dialog, which you must then press enter on, and confirm an overwrite, and then confirm the format options.

    So basically they are saying 'do everything in XCF, which of course no other software will access, or we will make your workflow more annoying'

    What have they gained over letting Ctrl-S just save in the opened file format, other than an attempt to force people to work in one specific way?
    If I wanted an xcf file, I would just save it as an xcf file, you know.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @06:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @06:42PM (#676732)

      You can add a keyboard shortcut to File->Overwrite (…) it does not pop-up any dialog box, just saves in the same format as the source image.
      Then Ctrl+Q to quit, and then Ctrl+D to dismiss the „save as xcf…, bla bla bla…” prompt.

  • (Score: 2) by rleigh on Saturday April 28 2018, @07:42AM

    by rleigh (4887) on Saturday April 28 2018, @07:42AM (#672944) Homepage

    It might work for some people, but for me it's undesirable and unhelpful. My editing needs are usually as simple as: open a PNG/JPEG/TIFF, make some edits, save back in the same format as a new file or the same file. XCF is never, ever, used by me. This might not fit the intended idealised workflow envisaged by the GIMP developers, but it's what I actually need myself to get my jobs done. By forcing the user to jump through a few extra hoops to do this fairly trivial activity, it makes GIMP a bit unpleasant to use. And historically it did work nicely.

    XCF might be "richer" with more features and capabilities, but that's not a reason to make all other formats second-class citizens. I don't need those capabilities, and by forcing it as the only choice for saving, it's a net negative for people like me.