Scott Gilbertson at El Reg reports:
Despite its relatively obscure version number, GIMP 2.9.2, released recently, represents a major leap forward for the popular image editing suite.
Like all odd-numbered GIMP releases, 2.9.2 is considered a technical preview, but the features here will form the base of the stable release GIMP 2.10.
[...] This release has a lot of under-the-hood changes--in particular this largely completes the move to the Generic Graphics Library, better [known] as GEGL. GEGL is GIMP's "new" image processing engine and the project has been slowly incorporating GEGL code for quite a few releases. In fact, while the GEGL in GIMP still gets referred to as "new," the project itself began life in 2000 and GIMP has been slowly porting over to GEGL since 2007.
That means GIMP 2.9.2 has support for high bit depth image (16/32bit per colour channel processing). There's even an option for 64bit-per-channel images, though that appears to be a feature planned for the future. The GEGL support also means GIMP now has basic support for the OpenEXR high dynamic range imaging image file format. In addition to OpenEXR, GIMP 2.10 has been upgraded to read and write 16/32bit per colour channel data from PNG, TIFF, PSD, and FITS files.
The other big news is the new on-canvas preview for image filters. In past versions of GIMP most filters only offered a very small preview window within the filter dialog box. It works, but it often means you have to stop interacting with the filter to zoom and pan around your image to see what the effect is doing. With 2.10, many filters will be able to apply their effect to your image in the background in real time.
[...] 57 plugins have been ported to become GEGL operations, with another 27 in progress. Another 37 plugins still need to be ported. Unfortunately, some photographer favourites like Unsharp Mask, Gaussian blur, and Red Eye Removal--all of which become much more usable with real-time previews--are still works in progress (if you use the bleeding-edge PPA for Ubuntu, you'll find that Gaussian and Unsharp Mask have been updated to GEGL). Still, strictly by the numbers, the majority of GIMP's filters now offer live previews.
[...] Completing the move to GEGL also puts some exciting new features on the GIMP roadmap, including the holy grail of image editing--non-destructive editing. You'll have to wait for GIMP 3.2 before non-destructive editing lands, but in the mean time the high bit depth support and filter previews feature already make all the work (and users waiting) for GEGL feel well worth it.
[...] Though, I've found this one to be rock solid in my testing, [...] don't try to do production work in this [technical preview]. [...] [One hopes] an official release of 2.10 won't be too far in the future.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @10:30AM
There have easily been 100 traffic stops involving speed, or other students because, most of them out after half a mile wide. Of course, I have always been very serious issue. But they worked out of concern that doesn't take more than they were her preferred dessert/snack type thing for me as long distance hiking.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ah.clem on Friday January 08 2016, @05:46PM
Dude, in your case I'm guessing it was shrooms, not speed; but like I said, just a guess. Try a nap, they're good, and good for you!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Friday January 08 2016, @11:51AM
Fine, now its stable, but how about a UI where I (who use it less than once a month) can do more than crop the odd photo?
I know it can do loads more, but since it typically takes over an hour to find out how to perform a trivial task, which is
always the least intuitive way possible, and I forget how before I need to perform the same tasks again, I am unlikely
to make much greater use of it.
Mouse-over explanations that actually explain. Industry standard names for things. Stopping the tool bars from running and hiding,
to name a few.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @12:15PM
http://ur1.ca/oe6eh [ur1.ca]
You're welcome.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @01:25PM
Having used Photoshop lately without being used to it, I got the the very same impression. So your "intuitive" actually is "as you got used to by using Photoshop".
There is no industry standard. Do you happen to mean "whatever name Photoshop uses?"
???
I've never experienced any toolbar behaviour that I would describe as "running and hiding". So what exactly do you mean?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Friday January 08 2016, @02:25PM
Having used Photoshop lately without being used to it, I got the the very same impression. So your "intuitive" actually is "as you got used to by using Photoshop".
This is a straw man. There are two products:
Most people who complain about the GIMP UI have never used Photoshop. They've used things like PaintShop Pro, Paint.NET and other cheap image editing tools.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Friday January 08 2016, @11:09PM
I am the OP. I have never used Photoshop.
I have not used Windows since XP, and barely even used that. I learned Corel Draw 1.0 and moved forward from there, but in the 1980's I was PAID to use Windows from 1.0 onwards, having used Unix from 1978.
In short, I ought to be the target market for the Gimp.
It fails. I am not using something else, I am just not doing the tasks.
The guy who said "Autocad has 3 different UIs, and that's bad" is wrong. I did not say throw away the current UI - someone must like it. I am saying its utterly counter intuitive and very hard to learn for me. And loads of other people are saying the same thing. Gimp isn't bad. The UI does not meet the needs of a very large subset of potential users. We don't all use Safari, Firefox or Opera. KDE or Unity. We don't all drive Fords. There is more than one way to skin a cat.
I think I need another Jack Daniels.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Friday January 08 2016, @04:07PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 08 2016, @02:13PM
But, the people who have trained to the current UI will scream and cry when their training is invalidated and they have to learn the new one.
Unless you go the Autocad 14 route and have 3 major UI modes with 80% duplication of features between them - meaning that you can choose one of 3 to work in, but still need to understand some of the other two to be able to get at certain features that just were never implemented in your UI mode of choice.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @02:32PM
how about a UI where I (who use it less than once a month) can do more than crop the odd photo?
If by that you mean a UI that looks like photoshop, then try Gimphoto. [gimphoto.com]
If you mean a UI that is for beginners rather than experts, maybe try a completely different program aimed at beginners like Pinta. [pinta-project.com]
Myself, I use gimp less than once a month. But when I need to do something complicated, google has never let me down. There are bazillions of gimp howtos out there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @03:52PM
I thought there was an attempt to reorganize in terms of MDI / SDI with dockable toolbars. What became of that?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @04:50PM
That's just great, the GIMP programmers do another fantastic job with a hundred new improvements and they're only met by a bunch of idiots bitching about their one minor thing or another. I guess you're all still in the mindset of trying to defend Photoshop from this "attack" of GIMPs added features. Not a single thank you out of your whole sorry lot for this free and awesome program.
Thank you GIMP programmers, I use your program, and it's fantastic for all of my uses!
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Friday January 08 2016, @10:46PM
^^^ This! Yes. ^^^^
I'm about as big a fan of Open Source stuff as anyone, but without exception doing even a simple task in GIMP seems to be twice as complicated as it is in Photoshop.
As for the comment below:
There is no industry standard. Do you happen to mean "whatever name Photoshop uses?"
Um, that's pretty much the definition of "industry standard." If every plumber calls it a "monkey wrench," then it's pretty stupid to write a spec that requires an "adjustable spanner."
In fact, this is one of the great weaknesses in Open Source - the endless parade of people who figure that they have to change perfectly workable features just because it HAS to be different. Problem is that too often usability is lost to the "OMG LOOK AT THIS COOL THING I INVENTED!!!" approach to programming.
(Same goes for inventing cool new icons for stuff like "Save file." If I can't tell what your cool new icon represents then you haven't improved on the "standard" that exists.)
So yeah, even though Photoshop is now far, far out of my budget, and even though I wind up using the GIMP just because it's already on my computer, there no way I would EVER say that the GIMP UI is remotely close to the usability of Photoshop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2016, @05:24AM
Funny, as someone who regularly uses GIMP I feel exactly the same way you do but it is in relation to Photoshop - the UI not intuitive at all. The things I expect to be in one place are somewhere else that seemingly doesn't make any sense. Go figure.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday January 08 2016, @12:25PM
But can it save as jpg or tif or png or...?
Without going throught the "export" dance first?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday January 08 2016, @01:00PM
The irony is that before it used to work the way you want it to. However a bunch of people who came from Photoshop complained that it was confusing and they would overwrite their source files by accident, so the GIMP team changed it so that you have to go to "export" to save as anything other than xcf.
Still bugs the pants off me too, but then, I am a guy who actually likes the original GIMP interface, having found it far more logical and intuitive than Photoshop's (and dislike this tendency for open source software to slavishly copy any proprietary interface, no matter if it worse than the original OSS interface). So perhaps I am in the minority.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday January 08 2016, @04:14PM
Photoshop's interface doesn't work like that, either. You don't have to 'export' to other photographs, nor do you save to .jpg then suddenly lose your unflattened source file if you forget to resave as .psd. What Photoshop does is if your image is anything but a flat .jpg-ready image, if you hit "file/save as" it defaults to .psd, but you can easily pick any of the other formats. Once the save is done, hitting "file/save"
still defaults it to saving as the .psd, which is preferable since that's your highest quality file and you don't want to lose it. Sounds like the GIMP team didn't copy all of the nuance, there.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1) by Unixnut on Friday January 08 2016, @10:42PM
Ah I see, that actually makes more logical sense than what Gimp does. So not only did Gimp replace their own working method with a copy of what Photoshop does, they didn't even manage to copy it properly, shame...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @02:43PM
> Without going throught the "export" dance first?
The export stuff is really non-intuitive. But once you know it, it really isn't a big deal.
If you have a situation where you need to constantly write to jpg/etc to see how it looks in another program, you can write a one-liner script to convert from xcf to whatever format using imagemagick's convert command. If you wanted to get super fancy about it, you could write a script that just loops checking the last-modified date on the xcf file and whenever there is a change it would automatically run the convert command.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Friday January 08 2016, @03:24PM
Or just push Ctrl-E instead of Ctrl-S. No script needed.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday January 08 2016, @03:50PM
The problem with that is that every save acts like a save-as as far as interface goes. Not the worst thing in the universe, but still a hassle.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Friday January 08 2016, @03:57PM
I know for sure that, at least under the version I use, either Ctrl-E or Ctrl-Shift-E will automatically export to the last exported file path, with the last used settings. Can't be bothered to look up which it is right now.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday January 08 2016, @10:43PM
The export stuff is really non-intuitive. But once you know it, it really isn't a big deal.
Using export instead of save as isn't a big problem. Having to say "no, I'm not interested in saving an xcf, I've just saved it as something else" every time IS a pain in the arse. There's saver [shallowsky.com], which I use, but the option to turn off "only xcf can be saved" should really be available.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Friday January 08 2016, @06:32PM
I got used to this behavior.
You save in a format that will save layers, transparency, history, etc.
Then you export to PNG, JPG, whatever. Takes an additional 5 seconds. There is a keyboard shortcut for it.
In fact, I just booted up GIMP and drew a squiggly line. Then I exported the image without saving it. So yes, you can do exactly as you want.
It's another one of those gripes about GIMP non-problems. Pick something worse and talk about that.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @06:30AM
Ah, the old "It only takes a few more seconds and a few more button presses."
I still use the version before that feature rolled out because I refuse to spend extra time and make a few more extra clicks. Plus the additional clicks when it asks you to save before closing.
What about a real problem with situations where you need to work in a non-native format such as PNG. After you export GIMP still asks you to save upon closing. So maybe I export it again to be sure and waste more time. Or maybe I don't and I lose a change. If only there was a way for to the program to let me know I should export it instead of saving it before closing. It knows it opened a PNG file.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday January 09 2016, @07:10AM
...
I still use the version before that feature rolled out because I refuse to spend extra time and make a few more extra clicks. Plus the additional clicks when it asks you to save before closing.
What about a real problem with situations where you need to work in a non-native format such as PNG. After you export GIMP still asks you to save upon closing.
...
There's a python script [shallowsky.com] that adds a "saver" entry to the file menu that works (mostly) like "save" used to.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday January 08 2016, @10:07PM
"Every change breaks someone's workflow."
But this new way of save/export is "The Right Thing". If you've done any work with audio, video, 3D, multimedia, programming, etc. at all, you would know that everything saves to application-specific projects, and when you want your final media form, you do an export/render/compile, which loses a lot of very important project-related information. There are lots of very good reasons for this, but for the sake of a simple argument, every other program for every multimedia/programming related field does this, so there must be a reason, right?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @01:14AM
Before you could Save XCF (or whatever format) and also Save a Copy (for example PNG), so you could keep the project and the result at the same time, but not forced to do it. It seems that was too flexible, allowing people to organize as they want.
So claiming that some shoot themselves in the foot by not remembering to keep a XCF, they forced everyone into the new Save/Export dance, making Save a Copy pretty much useless and having to create even more commands than just Export, like Overwrite and Export as. Maybe they will add Export a Copy as too. Or make XCF really save everything, like associated resources and undo history (optional, please, I don't need every fucking paint stroke so transfering the file takes ages).
The cheery on top is claiming all this extra clutter that helps new users was to make life easier for professionals.
Luckly, someone has a patch to make Save accept all formats: http://svn.yourcmc.ru/viewvc.py/vitalif/trunk/scripts/patch-gimp-unite-save_export.diff?revision=1813&view=markup [yourcmc.ru]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Friday January 08 2016, @12:50PM
I know that comparing Gimp directly to Photoshop is tempting (they look similar; do many similar things) but instead, I'd like to just say a couple things to the Gimp folks:
Thanks and peace.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @01:27PM
Are you familiar with the resythesizer plugin?
(Score: 1) by requerdanos on Friday January 08 2016, @05:48PM
Yes, and while it does remove things from images (it is a great tool), it doesn't blend the edges invisibly as does the patch tool. This is especially noticeable in color gradients. I also can't always get it to get the texture right.
Further hindering my efforts, such as they are, is that I learned to make edges blend properly... by using the patch tool on them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @01:29PM
I think the adjustment layers is the "non-destructive editing" that according to the summary is scheduled for GIMP 3.2.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @02:37PM
> I can't emphasize this patch tool thing enough.
Have you tried the heal tool? [gimp.org]
It isn't quite the same as the patch tool, but it might be similar enough for your purposes.
(Score: 1) by requerdanos on Friday January 08 2016, @05:56PM
Yes, and for some things it works perfectly. But a lot of the photoretouching I do is restoring old/damaged photos. In a single photo project I may have hundreds of small spots, stains, cracks, discolorations that the patch tool just *poof* makes disappear, whereas with the heal tool, I get the problem of edges not matching up invisibly, and I end up doing a huge amount of work just to fix my fixes.
When I was using Photoshop, I would just take my Wacom stylus and circle-drag-circle-drag-circle-drag each little damaged area, done in seconds, colors perfectly matched, edges invisible. I miss that.
(Score: 1) by requerdanos on Friday January 08 2016, @07:19PM
Okay. I just noticed the new Edit -> Preferences -> Playground -> Seamless Clone Tool (Gimp 2.9.3).
Though it works in a very different way wrt the patch tool, it gets the colors right, it gets the texture right, it gets the perfect invisible edges right. It looks like it will do many of the retouching tasks that I was using the patch tool for.
Wow. Thanks very, very, very much Gimp team.
(Score: 2) by Techwolf on Friday January 08 2016, @03:13PM
Years ago, when I told a co-worker about GIMP, he looked at me like was said something very evil and went away and didn't speak to me for the rest of the day. Can someone shed some light as to why he would react that way?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @04:10PM
This is where you bring out the gimp.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @04:17PM
Probably because you didn't say "GNU Image Manipulation Program".
Maybe "GNU IMP" would have been a better abbreviation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @07:31PM
Because “gimp” is an insulting term for a physically disabled person. (Many years ago it was simply slang, without the insulting connotations: see the character of “Gimpy” in Flowers for Algernon. But those days are long past.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @08:19PM
This topic has been mentioned here previously. [soylentnews.org]
As for the first response to the ArtForge comment:
His gripe was remedied and he came up with a new gripe.
Some people would bitch if you hung them with a new rope.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday January 08 2016, @03:29PM
To me, GIMP is a brain-damaged program because of how every other piece of software I've ever used has "Save As..." for everything related to saving a file as something. GIMP uses "Save As..." only for its own format, which I have never even used. Everything else uses "Export..." and it's impossible for me to mentally override "Save As..." and always use it, then see the bizarre file extension, realize I've done it wrong, close the dialog, and try "Export..." instead. GIMP is leaking its internal state into its UI. If I open a PNG, I want to save a PNG. Don't do brain-damaged stuff like use "Save As..." for your own file format no one uses.
User interface disasters like this are what's holding open source back. I mean, if they could fix this stuff, they'd have smooth, slick UIs like Android... wait, what was I talking about?
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @04:13PM
That functionality originally, and for a very long time, was exactly as you want it. Many people complained, and so it was changed.
They probably could have made an option to set whichever behaviour you prefer, but then a third group of people would have complained about the complexity of too many options …
(Score: 1) by mrgren on Friday January 08 2016, @04:30PM
To me, GIMP is a brain-damaged program because of how every other piece of software I've ever used has "Save As..." for everything related to saving a file as something. GIMP uses "Save As..." only for its own format, ...
WTF are you talking about? GIMP has had "Save As" in every version I've ever used, and you use it like any other save-as, to save in different formats. That's what "save as" is FSS. (I'm on GIMP 2.6 currently, been using it since v1).
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday January 08 2016, @04:45PM
In GIMP, Save As... only saves in GIMP's internal XCF file format. To save in any format anyone actually uses, like PNG or JPG, you have to use Export... and the problem is that if you open say a PNG, you can't Save as a PNG. Save still saves in XCF. You have to export the PNG to the same file you opened. That's different from any other program I've ever used, including other image editors like Paint Shop Pro.
If you are using GIMP like PhotoShop, with layers and masks and all that stuff, this workflow may work. But if you use GIMP like I do, like a replacement for Paint Shop Pro, to work mainly with PNG and JPG graphics, this is mentally very difficult to deal with. I always use Save or Save As even when I know it's GIMP and I can't do that, because the muscle memory is too strong.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 08 2016, @06:39PM
I bet that you could overwrite the Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut to use Export or remove the Save As menu item.
https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-concepts-shortcuts.html [gimp.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday January 08 2016, @08:40PM
Wow, that reminds me of an ugly hack from the late 90s. Microsoft Office used to have a print button on the toolbar that did not open the print dialog, but sent the document to the default printer without prompting the user at all for where to print it or whether to use duplex. This was a terrible default action that violated any UI rule I could think of. I remember that every time I installed Office somewhere, I had to delete that button and put the "real" print button that displayed the print dialog. Millions of trees were saved by reducing the number of incorrect print jobs.
Surely in 2015 we can do better?
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 08 2016, @09:28PM
Sure, you could remember to use Export instead of Save As.
If you needed to use the program more than a few times a year, I'd guess the problem would go away.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @11:59PM
Surely in 2015 we can do better?
DUDE! Can I get a ride in your time machine?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @09:10PM
Sorry but this comment is too brain damaged to not reply... where to begin...
If you never use a smart format which preserves much more information than your precious png files do, your loss. Many other however do. The purpose of a UI is to show and allow interaction with the internal state of a program. Also I can see image editing is something you seldomly do from your very strange "if I open a png I want to save a png"... Explore a little, you might like it. Also you repeat yourself, another sure fire sign of brain damage...
But hey don't worry you can keep using M$ paint my dear.
(Score: 4, Informative) by darkfeline on Friday January 08 2016, @10:13PM
AC's comment is a bit aggressive, but let me repost my other comment here.
This new way of save/export is "The Right Thing". If you've done any work with audio, video, 3D, multimedia, programming, etc. at all, you would know that everything saves to application-specific projects, and when you want your final media form, you do an export/render/compile, which loses a lot of very important project-related information. There are lots of very good reasons for this, but for the sake of a simple argument, every other program for every multimedia/programming related field does this, so there must be a reason, right?
GIMP is meant to compete with Photoshop, not Paint, and you'll find that Photoshop has the same Save as .psd, Export .png, etc. behavior. Odd, isn't it?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!