True. In fact, I remember some issues with the Helmut Dersch libraries/utilities. Not all (any?) of it is open-source... binary only in some cases. Then there's the complication of what you said... his site removing the links for such a long time. Argh! I think it's finally mirrored somewhere and has been picked back up.Without color management or deep color, gimp is a complete toy for serious, accurate photo manipulation. Hugin can work with 16-bit TIFF files, so it doesn't have these limitations.Hugin, though, technically isn't a panorama creator - it's a graphical front end to the Panorama Tools libraries. It's far more convenient to use than writing PT assembler scripts yourself, but it depends on PT Stitcher. Both packages are available on a variety of platforms, although Helmut Dersch (the original author of Panorama Tools) is no longer showing a download link for the native library on his pages.
Frankly, I cannot fathom how so many gimp developers are not only ignorant of the deep color and color management requirement, but are even openly hostile to the suggestions that it isn't perfect already. I've been tracking the "progress" in these realms for over 2 years now. Pretty sad. Bottom line is that all the script-kiddie plugins and hodgepodge code from the original version would take a miracle to rewrite in arbitrary precision.
-Cory -- ************************************************************************* * Cory Papenfuss * * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * *************************************************************************
