On 09/11/2013 01:49 PM, Brenda Ann Eckels wrote: > Re: photoshop versus GIMP and scripting.... > Thank you to everyone that posted ideas and thoughts! > > Photoshop vs. GIMP: Typically, our volunteers, who are all single parents, > have very little computer knowledge beyond using facebook or yahoo. > Equally often, they are not high school graduates. > > What we typically teach them for Photoshop most of you folks would call > very basic editing. When someone shows a real aptitude for graphic design, > then we do everything we can to get as much educational materials to them. > However, most of the real world applications that they use photoshop for is > in an office setting where they may be asked to do mild cropping, editing, > or resizing. For most of the volunteers, what we are trying to do is give > them the ability to list on a resume a well known graphics product and to > say they have "x" amount of experience in "a, b, and c". > > My concern is that the typical HR person hiring an LNA at a nursing home > who sees GIMP won't know what it is, and won't know that this candidate > might be able to put together the resident newsletter (one of the unpaid > jobs at nursing homes that can help advance your career). > > Portable Scribus isn't as well known, but that is usually saved for the > interview, where the volunteer is given extra copies of projects they have > done in Scribus as a handout. So, the issue of name recognition isn't as > serious. In the case of Scribus, when we have a volunteer that shows an > early aptitude, we try very hard to help them get approved for college > level instruction at one of the community colleges that will let them start > while still working on a GED. At that point, they meet the required hours > with schooling, and no longer work for the ministry. > > If I start using scripting, it would only work if I teach the volunteers > how to do the scripting itself. Considering the mountain of stuff they > have to learn - while also getting our work done - before the 5 year cutoff > of benefits, it is a pretty daunting challenge and some of them just will > not be able to tackle scripting at all. > > What I would love is a "product" that volunteers could be taught to > download and install immediately after installing Scribus that would take > many common functions and create a gui interface for them that a > non-professional and non-programmer would be able to use. Of course, the > interface would merely build and run the script - but that piece would be > mostly invisible to the end user. > > The trick in both cases for me as Executive Director, is that I have to > keep a mix of volunteers so I don't suffer brain drain when someone either > gets approved for college or finds employment. That means that as people > gain in proficiency at job skills, I have to remember my ultimate job is to > get them graduated and out the door to a paying job that pays enough to get > them off welfare for good. The days I have one really good scribus user are > pretty limited! > > The final challenge I have is that, diagnosed with MS in 2006, I am quite > frankly not the geek I once was when I ran a systems integration and web > design firm in the 1990's. I myself am having problems trying to learn > scripting for scribus - which is pathetic considering I learned COBOL at > the age of 11. (On punch card Burrough's L series! Ohh, go google it or > check a museum...you will laugh!) > > So, I have to figure out creative cheap ways to teach volunteers about > scribus, Windows XP, OpenOffice, Quicken, Quickbooks, Firefox, and more > (thank God for Youtube!) but now, I frequently don't know the material I am > teaching. >
I would suggest using Scribus as Scribus. Forget about Photoshop. Probably all the simple editing you might want of some image can be done in Scribus. As a bonus, Scribus does nondestructive editing, the original file is unchanged. Forget about scripting. There is nothing that a script can do that you can't do without a script, and a lot you can do without a script that scripts can't do. We have high school age and younger users out there. If someone can figure out their Facebook page, they can figure out Scribus -- just dive in. There is a built-in manual that covers basic and not so basic operations. Greg
