Re: [Gimp-user] Drawing simple shapes.
David Gowers wrote: I want to make myself clear, I would support the idea of shape drawing tools (box, ellipse, polygon), providing they have the following functionality: 1. Drawing mode+opacity, since it is a paint tool. 2. Choosing between FG,BG,Pattern, and No fill 3. Enabling or disabling antialiasing 4. Enabling or disabling stroking (so you can just quickly draw a filled polygon, say, with no edging.) 5. UI should be based on their respective selection tools -- eg the resizing of a box or ellipse, or editing of a polygon, should be operated completely identically to their selection counterparts. 6. These tools are hidden by default (use Tools palette to un/hide or reorder tools) Point 6 is mainly because.. GIMP is not a drawing program. (much as I would like it to be :), I do agree that you should be able to do basic drawing of the kind you want in it. I would use these tools myself; I acknowledge that I'm not the target audience of the GIMP, nor are you apparently (see http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/GIMP_UI_Redesign#product_vision ) Personally I have not given this issue a great deal of thought, but if you want to attack from the angle of product vision, I think there is a clear need for such tools. Consider the bullet point in the vision that states: GIMP is a high-end application for producing icons, graphical elements of web pages and art for user interface elements; Think about the types of tools necessary to create user interface elements or graphical elements of web pages. These types of graphics very often are based around fundamental geometric shapes. Sometimes GIMP seems confused about its own identity. It neither wishes to be like paintbrush, nor a photo editing program like say Irfanview (not a great example), or a pure artistic program like pixia. It doesn't like to be compared with Photoshop, which can do everything but slice bread. So what then is it? Yes, I understand that is what the vision is all about. Well, my point is, GIMP is supposed to be a high level tool suitable for several distinct graphical/artistic endeavors and I don't see why comparisons to Paintbrush or any other limited program are all that valuable. GIMP has to be a jack of all trades to meet the vision proposed, you simply can't put it in a single category nor be disturbed if it integrates functionally across broad boundaries. The GIMP is not a type of program. Furthermore, you should be cautious in saying what the GIMP isn't. How can you say it is not a drawing program when much of what it is meant to do necessarily involves drawing? If you mean it is not a paintbrush clone, then I agree, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't do everything paintbrush does. Whether it does or does not is more or less irrelevant since the developers seek to provide some set of general functionality, not compare it to other software, and rightfully so. If you hide a button, you may as well not have it. Those of us comfortable with computers can always find a way to accomplish what we need, however tedious or obscure it might be. The button is not for those savvy enough look for it in the tools palette, but for those novice users who want to draw a box or ellipse and can't figure out how to do it. IMHO, Ben ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] Things GIMP do not have, or I do not know if have
Michael J. Hammel wrote: A method to draw text using a system like boards systems to change text properties, font, style, size stuff. Like using bbold here!/b GIMP doesn't do that currently. I'd cringe at adding it to the core system since I consider that feature-creep. But providing the right API for a plugin to handle it would be a nice addition. You consider a proper text tool in the core feature-creep? I find that odd. Every major player in this software category implements a tool of this sort as a matter of course and in the core. Do you VERY rarely use text in GIMP? Granted, you do mention a plugin, but if you make it a plugin, it will not be as fast or as straightforward to use, almost like an afterthought. Should the user really have to open a plugin window just to add a word? Modularity is great, but text ranks on the order of a paintbrush tool in importance IMHO. Ben ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] Cut and paste from specific channels.
Bill Jackson wrote: I'm migrating from Photoshop and everything I read says what I want to do in the GIMP should be easy, but here I am... I have two images, A and B, which are black and white, from a proprietary program but saved as TIFFs. They open as RGB in the GIMP 2.2 on my Mac, with the image visible in all three channels. I want to create a final image, C, consisting of image A in the red channel and image B in the blue channel, and no image in the green channel. If there's a tutorial or plugin or previous mailing list post please give me a pointer and you have my thanks. I just can't find it myself. Bill, try this: 1) Open the images representing each channel. 2) Convert these images to grayscale mode (as any given single channel could be represented as a grayscale image.) 3) If necessary, open a third image/layer as a blank one, since you wanted nothing in the green channel. (a blank image such as this must be black and also in greyscale mode) 4) Perform the compose function found in colorscomponents and choose the layers for the appropriate channels Does that achieve the desired result? Ben W. Note: I don't know what the compose function requires, i.e. if all layers have to be the same size, etc.. I'm sure the user manual addresses that. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
[Gimp-user] A tip of those who use GIMP in Windows
Hi, I have tried a number of different methods lately of making GIMP a little easier to use in Windows... I checked out the deweirdifyer plugin, but found it to be unstable. I also tried virtual desktops. I was not interested in GIMPShop, as it has nothing special going on there except that deweirdifyer plugin and rearranged menu items. I still look forward to the day when a major Windows based developer takes on the GIMPwin UI, which, as (like Sven has said many times) is not even at the level of the Linux versions. Anyway, perhaps a lot of you out there are doing this already, but I just tried something I never did before, which I found helps a lot. GIMP has a dialog called images, which most of you are probably aware of. Have you ever considered using it somewhat like the Windows taskbar? I have docked it to my main toolbox and use it to switch between open images as opposed to trying to locate the proper button on the taskbar. The image dialog offers previews, which are very helpful, and allows one to work with GIMP as if it were self-contained. Using this in conjunction with a virtual desktop leads to the best solution I have found so far. Ben W. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] Remove white patches at corner
Sudheer Satyanarayana wrote: http://binaryvibes.in/test/test.php The image has white patches around the circumference and around the alphabets BINARY. When I reduce the image to lesser size, 100x144 it looks very awkward. I have been trying to remove those white patches for two days. I haven't been successful. Can anybody tell me how to remove those white patches and make the image neat? Sudheer, others may have a better method, but I was playing around with the image a little. Before I begin, remember that if you are working with a gif and if you are attempting to use transparency, only square edges will look sharp, while round edges will appear jagged, since gif only supports on/off transparency for any given pixel. .png images would look smooth on round edges but are not widely supported by all but the newest Internet Explorer version; hence roughly 70% (an estimate) of all browsers/versions will not show it correctly. Here is what I suggest. Create a new layer and give it the color your webpage background will have. Go back to the logo layer and select ALL the black areas using the magic wand. Use SelectGrow (choose 1 pixel), then SelectFeather (choose two pixels), then hit delete. Once all black areas are removed in this manner, merge the two layers and apply FiltersEnhanceUnsharp Mask (make amount .1 or so, this is to sharpen the logo a bit). Save as a gif... When I do the above sequence, I get a nice sharp logo with no visible white artifacts. Good luck. Ben W. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] Remove white patches at corner
Gerry JJ wrote: On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:55:41 +0100, Sudheer Satyanarayana [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can anybody tell me how to remove those white patches and make the image neat? Sure. Do this (some names may differ, my gimp is norwegian so I have to translate some things): 1. Load the image into the gimp. Select the color picker tool, or pen/pencil with ctrl held, and use this to catch the purplish color. 2. Convert the image from indexed to RGB format (Image - Mode - RGB). 3. Go to Colors - Levels, click the third color picker button from the right at the bottom (select black point), click the purplish color. The logo should now be black. Hit ok. 4. In the layers window, right-click the layer and add a layer mask. Select grey scale copy of layer in the dialog and make sure invert mask is checked. Click add. 5. Click the leftmost of the two images of the layer in the layer window to select the image (the other is the mask). Also check the little checkbox above the layers view, to lock transparency. 6. Switch to the bucket fill tool. In the tool options, select fill entire selection. Click the image to fill it with purplish. White patches are now gone! (But we're not quite finished yet..) 7. Right-click the layer again and select apply layer mask. You now have an image with alpha transparency. To use the alpha transparency as is on the web, you'll have to save the image in the png format, but note that (older?) IE browsers doesn't support alpha transparency properly. Gif only supports on/off transparency. To get nice anti-aliasing with that, you'll have to add a background to your logo (add a new layer filled with your new background color, put it below the logo, and flatten the image). Good luck! ~ Gerry This method looked very interesting to me (as a useful method for some of my own projects), but I couldn't get it to work... I tried many times... I am using a dev. version of GIMP (2.3.12) in case that makes a difference Ben ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] Interesting opinions
Michael Trümmer wrote: What Digg-Users think about The GIMP: http://digg.com/linux_unix/GIMP_is_more_powerful_than_most_people_think_See_complete_tutorials_here You know, it's funny. Discussions about GIMP and it's interface (as compared to PS) so often seem to lead to statements like GIMP is only bad because you are used to PS, I used GIMP first for x years and when I tried PS I thought it was horrible. I have used GIMP for the past 4 or more years, and have watched it grow and improve; I have used PS only a couple of times at the college I went to in the computer labs, and was unwilling to buy it. I had this personal interest in trying to find open source alternatives for every task I needed to accomplish. Anyway, contrary to the claims that others have made, I did not find photoshop difficult or time-consuming to use. I picked it up in a snap, despite my years of experience with GIMP, and having used paintbrush most of my life b4 that. Perhaps a real graphic artist using complex techniques might have a different story to tell, but in my experience I don't agree. I still like GIMP, and was perfectly willing to try to work with the SDI interface, regardless of my personal preferences, but my experience with GIMP-win has been difficult. Gimpshop does not solve the problem either. There are no settings/plugins in GIMP (to my knowledge) that provide either a reliable MDI interface or a truly usable SDI interface. New settings recently added like transient windows have quirks, and always on top is not a good alternative either. I understand that developers are saying (I'm sure justifiably) that Windows is the real problem. Be that as it may, on Windows, GIMP does not achieve a truly usable interface. While you may not like Photoshop's use of MDI, you must concede that Photoshop does have a reliable interface that is actually MDI (so do many other graphic programs). GIMP on windows does not get SDI right. When it does, then you can make a better comparison. Somebody will probably tell me that a virtual desktop is the best solution in Windows and that's probably true. No, I can't use Linux right now, and yes, I have tried. I will probably do some experimenting and file a bug report or two describing in detail the quirks that I mentioned. Now these quirks do not (as others would claim) make it impossible to use GIMP, but they can make it irritating at times. I still use GIMP and enjoy it, and prefer it because it is free and always being developed and is does not create files that you can't view without spending money. I am sure GIMP's biggest need is more developers. Being an outsider in that regard, I am not sure why GIMP doesn't seem to have the same level of dedicated developer support as some other projects. In my opinion, GIMP is more exciting and has more potential than most of it's free competitors. I would love to see the open source world gather round and give PS a run for the money. Hopefully soon I will start helping out somehow myself, I am trying to plan for that. Ben W. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] paint tools and autoscroll
Michael Schumacher wrote: Von: Ben Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] I agree that normally autoscroll is not generally appropriate for painting. For drawing lines however, it could be very useful, if one knows exactly where one wants to begin and end a line. I do this type of graphic work all the time for web design, and normally have to do the line piecemeal as I often need to zoom in to place the line accurately. You are talking about straight line, right? Then this can be handled by multiple views. What is the difference between painting and drawing, btw? The paint tools don't auto-scroll in draw mode anyway (this is what you get by holding shift (aka how to draw straight lines)). [I should have sent this to the list, I was briefly confused and was responding to individuals rather than the list, after having turned off digest mode] Sorry for the ambiguity; I suppose drawing is the correct term. GIMP doesn't presently autoscroll when drawing, but that seems like much more useful behavior then autoscrolling while painting (i.e. using the paint tools without any modifier keys). Please notice the use of the word could in my original message. Notice also how I said I need to draw the line piecemeal since GIMP doesn't presently autoscroll in drawing mode as you have observed. Maybe you could explain in more detail how you work with scrolling to draw lines? To restate: when drawing lines using the paint tools, it would be helpful if autoscroll was enabled. I agree with others, that enabling autoscrolll while painting with the paint tools is not especially useful in my experience. I don't use scrolling when drawing lines, I have had to draw, scroll, draw, scroll, etc... My original post could have been clearer. I just tried using multiple views, and it works well. Thank you for the suggestion. I would not have anticipated this behavior, but it is useful. Ben W. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] Interesting opinions
Sven Neumann wrote: Hi, On Tue, 2006-12-05 at 11:13 -0500, Ben Walker wrote: There are no settings/plugins in GIMP (to my knowledge) that provide either a reliable MDI interface or a truly usable SDI interface. New settings recently added like transient windows have quirks, and always on top is not a good alternative either. I understand that developers are saying (I'm sure justifiably) that Windows is the real problem. Be that as it may, on Windows, GIMP does not achieve a truly usable interface. You are perfectly right here. The problem is however that we don't have much, if any, active developers that contribute Win32 specific code to GTK+ and GIMP that would address this problem. There is almost no contributions from Windows users, but lots of complaints. Now tell me why we should even care about them? We would accept patches. There is a lot to do to improve the user experience on the Windows platform. Same holds true for Mac OS X. But unless there's active contributions, this isn't going to change. No matter how loud the complaints are. Sven You make a good point. I didn't bring up the topic to complain, but rather to point out that those who think they dislike the SDI interface on Windows might like it if it worked. Usually everyone says bug off, go use Gimpshop, I like SDI, GIMP is different and doesn't aim to copy, etc... but miss the fact that there are real problems. I would be happy to submit windows patches if I knew how, but I am not a programmer. I have recently tried playing around with script-fu and was planning to make some scripts. I also do web-design and was thinking of trying to help out that way too. Despite doing QBasic and Word macros as a hobby, and taking one class on C++, I'm afraid my skills in this area are very limited. The amount of help I would need to understand GIMP and provide patches would be so great that developers would no doubt find it easier to simply write the patches instead of helping me write them. Should I join the developer list to discuss the website, or should I post suggestions, sketches to this list for user input? Ben W. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] Color selectors, which one do you use?
Anthony Ettinger wrote: On 12/5/06, Sven Neumann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, time for another little poll. GIMP has an interface for pluggable color selector modules. Over the time we have collected quite a few of them. In the 2.3 tree we have the following modules and builtin color selectors: Default color selector CMYK color selector Painter-style triangle color selector Watercolor style color selector Palette color selector This is IMO too much choice for most users and I think it would help if we would disable some of them. Expert users would still be able to reenable them in the Module Manager. Perhaps we could even have a menu somewhere in the Colors tab that allows to enable/disable color selectors. Now the question is, which color selectors do you actually use? I have myself never found the Watercolor selector to be useful. But your mileage might vary. Tell me about it. I use the triangle color wheel. After reading about color design, it makes more sense. [Oops, sorry Anthony, I just sent this response to you.] I only use the default selector, but now that Anthony has mentioned the triangle and color design, I have become interested in that one :) However, I think I would be perfectly happy just using the default. Ben W. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
[Gimp-user] Website
Well, I guess I am going to take on a redesign of the website (pending developer approval), and I am going to need the community's help. From time to time I will mail this list and the GimpWin list with specific requests. I don't aim to totally demolish everything that is there already, but a lot of work needs to be done. What's good should stay, what's not should go. I don't believe in changing stuff just for the sake of changing it. I can't make any timeframe promises as I am very busy, but for the foreseeable future, I am committing to this project. A graphic program's website should be graphically stimulating. I am humbled by the artistic skills of lots of you guys/gals, and will call upon you a bit as you no doubt can do better than I. After a few minutes work I have lots of ideas and will post mock-ups soon on some webspace I have. Right now I'd like to ask members to please post any suggestions/requests for the website. I would like to add your ideas to mine and get GIMP some real web presence! Ben W. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
Re: [Gimp-user] paint tools and autoscroll
I agree that normally autoscroll is not generally appropriate for painting. For drawing lines however, it could be very useful, if one knows exactly where one wants to begin and end a line. I do this type of graphic work all the time for web design, and normally have to do the line piecemeal as I often need to zoom in to place the line accurately. Ben W. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
[Gimp-user] Blocking of Alan on the name topic
I am not a friend of Alan Horkan, nor do I have any association with him whatsoever, but I find that blocking him from speaking about GIMP's name is unacceptable. I have looked over some of his past posts and have not found them to be insulting, abusive, or inappropriate. As a matter of fact, I think he has (for the most part) politely stated his opinion and posted in reply to others and not simply in order to keep this topic going. I would not expect him to drop the topic if people continue to respond to him and say things that don't make sense to him, I imagine you would do the same. The topic is clearly of interest to other people, who have continued the topic as he has. Now it's possible he is the type of person who is content to argue indefinitely about a topic without any thought of the consequences, but that is yet to be proven AND requires the participation of someone else. Alan does not appear to be a ranter (at least on this list) and he didn't bring it up. In fact he a useful and frequent contributer who responds to people's questions in a polite and helpful way. GIMP was nothing but a name for me for years, until someone mentioned the crippled definition, and I discovered others as well. Gimp's various definitions are disturbing to me, and the developers are clearly aware of these definitions as demonstrated by the bug report Alan referred to (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160890). The developers are not bothered, apparently, and simply think it's funny. Is it wrong to suggest that the attitude of the developers is not totally the name doesn't have a derogatory meaning to most people and should therefore stay the same and that perhaps there is this aspect as well who cares about those associations, they are funny and they don't bother me, why are you making a big deal out of it? Now I understand why changing the name at this juncture is not a wise idea, but I do NOT understand why this discussion is considered ridiculous nor do I understand why developers attack those who ultimately suggest that a patch be accepted to allow simple name changes. You may not like it, but it is not a stupid request. Personally I distrust extremes, such as A product name that has any possible negative meanings should automatically be changed or the opposite Unless it offends the majority of the users (with solid proof), we should not think of changing a product name I am leaning towards a name change myself, and am thinking it's the most productive thing to do considering the longterm and GIMP's future, but am not certain about this and respect and understand arguments to the contrary. The most positive thing I have heard so far is the suggestion that GIMP will help discourage negative usage of that word, but the developers (to whom we are all very grateful for their work) don't seem to be supporting this initiative by the keeping the above mentioned bug open. How does that make sense? There is no reason Alan should be blocked, and if you intend to moderate topics, than ban all messages regarding the topic, not just individuals who are not being abusive. Ben W. ___ Gimp-user mailing list Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user
