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Greetings Developers,
I've been using Photoshop since version 1 of
"Photostyler". Before that, I dreamed
of digital images while using an 8086 PC and CGI
graphics. Photoshop is a good
application, but I feel a growing distaste for
proprietary software.
So, for 2006 my photography business migrates to
the GNU/Linux box. I see some
room for improvement--user interface, color
management, file system navigation. Let
me give you a list, in order of importance, of the
ten things that matter most in photography.
1 image content
2 image content
3 image content
4 image content
5 image content
6 image content
7 image content
8 image content
9 image content
10 other concerns
Gimps problems are smaller than Photoshop's, in my
view. They are a much smaller concern
than image content. Really, content
wins the day, a message I wish to communicate to fellow
photographers who look for good images in fancy
cameras, or the latest software releases. If
we're all doing something together--like creating
and using image software--don't miss the spirit
of the enterprise by rolling out some elite
criteria to judge the work of friends.
Digital fine art is an oxymoron. Want fine
art? Try a darkroom! What really makes digital work
is content (and colors), because it certainly lacks
dynamic range and resolution (and the beauty
of silver-based papers).
Visual art is all about feeling. So another
good question is how do you feel about underwriting
Adobe? They employ many nice
people--and some gifted software engineers, but the company
is just another greedy corporation, charging high
prices, and hiding the code. Passing out those
nondisclosure agreements, which now include
impressions from previous lives and the kitchen sink.
I selected Gimp because the whole project feels
good. You create software for the same
reasons I create photographs So, if Gimp has
problems, I'll live with them (or participate in solving
problems). Gimp is really a
marvelous bit of engineering--the only problem I can see is perhaps the
team underestimates what it can do.
I do have a few suggestions developers might
like. I'm sure you have no shortage of
ideas, and limited consensus, so this is just food
for thought. A mutual friend, Richard Stallman,
said I should run them by you, so here you
are.
1. A browser just like Photoshop. No,
better not. The browser is junk--very clunky and hungry
for system
resources.
CS browser is just one of those
flat-file Microsoft thingies. Why not incorporate a
real relational
database? So, my suggestion is to
dramatically improve workflow by developing a MySQL
database companion for Gimp, that allows users to
search and sort large image databases
like mine (30,000 digital
images). Images could be tagged while they are being
processed,
or batch
tagged.
As director of photography for North American
Women's Baseball League (NAWBL), I know
that searching and sorting images can be
very time-consuming work. Using Gimp you could
automatically transfer image metadata
to tags. It would be very useful to do a search
involving
all the images shot at f/2.8 or
f/4.0? All the photos shot with a particular lens. All the
photos
shot at ISO 100, or ISO
800. Photos of women who pitch, play for a particular team, have
a
batting average over 300, et
cetera. A game? All the photos on the same day. This
information could quite helpful for batch-processing
images, as you might want to
clean noise from high ISO files, sharpen images with narrow depth of field, et cetera. If you need to consult
backup files for images lost in a crash, sorting by date is very helpful (speaking from experience). With
metadata, and user criteria in the
tags (associated to files that need not be opened
to perform searches/sorting) it could be a
very power tool for organization--something that
graphic artists and photographers would value
highly.
Such a database could be great
learning tool for spirited amateurs. What speeds to stop
motion?
What speeds for flowing water? How
does digital perform at higher ISO? I recommend tagging
all photos where contrast range in a scene
exceeds the reach of a digital CCD. (happens a lot!)
A relational database can be a very powerful
tool, and since digital is such a productive medium,
photographers really need one. There's
no way on earth Adobe could build a product that competes
with MySQL--the world's best database
engine. Tools that improve the WORKFLOW of
photographers
and their clients would be worth considering.
You can see Photoshop is making a small effort in
CS, with sort routines in the browser. Adobe
cannot afford to package a powerful database
engine, because they would be paying license fees!
But Gimp already has a wonderful neighbor, who
works for free.
2. The much talked about user
interface. Nobody will agree on one, any more than they agree
on
the ten best photographs. Why
not have configuration options, that you could test, and pick a
design
you like? Gimp looks pretty good on
Fedora 5--because Fedora 5 has a beautiful design for the
desktop. Reminds me of Japanese
art. So, this suggestion is just to provide different skins--as
many
as people care to develop or download.
A choice of skins that conveys the feeling of particular cultures as
artistic themes would be very nice, because
authors and users come from every point on the compass.
The general idea is to be transported, in terms of
feeling, when you fire the application. With a thin
GUI you could hardly go wrong.
3. There is much ado about layout
Since people work differently, one size
does not fit all. I'm not
sure if this idea is practical, but it's certainly
outside the box. If you have real multitasking, might as
well flaunt it. On GNU/Linux systems, design
an interface that runs on all four desktops. You could
have your browser and killer image database on one
screen, an image on another with appropriate
tools, or multiple images open and writing to the
desktops like pages, that users can toggle and
customize. Pages (desktops) could also
run on multiple screens--all with one copy of Gimp in memory.
It's a bitch to port MySQL and ODBC to windoze, in
conjunction with a big application like Gimp,
so these features could just be for GNU/Linux
or Unix type environments. If you've a product that's
much better than Photoshop, users will migrate to
get it. I feel it already is better--but adding power
to regulate workflow would be a very desirable
benefit.
This idea is really a repetition of the idea about
providing an optional MySQL database feature.
Power is leveraged, by utilizing system
strengths. GNU/Linux has industrial strength
database capabilities. It also has real
multitasking, and multiple desktops, to solve all your problems
of designing inside a space that is too
small. I suggest, thinking outside the box of one screen--and
presenting a range of user interfaces and default
options. Wrap them up in one configuration menu,
and fire Mr. Gimp--with the equivalent of 4
monitors. (unless you want to use two monitors for each
desktop).
Having said all this, I prefer working with
film. :-)
Hope my suggestions are not too impractical.
I think Gimp will blow the doors off all proprietary
models down the road, and I will riding with
you.
Richard Reddy
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