Re: [Gimp-user] Producing Gel text.

2011-06-19 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2011-06-20 at 09:30 +1000, Owen wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Jun 2011 10:36:34 -0400
> John Culleton  wrote:
> 
> > The excellent book by Michael J Hammel "The Artist's Guide to Gimp
> > Effects"

Thanks for the kudos.

> > The bad news is his list has 37 steps. And his book was written in
> > the days of Gimp 2.2, looking forward to 2.4. 

The 2nd edition for 2.8 is expected to be out in early 2012.  I'm trying
to coincide the update with the 2.8 release so the book is relevant.
I'm almost done with updating all the text, including quite few new
tutorials.  I've been putting off making new screenshots to give the
developers as much time as possible for UI updates.  But I'll be
starting in on those very soon.

> Are you sure that File->Create->Logos->Chrome wont do what you are
> looking for?

Kind of.  But understanding how to do it manually allows you the
flexibility of making your own flavor of the effect.  That's the purpose
of all the tutorials in the book - to teach technique without falling
back on too many pre-built effects.  
-- 
Michael J. Hammel 

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Re: [Gimp-user] A sequence of actions

2010-03-30 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2010-03-30 at 22:31 +0530, Tarun Samvedi wrote:
> Is there any way of defining a sequence of actions that could be used
> later?
> for instance, if I apply auto-color, auto-contrast and cartoon filter
> to a lot of images, is there a way of defining this sequence so it can
> be done in a single step?

Current version does not support recording actions directly.  Instead
you need to write a plugin using one of the supported languages: Python,
Script-Fu or C.  For something simple like this python is probably the
easiest to learn.  For more complex plugins I write C plugins, but then
I'm more comfortable with C than Python.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of  age, gender,
religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside,
we ALL believe that we are above average drivers. -- Unknown.

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Re: [Gimp-user] What tool could do this?

2010-01-28 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2010-01-28 at 11:44 -0600, Jim Clark wrote:
> http://www.ciscohouston.com/interconnect.jpg
> 
> I captured this image, and I would like to produce something like it.
> The connected platforms, except with boxes rather than humanoid shapes
> on them. And 10 platforms, not 6...and maybe hexagons...

GIMP can do this.  Depends on your skill level, but it isn't
particularly hard.  The people would be the hardest.  I'd start with a
stock image of people to make the project easier.  Check with
BigStockPhoto.com - I saw something like them once before there.

I'll sketch the process for a project like this, but this won't be an
exact step by step process.

The platforms under the people should be made first.  Draw your shape
with the path tool and save.  Convert path to selection and apply a
perspective transform to the selection, then color/stroke accordingly.
Should only have to do this once but to get proper perspective you may
have to make each platform one at a time.  These platforms look fairly
uniform, however.  Same process should work for other shaped platforms.

The connecting lines are similar.  Draw box paths and save.  For each
box: outline, fill with gray, duplicate, fill dup with white and offset
a few pixels.  Save as XCF.  Merge box layers (no background), copy into
main project image and apply perspective and other transforms.  Might
have to flip some of them as the shadows are on different sides for
some.

If you find a 2D drawing of a person like those in this image then apply
drop shadows with no or little blur and offset only a pixel or two.  Do
this with both white and black shadows.  This can be used to simulate
some depth to the people.  You'll need to use some layer masks on the
shadows to get it to look right, probably.  If you use boxes instead of
people you can draw those manually in GIMP with paths too.  Similar
process as creating the platforms.

That's basically it.  It may be a bit harder than I'm describing but
probably not much.  Again, depends on your familiarity with GIMP.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Without software to do something useful with it, hardware's nothing more 
than a really complicated space heater.
  --- Neil Stephenson

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Re: [Gimp-user] Quick copy-pasting between Inkscape and GIMP

2010-01-28 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2010-01-28 at 10:52 +0100, Deniz Dogan wrote:
> I'm looking for a faster way to copy-paste things from Inkscape into
> GIMP. My current procedure involves exporting the drawing from
> Inkscape to PNG, then opening the PNG in GIMP and copy-pasting it into
> the image I want to have it in. Is there any faster way?

You've got lots of answers, so there are lots of ways to do this.  I
open new images (like a PNG) and then click and drag the thumbnail in
the layers dialog for that image into another image window and drop it.

Don't know if that's faster, but its an easy process for me since I have
multiple monitors on which to do this.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel 

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Re: [Gimp-user] Plasma pluggin?

2010-01-22 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2010-01-22 at 10:41 -0500, BGP wrote:
> In the following tutorial the guy refers to a Plasma Plugin.
> http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/The_Basics/
> Where the heck do I find that?

Filters->Render->Clouds->Plasma

-- 
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mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
 "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
  safety deserve neither liberty or safety. Nor, are they likely to end up
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Re: [Gimp-user] Fwd: Re: GIMP vs Photoshop

2010-01-17 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 13:07 -0800, Ken Warner wrote:
> I gave feedback and was told to "...put up or shut up...".
> Which indicates a really dumb developer base that doesn't want
> to hear what people really want, they only want to provide what
> they decide people need.

Actually, you posted that to a user list, not the developer list.  So
there is nothing that says that response is associated with either the
developers intent or behavior.  They are, in fact, usually very open to
feature requests though there are some they've heard many times already
(like 16bit support, which is in development).  For example, they've
responded to requests for a single window mode from the Windows user
community by adding it to development for 2.8.  We Linux users don't
need this so the developers are making this configurable.  They do
listen to users needs.

That said, requests for feature enhancement belong in the bugzilla
database which you can find linked from the
http://developer.gimp.org/bugs.html.  "Bugs" is a generic developer term
and is meant to encompass problems in the system as well as feature
requests.  To prevent duplication you should do a few searches to make
sure your request hasn't already been made before posting.

When making feature requests it is important to be very clear what you
need the feature to do.  Your "batch processing" request, for example,
isn't very clear.  GIMP can already run in batch mode so you'd need to
clarify what your interpretation of batch processing should be.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
Writers clarify the common and the absurd for those tortured by the former and
  bewildered by the latter.  --  Michael J. Hammel

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Re: [Gimp-user] Color Management Woes

2010-01-13 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2010-01-13 at 18:34 -0500, Frank Gore wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 6:21 PM, David Gowers <00a...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > That sounds very much like it is attached in a non-standard way.
> 
> Actually, you're entirely right. If I assign an Adobe RGB profile to
> the picture, then save it, and re-open it, THEN it asks me what to do
> with the color profile, just like I expected it to. Apparently the
> original file has the profile embedded in some different manner.
> However, [big-brand commercial application] has no trouble determining
> what the color space should be, even with the original files.

Ah.  See?  I told you we needed someone who understood it better.  :-)
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
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--
Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
  --  Credited to the Dalai Lama.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Color Management Woes

2010-01-13 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2010-01-13 at 18:20 -0500, Frank Gore wrote:
> But the problem is that it doesn't convert when I open the file. It
> just assumes the picture is in sRGB and interprets the color space
> that way. Have you ever seen the colors of a file in Adobe RGB that's
> incorrectly interpreted as sRGB? They're flat and dull, bland,
> lifeless. I lose a bunch of contrast and saturation.

Possibly, but then you don't provide a display color profile so maybe
it's your display that's washed out, not the image.  What may happen is
that the Adobe RGB->sRGB happens just fine but what you *SEE* is the
sRGB, not what the image should be when mapped to the color profile of
the monitor.

Again, I'm mostly talking out my be-hind here.  I've done some articles
on the color management stuff so I've played with it and I have both
monitor and print profiles set up.  But I'm not completely sure where
the conversions happen on the file open and display pipeline.

> Oh I can assign the right color profile and it fixes it right away, no
> conversion necessary. But how do I know which color profile to assign?
> What if the original was SUPPOSED to look bland and lifeless? What if
> I'm messing up the colors by assigning an Adobe RGB profile where I
> was supposed to leave it as sRGB? That tends to mess up the colors the
> other way, adding contrast and saturation where there should be less.

Again, this seems to me to point to an incorrect monitor color
profile.  

> In any case, like I mentioned in my original post, I specifically have
> it set to "Ask what to do" in the Preferences, and it doesn't ask.

Like I said, this could be because there is nothing to ask about.  The
file is opened by converting from its original color space to the
working space and then displayed that way.  The "asking" may only happen
when you want to convert from the original color space to your display
color space (which could be your monitor profile or a print profile, for
example) before conversion to sRGB for working.

Again, this just a guess.  I'm talking enough to convince myself but we
really need someone with more color management experience explaining it.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
  --  Credited to the Dalai Lama.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Color Management Woes

2010-01-13 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2010-01-13 at 17:46 -0500, Frank Gore wrote:
> In the preferences, I clearly have "File Open Behaviour" set to "Ask
> what to do". My working profile is sRGB, and so is my Monitor profile.

I'm no expert about this so my wild-ass guess is that it doesn't ask
because there is nothing to do.  Consider that the working profile is
what a file *HAS* to be converted to or else you can't open it.  If the
file has an Adobe RGB profile but there is no such working profile the
file couldn't be edited unless it was automatically converted, right?

So the conversion would be to your Monitor profile.  If you had a
monitor profile different than the working profile then the Adobe RGB
would have to converted to the monitor profile first and then to the
working profile to be edited.  Since the monitor profile and working
profile are the same then there is nothing to ask - you simply get an
automatic conversion to sRGB.

But again, that's just a wild guess.  I've never dug into that part of
the code to know what's really going on.  Hopefully Sven or one of the
developers will correct me here.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Stupidity:  Quitters never win.  Winners never quit.  But those who never
win and never quit are idiots.

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Re: [Gimp-user] GIMP vs Photoshop

2010-01-12 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2010-01-12 at 16:51 +, Nuno Miguel dos Santos Baeta wrote:
> * Photoshop: Must be used for 'serious' work.

Depends on who's being serious.  Truth is, it depends on the type of
work and one man's "serious" is another man's "who cares".  

Note that I've done covers for magazines with GIMP and that was
loong before the current version provided many of the advanced
features it has today.  But also note that I'm not a photographer.  My
SLR died a few years ago and I've yet to replace it.

> * GIMP: May be used for 'serious' work if that means showing a photo
> on a web page.  Otherwise forget it because:

Baloney.  See previous comment re: magazine covers.  I've also designed
images printed on clothing and other products.  So you'd have to define
"serious" to validate that assertion.  However, "serious" photography
may have different needs than other "serious" graphic design work.
Since I'm not a photographer I can't say if that's the case.

>   ** Is has no color management (I don't know what this is);

The current version has color management tools.  Color management is the
ability to map the colors from one device to another.  So mapping the
colors you got from your digital camera to what you see on your display
requires software to make sure they visually match due to the way
hardware (cameras and monitors) behave with respect to color.

>   ** Just 8 bit/channel;

Still true.  They're working toward 16 bits per channel.  Lack of 16
bits per channel can be a problem for some users such as the visual
effects industry.

>   ** No CMYK.

GIMP works in sRGB mode but can convert from other modes to sRGB (via
color management).  It does not convert to CMYK mode though it can color
separate sRGB into CMYK with plugins.  To my knowledge (which is
limited on the subject) Photoshop does not work in CMYK mode either - it
just maps (on the fly) CMYK to sRGB (or similar color model) so it
appears to be working in CMYK.  GIMP doesn't do that (at least not yet).

> PS - I have also been advised to use a program such as Aperture (Mac
> OS X only) or Lightroom (Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows), as that is
> what a photographer really needs.  

I'm sure many professional photographers swear by these.  Its up to you
to decide if the quality of the results warrant the price.  The only way
to know - for you - is to compare both the commercial apps and the open
source alternatives for what you're trying to accomplish.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together.
-- From a real employee performance evaluation.

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Re: [Gimp-user] DualCore or QuadCore for Gimp?

2010-01-07 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2010-01-07 at 23:16 +0100, Sven Neumann wrote:
> > Not sure it matters unless you happen to run a lot of other applications
> > at the same time.  GIMP doesn't (to my knowledge) parallelize operations
> > on multiple cores. 
> 
> That is not correct. GIMP does make use of multiple processors for quite
> a few operations. And this is going to improve further while we migrate
> to GEGL.

Very cool.  I wasn't aware of that.  I learn something new every
day.  :-)

I'll have to look at that when I get home tonight since I've got a quad
core there and lots of big project files to try.

Is there any info on what types of operations make use of this?  If
there are no docs on it, is there somewhere in the source I can scan for
hints?

Thanks Sven.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
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--
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  --  Credited to the Dalai Lama.

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Re: [Gimp-user] DualCore or QuadCore for Gimp?

2010-01-06 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2010-01-07 at 00:55 +0100, Uwe Haider wrote:
> Runs Gimp with a quadcore or with an faster DualCore better? The system
> will run on Linux Gentoo with 64bit.

Not sure it matters unless you happen to run a lot of other applications
at the same time.  GIMP doesn't (to my knowledge) parallelize operations
on multiple cores.  So the kernel gets to decide which core to run on
and GIMP only runs on one core at a time (though it can get swapped
around during the life of the process).  The others get assigned to
other processes.  Not sure if the gcc compiler provides options for
parallelizing operations, which would probably be the only way GIMP
would use more than one core at a time.  If this is accurate then you
*might* actually better off with the faster dual core if you don't run
alot of other applications at the same time as GIMP.  But the processor
probably isn't your bottleneck.

What will matter more is lots of really fast memory.  GIMP is memory
hungry.  Having lots of it that is very fast will improve the perceived
user experience, especially with very large images that have many
layers.

Quad-cores tend to support the newer, faster memory better.  Dual-cores
are typically considered slightly lower end processors for the chip
makers and so tend to be paired with slower memory, though that's not a
hard and fast rule.  Consider that a chip maker benefits from your
purchase of the higher end chip, so anything that makes the lower end
chip seem less spunky works in their favor (well, mostly).
-- 
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Re: [Gimp-user] Is this a bug? Setting image w/corrupted icc profile to sRGB; plugin dies

2009-12-18 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 18:09 -0500, Jay Smith wrote:
> b) I would like to find a method to remove color profile parasites on
> thousands of images, via the command line.  You have suggested trying
> "tifftopnm | pnmtotiff" do to this.  I will experiment with that, but I
> have a concern as noted below.

GIMP is the wrong tool for applying a common, single process (re: remove
the color profile) to thousands of files.  For that you would be better
off using the NetPBM or ImageMagick suite of command line tools.

GIMP is the right tool for editing the images, one (or a relatively
small set) at a time, after the color profiles have been removed.

Sven's suggestion of 

tifftopnm | pnmtotiff

is nearly literal in how you run it from the command line.  That "|" is
a pipe symbol and means "take the output from the command on the left
and pass to the input of the command on the right".  It's use is
specific to the use of shell environments (such as BASH) and has nothing
to do with GIMP, NetPBM or ImageMagick.  All that is missing in Sven's
example is the input file names and the output file names.  Since there
are thousands of these, you need to write a shell script (or Perl or
Python or some other scripting language) to iterate over the existing
file names and generate new file names.

However, BASH, NetPNM and ImageMagick are not part of GIMP.  For
specific help on these you should visit their web sites and/or join a
discussion group specific to those tools.

To answer your specific question:  no, you don't want to use GIMP to
remove the color profiles from your thousands of images.  It's the wrong
tool to do that.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Force has no place where there is need of skill.  -- Herodotus; Book 3, Ch. 127

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Re: [Gimp-user] Is this a bug? Setting image w/corrupted icc profile to sRGB; plugin dies

2009-12-18 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 14:33 -0500, Jay Smith wrote:
> My point is that the *error/reporting messages say* that (because of the
> corrupted file) the plugin has died and potentially left Gimp in an
> unstable state.

Any software that dies while processing has a bug, so you could file a
bugzilla report that loading broken files causes a plugin crash.  They
would potentially address whatever crash-related problems the broken
file exposes (buffer overflows, etc), but are not likely to try to
support broken files.  The file that was processed correctly was, at
best, an accident, albeit a fortunate one.

I'd give you a link to bugzilla but the developer.gimp.org site doesn't
seem to be responding for me right now.  Might be a problem on my end.
Anyway, check developer.gimp.org to find the link to bugzilla.
-- 
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Re: [Gimp-user] Image -> Flatten Image not available on newly created image with pasted in layer (floating selection)

2009-12-18 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 13:15 -0500, Jay Smith wrote:
> Thank you very much for the procedure suggestion.  Really Cool!!  I will
> experiment with that.  How would I have known that?  Maybe I should
> RTFM?  But.

Maybe the manual mentions this.  Maybe not.  That's the way of
documentation (even with commercial apps).  There are always tricks to
doing things with software.  You learn by doing.  Experimentation is
king.  'Course, asking on mailing lists and forums doesn't hurt.

> However, regarding your first paragraph, I understand what you are
> saying and do not argue with it.  My point is that you are saying is NOT
> what the program says because in order to "flatten" it using the menu
> system (other than dragging the window larger and double clicking) I
> have to go to LAYER, ANCHOR LAYER.

Actually, you can also use the Layers menu in the Layers dialog - right
click on the floating selection (or any layer) to see it.

> See the terminology confusion?

Sure.  But I ignore it.  They say "tomaeto", I say "tomahto".  Doesn't
change what you have to do to make it work.  Don't get too hung up on
terminology.  Spoils the fun.  ;-)

I suppose they could say "Anchor To Layer" instead.  Feel free to
suggest it to the developers or the documentation project.  Or maybe the
floating selection should be referred to as a floating layer instead.  I
often refer to the "image window" as the "canvas window" in my articles
and books.  I believe the term "image" is highly overused and a
potential source of confusion too.  

All you have to do is convince everyone to say the same thing every time
the reference something.  Good luck.  :-)
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on.
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Re: [Gimp-user] Image -> Flatten Image not available on newly created image with pasted in layer (floating selection)

2009-12-18 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 12:26 -0500, Jay Smith wrote:
> Procedure:
> - Select all in old image
> - Copy
> - Paste into the new image.  This now results in a Background and a
> Floating Selection.  It says "Floating Selection" it does *NOT* say "...
> Layer"

A "Floating Selection" is a selection that has been pasted into the
image but not given a final disposition for integration with the image.
You must either make it a new layer or apply it to the current
layer/layer mask.  Until you make that choice the floating selection is
not a layer yet which is why you can't flatten the image.  

A faster way of doing what you want (assuming I understood it correctly)
and skipping the floating selection is to drag the layer from the old
image into the toolbox.  This will create a new image window with the
same dimensions as the original with a single layer in it.  You can then
add a new layer that is black, drag it below the current layer in the
Layers dialog and then flatten the image.
-- 
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--
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Re: [Gimp-user] Help with Gimp Transparency/Alpha Channel

2009-08-27 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2009-08-27 at 23:54 +0200, frustrated1 wrote:
> I used
> the paint bucket (which is set to 100% opacity) to fill the selection in the
> layer mask (which is acting as the alpha channel) with white. 

Create a white layer mask initially.  Make your selection in the image
window (make sure the layer mask is active in the Layers dialog by
clicking on the mask thumbnail).  Reset the FG/BG colors by typing D in
the image window (resets to default colors).  Then drag the foreground
color (black) into the selection.  That adds black to the selected area
in the layer mask.  The black area is the area that will be transparent
in your saved image.

If the selection is not feathered then the edge of the selection should
(I believe) not be anti-aliased and should either be completely
transparent or completely opaque.  

> However, the
> left-most column of the square selection was not completely transparent
> in-game. It might just be something wrong with the game, because I looked at
> the color values of the area I wanted to make completely transparent and they
> are all 0,0,0. 

Might be a bug in the game.  Expand your selection by 1 pixel and do it
again.

> Also, I'm using .tga files. Maybe RLE compression has something to do with
> this, but I always have it unchecked.

No idea.  It's possible, but that would probably be a game issue, not a
GIMP issue.

-- 
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mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
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Re: [Gimp-user] Discussion on available GIMP books (was Re: how to use layers)

2009-08-27 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 14:48 -0700, Patrick Horgan wrote:
> o Michael J. Hammel's book, "The Artist's Guide to GIMP effects" 2009, 
> is a brilliant book as well.  He also posts to this list and is a 
> wonderful guy.   Buy his book too!

Well, "wonderful" might be a bit strong.  :-)

> o Michael Hammel's, "Essential GIMP for Web Professionals".  His 
> Artist's guide from 1999 was recently updated 

Sort of - the Artist's Guide to GIMP Effects is the 2nd in that series.
The original was never updated.  I decided there were plenty of
reference guides and the world didn't need another one.  The new book is
more tutorial oriented.

> and is one of my favorite 
> two books on GIMP.  It covers a lot about using GIMP for the web so I 
> don't know if he has any plans to update this book.  

That book didn't sell very well.  In fact, it never made enough to pay
me more than the relatively small advance I got for it.  So there wasn't
much of a market for it to be updated.  Prentice Hall has not asked for
an update, at least.  Personally, I don't think graphics texts for tools
like GIMP do well unless printed on glossy paper so the images have a
bigger impact on the audience.  Akkana's and Cary's texts are the
exception, it would seem.  :-)

I've been trying to update the GIMP Effects book for 2.6 (it's for 2.4
or maybe 2.2 - I can't remember now) but it's just hard to find the
time.  It shouldn't matter that much, however.  I wrote the GIMP Effects
book on the idea that the location of menu items doesn't matter so much
as knowing what those features *DO* and I focused on core features:
Levels, Curves, Layers, etc.  I purposely tried to avoid filters that
might change with the next release since many filters are just
convenience options for using one or more of the core features.  The
idea is to teach a little about what you're doing to the pixels.  Where
the tools are in menus won't matter if you don't know what to do with
them.

So the update would just be to point to the new locations of menus, etc.
Unfortunately there is a lot of stuff that is reference material in
there that needs to be updated too.   

If you're interested, I write a monthly GIMP column in Linux Format
magazine.  You can see some of the final images for those tutorials in
my LXF gallery (http://www.graphics-muse.org/wp/?page_id=126).  The
magazine is printed in the UK so US readers will be about a month behind
on the newsstand.  I can't post the tutorials on my web site (except for
some very old and outdated ones), however, since LXF owns the rights to
them.

Anyway, thanks for the kind words.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great
risk. - Credited to the Dalai Lama.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Help with Gimp Transparency/Alpha Channel

2009-08-27 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2009-08-27 at 17:16 +0200, jolie S wrote: 
> I'm trying to figure out what the problem is but you mention too many things
> so I'm afraid I'm getting confused.

I didn't see the original question, but let me see if I can help that
user.

> >Basically, what happens is that the area outside of my selections or
> erasing
> >also seems to be affected. I have antialiasing off for the free select tool.
> I
> >have hard-edge on for the eraser, and all the brush dynamics turned off for
> >it. The eraser is at Circle (05) which is a square, at the scale of 1.00 I
> >have tried using Select>Sharpen

I assume you're trying to apply transparency directly to the layer
content.  Don't do that.  Make your texture in an image layer and then
apply transparency through the use of a layer mask.  White areas in the
mask will have no transparency when you save the file.

> >The areas outside of my selections and erasing are being affected, so that
> >in-game the special effects are applied to areas I don't want them to be. 

Does the game operate on alpha channels values >0 or does it operate if
sees *any* alpha channel?  If the latter, then you have to make separate
textures for the areas that will and won't be affected by game play.  If
the former then the layer masks should work for you.

> I
> >have looked in the alpha channel, and there appears to be no actual
> >transparency in those areas, it seems to be solid black. 
> >

You know, after all these years I can't remember if 0 is transparent or
255 is transparent in the alpha channel.  I thought 255 was fully
opaque.  But my brain is full.  I think that bit of info slipped out on
the last refill of the tank.

> >Also, I would like to know how to copy the exact alpha channel from one
> image
> >to another image, without the original alpha channel being changed. 

If you use a layer mask you can make a selection of the mask, add a new
mask to the other image and then copy in the old mask over the new mask.
-- 
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--
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risk. - Credited to the Dalai Lama.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Commercial Use of GIMP

2009-06-01 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 11:57 -0400, Cilengir, Erika wrote:

> Is GIMP available for commercial use?  If so, is there a cost to use
> it?  Thanks.

GIMP is free to use to create commercial artwork.  There is no cost to
use it.  Some vendors might attempt to sell you a CD with GIMP on it.
This is not illegal, technically, but there is no reason you should pay
for it.  You can get GIMP free for use on Linux/Unix, Windows and Macs.
If you're not sure where to get it, feel free to ask here.  Please
mention the operating system you will use with GIMP.

The GIMP license (known as the GPL) is more importantly attached to the
program itself and how it can be redistributed.  The license is designed
to make sure everyone has free access to the actual source code if they
want it.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot. -- From a real 
employee performance evaluation.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Green Stripes On Tools?

2009-05-29 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2009-05-29 at 16:48 +0100, STINGER wibblywobblyteapot.co.uk
wrote:
> If I use the paths tool and drag to move I get a horrible green mess of
> breadcrumbs where the tool has been. I also get this on any other tools
> when moving around. I've tried it on two different machines now (both
> running Ubuntu) and I can't stop it.

I've seen this before though its been awhile.  I'm pretty sure it comes
from GIMPs interaction with particular X drivers, but I can't remember
if it was nVidia or Intel.  I think it was nVidia.  If you have an
nVidia card, there are two drivers: the open source "nouveau" and the
nVidia provided "nvidia".  Whichever driver you're using, try switching
to the other driver and see if that helps.

Oh wait, you're using Ubuntu.  Don't know if nVidia's driver is
available in .deb packaging.  I use Fedora and there are RPMs for it.
Guess you'll just have to dig around for it.

You can also try disabling 3D acceleration to see if that helps.  Some
of the 3D driver support caused problems on intel graphics chips for
awhile.  I disable all 3D fluff on my systems since I don't play games
and don't really need it anywhere else.

Sorry I can't be more helpful.  I just don't remember what I did that
cleared the problem.
-- 
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mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
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Re: [Gimp-user] 2 questions: New Image Fill and Saving Guides

2009-05-26 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2009-05-26 at 10:21 -0500, DJ wrote:
> Hi Gimp-user,
> 
> 1. Are Options #1 and Option #2 the same?
> 
>Option #1:
>  File / New
>  Fill With: Transparency
>  Drag the FG color (default - Black) to the layer.
> 
>Option #2:
>  File / New
>  Fill With: Foreground color (default - Black)

Yes, this is the same process.

> 2. Can Guides be saved (like channels and paths)?

Guides are saved when you save the project in XCF format.  They do not
have a dialog like channels and paths, but there are menu options for
dealing with them under the Image->Guides menu.

-- 
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mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction is cheaper and faster than truth.

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Re: [Gimp-user] photo: how 2 create a halo around a person's head?

2009-05-12 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2009-05-12 at 17:53 +0200, Donna B. wrote:
> I'm new to GIMP and graphics in general and am using GIMP 2.6.3 on Windows XP
> - not sure what plugins if any I have, other than Script-Fu. 

It doesn't matter, really, but all the entries in the Filter menu are
plugins.  There are plugins in other menus as well.

> I need to create a "halo" effect around a person's head. 

1. Add a blank layer above the original image.
2. Create an elliptical selection over the persons head, as wide as the
halo should be.
3. Feather this selection (Select->Feather)
4. Fill with the halo color.
5. Add a white layer mask to this layer (Layer->Mask->Add Layer Mask)
6. Paint with black over the persons head to let the face show through
the halo color.  You will be painting in the layer mask, which means the
black color will mask out the halo color, showing the persons head.

That's the basic technique.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel 

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Re: [Gimp-user] Color Schemes

2009-05-02 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sat, 2009-05-02 at 15:31 -0500, DJ wrote:
> Palette Generator
> http://registry.gimp.org/node/15833
> 
> Agave
> http://home.gna.org/colorscheme/

Interesting.  I'd not seen these yet.

> Anyone do anything special to create palettes?

Nothing special.  When I'm looking to choose complimentary (re:
matching) colors I use two web sites:

http://colormixers.com/mixers/cmr/
http://www.easyrgb.com/

I found these while working on some CSS issues, but they would work as
cut/paste into the color choose in GIMP.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great
risk. - Credited to the Dalai Lama.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Snap to Guides by default

2009-04-08 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 10:16 -0400, Jay Smith wrote:
> I posted a similar question a few days ago and got no from the
> group/list.  My question was about the various defaults in the dialog
> "Image, Canvas Size".
> 
> Is there a way to control _all_ these various defaults?  I can't find an
> 'rc' file or anything in Preferences that does this.

It's possible you got no answer because

a) if it is possible, no one knew how to do it
b) it isn't possible.

Either way, no one was able to help.  Such is life on a mailing list.
In my case, I simply don't read every message to the list.

There are quite a few rc files under the .gimp-2.6 user directory.  The
gimprc file suggests the global /etc/gimp/2.0/gimprc has options you can
override.  One of these is snap-distance.  Setting it to 0 might
simulate removing snap to grid though it may not turn it off.  You might
also try -1, which is often used to disable an integer value that can
start at 0.

I've not tried this since I don't need it.  You'll just have to
experiment.

I don't believe there is any configurable data saved for the
Image->Canvas Size dialog, which means you wouldn't be able to set this
in an rc file.  I could be wrong, however.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Hipatitis: Terminal coolness. 

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Re: [Gimp-user] (OT?) Creating image effects

2009-04-07 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 20:38 -0400, Ajay Gautam wrote:
> I have been tasked with coding image effects (filters), such as
> spherize, and zigzag effects.

Do a google search for comp.graphics.algorithms.  That should have some
pointers, though I don't know if they specifically cover spherize or
zigzag.

-- 
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mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
Stupidity:  Quitters never win.  Winners never quit.  But those who never
win and never quit are idiots.

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Re: [Gimp-user] pixels to dpi

2009-04-07 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 00:18 +0930, Michaela Baulderstone wrote:
> I'm 36 with a post grad degree & I can't figure out how to get an image to
> specific size

Image->Scale, unless I misunderstand your need here.  
-- 
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mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
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Re: [Gimp-user] pixels to dpi

2009-04-07 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 15:37 +0100, norman wrote:
> I scan a photograph
> which is, say, 5 inches square and then display that scan on my monitor,
> it will measure 24,000 pixels X 48,000 pixels. To test this on my rather
> cheap Canon LIDE20 I scanned a picture which is 5 inches square saved
> the file, opened the file in GIMP, cropped so that only the picture was
> there and GIMP said it was 729 pixels X 729 pixels.

729/5 = ~145 ppi.  Assuming you're reading the size of the image
correctly in GIMP, it appears your scan wasn't at that much higher
resolution.  Note that scanners convert reflected light (analog signals)
into pixels (digital signals) and can do this by varying the range of
sampling of the light.  Sometimes the higher resolution they advertise
is actually a function of their software and not of their hardware.
Their hardware may not be able to sample at those higher rates.  In that
case, and if you aren't using their software, you probably won't get the
higher ppi resolution.

If you are using their software to scan (I haven't read this whole
thread but in this case it would mean you're using Windows) then try
opening the image in another program and see if it will tell you the
pixel size of the image.  If you get two programs telling you that the
image is 729x729 pixels, then your scanner/scanning software isn't doing
what it says its doing.

> Please explain and, just in case you think I am some youngster trying to
> get his homework done, I was 81 years old last birthday.

I hope I'm still learning new things when I'm 81 (I'm on the high side
of the 40's).  :-)

-- 
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mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
The essence of our practice is to involve others in a world for which even
we do not understand the rules.  --  Michael J. Hammel, on writing

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Re: [Gimp-user] GIMP with two monitors

2009-04-06 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2009-04-06 at 09:07 +0100, Giovanni Guasti wrote:

> I would need to know if it is possible to use GIMP & graphic table &
> multiple (two) monitors.

Yes.  I use this at home.

> When I have this configuration the Gimp tool draws in the wrong
> position (there is an offset between the pointer position and the
> effect on the screen). Is it a bug? I have Gimp 2.6.6 with windows xp 

Oh.  Windows.  Don't know about that.  I use Linux.  However, the
problem you describe (pointer offset) typically occurs when you use the
Configure Extended Input Devices dialog and set the Mode for you tablet
to "Window".  Change this to "Screen" and this shouldn't happen.

-- 
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Re: [Gimp-user] menu items

2009-04-02 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2009-04-02 at 18:28 +0100, norman wrote:
> Is it possible to move menu items from one heading to another, please?
> If it is then could some kind person please explain to a non-techie how
> to do it?

There is no user-accessible method for doing this in 2.6.  You'd have to
hack the code, which (of course) would break compatibility with the
mainline GIMP source.

-- 
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--
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Re: [Gimp-user] Reporting back: The Artist's Guide to GIMP effects

2009-04-02 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2009-04-01 at 21:33 -0700, Patrick Horgan wrote:
> He does a great job of teaching you the basic principles that let you 
> solve problems.  You start thinking about what you want, instead of 
> looking at what Gimp can do.

It's nice to know I accomplished my goal, then.  :-)

> It doesn't cover 2.6, but it hasn't been an issue using it with 2.6.  If 
> you want to be a GIMP master, check it out!

I'm supposed to be working on an update.  It's mostly a matter of
squeezing it into my schedule.  But like you say, I wrote it with the
idea that it doesn't matter what version you're using.  That only comes
into play when you're looking for menu items.  If anyone has problems
mapping the book to the current version just drop me an email and I'll
post some errata on the books web site
(http://www.graphics-muse.org/artistsguide)

Thanks for the kind words.  Glad you liked the book.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
When C++ is your hammer, everything looks like a thumb.
  -- Steven M. Haflich

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Re: [Gimp-user] Text Circle

2009-02-27 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2009-02-26 at 22:32 -0500, firestick wrote:
> > File->Create->Logos->Text Cirle
> > 
> Wow, great!  Can this kind of effect be adjusted after it's been 
> created?  I've never even noticed all those options in File->Create.  I 
> guess 'create' suggests they're meant to be a starting point, so maybe 
> they can't be adjusted afterwards.  Hm?  Are there any other ways to get 
> similar effects with text, perhaps by fitting text to a path or something?

No, it can't be adjusted (not easily).  While GIMP's text features are
improved in 2.6, you're still better off creating text along paths using
Inkscape and then importing the SVG into GIMP. In Inkscape you can
adjust kerning and character position directly on the path in a WYSIWYG
fashion.  It's actually pretty easy to do (and I'm no Inkscape expert -
I hardly ever use it).

I have an article on this subject (integrating GIMP with other desktop
tools) coming out in either April or May in Linux Format (UK magazine,
available in the US sometime after publication in Europe), assuming I
have their publication timetable correct.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Doubt:  In the battle between you and the world, bet on the world.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Text Circle

2009-02-25 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2009-02-26 at 03:18 +, minim...@wi.rr.com wrote:
> Does anyone know where I can get the script for the text-circle in 2.4, that 
> works with 2.6?

File->Create->Logos->Text Cirle

-- 
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--
Force has no place where there is need of skill.  -- Herodotus; Book 3, Ch. 127

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Re: [Gimp-user] Scanning into GIMP

2009-02-23 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2009-02-23 at 11:31 -0600, Rodney Clay wrote:
> I am new to using GIMP. Can I import images into GIMP from a scanner. If so 
> what do I need 
> to do to set up to do this. I have looked in the online manual but did not 
> find an answer to my 
> question. 

On Linux:  install the SANE and XSane packages, including the XSane GIMP
Plugin.  Setting up SANE is a little confusing for newbies, but it just
takes a "Doh!" moment to realize it isn't that hard.

On Windows:  I think you need to configure your scanner with TWAIN,
whatever that is.

On Mac:  I have no idea.

GIMP does not have built in scanner support.  It utilizes whatever
scanner support is available from your operating system.
-- 
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Re: [Gimp-user] Switch to "docked"/integrated IDE (possible) ?

2009-02-19 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2009-02-19 at 18:10 +0100, Ben Stover wrote:
> Yes, I know Gimp consists by default of various independent sub-pane-windows.
> But I could imagine that these independent window look can be reverted back 
> to either
> a fixed-docked (=when one pane is moved then all others are moved as well)
> or even a fully integrated software tool.
> Is this possible (and if yes how?)?

Since you're asking on the user list I'll assume you're not a developer
first:  the answer is no, you can't do that.  You can dock many of the
dialogs together but you can't currently dock the toolbox with the
canvas window(s) with the dock (re: dialog) windows.  This is "as
designed".

As for "fully integrated software tool", I'd say it's already that.
Having multiple windows doesn't prevent you from managing those windows
from the GIMP (or any X or GTK+ based application).  You can try
different settings under Preferences->Window Management to see if that
changes the way the windows work for you.

If you're a developer, you can discuss this feature on the developer
list but it's been discussed heavily in the past.  I don't know if there
are plans to change this functionality.  I'm hoping not.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
I respect only those who both plan and accomplish.  Success is both direction 
  and achievement.  Everything else is an accident.  --  Michael J. Hammel

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Re: [Gimp-user] replacing colors

2009-02-11 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2009-02-11 at 18:33 -0500, firestick wrote:
> Is there a way to make the color I fill those areas in with change in
> relation to the colors it's replacing?  For example, if I select a range
> of greenish colors, is there a way I can replace it with a range of
> blueish colors instead of just one particular blue?

1. Desaturate the selected area.
2. Use the Bucket Fill tool with the blend mode set to Overlay or
similar.
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Re: [Gimp-user] First mail to this list

2009-02-09 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2009-02-09 at 23:53 -0500, Don wrote:
> 
> http://gimpology.com/submission/view/how_to_outline_text/
> 
> At step 3, I got lost, because "Create Path from Text" isn't available
> to me.

There is a button in the Tool Options dialog labeled "Create Path from
Text".  This will be visible as long as the Text tool is the active tool
in the Toolbox.
> 
> Another one here:
> 
> http://www.obscurasite.com/artstuff/tutorials/gimp-text-outline/
> 
> I got lost at the 2nd step, because pressing the right mouse button on
> the image does not give me the so-called "Dialogs -> Layers&Channels"
> menu options.

Layers and Channels were split into separate dialogs, I believe in 2.6,
and the dialogs menu moved as well.  You can now find those by looking
under Windows->Dockable Dialogs, where you'll find separate menu entries
for Channels and Layers.

> Also, the tiny little button the author mentions under Add Some Color
> section does'nt seem to be available to me for my version.

That button is still there but it's more to the left side of the dialog
than in the version shown in the tutorial you reference.  In 2.6 the
"Keep Transparency" button is labeled "Lock:" in the Layers dialog.
Next to this is a button that, when clicked, shows a check mark.  Next
to that is a small square that represents "transparency" (checkered gray
squares).  The small square is just there to tell you that those items
are for "Keeping Transparency" for the currently active layer.

Many people get lost looking for that button.  I find it to be one of
the harder items to identify when writing tutorials.

> One more at:
> 
> http://gimp-tutorials.net/outlinetext
> 
> I got lost at Step 6, because "Alpha to Selection" is grayed out and
> thus I cannot select it.

If it's grayed out then that means the currently active layer does not
have any transparency in it.  Make sure the layer that has transparent
areas is the active layer.

Also, right clicking to get to this menu may cause the menu's context to
be the visible layer at the point of the mouse click.  So if you click
on the canvas window over the white background instead of the red text
you may be attempting to apply the alpha to selection to the background.
Confusing, I know, but it's a nice shortcut when you get familiar with
using GIMP.  

IMHO, tutorials should be written using menu options and specific
dialogs and should not reference the right mouse click for menu trick
because that is an advanced method that can cause a lot of confusion.
There are lots of advanced tricks with menus, like tearing them off for
quick access.  If you use those tricks the tutorial should mention that
the intended audience is already familiar with basic GIMP usage via
menus and dialogs.

> Maybe I am doing something wrong or maybe I am having bad luck in
> picking up tutorials that are targeting at a different version of
> Gimp.

More than likely they're just old tutorials or perhaps just not well
written.  The only real problem with using an old tutorial is finding
where features have moved to or been relabeled in the latest release.
In the end, however, the features are still there that were there all
the way back to version 2.0, plus quite a bit more.  It can take some
time finding your way around, though.

Good luck.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
Without software to do something useful with it, hardware's nothing more 
than a really complicated space heater.
  --- Neil Stephenson

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Re: [Gimp-user] First mail to this list

2009-02-09 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2009-02-09 at 23:00 -0500, Don wrote:
> Tonight, I simply want to create a text and then outline it as a text.
> Then I googled.  But the thing is, I cannot follow any of the
> tutorials I dug out.  Not because I didn't follow closely, but because
> not all of the menu items the tutorials talk about are available to
> me 

There shouldn't be much in the way of menu issues for this task.  If you
need to outline text, try this:

1. Open a new window (File->New, any size should be fine to experiment
on).
2. Choose the Text tool from the Toolbox.
3. Click in the canvas window (also referred to as an image window).
This will open the Text Editor dialog window.
4. Type some text in the Text Editor, then click on the Close button.
The text will be visible in the canvas window and has been added as a
new layer in the Layers dialog.
5. Choose Layer->Transparency->Alpha to Selection.  This will create a
selection around your text.
6. Choose Layer->New to create a new layer (you want to outline the text
in a new layer so it doesn't modify the original text).  The new layer
should be transparent, which should be the default setting in the New
Layer dialog that pops up.
6. Choose Edit->Stroke Selection.  This will open a dialog window where
you can select the way you will stroke (re: outline) the text.  The
first time you can just choose the defaults and click on Stroke.  Later
you can experiment with different settings to change the way the outline
is drawn.
7.  In the Layers dialog turn off the visibility of the text layer.  Do
that by clicking on the eyeball to the left of the layer name and
preview image.  

Now you can see the outlined text.  Things that you'll want to adjust in
your next attempt:  
1. the location of the text before you outline it.  You may want to use
the move tool to place the text properly in the center of the canvas
window.
2. The font, size, color, etc. of the text.  This is handled in the Tool
Options dialog before you click on the canvas but after you've selected
the Text tool from the Toolbox.
3. The style of the stroke in the Stroke Selection dialog.
4. The foreground color from the Toolbox.  The foreground color will be
used for the color of the outline when you stroke the selection.

This may sound like a lot of work but it's really pretty easy once you
try it a few times.  

Hope that helps.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
Without software to do something useful with it, hardware's nothing more 
than a really complicated space heater.
  --- Neil Stephenson

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Re: [Gimp-user] Artist's Guide to GIMP Effects

2009-02-09 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2009-02-09 at 08:14 +1100, Owen wrote:
> If you are into perl, this module
> http://search.cpan.org/~gunnar/CGI-ContactForm-1.44/lib/CGI/ContactForm.pm
> has cut my spam to zero, it doesn't seem to be receptive to robots.

Thanks for the tip Owen.  However, my site is based on WordPress and
utilizes PHP plugins, including the Akismet plugin, for spam protection.
It seems to do a good job of keeping out the evil doers.

> Cheers and keep up the good work

Thanks.  I'll try.  I just put up an updated version of a very old and
simple tutorial for Concrete on the web site.  I wanted to see how much
work it will be to migrate those old tutorials.  It's a bit of work but
not impossible.  It just may take me awhile.

http://www.graphics-muse.org/artistsguide/?page_id=15

The video tutorials may take even longer.  I haven't figured out how to
get good audio recorded on my laptop.  Might be the cheap microphone I
use.  I don't think the videos are worth it without some audio to
accompany them.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
Without software to do something useful with it, hardware's nothing more 
than a really complicated space heater.
  --- Neil Stephenson

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Re: [Gimp-user] Artist's Guide to GIMP Effects

2009-02-07 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 16:03 -0800, Patrick Horgan wrote:
> Gracia M. Littauer wrote:
> > anyone used this book ...good? great?  so so? 
> I'm working my way through it...it's not new, i.e. it talks about the 
> upcoming 2.4 release, but it seems quite good.  Rather than using the 
> existing Python-Fu scripts to do things, the author tells you about 
> them, but teaches you how to do the stuff yourself

Yeah, it's definitely not new.  Just didn't get a lot of publicity, I
guess.  It took about 2 years to do and it was about 2 years (maybe
longer?) between 2.2 and 2.4.  Since it had historically been long
periods between major releases I thought I'd be safe to write it for 2.2
(thinking 2.4 wouldn't supplant 2.2 for quite some time even if it did
come out soon after the book, which it did).  Fortunately, 2.4 didn't
changes things that would make the book obsolete.  So it's still
applicable to 2.4.

2.6 changed the UI a bit and that may confuse people using the book.
However, the goal when I wrote it was to use core utilities for
tutorials (and not write another User's Guide) and not rely on filters
that might change or Script-Fu/Python-Fu add ons.  The purpose was to
show you how to use the core GIMP.  Everything beyond that is just
icing.

The web site is slowly getting updates.  I plan on updating some very
old tutorials (I just got the release to do so from Linux Format, where
I write a monthly column on GIMP) for 2.6.  It will be a slow process,
but that's the plan.

A version of the book for 2.8 is planned if I can ever get the time to
start updating all the tutorials.  If there was enough interest they
might do it on glossy paper next time, which would make the tutorial
images much cleaner (but higher cost to produce).

Feel free to write me about the types of tutorials you're looking for.
I can consider them for the next edition of the book, write them in my
Linux Format column or post them on my web site(s).

http://www.graphics-muse.org/artistsguide/

Comments on the web site(s) are open now (they were closed for a long
time, but I now trust my spam software to keep out the riff-raff).  Feel
free to leave comments there too.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
You're life can be a wonderous journey, if you don't spend all your time
trying to drag someone else through it with you.  -  Michael J. Hammel

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Re: [Gimp-user] gimp and ubuntu compatible tablet

2009-01-31 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sat, 2009-01-31 at 13:14 +0100, Alessia wrote:
> I need, obviously a GIMP compliant tablet
> I use a Linux based OS ( Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex)
> Another problem is that I'm searching for a tablet not expansive.

The trick is that last part - not expensive.  Wacom's are pricey but
well supported under Linux.  What we need are tablets that can use the
Wacom drivers but are not Wacom's - clones, in other words.

A few years back I tried an Aiptek HyperPen 12000U (not a Wacom clone).
A set of Linux drivers (kernel and X.org) were in development back then.
I never got the thing working completely.  You can follow my experiences
back on my web site:
http://www.graphics-muse.org/wp/index.php?s=aiptek&submit=Search+the
+Blog

I recently pulled that tablet out of its box (it's practically new) and
tried again.  This time no driver setup was required to get the wireless
mouse working over the pad.  It just worked.  I'm using Fedora 10.

Unfortunately, the pen did nothing.  I'm not sure if it's the pen or not
- maybe the pen died for some reason (I replaced the AA battery but the
replacement may have been dead too, didn't have a new batter handy at
the time).  Do pens on tablets die alot?  Anyway, I couldn't verify the
pen worked under Linux or GIMP.  You're mileage may vary.  

At least the drivers are included in stock kernels and xorg
distributions now.

The HyperPen 12000U is still available from Aiptek:
http://www.aiptek.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=R-HP12U&Category_Code=T1&Store_Code=AS

-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--

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Re: [Gimp-user] Bubble effect

2009-01-30 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 11:29 -0600, Dave 77459 wrote:
>  Thanks for the pointer.  Do you have a recommendation for settings?
> GIMPressionist seems to overlap brushes, rather than varying the size
> to fit available spaces without overlap.

No, I actually haven't used this filter in quit some time.  A number of
years back, before it was integrated into the GIMP, I used it to produce
this picture:

http://www.graphics-muse.org/wp/wp-content/gallery/fun/monroe-1.jpg

Not great, but it shows you can do something similar to the original
image you pointed at.  Unfortunately, I have no memory of the settings I
used to get this.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Everything should be made as simple as possible.  
But not simpler.  --  Albert Einstein.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Bubble effect

2009-01-30 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 08:52 -0600, Dave 77459 wrote:
>  A friend of mine created the attached photo.  She used the "Bubbles"
> filter on some very old MS software that came installed with Windows
> 2000.  Is there a gimp filter that can mimic this effect?
> 
> In case the attachment fails, her photo is here:
> 
> http://flickr.com/photos/22414...@n07/3214860244

Try GIMPressionist.  It does similar things and should be available in
the stock GIMP 2.6 distribution.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values. 
  --  Credited to the Dalai Lama.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Forking with exit main()

2009-01-24 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2009-01-23 at 21:03 -0800, Kate Yoak wrote:
> OK, so I have all the software I wanted. Gimp is awesome!
> 
> This is what I will be doing to use Gimp in modperl:

I may have missed earlier discussion on this, but are you using GIMP
2.6.x?  If so, were did you get Gimp-Perl for it?  I've tried the one
from the download site for 2.2 but it doesn't compile.  Or is this the
net-fu package?
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative
on the same night. -- Unknown.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Attach Gimp file in to Blender

2009-01-24 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sat, 2009-01-24 at 17:27 +0100, OnyX wrote:
> In severel Blender tuts, I need to go in to Gimp and made things and then
> export it in to Blender. < 
> http://www.linuxgraphic.org/section3d/blender/pages/didacticiels/paysages/index-ang.html

Nice.  I wish I spoke German (that's the language there, right?).  Looks
like a pretty nice site.

> I have try to covert to blend file, gif, jpeg, but i got messages "wrong
> "filendelse.

Not sure that that translates too, but you should only have to use
"File->Save as" and then type the name and file extension, such as
"MyFile.jpg".  GIMP will save the image in the format specified by the
filename extension.  There shouldn't be any converting required, unless
you need an indexed image (re: GIF), in which case you do
"Image->Mode->Indexed" before you save the file.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
mjham...@graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
I don't like tests.  The measure of a man's value is in his own heart.
--  Michael J. Hammel

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Re: [Gimp-user] One tomato from five

2009-01-16 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sat, 2009-01-17 at 09:59 +1100, Owen wrote:
> Use the lasso tool and make a rough selection
> quickmask it
> adjust the selection more precisely
> un quickmask it

You might want to feather the selection at this point, to give a soft
edge to your cutout.

> cut it out
> past as a new image on a tranparent layer
> insert a white layer underneath
> 
> Then experiment with various tomato selection, selection shrinks etc,
> and then blur to make the edges soft

A blur might work.  A feathered selection is likely to give a better
result over an arbitrary background.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
A sphere is a mathematical humanity.  Walk the surface and you will find that 
everywhere it is the same and everywhere it is different. -- Michael J. Hammel

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Re: [Gimp-user] Adding text to many files.

2009-01-08 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2009-01-08 at 15:26 -0800, Bernard Rankin wrote:
> I'm sure this must be a common question, but I could not find any docs on 
> this.  Perhapse my google skills needs improvment.

It's common to need a feature like this but the solutions vary depending
on the environment in which the image will be used.  To my knowledge
there are no off-the-shelf GIMP plugins/filters that provide the
functionality you're requesting. That doesn't mean one doesn't exist.
I've just not heard of any.

> Basically, I've got a bunch of pictures from a party/event that I want to do 
> several things to:
> 
> 1)  Resize to 4x6 @ 300 PPI 
> 2)  Add a sllightly transucent ~ 1" white bar on top of the image (accross 
> the bottom).
> 3)  Over the white bar, on the left, place a small 1"x1" logo.
> 4)  Over the white bar, centered on the remainder, put the names of the 
> people in the photo. (Reducing text size if needed to fit on one line.)
> 5)  Over the white bar, centered on the remainder, put the name of the event 
> on the next line.
> 6)  Add a black border to entire image.
> 7)  Export as JPEG.
> 
> There is a CSV file that contains the "names of the people in each photo" to 
> file name mapping.  (One line per image file.)
> 
> Can this be automated with the GIMP?

Yes, if you're familiar with one of the programming languages supported
for GIMP Plugins (C, Python, Script-Fu by default - there may be
others).  You'll need to become familiar with the plugin API.  In 2.6,
look under the Help menu for "Procedure Browser".  The way you use these
is dependent on the language you choose.

If you intend to use these images on the web you might be better off
using dynamic support for this feature, such as what you see with
NextGen Gallery, a plugin for Wordpress (blogging software for the web).
On the web you can use code to overlay text onto graphics without
actually modifying the image itself.  In this way you can edit the text
displayed without having update the image.  For an example of how this
works you can view my Dept 56 Galleries:
http://www.graphics-muse.org/wp/?page_id=119 (view these with the
PicLens option to see the overlaid text in the upper right corner of
each image).

Another option is to use an image management tool like f-Spot or
similar.  Many of these offer builtin options to do exactly what you're
asking, though they may not be as flexible in how they composite the
text onto the image as you require.

However, if you really do need to update the image itself and you want
to program it yourself, you might find it easier to automate this with
ImageMagick.  The advantage to this option is that it's more scripted
from the shell and doesn't require running a UI interface.  GIMP can (I
believe - I never use it this way) be run without the UI but I'm not
sure it's particularly easier to script in this way.  

That said, you'll get excellent results using the GIMP's plugin API.
You'll end up writing a file browser of some kind to select files,
specify the input CSV file and then have the plugin open, edit and save
the files all without actually displaying them (to save time).  

Hope that helps a little.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
mjham...@graphics-muse.org   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Idiocy:  Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large crowds.

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Re: [Gimp-user] alpha from image

2008-11-24 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2008-11-24 at 16:07 +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I have an RGB image and a grayscale image of the same size.  I'd like
> to use the grayscale image as the alpha channel of the RGB image.  How
> can I do that?

Open RGB image.
Add an alpha channel (Layers->Transparency->Add Alpha Channel)
Add a layer mask (Layers->Mask->Add Layer Mask)
Open grayscale image - copy into layer mask you just created (Edit->Copy
in grayscale image, Edit Paste with Layer Mask active in the RGB image)
Optionally, apply the layer mask (Layer->Mask->Apply Layer Mask).

-- 
Michael J. Hammel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

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Re: [Gimp-user] Text-in-stitches on GIMP

2008-10-19 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sun, 2008-10-19 at 17:17 +, Peter Saffrey wrote:
> I'd like to duplicate the effect described in this Photoshop tutorial:
> 
> http://pshero.com/archives/text-in-stitches

> I've got as far as adding some text and turning this into a path using
> Layer->Text to path. I can then do "stroke path" with a brush of my choice.
> However, I can't work out how to adjust some of the more complex options, such
> as the direction of brushing and the distance between brush strokes, as
> described in steps 8 and 9 of the tutorial. How do I do this in the GIMP?

You'll want to create a GIMP Brush Pipe for this.  In the brush dialog,
open the Pencil Sketch brush as an image (right click on the brush icon
in the dialog to get a menu for that).  Delete all but two layers.  Make
one layer a left to right slant and the other a right to left slant
(this effectively removes the brush shape from the original brush).
Save the image as a brush pipe to your .gimp/brushes directory using
".gih" as the suffix for the filename.  A dialog will open that allows
you to configure the brush characteristics. Set the spacing to 50
percent (or whatever you feel appropriate), the number of cells to 2 and
the first entry for Ranks to 2 and Angular.  Put "Stitch" in the
Description so you can find this brush later. Save the changes and then
reload your brushes dialog.  Look for the new "Stich" entry.  Stroke
your path using this brush.

You'll have to play with the size of the brush.  You may need to make
multiple versions at different sizes to get the right effect.

I'm not positive this will be exactly what you want, but it's the
correct basic process for creating a brush that you need to perform this
effect.

Good luck.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
[EMAIL PROTECTED] / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--
Revenge is an integral part of forgiving and forgetting.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Make transparent layer invisible‏

2008-10-02 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 21:23 -0400, Adonj Adonj wrote:
> I use the GAP player when I need to.
> Saving to PNG will have layers merged or flattened. That doesn't work for 
> animations.

Yeah, you have to save as MNG instead, I'm pretty sure.  But MNG
probably isn't supported in web browsers all that well.  I assume you're
trying to do this for the web or you wouldn't even consider GIF
animations.

> Saving as GIF is my final result.
> To demonstrate the problem I'm having:
> In my animation I have two identical frames of an object surrounded by a 
> transparent background which is represented by small gray squares. If I move 
> the object slightly in one frame, then play the animation, and detach the 
> image, then drag the image which is now stepping from one frame to the other 
> to the desktop screen, the area around the object which has had the object 
> displaced, shows some of the gray squares each time the image steps to this 
> displaced image frame.

Yeah.  As far as I know, that's how it works.
-- 
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[EMAIL PROTECTED] / http://www.graphics-muse.org
--

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Re: [Gimp-user] Make transparent layer invisible

2008-10-02 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 16:16 -0400, Adonj Adonj wrote:
> If I export it to png it wouldn't be an animation! I'm sorry 
> I obviously overlooked mentioning my intention.

You can preview the transparency by using the GAP player
(Filters->Animation->Playback).  When the player dialog opens, right
click on the canvas area and choose "Detach".  Then drag the canvas area
over your desktop.  The animation will playback over your desktop with
transparency rendered.  It may not be a perfect render, but it should
work.

Saving to PNG preserves full transparency but I don't think PNGs support
animation (use MNG instead, I believe).  I could be wrong about that as
I don't do much with animations.

Saving as GIF will reduce the palette to 256 colors and reduce
multiple-levels of transparency (re: 0%-100%) to a single state of
transparency (pixels are either fully transparent or they are not).  

Animated GIFs play fine in web browsers.  PNGs (non-animated) with
transparency work well in modern browsers but suck in older versions of
MSIE.  That's the browsers fault, not PNGs fault.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.
--Buddha

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Re: [Gimp-user] Make transparent layer invisible

2008-10-02 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 15:29 -0400, Adonj Adonj wrote:   
> Can the transparent layer which is represented by the gray squares be made 
> invisible?

No.  The checkboard pattern is configurable (see Preferences/Display)
but the pattern or color you choose is not actually a layer.  It's just
a way of showing where in the image some level of transparency exists
through the existing layers.  You can't see, for example, your desktop
through that transparent area, however.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

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Re: [Gimp-user] gimp will strip the exif information in tiff file?

2008-09-25 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2008-09-26 at 02:14 +0800, Tsai, Dung-Bang (蔡東邦) wrote:
> As far as I know, baseline jpeg is alway lossy; only JPEG-LS supports
> lossless image saving. So, does it mean that if I save file at 100% quality,
> gimp will use JPEG-LS?

Don't know - you'd have to look at the source to figure that out or ask
on gimp-developer.

> Also, I will also check that if your ideal will work or not. I'm worried about
> that gimp can not even read the exif in the tiff file such that your approach
> will not work at all.

I wasn't that impressed with the TIFF file plugin though I use it to
save lossless screenshots for articles.  If you are worried it doesn't
read the exif data you can try converting to JPEG first using
ImageMagick and then loading it that way.  I believe the JPEG plugin
supports the EXIF data.  Again, since I don't use EXIF much I'm not
positive of any of this.  You simply have to try it and find out.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
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Re: [Gimp-user] gimp will strip the exif information in tiff file?

2008-09-25 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2008-09-26 at 01:36 +0800, Tsai, Dung-Bang (蔡東邦) wrote:
> I'm using gimp to deal with my photos which are made of  DSLR.
> These ttif files have embedded exif information, and every time I save
> these files; it seems that the exif information will be stripped.
> I have done some tests on jpeg files; gimp will not strip the exif 
> information.
> How can I correctly deal with the exif in tiff by using gimp?

I can't say if the TIFF file plugin supports this or not but there are
some options on how to deal with the situation if it doesn't.  First,
load the TIFF images and then save them in JPEG at 100% quality.
Technically that should be equivalent to TIFF since no compression is
performed but I can't guarantee that.

To convert back to TIFF you can use ImageMagick's convert tool.
According to this discussion:
http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11600
convert will retain EXIF data.  This is true as long as you're simply
converting formats and not resizing (such as creating thumbnails).
Converting file formats is as simple as

convert file.jpg file.tif

> By the way, if I save these tiff images as another files, will gimp
> also strip the icc profile?
> (ps, will gimp strip the icc profile in jpeg?)

I looked at using ICC profiles last month in an article I did for Linux
Format magazine but I don't think I checked if the profiles were
retained when saved.  I think I assumed (bad idea) that they were.
You'll simply have to try it and see.  GIMP does support retaining ICC
profiles when you open files that contain them.  You're typically
queried when you open the file if you want to keep it over convert it to
GIMP's built in profile.

> When will the gimp support the 16bit per channel color depth?

When it's ready.  :-)  

Actually, integration of the GEGL libraries is underway and a first
release with GEGL support is due in the next release (due out "soon" but
one can never assume when soon might arrive).  I don't know if 16 bit
channels are to be included in the next release (though I don't believe
they are), but one of the purposes of integrating GEGL was to allow for
higher color depths.  So it should be in either the next release or one
of the releases soon after that.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
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Re: [Gimp-user] Empty skull, vacated because I can't crop an image and its driving me to drink.

2008-09-05 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 10:16 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> Darnit, I want to see the crosshatch indicating no data at all exists in that 
> area once I have selected it and cut it away.  If I can do it in the darkroom 
> on an enlarging easel & a pair of scissors (and I can and have many times in 
> the last 60 years), why can't I do it in gimp?

Cuz you're not doing it right, apparently.  

To learn how to do this, try these steps (using GIMP 2.4 on Linux):
1. Choose the crop tool from the Toolbox - be sure it's the crop tool
and not a selection tool.  The crop tool is the one that looks like an
exacto knife.
2. Drag your outline around the area you want to keep in the canvas.
The outline is a solid line with drag boxes at each corner and along
each edge (you can ignore the drag boxes for this tutorial).  The
selected area should look normal.  The unselected area is darkened.
3. Hit the ENTER key to apply the crop.  The mouse (of course) musts be
in the canvas for the ENTER key to apply to the crop operation.

As an added step to verify the cut:
4. In the Layers dialog drag the layer into the Toolbox.

You end up with a new image that is the cropped area of the original.
Note that the original is also cropped.  

You're problems are probably that you're not using the crop tool
correctly or not using the crop tool at all (using a selection or
similar instead and cutting out the stuff you don't want in a layer that
does not have an alpha channel).
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
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powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is
deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Importing and saving milti-page TIFF files

2008-08-26 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2008-08-26 at 00:52 -0300, Joao S. O. Bueno wrote:
> There is nosuch thing as "multi-layered PNG's"
> If GIMP can't save multi-page tiffs (and it might not, I don't 
> rememebr now) , kindly ask for this functionality on this very list 
> and we shall see what could be done.  :-)

That should have been mng, not png.  I didn't check my notes before
replying to the original poster.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
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--
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Re: [Gimp-user] Importing and saving milti-page TIFF files

2008-08-25 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2008-08-25 at 08:53 -0700, John Christopher wrote:
> I have about 1,000 multi-page TIFF files I must edit.
> I only want to edit the first page of each file (I must
> delete some text from the first page of each document)
> and then save it.

I might be wrong about this but I believe GIMP will read multi-page
TIFFs but cannot write multi-page TIFFs.

> What is the best way to solve this problem?

When you open the TIFF, select open to layers.  The first page will be
the bottom layer.  Turn off visibility of all the other layers and make
sure the bottom layer is active in the Layers dialog.  Then you can edit
that page.

When you save, save it as a multi-layered PNG.  Then use ImageMagick's
"convert" tool to convert it to a multi-layered TIFF:

convert file.png file.tiff

That should do it (I think), though I can't vouch for the quality of the
conversion.  
-- 
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Re: [Gimp-user] embedded color message

2008-08-20 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2008-08-20 at 11:10 -0400, Helen wrote:

> "The image dsc_0043.jpg has an embedded color profile.
> sRGB.
> convert the image to the RGB working space?"

> What does this mean?  What did I do to cause it?
> Is it something important that I need to deal with?

You didn't cause it.  The tool used to create the image caused it, such
as a camera or scanner.

The message means that the image file has some information in it that
describes the device that it came from.  By converting it to GIMPs
working color space you can accurately see what the image colors look
like as it was recorded by that device.  This assumes you have a monitor
profile correctly set for your monitor, however.

In general, if you don't know about color profiles you can just say
"yes" to convert it and then forget about it.   Profiles are only
relevant to those who are keenly interested in exact color reproduction
between an input device (camera, scanner, etc.) and an output device
(monitor, printer, etc.).  The average person at home probably won't
notice much or probably care that much if the colors are a little off.

If you want to learn more about color profiles you can start with the
Color Management section of the Preferences dialog.  Profiles are a way
of making sure the color reproduction is accurate from the device that
acquires the image to the tool that edits the image to the device that
outputs the image. The accuracy suffers without color profiles because
color is a function of heat (I'm simplifying greatly here) and you have
to understand the devices that input or output the image to make sure
they are doing it the same way.

I'm actually writing an article about this topic (and printing in
general with Linux and GIMP) for Linux Format magazine at the moment for
issue 112 (not sure when that comes out).  Linux Format is a UK magazine
and the US gets copies a couple months after they print in the UK.

Hope that helps.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software
Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://graphics-muse.org
--
Bumper Sticker: Jesus loves you... but everyone else thinks you are an
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Re: [Gimp-user] rotate

2008-08-05 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2008-08-06 at 01:53 +0200, Zoltan Tibenszky wrote:
> I have to put some text on a picture. Some text have to be vertical. I 
> have created the text with the text tool, and I have rotated it to make 
> it vertical. The problem was that the sides of the text become 
> transparent and just the middle of the text has reserved its original 
> colour.
> How could I avoid this "transparent" issue?
> Is there any simpler way to create a non-horizontal text?

Sounds like your rotated text is now taller than the canvas.  If so, try
Image->Fit Canvas to Layers and then add a new layer the same color as
the background and move the new layer to the bottom of the layer stack.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   Ximba End User Software
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.ximba.org
LFS UserID: 16857
--
Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.  
  --  Credited to the Dalai Lama.

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Re: [Gimp-user] subtract selection control

2008-07-08 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2008-07-08 at 09:56 -0600, ChadDavis wrote:
> I've got a rectangle selection.  Now, I am trying to do a subtractive
> selection within that rectangular selection, to make a sort of picture
> frame selection.  The problem is that I'm having trouble getting the
> inner, substractive selection centered within the first rectangle.  

Very common procedure (making a frame).  I use this method to make an
antialiased line around things:

1. Create a rectangular selection.
2. Fill with color
3. Shrink selection by X pixels (where x is the width of the border you
want)
4. Cut selection (or fill with background color, etc.).

Alternatively, use the Tool Options dialog for the selection tool and
set the Size and Position fields manually for the second selection.  The
first method works for small width borders but because shrink will
slowly round the corners it doesn't work well for larger width borders.
The second method works perfectly for all width borders.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going into the
garage makes you a car.  -  Attribution unknown

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Re: [Gimp-user] line guides

2008-05-18 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sun, 2008-05-18 at 22:11 -0400, Helen wrote:
> In Gimp, when I pull the guides down in order to constrain
> a circle, how do I then get the guides to go back.  Or
> to move them?  The move tool moves the entire layer,
> not the guides.

Make sure you click right on the guides when you try to drag them.  The
guide should change color (to a reddish tint) when your mouse is over
them and you can click to drag it.

To work with guides in a number of ways, try the menu Image->Guides.
This has a number of different things you can do with them, like remove
them all.

If you drag a guide back into the rulers the guide is removed from the
image window.  

-- 
Michael J. Hammel   Ximba End User Software
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.ximba.org
LFS UserID: 16857
--
Vision is the ability to see potential in the work of others.
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Re: [Gimp-user] Brush

2008-05-05 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2008-05-05 at 17:47 -0300, Lap1994 wrote:
> How can I change the brush shape? I mean, with a image and not with  
> paremeters
> Like, I load a BMP and its become a brush.

File->Save As
Specify a file name suffix of gbr (for static brush) or gih (for
animated brush).
Save to a directory specified in your brush directories
(File->Preferences->Folders->Brushes).
In the Brushes dialog, click on the Refresh button to update the list of
brushes to include your new brush.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values. 
  --  Credited to the Dalai Lama.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Drawing simple shapes.

2008-04-30 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 09:55 -0400, Jason Cipriani wrote:
> Would you recommend using Krita for image creation? Despite the fact
> that "image authoring" is a point listed in the very first sentence on
> gimp.org's main page, and that "painting" *is* the first bullet point
> category on the GIMP info page, from what you say and what I see GIMP
> does not actually seem to be the right tool for  "producing icons,
> graphical elements of web pages and art for user interface elements"

I'd have to disagree with this, and my most recent book on the GIMP goes
to some effort to show you why.  There are multiple chapters on
graphical elements for web pages and designing user interface elements.
I didn't cover icons because I'm not particularly good at icons and
don't create them very often.  But I've seen some extremely good icons
developed with the GIMP.

Just because there isn't a "one button click box" feature doesn't mean
GIMP can't, or shouldn't, be used for this kind of work.  In fact
because it provides lower level access to processes like creating
primitive shapes (specifically paths), it's ideally suited for this type
of work.  
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
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realize it was your money to start with. 

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Re: [Gimp-user] Drawing simple shapes.

2008-04-29 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2008-04-29 at 17:11 -0400, Jason Cipriani wrote:
> An alternative approach to having a new tool is to just add something
> to the menu like "draw border around selection", which just automates
> the current select + fill + shrink + (cut or fill) process. 

Adding a menu item is just a matter of scripting the function in one of
the supported languages or writing a C plugin.

> That would
> also get the job done. Adding a button to the tool palette 

This turns out to be harder than it sounds.  See below.

> to show
> whatever dialog is associated with this, and a keystroke to repeat the
> last settings, would cover just about everything and wouldn't require
> any major UI changes -- it just uses the existing selection
> functionality and automates a really common task.

My problem with this is that while drawing borders may be a very common
task for you, there are many users for which it is never (or nearly
never) used. So adding a button for this task to the Toolbox falls into
my definition of feature creep.  At what point do you decide a button
for one person should *not* be added because someone else doesn't use
it.  If you don't make such decisions, you end up with far more UI
components than the average person actually needs.  I believe MS Word
was the major culprit of this effect at one time though it's been years
since I've used Word so maybe they've fixed that.  

Looking at Evolution's editor as I type this I can spot 11 icons (out of
14) in the toolbar that I never use.  Never.  Still, I use their
functionality by utilizing keyboard accelerators and menus.  So should
there be icons?  Not for me - they're meaningless.  It's pretty much
wasted space.  Does that make them useless?  Not to everyone.

Anyway, in UI design there is a fine line between usefulness and
meaningfulness.  GIMP originally provided a plugin API (and later
scripting APIs) so that users could easily automate their own set of
"common tasks".  The next step is finding a way to integrate these user
defined tasks in to the UI (other than as menu items, and specically in
the toolbox or some dialog similar to it) so that the end user defines
the meaningfulness of the components on display.  

There was a plugin at one time that attempted to do just this, but I
don't think it was maintained for the 2.4 release.  At least I haven't
heard of it recently.  I haven't heard if 2.6 is scheduled to allow
plugins to insert themselves into the toolbox.  It would certainly be a
nice feature to consider.  But such a feature would undoubtedly require
preferences configurations for setting which plugins/filters/etc end up
in the toolbox based on user choice, along with changes to the
plugin/scripting APIs to designate icons for use in the Toolbox.  Lots
of things have to be considered to get this done right.

So, your request sounds simple enough but turns out to be really hard to
do in a way that is both meaningful and useful to all users.  Part of
the reason is technical (how do you implement the general case of adding
a new button to the Toolbox for anyone who needs a really simple "new"
tool?) and part is political (why do you get your common tool but
photographers don't get a "redeye removal" tool? Which leads back to the
technical problem of implementing a general case solution.)

In summary:  implementing "a" solution is much easier than implementing
the "right" solution.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--------------
You're life can be a wonderous journey, if you don't spend all your time
trying to drag someone else through it with you.  -  Michael J. Hammel

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Re: [Gimp-user] Enhanced Lighting

2008-04-29 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2008-04-29 at 16:41 -0300, Rich wrote:
> A friend was telling me about a method he uses with "Enhance / Adj 
> Lighting" for Shadows and Highlights in Photoshop.
> I see the different values under Color Balance, but is there another 
> tool or method  that would only adjust lighting in Gimp?

Based on your description, I believe you'll be happiest working with
Color Balance for this problem.  However, "adjusting lighting" can mean
a lot of things when working in a raster image editor like GIMP.  Once
you've become comfortable with Color Balance, you can try using Curves,
Levels and the host of other dialogs available from the Colors menu
applied to a selection of pixels from your image in order to adjust what
visually appear to be lighting elements in the canvas.  Alternatively,
you can apply lighting effects by using layers and adding black or white
filled selections that are blended (using Layer Modes) to lighten or
darken regions of a canvas.  There are also some filters under
Filters->Light and Shadow that can be used to change the apparent
lighting in the image.  Drop Shadow and Lighting Effects are probably
the two most widely used here.

All that said, the closest thing to something that specifically "adjusts
lighting" in GIMP are the features you'll find in the Color Balance
dialog.
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Re: [Gimp-user] Drawing simple shapes.

2008-04-29 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2008-04-29 at 14:24 -0400, Jason Cipriani wrote:
> AFAICT there's no vector-graphics layers so both choices end up with
> rasterized shapes).

Paths are vector oriented objects in the GIMP.  They aren't associated
with specific layers so the path is not included directly in compositing
(currently).  There isn't any reason why vector effects (fills, strokes,
etc.) couldn't be applied to the path as some kind of metadata and then
associate a path with a specific layer as part of the compositing
process.

I would think (based on my limited knowledge of the subject) that GEGL
would make this easier in 2.6.

> 1) It interacts with everything the same way the paint brush and
> pencil do. Draw squares, circles, etc., directly on to current layer.
> UI controls are similar to other paint programs... dragging boxes,
> etc.

In the current release you could implement a tool that simply drops one
of a set of default shapes into the canvas.  The shapes would be based
on paths.  Essentially this tool is nothing more than a convenience item
for creating a path manually.

This could probably be implemented as a plugin as well, though if you
did that I don't think (but am not sure with 2.4) that you can place
that as an icon in the Toolbox.

FWIW, my GFXShapes plugin will do vector shapes without paths, but you
can save the shapes as presets (re: files).  Presets are not saved as
part of the image file, however.  GFXShapes was written for 2.2 because
I really disliked the interface to GFig at the time.  I think a plugin
or integrated tool based on paths is a better solution now, however.
-- 
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[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
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 -- Anyone but Bush in 2004 --

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Re: [Gimp-user] things Gimp do no have... but will have soon!

2008-04-23 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 21:14 -0500, Roberto Manzano wrote:

> what about layer effects, like in Photoshop?. That is the only feature
> which i missed. No much... 

Don't hold me to this, but I believe I heard mention that layer effects
will be possible to implement once GEGL is fully integrated into GIMP,
which is happening now.  I'm not sure if implementing layer effects is
actually planned or not, however.  

-- 
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Re: [Gimp-user] Things GIMP do not have, or I do not know if have

2008-04-23 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 19:49 -0600, Ben Walker wrote:
> You consider a proper text tool in the core feature-creep?  

In a raster image editor, yes.

> 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.  

I can't speak for the developers, but I'm fairly certain the "major
players" have never been the compelling reason to implement anything in
the GIMP.  If open source simply followed the major players, Firefox
would have to be embedded in the Linux kernel.

> Do you VERY rarely use 
> text in GIMP?

Not that much, no.  Certainly not for anything that requires extensive
formatting on a single line.  If I really need to do fancy, extended
text with large amounts of character formatting on multiple lines of
text, I use a more appropriate tool (OpenOffice, Inkscape or Scribus
come to mind).  I prefer to rasterize the text and let the GIMP format
the text in the way raster editors do best - pixel by pixel.  See the
section on Type Effects in my book.

In my (extremely humble) opinion, just because you can hammer a nail
with a pair of pliers doesn't make it the best tool for the job.

> 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.  

Depends on the API.  There is nothing preventing it from from being
tightly integrated with the core even as a plugin except the structure
of the API.  As an example, you can tightly integrate Java plugins into
core Java applications using JPF (not that I like Java all the much, I
just happen to forced into using it at work at the moment).

That said, the current GIMP API does have limitations that would
probably prevent such a plugin.  I'm not clear on how this might change
with GEGL.  I'm kind of out of the loop on GEGL capabilities right now
(just not enough time to keep up with everything).

> Should the user really have to open a plugin window just 
> to add a word?  

You already open a dialog to add text.  But adding text without the
dialog would be nice too.  I'm just not in favor of implementing a full
scale text editor with extensive character and paragraph formatting
support in the core of a raster image editor.  There are more
appropriate tools for that.  

A better solution would probably be a common interface for tools like
Inkscape, Scribus and GIMP to share data, probably vector data in XML
format.  Then you can use Inkscape or Scribus to do your text editing
and import it into GIMP using this TBD common interface.

Keep in mind, these are just random thoughts.  I'm not a developer of
the GIMP.  Just a fan.

> Modularity is great, but text ranks on the order of a 
> paintbrush tool in importance IMHO.

Fair enough.  I just have a different HO.  :-)  
-- 
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Re: [Gimp-user] Things GIMP do not have, or I do not know if have

2008-04-23 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 09:47 -0300, Lap1994 wrote:
> A ellipse tool to draw ellipse, as a rectangle tool to draw rectangle, and  
> a polygon tool to draw ah, you know.

You do this by stroking selections.  The Rectangular and Elliptical
selections will cover the first two, and the Paths tool (converted to a
selection) will cover the latter.

On the other hand, I once wrote a plugin (GFXShapes) for creating a
number of basic shapes.  It was part of a set of plugins I called the
Graphics Muse tools.  It's written for GIMP 2.2 but it works (as far as
I can tell) under GIMP 2.4.  You can grab a copy of the source code from
my web site: http://www.ximba.org/sw/gfxmuse/GFXMuseTools-3.0.0B2.tar.gz
The web site with docs is: http://www.ximba.org/gfxmuse/gfxmuse.html

Not to mention GFig, which draws lots of shapes for you:
Filters->Render->GFig.

> A method to draw text using a system like boards systems to change text  
> properties, font, style, size stuff. Like using bold here!

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.

> A way to draw curves.

Use the Paths tool.  Click once to drop an endpoint to the curve.  Click
again to drop the second.  In the Tool Options, switch to Edit mode and
then click on each end point and drag out to get an anchor point to
adjust the shape of the curve.  Then use Stoke Path in the Tool Options.

> A way to deny modifications in a layer, and a way to change this property

That would be nice.  GIMP currently does not suppor this in 2.4.

> A method to organize layers.

A plugin could do that pretty easily.  Define "organize".  Remember that
you can drag layers up and down the stack in the Layers dialog.  You can
align layers using the Alignment Tool from the toolbox.  GFXLayers in my
Graphics Muse Tools also does this though I think the Alignment tool is
probably a simpler to use interface.

> A method to assign a same mask to various layer modifying one mask

Not sure what you mean here, but you can copy and paste masks.  You
can't link a single mask to multiple layers, however.  Linking masks to
multiple layers might be a nice feature.

> A gradient color with more colors. Like Flash where you can set more than  
> two colors in a gradient.

You can set as many colors as you want in gradients.  Use the gradient
editor ("New gradient" button the Gradients dialog).

> I key shortcut to stop drawing layer outline

You can dynamically set keyboard shortcuts for any menu item that does
not already have one: File->Keyboard Shortcuts (from the Toolbox menus).
Find your item, click on it and then type the keyboard shortcut.  For
example, change View->Show Layer Boundary to use Ctrl-? (re:
Ctrl-Shift-/) you just find View->Show Layer Boundary in the Configure
Keyboard Shortcuts dialog, click on it and then type Ctrl-Shift-/.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
  The time it will take before the breadth of human knowledge is available on
   the Internet is precisely inverse to the amount of time it took to remove
   it from cable television.  --  Michael J. Hammel

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Re: [Gimp-user] Re-hue-ing a graphic

2008-04-09 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2008-04-09 at 17:51 +0100, Jonathan Allen wrote:
> If I go into Layer-Colours-Hue/Saturation, then click 'Master', moving the
> 'Hue' slider bar alters the hue of the whole graphic (which is one single
> colour on a white background).  I want to do this effect, with a colour
> chooser interface.  Is that possible?

Select the white background, then invert the selection and apply the hue
changes.
-- 
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--
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Re: [Gimp-user] Re-hue-ing a graphic

2008-04-09 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2008-04-09 at 17:05 +0100, Jonathan Allen wrote:
> I can always see the HTML colour selected (color=#XX) for the text
> and need to track the masthead colour to match.  How do I get the Gimp
> to exactly track that hex colour - is there somewhere I can input it
> as a value and just it promulgated through the graphic at the existing
> saturation and lightness?

You need to map the RGB values from the HTML to HSL.  Manually, I'm not
sure how to do this, but programmatically there is a function in
libgimpcolor called gimp_rgb_to_hsl_int(gint *r, gint *g, gint *b) that
will do this for you.  You pass in the RGB values and you get back (in
the same variables) the HSL values, repsectively.  Once you have the HSL
values you can call the Hue-Saturation tool via the PDB to apply to your
masthead.

If you're writing a GIMP plugin in C, you just need to use "pkg-config
--libs gimp-2.0" (on Fedora, other distros may use a different pkgconfig
name for GIMP) to retrieve the libraries required for compiling your
plugin.  This will automatically include libgimpcolor.  

You can probably do this in Script-Fu or Python, but I don't know those
languages or their requirements.  You can probably do it in Perl but I'm
not sure if the Perl support was updated for GIMP 2.4 or not.  I think
it was, but it's not included in the standard distribution.

It's interesting that the Plugin Browser allows you to browse the APIs
for the various plugins but there is nothing that lets you browse
library calls that can be made directly from scripts or compiled
plugins.  There doesn't appear to be any documentation on this.  I
wonder if it's automatically generated by the build into HTML or man
pages?  The gimp_rgb_to_hsl_int() function is commented with what I
think is a document formatting structure (looks kind of like javadoc).
I just know about the function because I use cscope on the source code
to find things.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
I personally do not believe in object orientation as a security model
(nor as a general programming paradigm), but feel free to try to
convince me. -- Linus Torvalds

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Re: [Gimp-user] tool box

2008-03-28 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2008-03-28 at 12:02 +, norman wrote: 
> I have been using GIMP for many months and I have just realised that I
> do not have the means to minimise the window, I wonder why? I am using
> Ubuntu 7.10 and GIMP 2.4.2.

Minimizing windows is a function of the desktop window manager.  GIMP
doesn't control that though it can make suggestions about it to the
window manager.  Look under File->Preferences and then choose Window
Management.  The Hint for the Toolbox should be "Normal Window".  If
it's set to "Utility Window" then you probably won't have the minimize
options, depending on how your window manager handles the hints.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

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Re: [Gimp-user] 300 dpi screen capture

2008-02-22 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2008-02-22 at 16:01 -0700, ChadDavis wrote:
> But doesn't this mean that if my the portion of the screen that I'm
> interested in is only 3 by 5 or so, then there is basically no way to
> get a non extrapolated set of pixels that will print to 3 by 5 on the
> page?

That's correct.  It's the nature of the hardware.  You can change the
DPI from 300 to 72 to match the monitor but the print will likely be of
much lower quality.

You can scale up the screen shot but I'd only double it's size once to
produce a larger print image at high DPI.  Even then, you're likely to
have a less than ideal print image.  Scaling up is not a good thing with
raster images.

For what it's worth, I tend to make all my screen shots for books and
magazines set to 250DPI, which produces a slightly larger print image at
reasonable quality.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
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Re: [Gimp-user] 300 dpi screen capture

2008-02-22 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2008-02-22 at 23:41 +0100, Daniel Hornung wrote:
> But maybe one of the 
> actual book writers on this list may tell you more. *hint*

I guess that's my cue.  :-)

The screen resolution is in pixels.  One pixel = one dot.  Most monitors
give you between 72 and 100 DPI, or dots per inch.  You'll notice that
you have a monitor that is 15"-24" inches across depending on how they
measure such things.  So you have 72*15 = 1080 dots across the screen
for the 15" monitor.  Now how do you convert that to printing for a
book?

Well, in the book you want the same image but at a smaller size.  A
typical book is likely less than a typical piece of paper (around 8.5").
In fact, the actual image size is likely to be around 2"-4" across.  So
what DPI do you need to squeeze 1080 dots into (splitting the
difference) 3"?  1080/3 = 360DPI.  If you set your image resolution
(using Image->Scale Image and changing the X and Y resolution) to 300
DPI, then your image will be 3.6" across.  How do I know this?  

1. Create a new image (blank white background) at any size.
2. Image->Scale Image, then set the width to 1080 pixels.  Click on
"Scale" to scale the image to that size.
3. Image->Scale Image, then set the resolution to 300 for the X and Y
resolution.  Click on "Scale" to change the image resolution.
4. Image->Scale Image, then change the options menu next to the "Height"
field from pixels to inches.  Now you can see how wide your image is
going to be when it's 1080 pixels across.

Clear as mud?  Try it a few times. It's not that hard to grasp once you
see it in action.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
He doesn't have ulcers, but he's a carrier.
-- From a real employee performance evaluation.

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Re: [Gimp-user] digital camera photo settings

2008-02-11 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sun, 2008-02-10 at 23:49 -0800, Akkana Peck wrote:
> The exif plug-in as it existed on the old registry didn't work with
> GIMP 2.4. I updated it a while back and got it working for reading
> exif, but it looked like it would be a big job to make it read/write
> and I dropped it.  If anyone wants it, I could upload the version I
> updated later this week (right now I'm away from the machine that
> has the source).  The updates were pretty straightforward.

I was wondering why this wasn't merged into the internals so decided to
do a Bugzilla search.  See
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56443

Looks like it's not as straight forward as one might think for
supporting EXIF data across multiple file formats or multiple versions
of EXIF-like data.  Ideally this is what you want so that the file, of
whatever type, when read by its file plugin would store the exif data in
parasites (or similar) and a generic exif viewer/editor would alllow
access to it.  Changes to the data would then be preserved when the
image is saved.  However a generic solution like this has been under
discussion for some time.

In the interim and for the simple case, a file-type specific exif viewer
plugin could be written that uses (as the bugzilla entry points out) the
newer exiv2 library.  

Or just get Akkana's latest version of the old JPEG exif plugin back
into the registry. :-)
(See http://registry-archive.fargonauten.de/plugin?id=4153 for the old
plugin)
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Bumper Sticker: Some people just don't know how to drive... I call these people
"Everybody But Me."

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Re: [Gimp-user] digital camera photo settings

2008-02-09 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sun, 2008-02-10 at 14:04 +1100, Owen wrote:
> Perhaps you want the exif data
> Make sure you have the exif libraries install, and at the prompt, type
> # exif blah.jpeg

I was wondering - doesn't GIMP 2.4 support EXIF data now?  I had a JPEG
with some EXIF data in it that I could read with GQView but I couldn't
find a way to read the data in GIMP.  Is there one?
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   Ximba End User Software
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.ximba.org
LFS UserID: 16857
--
Vision is the ability to see potential in the work of others.
Robert X. Cringley, "Accidental Empires"

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Re: [Gimp-user] shadow effect

2008-02-08 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Fri, 2008-02-08 at 19:43 -0500, Helen wrote:
> When running the script for drop shadow, is there any way to make
> the shadow show up on the left side of the photo, instead of the right
> side?
> Thanks,
> Helen, using Gimp 2.2.10

Use negative values for the X offset.  Negative values for the Y offset
will move the shadow up.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Possible issues with 2.4

2008-02-04 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 21:23 +0100, Sven Neumann wrote:
> Hi,

Howdy.

> No, that's not how it's supposed to work and that is also not what the
> video tutorial is showing. Perspective Clone allows you to clone objects
> in the perspective plane. You are supposed to adjust the plane to match
> the perspective of your image. Then you can clone objects in that plane
> and their size will be adjusted accordingly.

I guess I'm not understanding what the perspective plane is, then (or at
least how to adjust the handles to work within it).  I'll play with this
some more tonight and see if I can catch on.  If not, I'll post some
more specific questions.

Thanks.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann, 1996: "Nobody in
football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman
Einstein."

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Re: [Gimp-user] Possible issues with 2.4

2008-02-04 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 17:52 +1100, Owen wrote:
> Also using 2.4.4 on Linux, I have been unable to replicate your problems. The 
> perspective worked intuitively and the heal seemed to work no matter what I 
> did

I've assumed that, like the video tutorial, if I pull the upper left and
right handles down toward the center of the canvas that I'm setting the
far end of the perspective view.  So a square cloned with the
perspective clone tool would have it's left and right sides aligned with
the left and right sides of the perspective box.  This is my impression
of what should happen based on the video tutorial.  Is this how it's
supposed to work?  If so, it's not doing that, as the sample picture
shows.  In fact, it almost looks like the application of the perspective
is opposite of what I'd expect. And the size of the clone object is not
always what I expect.  Sometimes it gets larger.  Sometimes (as in my
example) it gets smaller.  What deteremines the cloned object's size?

>From the example I've created I can't deteremine what the expected
results should be given the movement of the handles to specific
locations.

-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Force has no place where there is need of skill.  -- Herodotus; Book 3, Ch. 127

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[Gimp-user] Possible issues with 2.4

2008-02-03 Thread Michael J. Hammel
Before I report them as problems, I thought I'd check with other users.
First, I can't seem to get the Perspective Clone to perform the way it
does in the video tutorial.  The cloning operation doesn't appear to
lean in the direction I've adjusted the perspective handles.  I'm
wondering if I'm misunderstanding the use of the handles or something.
Anyone else having problems using it?

Second, I've noticed that the Healing tool clones garbage pixels after a
while.  It starts out working okay.  After a short time, the first click
to clone is fine, but if I hold down the shift key and then click again
to perform a straight line clone operation the pixels cloned along this
line are (for lack of a better term) garbage.  Is anyone else seeing
this?  I've noticed that the problem is not consistant - it doesn't
always show up.

FYI - I'm using 2.4.4.

I've posted examples of each on my web site:

Clone problem: http://www.graphics-muse.org/source/perspective.png In
this example, I expect the perspective to be toward the left and back
but that's not what happens when I paint the cloned area.
Healing tool problem:  http://www.graphics-muse.org/source/healing.png
The problem is visible on the right side where three straight line
operations have started adding colored pixels to the otherwise black and
white image.  Note that while it may appear the source location is too
far right and the operation may have gone off the right edge of the
image, it hasn't as the image extends to the right beyond the visible
canvas border.  So it's not a boundary edge problem.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   Ximba End User Software
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.ximba.org
LFS UserID: 16857
--
Vision is the ability to see potential in the work of others.
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Re: [Gimp-user] pucker skin

2008-01-29 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 2008-01-30 at 08:02 +1030, David Gowers wrote:
> On Jan 30, 2008 3:47 AM, Michael J. Hammel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > This is accomplished by adding wrinkles to the skin.  To do this, you
> > create your skin layer first.  Then add a layer on top of that and fill
> > it with the shading for the wrinkles.  Shading (also known as shadow
> > maps) is always done with a layer that is desaturated.  The shading
> > layer is then blended with the layer below using one of the layer blend
> > modes, often Grain Merge, Multiply or Overlay though others may work
> > better depending on the skin texture.
> I must disagree -- for something with multiple color layers, like
> skin, it generally looks better to use some coloration in order to
> make the shadows (for example, with Grain merge and the sample picture
> provided, I might use a mild reddish-pink tint. Though I admit this is
> mainly effective when you draw the shadows cumulatively (eg. as a
> repeated application of this reddish-pink with Grain Merge drawing
> mode to a layer originally filled with RGB 128,128,128).

True, but that's something you learn to do after you've learned what
shadow maps do and I don't think the original poster was familiar with
those yet.  My feeling is that it's a little easier to understand what
the shadow map is doing if you can see it's nothing but levels of light
and dark (re: a desaturated layer).  Adding color is an extension to
that.

I actually learned to do exactly what you suggest by first learning
shadow maps and then tinkering with the process.

So I guess you can modify my answer to change "always" to "often,
especially when you're first learning shadow maps".  :-)
-- 
Michael J. Hammel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

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Re: [Gimp-user] pucker skin

2008-01-29 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:11:00 +0800, Zhang Weiwu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I wish to achieve the effect to add a deep pucker on the skin, as of
> the bone is broken underneath the sking or there is a joint underneath.
> Or should I use the word "wrinkle" or "crinkle", I am not sure. I am a
> new gimp user who just managed to learn conceptual things like layers,
> path, selection, mask and channel, and now I don't know where to start
> to read if I wish to get it done.

This is accomplished by adding wrinkles to the skin.  To do this, you
create your skin layer first.  Then add a layer on top of that and fill
it with the shading for the wrinkles.  Shading (also known as shadow
maps) is always done with a layer that is desaturated.  The shading
layer is then blended with the layer below using one of the layer blend
modes, often Grain Merge, Multiply or Overlay though others may work
better depending on the skin texture.  This gives the skin layer the
appearance of having a shape that is light unevenly - ie it looks like
wrinkles.

A smooth version of wrinkles was originally included in my book "The
Artist's Guide to GIMP Effects" but then we decided to add it to the web
site instead:
http://www.graphics-muse.org/artistsguide/?page_id=65

This example is not exactly like what you're looking for though the idea
is the same.  This example uses a desaturated "wave" over witch a shadow
from some text is applied.  In your case, the wave layer from this
example would be the wrinkle layer for your project.  Adjust it
accordingly to increase contrast to give the wrinkles more distinct
edges.
-- 
Michael J. HammelPrincipal Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
The aim of every artists is to arrest motion, that is life, with artificial
means.  --  William Faulkner

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Re: [Gimp-user] Creating grub-splash screens with GIMP

2007-10-02 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 18:32:02 +0200 Frank Lanitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> I've got a small problem with creating splash screens for grub with
> my GIMP. I need to create a file *.xpm.gz with this things:
> 
>   Basic instructions:
>   * xpm file format
>   * 640x480
>   * 14 colors only
> 
> and I have no idea, how to mange it. Any hints? ;)

XPM format:  Simple - just save the file with an extension of .xpm.  In
the Save As dialog make sure the Select File Type option says "(By
Extension)" next to it.
640x480:  When you start to create your image, create a canvas of that
size (File->New). Alternatively, scale your canvas to that size before
saving (though this will likely distort the image a bit, especially when
you only have 14 colors to work with).
14 colors:  After you create your 640x80 canvas, draw or paint your
image, then before you save it convert it to an Indexed Mode image
(Image->Mode->Indexed).  In the Indexed Color Conversion dialog that
opens, choose "Generate Optimum Palette" and set the maximum number of
colors to 14.  

Note that the conversion from RGB to Indexed format may distort your
image, especially if you try to use gradients or lots of anti-aliased
text over multicolor backgrounds. Try to keep the Grub image simple - a
solid colored background with text and maybe a simple cartoonish logo
(cartoonish in order to keep the color count down).

-- 
Michael J. HammelSenior Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day 
consuming only things that are good for you. 

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Re: [Gimp-user] How to save a selection to file?

2007-09-13 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:38:56 +0200 "Lars Ruoff"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
> How can i save a selection (just the shape, not the content) to a file, so
> that i can use it in another image?

Save the selection to a channel (Select->Save to Channel).  Save the
image as an XCF file (which will save the channel information).  When
you need the selection again, open that file, go to the Channels dialog,
choose that channel and click on "Channel to Selection" at the bottom
right of the dialog (next to last button on the right in GIMP 2.2).  Or
you can drag that channel from the original image (from the Channels
dialog) into the image you need it.  When you do that, it gets created
as a new layer in the new image with visibility set to whatever the
channel visibility was set to in the original image.  You can then use
normal selection tools to convert that into a selection in the new
image.

It's also recommended that you name the channel before saving the image
to an XCF file.  Just makes it easier to identify the shape when you use
it later.
-- 
Michael J. HammelSenior Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

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Re: [Gimp-user] A GIMP book

2007-08-23 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 23 Aug 2007 05:12:39 +0300, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> Very nice, the sample chapters were amazing. This seems to be written
> for Gimp 2.2, but 2.4 will have significant changes. Can you (or the
> author) address that issue?

The first part of the introduction in the book covers this.  It took 2
1/3 years to get the book published, so starting with 2.2 seemed
reasonable at the time.  Also, it will be some time before all the major
distributions get updated to the requirements for 2.4 and have those
distributions propogated to the general public.  So even though 2.4 is
due soon, 2.2 isn't disappearing soon from a great many users desktops.

In the end, though, the changes for 2.4 don't greatly affect the
tutorials.  Mostly what changes is the location of menu options, which I
believe I've addressed in the book but will update on the web site as I
become aware of the errata.  New features in 2.4 are not used in the
tutorials (it's a 2.2 based text, after all) and none of the old
features used in the tutorials went away.  Mostly those features just
changed slightly in appearance or work better "under the hood" in 2.4.

If you're interested in dicussing the book or issues related to the
GIMP, I set up a web site for the book:
http://www.graphics-muse.org/artistsguide/

The book should just about be ready for shipping from retailers.  I was
just notified that my author copies will be sent soon.
-- 
Michael J. HammelSenior Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
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realize it was your money to start with. 

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Re: [Gimp-user] GIMP magazine, was: LJ not very enamoured

2007-06-22 Thread Michael J. Hammel
o put questions to themselves and answer them, but I'm thinking
> that's not the audience you're aiming for (otherwise, why would you even
> need to expand beyond this).

Excellent point.  

When my book's website goes live it will have a forum for discussions
and I'll accept submitted content (if it's well written and requires
little editing on my part).  But I won't spend time digging up content
submissions from other writers.  Being an editor is a lot of work, and I
have a day job already.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel            Senior Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
You're life can be a wonderous journey, if you don't spend all your time
trying to drag someone else through it with you.  -  Michael J. Hammel

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Re: [Gimp-user] Wow Linux Journal not very enamoured with GIMP.

2007-06-20 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:15:51 -0700, George Farris
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The latest Linux Journal sure doesn't have much good to say about GIMP
> (Deep Images). Talks about it being a dinosaur and being left behind by
> the likes of Cinepaint, Krita and Pixel.  Sure hope there isn't a GIMP
> 2.6 but rather it moves to GIMP 3.0 based on GEGL with a UI revamp.

As an author, let me disect this a bit.

The author's points are valid with respect to color space support given
the current stable GIMP release (2.2), though not completely valid with
respect to the current developer release (the upcoming 2.4). But he
makes a poor argument for replacing the GIMP with other tools.  For
example, he states how GIMP's lack of 16 bit channels is sufficient
cause not to use GIMP.  Period.  Then goes on to say how CinePaint is a
must-have tool despite a set of "inconveniences" and lack of stability.
Who is he to say which is more important to the reader - 16 bit channels
or stability?   What good is 16 bit channels if the you can't guarantee
the accuracy of saved data, program stability, or processing filters?

He also states that Krita's scripting behaves more like Adobe's Action
scripts.  He makes the (common and misconceived) assumption that being
like Adobe is the right way and not being like Adobe is the wrong way.
They are simply different.  It's not his place to say what the reader
should choose unless he can give a valid technical or end-user reasoning
why one is better than the other.  He didn't even manage to say that
Action Scripts are simply more familiar to Photoshop users trying to
switch, an argument that at least could be held up as a valid end-user
choice.

He states that "Krita also is still in the refinement stage, and its
code is not well optimized".  He gives plenty of technical reasons (such
as high resource usage) why you might consider *not* using Krita.  But
the article is about *not* using GIMP for deep images, and use the
alternatives listed instead.  In other words, he's not sold us on
anything.  It's like he's trying to tell us "it all sucks", which is a
pointless article.

He also calls out Krita and CinePaint for not being able to use GIMP's
filters.  If GIMP is as poor as he says, why would they want to do that?
Is the functionality in GIMP's filters so important that it's a "must
have"?  If so, wouldn't that make GIMP, despite its "inconveniences", a
must have as well, most especially because the alternatives don't
support those filters?

His conclusion is that both Krita and CinePaint, despite the negatives
listed, are still better choices than the GIMP.  But he's failed to give
compelling reasons to completely drop the GIMP (or even to use the other
two).  In my professional opinion, it is a very poorly written article.

BTW, he gets some facts wrong (or at least dilutes them).  First, the
GIMP was not written specifically for processing web images.  It was
written *specifically* as a class project that *evolved* to support web
requirements as well as print requirements.  If he's in doubt to the
latter, look at the cover of LJ issue 64 (which I did completely in the
GIMP, and which is not even the first issue I did with the GIMP).
Second, he should check with the people involved with the original
FilmGIMP project to get his facts straight.  I'm fairly certain the
patches were not rejected because "[the developers] didn't know what to
do with [them]" or that they thought that patches "didn't seem important
anyway".  In truth, the patches were rejected because the developers
felt they implemented the right solution the wrong way.  And the
developers chose the right way over the quick way.  Argue that as good
or bad as you like.  But I don't believe they dismissed "the patches out
of hand."  Developers:  feel free to correct me on this.

I really get peeved by these types of articles.  GIMP is GIMP.  Krita is
Krita.  CinePaint is CinePaint.  Each is a tool.  Use the right tool for
the job.  There are lots of hammers.  Some are good for some projects.
Others are good for other projects.  None are good for all projects.  As
an author, he should know that and write accordingly.  In this case, it
looks like he's more interested in publicly bashing one tool (which
would be an opinion piece, which this is not intended to be) instead of
trying to help his readers (a reference piece or review, which this *is*
intended to be).

-- 
Michael J. HammelSenior Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative
on the same night. -- Unknown.

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Re: [Gimp-user] general, basic image properties

2007-05-07 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 07 May 2007 13:39:02 -0500, Seb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> How does one learn about basic image file properties like size and
> resolution in general.  I found an old thread here where the exif filter
> was mentioned, but I don't see this among the options in my Debian
> unstable gimp package.  In any case, IIUC, this would only work for jpeg,
> not for other formats.  Any pointers appreciated.

You can start with this:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/graphics/fileformats-faq/part1/

Or the Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats, if you can find it:
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Graphics-Formats-James-Murray/dp/1565921615

Or you can try "Graphics File Formats, Reference and Guide", Brown and
Shepherd (Manning Plublications), which is the one I started with though
I'm not sure if it's still in print:
http://www.manning.com/brown/

Hope that helps.
-- 
Michael J. HammelSenior Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly. 

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Re: [Gimp-user] Copy the alpha channel from an image to another

2007-02-13 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2007-02-12 at 23:50 -0800, "Germain Le Chapelain"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I would like to know who to copy the alpha channel of an image to
> another image.

1. Merge visible layers of the source image.
2. Copy visible layer of source image
3. Create new image for destination (as in File->New).
4. Add a layer to destination image
5. Delete background layer in destination image
6. Add black layer mask to only layer left in destination image.
7. Make black layer mask active drawable.
8. Paste into destination image.
9. Anchor to active drawable (re: mask).
10. Apply layer mask.

Now the destination image (at least in that one layer) has the same
alpha as your source image.

Steps 4-5 could be:

4. Add alpha channel to background layer
5. (delete this step)

Should also work in both 2.2 and 2.4.

I tried this with a simple white image (single layer) using a gradient
in a layer mask to create the source image.  I then applied the layer
mask in the source image to put the alpha into the layer itself.  When
this layer was copied to the black layer mask of the destination, the
visual appearance was correct.  When I saved both files (after applying
the mask in the destination) they have the same file size (as expected)
but they are not binary identical when saved as either XCF, TIFF or PNG.
Not sure why (maybe some metadata differences?).  I did notice that the
pasted copy had a selection outline that was not the full size of the
source image (both images where the same size).  So even though I did a
Select->All, Edit->Copy (I also tried Edit->Copy Visible), it appears to
only have picked up to a certain transparency level in the copy.  Or
maybe it's just that the marching ants only recognize up to a certain
level when pasted.

Maybe one of the developers has some insight as to why the source and
destination wouldn't be identical in this case.  
-- 
Michael J. HammelSenior Software Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://graphics-muse.org
--
Success is never hard won.  It is hard achieved.  --  Michael J. Hammel

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[Gimp-user] Re: drawing arrows with GFXMuse Tools

2005-11-29 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Tue, 2005-11-29 at 08:22 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED]  wrote:
> 3. output of make
> ===
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] gfxmuse-0.4]# make
> making all in ./debug-d...
> make[1]: Entering directory
> `/home/sunita/softwares_pdf/gfxmuse-0.4/debug-d' rm -f debug.o
> gcc -c -O2 -march=i386 -mcpu=i686 -pipe-I. -I../hdrs-d -Ihdrs-d 
> -I/usr/X11R6/include-Dlinux -D__i386__ -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=199309L
> -D_POSIX_SOURCE -D_XOPEN_SOURCE -D_BSD_SOURCE -D_SVID_SOURCE
> -DFUNCPROTO=15 -DNARROWPROTO   -g -Wall -DDEBUG  -DGIMP12   -c debug.c cp 
> libgmdbg.a  ../lib-d
> cp: cannot stat `libgmdbg.a': No such file or directory
> make[1]: *** [install] Error 1
> make[1]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs
> make[1]: Leaving directory
> `/home/sunita/softwares_pdf/gfxmuse-0.4/debug-d' make: *** [all] Error 2
> 

First off, this is a *really* old version of the tools - see the web
site:
http://www.ximba.org/gfxmuse/download.html

If you're using GIMP 1.2 then you need the old version 2.0.  If you're
using GIMP 2.2 or later you need the beta version (which should work
just fine) - 3.0.0B2.

I'm not sure what the problem is, but grab the new versions and try
again. If it dstill doesn't work then email me and I'll see if I can
help you get it compiled.  

Gotta run - I'm late for a meeting at work.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   |
The Graphics Muse   |  If you can't be kind, at least have the decency
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  to be vague.
http://www.graphics-muse.com 

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[Gimp-user] Re: Livre sur Gimp (aka publishing GIMP books)

2005-09-07 Thread Michael J. Hammel
UM (a worthy effort, by the way, since the GUM
could always use some updates) or the online/builtin documentation and
then try publishing that as GPL.  It's just difficult to convince
publishers it will make back printing and marketing costs when it's also
available for free download.  Don't get me wrong - you *can* do this.
Look at how well O'Reilly does with it's texts.  But a GPL'd GUM is a
*lot* of work for print publication.

An alternative is to focus a GPL'd text on some smaller aspect of GIMP,
like one of the builtin scripting languages, a set of specific filters
or maybe using GIMP in a particular industry.  At least that way you're
not competing directly with the GUM and have a better chance on
recouping costs (plus paying a few salaries along the way) even when the
text is also freely downloadable.

>From my point of view, I try to avoid talking about GIMP as the end
topic and rather talk about doing real work with GIMP as just one of
your tools.  It's useful to talk about a hammer for the sake of the
hammer, but it's more useful to talk about how to build a house, which
oh-by-the-way needs that particular hammer.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel   The Graphics Muse 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.graphics-muse.com
--
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

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[Gimp-user] Re: rounded corners box

2005-06-30 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 2005-06-30 cappellano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote to GIMP user:
> how can I make a rounded corner box without using the scripf fu? I
> tried using some features in the "selection" menu. It work, but when I
> fill the content with the buck, the color overlaps the box.

Sure.  In a nutshell:

Creating rounded corner selections manually:
Start with new window, white background.
Drag 2 vertical and 2 horizontal guides to create a box in your canvas.
Make circular selection in one corner of 4 guides.
Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V as new layer.  Invert color (to black) for new layer.  Deselect.
Duplicate new layer 3 times, putting each new duplicate in another corner of 
the guides.
Add guides through center of each circle, vertical and horizontal.
Fuzzy select, using Merged, each black circle, holding down shift key
after first one to join each selection.
Use rectangular selection and shift key to draw square selection through
centers of circles that merges with existing circular selections.

The combined square selections (you will need to make two of these) with the 4 
circular selections creates a rounded corner selection.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   |
The Graphics Muse   |  I started out with nothing & still have most of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  |  it left.
http://www.graphics-muse.com 

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[Gimp-user] Re: Crisper screen shots

2005-03-02 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 20:13:39 +1030 squareyes wrote:
> Hi all, 
> am making up a newbies help file for Ubuntu,
> but am not completely happy with the crispness of the screen shots
> I have taken with "gimp". Is there any way of improving them very much.
> May be too critical, but as it's my first work would like it to look
> more professional than I really am.
> 
> http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/squareyes/ubuntu.html

I fiddled with the Account Management image and found that Unsharp Mask
with a Radius of 0.3 and Amount of 0.5 had just about the best effect 
on cleaning the image up.

One thing I noticed was that the PNG was set to 97.9932 x 108.001 dpi.
Those seem a little strange to me.  I suspect that most monitors are
between 72-85 DPI, but maybe not.  The ratio of yours in ~0.92 while 
my LCD at home is ~ 1.02.

Screenshots should be made at screen resolution, or 72x72 by default.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - XEUS: www.ximba.org
-
When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual 
who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that 
individual is crazy. -- Unknown.

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[Gimp-user] Re: Learning Gimp

2005-02-26 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 08:22:28 -0600 Michael Satterwhite wrote:
> What resources are available for learning Gimp. Hopefully progressing
> from relatively basic (actually, I can do many of the basics now) to use
> of some of the advanced features. I looked at the books referenced on
> the Website, but they are old enough that I'm guessing they are of
> limited use.

There is the GUG (GIMP User Group).  I haven't reviewed it in some time
but last I checked there was quite a bit of information there.
http://gug.sunsite.dk/

FWIW, I write monthly columns for both Linux Format (UK print magazine)
and Tux Magazine (online magazine from the publishers of Linux Journal)
with GIMP tutorials.  I'm putting the Linux Format articles up on my
site, but there are still quite a few to put up.  Only a few are there
now.  Tux just published it's first issue this month and it's a free
download (at least I think its free).

Tux: http://www.tuxmagazine.com/
Linux Format: http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/ (we site is about to undergo
a major upgrade, apparently)
My online tutorials: http://www.ximba.org/articles

> I know about the tutorials on the web - and am going through them, but
> what resources exist beyond those? Would an up-to-date book on Photoshop
> help for concepts?

Actually, I taught myself GIMP long ago by reading Photoshop texts.  The
basic functionality is the same - layers, channels, pixel processing. 
What is different is where you look for features - in other words, the
user interface.  Once you know where things are in the GIMP, then
reading Photoshop texts can help quite a bit in learning basic image
editing techniques.  Complex tasks are mostly a matter of putting
together lots of basic techniques.  That is, essentially, what many
filters do for you.

When reading Photoshop tutorials, try to break them down into their
basic processes, then convert that to their equivalents in GIMP.  Don't
get bogged down because Photoshop has fancy filter Blah but GIMP
doesn't.  Try to understand what Blah *is actually doing* and find the
equivalent set of basic filters and tools in GIMP that will do the same
thing.

Hope that helps a little.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel  Give me the strength to change the things I 
The Graphics Muse  can, the grace to accept the things I can't 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] change, and a great big bag of money.
http://www.ximba.org Deep Thoughts, Jack Handey

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[Gimp-user] Re: Positioning elements

2005-02-25 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Michael Satterwhite wrote:
> Also, is there a tool / addin / ??? that will allow centering a layer
> (horizontally, vertically, or both) within an image?

The Graphics Muse Tools includes a plugin called GFXLayers.  It allows 
positioning 
a single layer or a set of layers based on an anchor layer you specify.  Layers
can be positioned interactively by dragging them around the preview or they 
can be positioned using a set of predefined toggles.

And yes, this will allow you to center a specific layer on the image.  Just 
click
on the layer name while you hold down the Ctrl key (to make it the anchor layer)
and choose "Centered" from the Anchor Position toggles.  Changes are immediate.

These plugins work either with GIMP 1.2/GTK+ 1.2 or with GIMP 2.2.3/GTK+ 2.6 
(haven't
tried them with GTK+ 2.4 yet).  There is a different source package depending on
which version you need.

http://www.ximba.org/gfxmuse/download.html

Hope that helps.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - XEUS: www.ximba.org
-
Bumper Sticker: Try not to let your mind wander... It is too small and fragile 
to be
out by itself.

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[Gimp-user] Announce: Graphics Muse Tools V3.0.0 B2 released

2005-02-18 Thread Michael J. Hammel
The port to GIMP 2.2.3 and GTK+ 2.6 was easier than I thought it would
be.  I thought I'd have more trouble figuring out those pesky
TreeViewModel's, but that went over much easier than I expected.  Cscope
makes making mass changes so easy, too.

This release is a complete port to both GIMP 2.2.3 and GTK+ 2.6
including porting all deprecated features (ie GIMP_DISABLE_DEPRECATED
and GTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED are now part of the build).

There are still functional bugs but for the most part the plugins work
as before (ie GIMP 1.2).  If anyone tries these please report bugs to
the bug db (http://www.ximba.org/bugs/).

Source Download: http://www.ximba.org/gfxmuse/download.html

PS: I still haven't ported the perl scripts.  I haven't gotten around to
installing the new Perl configs for GIMP 2.x.  It's on the todo list.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - XEUS: www.ximba.org
-
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Announce: Graphics Muse Tools V3.0.0B1 - ported to GIMP 2.2.3

2005-01-31 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 2005-01-31 at 15:24, Sven Neumann wrote:
> Hi,

Howdy.

> May I ask why you are not using the preview widgets found in libgimpui?

Sure.

> That would give your plug-ins the same user interface for previews
> that all other GIMP plug-ins use. Is there functionality missing in
> our preview widgets that you would have needed? Please tell us about
> it then, so that we can add that functionality for GIMP 2.4.

I looked at porting to the libgimpui previews but the documentation
wasn't clear to me (not that its bad - I just didn't quite get it right
off the bat).  After thinking it over a bit I realized that carrying
around the object weight of a widget wasn't really necessary for my
purposes.  

So far, only two of the plug-ins use previews:  GFXTrans and GFXLayers. 
The former *could* use the libgimpui preview but zooming and panning
really aren't necessary for this plug-in.  I just need a thumbnail to
shove in the middle a drawing area.  Take a look at the plugin and
you'll see what I mean.  I'm not modifying the layer content, I'm just
doing a transform on it.  And the preview doesn't get updated with the
interactive transform.  Its a hacky solution, but I did it originally
before the much nicer builtin in transforms for 2.x came out.  It's only
real advantage is allowing you to do multiple, identical transforms into
multiple layers.

GFXLayers is much more intense - it used to carry a gimppreview (this
was the old gimppreview code that floated around a while back) for each
layer, sans zooming/panning features.  These were stuffed in a GtkFixed
widget and moved around by the user.  GtkFixed isn't recommended for new
applications according to the GTK+ 2.6 docs, and that's when I realized
I really didn't need widgets if GIMP could just pass me the right sized
pixbuf - which it now does.  Again, I just need a very small thumbnail
to represent the layers.  In fact, there is an option to turn off the
previews if that gets too confusing (which it can be if you have a *lot*
of layers).  That came about because it got really slow in the old
version with lots of layers using the older gimppreview code I had. 
Additionally, the weight of carrying around widgets for all those layers
is overkill for this plugin.  I just need a simple pixbuf for each
layer.

So, it's nothing against the gimppreview widgets - these look and
perform fine in all the stock plugins.  It's just that the gimppreview
widgets provide far more than I really need.  

This is all just one design perspective, of course.  I'm open to
suggestions on making these plugins better.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel   
The Graphics Muse   A hard-on doesn't count as personal growth.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  
http://www.ximba.org

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Re: [Gimp-user] Announce: Graphics Muse Tools V3.0.0B1 - ported to GIMP 2.2.3

2005-01-31 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 14:17:37 -0200, Joao S. O. Bueno Calligaris
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I went to the site, and did not find easily a description of what the 
> plug-ins do (althoug I am in a hurry). Can you give us a url?

http://www.ximba.org/gfxmuse/gfxmuse.html

Links to the download page, wiki, etc. are in the upper right corner.  I
tested the web site design under Firefox and IE (don't remember which
version, but it was on WinXP).  It might have problems rendering
correctly under other browsers, though I tried to make it W3C compliant
to some extent (probably got a few pages still to debug).  

The plug-in most asked for is GFXArrows, which draws arrows in varying
shapes.  Who'dda thought that one would be the popular one?  

The one I think is most useful is GFXLayers.  It allows you to visually
align layers in all sorts of ways, interactively, using thumbnails of
the layers.  It's not the best UI design, but it works well.  Maybe if I
get some feedback on the problems with the UI I'll be able to make it
easier to use.

GFXShapes needs thumbnail support.  I need to add GdkPixbuf support to
it for showing the page preview layout, similar to the way GFXLayers
lets you drag layer previews around the page.  It probably needs a way
to easily add new, prebuilt shapes.  GFXShapes was my answer to the
common question "How do you draw simple shapes?"  GFig is the normal
tool for this, but I guess some people find it daunting to use.  It's
not *that* hard.  :-)

GFXTrans is best for doing multiple rotations for animations.  The
builtin rotation transform for GIMP is better for simple layer
rotations.

GFXMerge is the result of a posting someone put on one of the mailing
lists asking for a way to split layers out into their own images or to
merge layers from one image into another.  It's very good at merging
(splitting is broke in the beta but will probably be fixed soon), though
I don't know how often anyone needs that.

GFXCards lets you duplicate an image onto multiple cells, like for
printing business cards, or create a printable image for use with
greeting cards using an existing image for one side of the card.  I use
it mostly for business cards.  It's a brute force approach, creating a
big image at the correct DPI.   A better method would be to generate a
PS image that can be sent to the printer using a single copy of the
orignal image.  That would sure be a lot less memory intensive.

Most of these (or is it all? I can't remember) are supposed to allow you
to save your presets as XML files and reload them later.  This is good
for GFXShapes and GFXArrows, for example.  Unfortunately, in the beta
release the presets may not be working.  I'll get that fixed.  I doubt
its a big problem - they worked fine under GIMP 1.2.

> And...my most profound thank you for converting your shareware into an
> Open Source application. Really, really really!

Nobody was paying for them anyway.  Just saves me the trouble of trying
to build it for multiple platforms.  It's a lot of work maintaining a
bunch of different distributions like that.  :-)  I was also maintaining
ports of a ton of plug-ins I found on the net as part of the original
Graphics Muse Tools CD because they were not available in binary format
for end users.  But alas, few people paid for that so I dropped support
for those other plugins.  Way too much work for one guy.  Now I just
maintain the ones I wrote.

Hope you find them useful.  I need to get GIMP Perl working eventually
to make sure the Perl plugins work under GIMP 2.2 too.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - XEUS: www.ximba.org
-
Mediocrity:  It takes a lot less time and most people won't notice the
difference until it's too late.

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[Gimp-user] Announce: Graphics Muse Tools V3.0.0B1 - ported to GIMP 2.2.3

2005-01-31 Thread Michael J. Hammel
I spent last week porting the Graphics Muse Tools to GIMP 2.2.3.  All
the C plugins work pretty much as with GIMP 1.2 though there are a few
minor functional bugs (see the bug page on the web site).  There
shouldn't be any crashes - at least none that I know of.

I also cleaned out the old gimppreview that I had been using.  I now use
GdkPixbuf's along with Gimp's builtin thumbnail function that returns a
pixbuf.  That means GFXLayers is much less weighty - no more carrying
around a ton of widgets for the previews.  GFXTrans also benefited from
this.

I still have to pull out the deprecated features of both GIMP and GTK+,
however, which is why this is a Beta release.

If anyone wants to try these, you can pull the source code tarball from
the web site or check it out of CVS.  Source should build on Unix/Linux
boxes (but I've only tried it on Linux).  I don't have a clue how to
build this for Windows or MacOS X (though I'd love to try the latter).
http://www.ximba.org/gfxmuse/download.html

Please let me know if you try them and most especially if you find
bugs.  If you can, please log the bugs in the bug db on the web site.

FYI: these are no longer shareware, they are open source.  If anyone
wants to work on these just drop me an email and I'll set you up an
account on CVS.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - XEUS: www.ximba.org
-
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

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[Gimp-user] Graphics Muse Tools

2005-01-12 Thread Michael J. Hammel
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:42:31 +0100 (MET) Michael Schumacher wrote: 
> Please use the plug-in template when you do this, it makes it really easy to
> build them on each platform.

Autoconf and friends make the template portable.  I use Imake (I'm old,
it's what I grew up with).  As long as X continues to use imake then
that portability should continue to exist for Unix/Linux platforms.  I
don't worry about Windows because I don't want to support Windows issues
(see reference to being old and add "crotchety").  But I continue to use
Imake because it's what I know and it tends to work just fine for me. 
My XNotesPlus is also imake based and I know it builds on just about all
Unix/Linux platforms (or at least no one is reporting problems
recently).

To my knowledge the only current problem with portability is that the
imake templates related to building man pages have changed for some
distributions of Linux, probably the X.org based distributions.  XFree86
based distributions should be okay.  As soon as I get a chance to try
the build on my newly installed FC2 I'll fix the problem with the man
page rule that causes the build to break on other systems.  At least I'm
assuming its a change to the imake templates that is causing the
problem.  I've run into this issue before in various forms.

> You didn't advertize them much, did you? I discovered them only recently
> when hunting for plug-ins to build...

I posted to Freshmeat, c.o.l.a and a few other places.  I always post
updates to my open source software on Freshmeat.  It seems the most
appropriate place.  I didn't announce on GIMP User because I felt that a
commercial announcement (even shareware) was just not appropriate.  I
think I referenced them in replies to some posts here but tried not to
make it sound like an advertisement.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel Politicians are the same all over: they promise 
The Graphics Muse to build a bridge even where there is no river.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), Soviet premier. 
http://www.ximba.org

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