Wreybies submitted a new resource: GIMP - Shareware graphics applicaiton Read more about this resource...
Having just lost half my MS Digital Imaging programme (ended in 2006, now not available and the free version (which is basically a try me before you buy me version with very limited capabilities) has run out) and I'm thoroughly confused by photoshop ... this sounds very interesting to me! Thanks for the info, I might just have to look this one up!
I keep both GIMP and Photoshop on my computer. I find GIMP more complicated and difficult to use, but ultimately more versatile than Photoshop.
I've started using GIMP (Photoshop is too pricey for my pocket!) and I've gotta say it's horrendously complicated for a newbie. Having said that there are some great GIMP tutorials on the Internet. It took me an hour but I eventually learned how to make raised/3D fonts and I'm in the process of creating a "wasteland/thriller" font that publishers are fond of using at the moment with many of their thriller/crime writers. Guess the real test will be applying what I've learnt so far to the design of my short novel over the summer. I've some graphic design experience but only with software such as ArtRage and the old Microsoft Photo, and I reckon there's going to be a steep learning curve ... Especially with using GIMP, but I'm looking forward to the challenge!
I haven't used GIMP in a very long time, but I remember it was exceptionally powerful and useful with an awesome community. There were quite a few tutorials back then as well. I can't imagine that it's done anything bet get more awesome! If you have creative talent and skill, GIMP is a great tool, but no tool can replace either talent or skill. If you have the inkling, take the time to learn it and you will not be disappointed.
I use both GIMP and Photoshop, and I love both. For a free program I find GIMP to be amazing, and it's usually my go-to editor. Anything I have had trouble doing I was able to find a youtube tutorial for.
Wow, that's amazing. Any, any skill with these programs renders anyone who has it a ____guru. I also tried something but it's so damn complicated I drew a map in pencil, the valley and the world.
When I used the link provided I'm advised 'Windows can't open this file. gimp-2.814-setup-1.ex(2).torrent has anyone else experienced any difficulties?
That's the link to a torrent. Unless you have a bit-torrent client, it won't open. Try this one: http://download.gimp.org/pub/gimp/v2.8/windows/gimp-2.8.14-setup-1.exe
Hey, I think GIMP is way too complicated. The learning curve is so steep it's like you have to learn how to program the thing in order to use it. The amount of hours you have to invest in learning how to do even the simplest thing is just .. I consider it an affront ;-). It's just one of those communities where no one really takes responsibility for the usability of the thing, and usual replies (like much of open source software) as to something not being functional, is that given enough pain, it can still be done. That said, I wish I could just start working with such programs again. My life hasn't been very endearing or pleasant in that regard. GIMP is more of an educational journey in learning how image manipulation is constructed. The upside is that once you learn how to do a certain thing, you'll have really learned it, and it'll be a skill that attests of understanding. I would personally love to really put aside the Photoshop etcetera. In my eyes, the downside of having a skill investment in Photoshop and its ilk is that Photoshop may one day disappear. They are already no longer selling the stuff, you have to rent it. Call it the "creative cloud". I feel such tools are not really your own in any fashion. And being alien to you, you might lose them. I don't think anyone is really eager for having software you can never own, but always have to pay money for and keep paying it or it'll be gone again. Your whole photo creative foundation might be gone the moment you can't pay your cheques. Not my idea of being secure and solid in one's life experience. Being resilient in the face of unpleasant events is the whole idea of having a self secure feeling in life. And that is a question of making choices. I recently succumbed to the prospect of easy gains, or quick results, but what I created (using Photoshop Elements, for example) never felt like my own creations. GIMP on the other hand is SO HARD that quick result is a complete anathema to what it is. I am personally hoping to contribute to it once I get my act together again. Was studying colour relations. GIMP likes to destroy harmonic relations between the colour components (at least as seen from the HSL model) when you use any kind of alpha compositing. The algorithm uses some kind of arbitrary most-efficient approach to choosing how to turn 'solid colour' into a blend of foreground and background (based on a chosen colour-to-alpha colour) such that the visual appearance doesn't change (right away). There are multiple ways of doing that and I believe they choose the one with the smallest alpha value (lowest transparency value). If you then do further (mathematical) manipulation of the colours you get (including alpha/transparency levels) you end up with way distorted images. The HSV model GIMP uses in itself is flawed. I had been writing some testing software in PHP implementing the algorithms I found on Wikipedia for the HSL model and alpha compositing techniques (but the "putting back together" is straightforward, it gets interesting in how to "split it up". ) I never got that far though. I did write a nice testing page on a website but I am even reluctant to share it now. If I sound a bit too eager in writing about myself as a complete newcomer on this forum, it is because it has been a looong time since I have been able to express myself anywhere in any way. I have *so* wanted to just being able to use a computer and participating or writing on forums, which is a great hobby of mine, ... and for the longest time, either I did not have the equipment, or the peace of mind. In any case, I just came here to inquire about book writing software, so I'll be hopping to that corner to see what goes about. Nice to be here, at least, for perhaps at least a little time. Regards.
Oh, I'm not saying that GIMP isn't complicated. To someone who's used to browsers and word software it's probably a Sisyphean undertaking. But when you compare that to Maya? I went to a four year college to learn that software and probably only understand about 60% of the program.
Well, "simple" in this case would mean, elementary. If it is a program that is only composed of rudimentary building blocks, you could call that simple. On the other hand, if these building blocks are quite separate and not very well integrated, you would get something that is complicated rather than complex. The various tools that exist in GIMP are only bound together, mostly, by the common menus in which they are accessible. I guess I wrote extensively about it on the GIMP forums when I still had a life to live. As a programmer I like elementary building blocks because it means you have things you can easily combine. The whole of the Linux world is basically composed of that idea. Give a programmer a million tools to use, and he can quickly create something outstandingly powerful, provided that he knows these tools by heart. Or is capable of navigating the sea of opportunity in search for that precise thing he needs. Or she. But personally I believe a software should be more than just potential or opportunity. Rudimentary building blocks that are elemental and elegant and well-integrated or integrateable can be easily combined into more powerful (in that sense) compositions of tools. These compositions are then complex but not complicated, because in a sense they are still utterly simple if the composition is elegant and intuitive to the human mind. Which means you would still be able to easily perceive and understand and appreciate the more lower-level aspects instead of being clouded by perfect tools that do everything but that you can never understand, because the foundation is invisible to you. Same with computer systems, of course. It is not easy to become a programmer, I believe, in today's world. Because how is a person going to learn about hardware primitives? In the 80s people (and children!) could simply write a few games and play them on the same day. It was easy to perceive the lower level constructs and components. Memory, CPU, hardware interrupts, BIOS calls, everything. Same with radio, car, and television amateurs or hobbyists. Today you cannot repair a car unless you have a degree in electronic car systems engineering. Now GIMP is extremely primitive with some advanced scripts making use of those primitives. So as a programmer you can do a few things with it, probably. But the entire experience or interface is extremely fragmented in my eyes and not put together very well. I guess it just took me many hours to learn how to use the Feather tool and use it to isolate objects from the background. I am angry with those programmers not making it easier on people. A programmer's hour can mean a thousand hours for thousand people lost or gained. Any improvement you make can mean other people save enormous amounts of energy or time or money in gained effectiveness or efficiency or mastery in getting things done. I am so frustrated daily by software programs or systems that are so badly designed and have been that way for many many years and nobody saw it fit to improve. Perhaps a bit of mental calm can mean a world of difference in these regards.... "Nothing has to happen immediately, this minute, or "right now."", I was told today. But still, designing software to a greater level of functionality is not a bad goal to seek out or a path to walk, I believe, and I think. I just fear bad things will happen to this world if our tools continue to be so untrustworthy in the face of coming more dire times, when higher efficacy becomes a more urgent need or requirement for many more people as we rise into a slightly more intense or vivid mode of living. A master is only as good as his tools, and in order to create more powerful effects, he also needs to work on his toolset. Personally I believe GIMP is one of the most promising environments because it is so easy to program for it, write addons, and play a part in constructing a valuable and dependable tool that many could use to great effect, because we can also be in the opportunity to redo what was wrong, to fix what is broken, and to invent new ways of doing things that fall more in line with the harmony of, in this case, the mathematics of image manipulation that give rise to greater modes of expression and consideration. But I don't really care about anything called Maya. You can always find a thing that is twenty times worse in order to argue that it is "not so bad". That doesn't make it any better, it is just a way of being despondent about the prospects of improvement, and then just accept that it won't get any better anyway, no matter how much you complain or otherwise. So you'll say "there is worse". Fine, but we don't have to compare things, and we don't have to compare people either. At least not comparing as a way of setting a standard that momentarily serves as setting a relative point to which to compare such that you can argue that a certain mode of action or intent is not required. "Some people smoke 40 cigs a day" you can say when a person calls you out on smoking 30. There are people who have killed more babies than me. But there is not a soul who has tortured more elephants, and it makes me proud! And it is all meaningless, those statements... BTW it is not about complexity. I am pretty used to complexity. You can tackle the most complex systems as long as the experience in doing so is a pleasant one. It is about whether it frustrates you or not. If you add a Channel/Mask based on a selection in GIMP, the Channel is automatically selected, completely counterintuitively. Consequently, your further operations on the image will fail, but you will not see an immediate indication of why. Your drawing tools or whatever will just not do anything. There are explicit troubleshooting guides on the GIMP website that serve to tackle such instances of trouble. "When GIMP starts misbehaving for no apparent reason whatsoever, please make sure you have checked these possible problems." is the gist of the message. It is like you need a checklist to exclude possible causes, because the program itself won't tell you anything. You can be arduously working and suddenly for no reason whatsoever that is clear to you the user, nothing works anymore. And you spend perhaps 15 minutes trying to get the program operational again. Something that could easily have been prevented if a programmer or those programmers had spent some time on preventing or thinking about those things. And I don't care that they are freelance no-pay workers on that project, if you make important software used by millions, you have a responsibility in making sure your software doesn't cause endless cases of time being lost that could easily have been prevented. One hour time for you can cost your users a million hours. That is not a good way to spend everyone's time. There is no glory either in learning how to get around, avoid or mitigate the pitfalls of some lousy piece of programming. Saying that you've learned how to deal with nonsense while choosing to remain with it is not a thing that looks good on a man either. The whole idea of software is for it to function. Programming is about nothing other than functionality. But whether a software is really functional for the user is often left out of the picture. These programmers often focus on adding more features that are in high demand in the core community and that they can still get excited about. The idea and reason and challenge of making what is already there, actually work together in a nice way, is left out of the picture in the OSS world in general, in any case. Disinterested people who operate like isles all doing their own individual thing. Or, worse, trying to do a thing they think other people want done. Sacrificing themselves as volunteers to solve problems that in fact are not essential or things of priority. But the core team people want those things done, looking for aides to lighten the burden of having to maintain something that no longer feels like a joy anymore anyway. Because it is too much work and unwanted responsibility. Too much dealing with other people's wants and complaints. Too much exposing yourself, making promises that you really would like to forget about after a while. And without time to really step back and reflect it becomes as much of a daily grind as an ordinary day job. I didn't tell you I was depressive yet, did I? . Alright, enough ranting I suppose. I hope nobody will suicide now . Have a nice day, and send your mother a card. In longhand. Anyway, what I mean is that it could be a better program if people would put some effort into it ;-) .
I haven't tried GIMP in many years, but the last time I tried, I found it rather poorly organised. Photoshop is complex as hell but it has a logic of its own that makes it usable once you've learned some of it. In general graphics software tends to be on the complex side, especially when you get to 3D graphics. You just have to read up on them, choose one and be prepared to spend a fair amount of time honing your skills.
Wow, I just no idea what the fuck this is. But I have two points No, it's counter intuitive to you. Anyone with training in an image software would expect that result. The have no responsibility at all. They are doing you a favor. And if you don't understand the software and you're having "endless cases of time being lost," it's not their fault at all. Find a beginner tutorial on youtube before you go screwing around and you'll have a much better time. You remind me of the beginners in 3ds Max who try to pan with the spacebar, end up locking the gizmo, and can't understand why the can't select anything. Then they blame the program for being "counter intuitive" rather then their own incompetence.
So the fault then is that I have no training in (an) image software. But that still doesn't make it intuitive. The whole idea of intuition is that it doesn't really need training in the sense that you don't have to learn something before you are able to progress with it. Saying something is intuitive once you've had enough training is pretty contradictory. That blows up the whole idea of intuitiveness because then RTFM becomes a universal proposition that is like the epitome of intuitiveness. "It is intuitive because once you've dug through three 300-page manuals, you'll know what to do." But I've had this discussion before lately. I guess complaining about software in any case is a bit mistaken, on the other hand defending software because you think complaints are unwarranted because XXX is also mistaken. They're not doing me a favour. They are not developing the software for me. How can they be doing me a favour? Apparently they are either (and I include myself among them, now...) developing for themselves or they are developing to create the product (as a love for creation) (as a love for the object they are making) (bringing into the world, birthing) BUT they are certainly not developing for their users as if they "have" users. Because if they "had" users they would be holding a sense of responsibility for them and they don't. If you have clients of any kind, you are responsible for them being able to use the product. In monetary terms, you'll have a breach of contract if they don't. So if you have your users in mind, you must have them in mind. It's as simple as that. You either have them in mind or you don't. If you do have them in mind, you will develop such that they are able to use the product. A deficiency in the user then cannot be a reason to dissuade them from using it or to say that the user is inadequate for the software, as if the user is being developed for the software, instead of the software for the user. There is a vast incongruency in saying that it is (solely) a user's responsibility to make sure he or she is capable of using the software, when software development by its ESSENCE seeks to do the reverse, to make something that is usable for a specific user or a group as a whole. So in essence you are checking what your user is, and then making something for that that is usable by that. You don't make something completely off and then complain when the would-be user complains that the software was not made with a regular human being in mind. (I am now currently writing as a 'cute boy' is sitting next to me, even being a regular 'straight' guy makes it easier to be a little bit more natural in my state of mind with just a bit of physical contact. The boy is just some 'import' from Africa who was not treated very well in this country and is locked up as I am.) But I think that last statement sums it up: You don't make something completely off and then complain when the would-be user complains that the software was not made with a regular human being in mind. In that case you better not make the software or not pretend that it is all that awesome. There is certainly an enormous amount of improvements that can be made to these softwares. (Telling the boy how it makes it easier to write with him around, or next to me. He can't even read English. Can hardly read Dutch. 21-something and ridiculously locked up in what I have called before a 'federal prison', in the sense that I would not write it without the apostrophes but I just put my arms around him now and then, he likes a bit of love or affection he has this mindset of a 4-year old now and then, just comes into a trance when given even the slightest amount of love. Has no fancy or concept of what 'being gay' would amount to. Receiving physical affection from a man, likewise for me, it's just what it is, he'd come sit on your lap as well. Needs support of any kind. Has no possessions whatsoever.) (Wanted to know what I wrote, explained it a little). (Islamic boy, has no concept whatsoever of what we call homosexuality. He knows the word, is afraid of the word, but the stuff that people in this country run away from in seconds is not something that registers with him as the same. You can hug him and he will hug you. You do the same to a (Dutch) guy (white guy, at least here) and it is immediately "ho ho ho ho" "but I know what you mean" (as if you were making a joke in just putting your arm around someone). The strange thing in Islamic countries is that male-to-male contact is much more regular. Walking hand in hand and all of that stuff. At the same time homosexuality (or sexuality in any case) is deeply disrespected, but they amount to different things in different countries. Anyway.) We are alienated as people in the west, just like I just wrote about the physical contact. We have so little physical contact and it is so hard to get any kind of physical contact. And now we are talking about the physical contact between a hand and a spacebar and we see the same kind of alienation. Now a person (or perhaps 20 million persons) are being blamed as incompentent because they've become accustomed to a certain user interface style and now they've "touched in the wrong way". ;-) ;-). My God, the things you can relate . But it's completely ordinary. Someone does certain things, the software doesn't prevent it, even though the ability to make these mistakes, or the ....likelihood of users making these mistakes, is predictable and you can anticipate it... still the developer or the one defending the developer is in such a mindset that such a thing would be "dishonourable" or a sense of pride being lost. Some people just think too highly of what they've created and it becomes a bit of an ego position. Not because it is so good. Because it is not so good so it is compensated by a bit of blowing up your thought about it. I will just end by saying that over the past few months, or perhaps 6 months, I have made that "channel" mistake so many times that you'd think either I am completely incompetent or I have a mind that cannot learn these things, or my knowledge of this system is too limited to understand why it makes sense... but all the same just persistence in just using the software is not enough. What else can I do, or be? I am just using the channel mask thing to save selections. There is no other way to save a selection. What I am doing is saving selections or turning them into masks. I am doing it because the undo thing in GIMP is a regular list, not a tree. If you go back to a previous point and make one single change, all of your history is gone. Yay. Perhaps I am incompetent. Perhaps I have not studied enough. But scores and scores of people run into these same issues and calling all of them incompetent is just... well.... incompetent. [[ The boy, Khalid, requests that I write that he wants to go home to Ali, Muhammed his father, mother and his sister. He wants to go home..... ]]
You waited 2 months to post what amounts to 1300 words of rambling insanity for your third ever post? Not even gonna touch that shit. But I will answer your thesis. Yes your lack of experience in an image program is your problem, and not at all the fault of the designers.
