(As Carol mentioned the formattting in your mail was troublesome. I think maybe you need to change you line wrapping settings to less than 80 characters. Fortunately the email program I use can correct for that.) On Sat, 1 Apr 2006, Richard Reddy wrote: > Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 00:42:46 -0500 > From: Richard Reddy <rreddy01@xxxxxxxxxxx> > To: Gimp-developer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: A few suggestions forThe Gimp > > Greetings Developers, > > I've been using Photoshop since version 1 of "Photostyler". Before > that, I dreamed of digital images while using an 8086 PC and CGI > graphics. Photoshop is a good application, but I feel a growing > distaste for proprietary software. This is one answer to the question of why so many users want the GIMP to behave more like Adobe Photoshop, they do not dislike Photoshop but they do dislike the limitations of proprietary software. (People have asked and I think it is worth highlighting an opinion from a long term Photoshop user like you.) > So, for 2006 my photography business migrates to the GNU/Linux box. I > thought. A mutual friend, Richard Stallman, said I should run them by > you, so here you are. Does he still pronounce the SLASH in GNU/Linux? > 1. A browser just like Photoshop. Gimp 1.0 had a built in browser called GUASH but (if I recall correctly) there were so many better thumbnail browsers out there and GUASH wasn't getting a whole lot of maintainance love and the integration benefits were minimal. > No, better not. The browser is junk--very clunky and hungry for system > resources. Okay ... so maybe it the current stategy is a good idea then. > CS browser is just one of those flat-file Microsoft thingies. Why not > incorporate a real relational database? So, my suggestion is to > dramatically improve workflow by developing a MySQL database companion > for Gimp, that allows users to search and sort large image databases > like mine (30,000 digital images). Images could be tagged while they > are being processed, or batch tagged. Interesting idea. I suspect you would need to sponsor a developer if you really wanted it to happen though. > As director of photography for North American Women's Baseball League > (NAWBL), I know that searching and sorting images can be very > time-consuming work. Using Gimp you could automatically transfer image > metadata to tags. It would be very useful to do a search involving all > the images shot at f/2.8 or f/4.0? All the photos shot with a > particular lens. All the photos shot at ISO 100, or ISO 800. Photos of Programs like Bibble Pro, Aperture (from Apple) and Adobe Lightroom sound better suited to these tasks of batch processing sets of photos and RAW files. These are seperate and distinct programs from the likes of Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint, and Macromedia Fireworks. I wonder if trying to shoehorn even more functionality into the GIMP in a clean and organised way is really managable. > Such a database could be great learning tool for spirited amateurs. Incidentally are you familiar with Photo.net? > in the browser. Adobe cannot afford to package a powerful database > engine, because they would be paying license fees! I'm pretty sure Adobe could use MySQL just as easily as they already use Python. > 2. The much talked about user interface. Nobody will agree on one, any > more than they agree on the ten best photographs. Why not have > configuration options, that you could test, and pick a design you like? The cost of offering more interface and configuration options is maintainance. It is more than twice as much work to maintain two inferfaces. Just look at how upset some people have been getting over the differences between the GNU Image Manipulation program and GIMPShop (and previously Cinepaint). > Gimp looks pretty good on Fedora 5--because Fedora 5 has a beautiful > design for the desktop. Reminds me of Japanese art. So, this > suggestion is just to provide different skins--as many as people care to > develop or download. There are groups already interested in providing themes for GTK and Gnome applications. This doesn't usually happen within the developement of the GNU Image manipulation program. (I would be interested to see a fully featured theme with dark widgets like those which are so popular in 3D software and high end video production.) In response to your comments about one size not fitting all: I dont use multiple desktops, ever. Your suggestions about making even more use of mulitlple desktops sounds complicated. > It's a bitch to port MySQL and ODBC to windoze, in conjunction with a I'd be surprised if it wasn't already there. > MySQL database feature. Power is leveraged, by utilizing system leveraged utilizing where is Dave Neary :P (It is an in joke, dont worry about it.) > Having said all this, I prefer working with film. :-) > > Hope my suggestions are not too impractical. With interested developers, time and resources they sound possible. Otherwise they are more nice suggestions which might not go anywhere. Sincerely Alan Horkan _______________________________________________ Gimp-developer mailing list Gimp-developer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
