El 23/03/15 a las 14:16, Joseph Bupe escribi:

The create a new layer button in the layers tab always pops up a dialog box. Like the bucket fill tool, I wonder how many use this pop-up dialog to determine whether the layer should be bg, fg colour filled or transparent.

IMO, the new layer button should just create a new transparent layer. The dialog window should be optional.

I think this is a good idea. ;)

Once you have selected what kind of new layer you want, simply hitting the return (enter) afterward will give you a layer of the kind you choose last. As someone who uses GIMP for product photography, I often want a new white layer rather than a transparent one. My 2p. On 23 Mar 2015 17:18, "Joseph Bupe" wrote:

The create a new layer button in the layers tab always pops up a dialog box. Like the bucket fill tool, I wonder how many use this pop-up dialog to determine whether the layer should be bg, fg colour filled or transparent.

IMO, the new layer button should just create a new transparent layer. The dialog window should be optional.

Regards.

Joseph _______________________________________________ gimp-developer-list mailing list
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On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 4:16 PM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

The create a new layer button in the layers tab always pops up a dialog box. Like the bucket fill tool, I wonder how many use this pop-up dialog to determine whether the layer should be bg, fg colour filled or transparent.

Well, I do.

IMO, the new layer button should just create a new transparent layer. The dialog window should be optional.

Or you can create a transparent layer once and Shift+click the button the next time. It's in the tooltip even :)

Alex

On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 2:16 PM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

The create a new layer button in the layers tab always pops up a dialog box. Like the bucket fill tool, I wonder how many use this pop-up dialog to determine whether the layer should be bg, fg colour filled or transparent.

IMO, the new layer button should just create a new transparent layer. The dialog window should be optional.

Regards.

Joseph _______________________________________________ gimp-developer-list mailing list
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I did this for personal use a while ago, if you compile yourself: http://comm.it.cx/cgit/gimp/patch/?id=03994e521f056b9b566e7118b69eca68ca980388 and related also useful patch:
http://comm.it.cx/cgit/gimp/patch/?id=182d0ec16b6a5d0df52dd2a0261a6dab0fb5cf54

Mikael Magnusson

El 23/03/15 a las 18:49, Alexandre Prokoudine escribi:

On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 4:16 PM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

IMO, the new layer button should just create a new transparent layer. The dialog window should be optional.

Or you can create a transparent layer once and Shift+click the button the next time. It's in the tooltip even :)

Oh my god! I just discovered this awesome feature! (I will pay more attention to tooltips now) :D

Thanks!

Why not combine both approaches? For example: - Left click on New-Layer Button: Create a layer of the same type the user added last time.
- Right click on New-Layer Button: Show a popup and let the user choose which kind of layer he wants to create.

The right click will be a short route for creating a layer of the same size as the image but with different background fills. Additionally an "advanced" menu entry could be added to the popup, showing the current dialog.

This should make things more fluid.

Greetings Tobias Oelgarte

Once you have selected what kind of new layer you want, simply hitting the return (enter) afterward will give you a layer of the kind you choose last. As someone who uses GIMP for product photography, I often want a new white layer rather than a transparent one. My 2p. On 23 Mar 2015 17:18, "Joseph Bupe" wrote:

The create a new layer button in the layers tab always pops up a dialog box. Like the bucket fill tool, I wonder how many use this pop-up dialog to determine whether the layer should be bg, fg colour filled or transparent.

IMO, the new layer button should just create a new transparent layer. The dialog window should be optional.

Regards.

Joseph _______________________________________________ gimp-developer-list mailing list
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https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer-list List archives: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-developer-list

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Am 25.03.2015 um 19:54 schrieb jEsuSdA 8):

El 23/03/15 a las 18:49, Alexandre Prokoudine escribi:

On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 4:16 PM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

IMO, the new layer button should just create a new transparent layer. The
dialog window should be optional.

Or you can create a transparent layer once and Shift+click the button the next time. It's in the tooltip even :)

Oh my god! I just discovered this awesome feature! (I will pay more attention to tooltips now) :D

Thanks!

I didn't notice this feature as well. Good to know. But since many of us missed it, could we say that the implementation of this feature sucks, because it is not obvious for the normal user?

26 марта 2015 г. 12:27 пользователь "Tobias Oelgarte" написал:

Why not combine both approaches? For example: - Left click on New-Layer Button: Create a layer of the same type the

user added last time.

Left-click on a button in a dialog is not just inconsistent with the rest of UI in GIMP, but also with the rest of apps out there.

Personally, I see no harm in reversing the existing behavior, but I guess this is where some bigger picture wouldn't come amiss befor applying any changes.

Alex

On 03/26/2015 09:29 AM, Tobias Oelgarte wrote:

I didn't notice this feature as well. Good to know. But since many of us missed it, could we say that the implementation of this feature sucks, because it is not obvious for the normal user?

Whenever any change is done that is perceived as "for the normal user", many people step up and declare that "gimp users are advanced enough to know all about that and thus the change is not needed" :)

Regards,
Michael
GPG: 96A8 B38A 728A 577D 724D 60E5 F855 53EC B36D 4CDD

On 03/24/2015 06:53 AM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

I already know about the Shift + Click key combination. But, why can't we do it the photoshop way? It's a straight forward thing to open a new layer without pop-up.

I also think certain usability issues in Gimp should be voted upon in order to get a good idea of the majority experiences and use that to determine what improvements are required.

There's one feature request that asks for consistency:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=159832

TL;DR: Have Shift+Click bypass dialogs and use the last values at as many places as possible.

Regards,
Michael
GPG: 96A8 B38A 728A 577D 724D 60E5 F855 53EC B36D 4CDD

Removing the dialogue, or moving it to shift-click would be fine, except for the fact that it will effectively hide the dialogue from new users. What about just keeping the dialogue the same (when you click the new layer button), and having the hot-key auto-repeat the last chosen layer settings from the dialogue. New users are not likely to take advantage of hotkeys right away, so it makes sense in that respect to keep the dialogue under the button-click.

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 8:50 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine <

alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com> wrote:

26 марта 2015 г. 12:27 пользователь "Tobias Oelgarte" написал:

Why not combine both approaches? For example: - Left click on New-Layer Button: Create a layer of the same type the

user added last time.

Left-click on a button in a dialog is not just inconsistent with the rest of UI in GIMP, but also with the rest of apps out there.

Personally, I see no harm in reversing the existing behavior, but I guess this is where some bigger picture wouldn't come amiss befor applying any changes.

Alex
_______________________________________________ gimp-developer-list mailing list
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On 26/03/15 09:29, Tobias Oelgarte wrote:

Am 25.03.2015 um 19:54 schrieb jEsuSdA 8):

El 23/03/15 a las 18:49, Alexandre Prokoudine escribi:

On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 4:16 PM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

IMO, the new layer button should just create a new transparent layer. The
dialog window should be optional.

Or you can create a transparent layer once and Shift+click the button the next time. It's in the tooltip even :)

Oh my god! I just discovered this awesome feature! (I will pay more attention to tooltips now) :D

Thanks!

I didn't notice this feature as well. Good to know. But since many of us missed it, could we say that the implementation of this feature sucks, because it is not obvious for the normal user?

It was also not so obvious to some more advanced users :) let's face it, in a software with the breadth of Gimp, everyone is going to overlook some feature. And anyway you can't have all these clever little things jump in your face when you start using the application, that would be information overload. Better find/learn about them little by little when the need arises.

On 03/26/2015 08:16 PM, Ofnuts wrote:

It was also not so obvious to some more advanced users :) let's face it, in a software with the breadth of Gimp, everyone is going to overlook some feature.

+1.

For example, I looked for a long time for a way to save a selection as a channel - it's right there on the selection menu, but I didn't find that option until reading one of Pat David's excellent tutorials.

And anyway you can't have all these clever little things jump in your face when you start using the application, that would be information overload. Better find/learn about them little by little when the need arises.

+1.

I can think of three different groups of users for "when the need arises":

1. People who are learning about image editing at the same time that they are learning to use GIMP.

2. People who are very experienced at using GIMP, and still don't know where all the shortcuts and tools are hiding (that they would use if they knew about them, nobody uses everything GIMP provides).

3. People who are very experienced at editing images using other software, who:

* Already know how to use much of what GIMP offers, but might not have an easy time finding where GIMP stores the equivalent tools and options.

* Of course have no clue about GIMP algorithms and tools that *aren't* available in whatever software they might have used in the past.

Anyone have any idea how many current GIMP users fall into the third category? I'm an ex-PhotoShop user (and before that Corel software). I found using GIMP to be pretty intuitively obvious, except I'm still discovering basic stuff like "how do I save a selection as a channel".

El vie, 27-03-2015 a las 09:16 -0400, Elle Stone escribió:

On 03/26/2015 08:16 PM, Ofnuts wrote:

It was also not so obvious to some more advanced users :) let's face it, in a software with the breadth of Gimp, everyone is going to overlook some feature.

+1.

I'm the kind of users who read the tooltips, so I knew the feature and although I have no personal interest in having it changed, I wouldn't mind if the behavior is reversed (clicking on new layer creates a new transparent layer and shift+click brings the dialog for alternate options).
It seems reasonable to require an extra click for committing extra options and having the most commonly used option accessed quickly, without interruptions to the workflow.

That being said, It's kind of depressing that being "people who read tooltips" makes you an "advanced user". Come on, it's not that hard to read at least once a program's tooltips and status bar :-p

Gez

On 03/27/2015 10:45 PM, Gez wrote:

It seems reasonable to require an extra click for committing extra options and having the most commonly used option accessed quickly, without interruptions to the workflow.

What's the most commonly used option for a new layer varies from user to user. When I make a new layer, almost always it's either the foreground color or white.

On 03/27/2015 09:59 AM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

It would be better to have short-cut menu that corresponds to the layer content. That way issues like this one wouldn't arise. For instance, if I have a selection with matching ants, the menu would have options like:
- fill selection with fg colour
- fill selection with bg colour
- stroke selection
etc
IMO, the current short-cut menu isn't so helpful. joseph

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a "short-cut menu that corresponds to the layer content".

There are many things that the user might want to do next after making a selection, and what might be "obviously the next move" for one person's workflow might not ever be done in the next person's workflow.

I use selections a lot. After making a selection I might:

- invert or feather the selection - turn the selection into a mask
- save the selection as a channel
- use channels to modify the selection - apply Curves or Levels to the selected area - paint on a mask confining the brush strokes to the selected area - use the Clone tool confined to the selected area - blur the selected area

and so on. Filling a selected area with a color is pretty much at the bottom of the list of actions I might take after making a selection.

GIMP's menu is complicated because GIMP provides many tools. Efforts to simplify or modify the current menu would need to account for many different workflows.

On 03/28/2015 10:40 AM, Elle Stone wrote:

On 03/27/2015 09:59 AM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

It would be better to have short-cut menu that corresponds to the layer content. That way issues like this one wouldn't arise. For instance, if I have a selection with matching ants, the menu would have options like:
- fill selection with fg colour
- fill selection with bg colour
- stroke selection
etc
IMO, the current short-cut menu isn't so helpful. joseph

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a "short-cut menu that corresponds to the layer content".

A context menu that acts like a real context menu, i.e. shows options that are most relevant to the current context either exclusively or at least in some kind of prominent position, e.g. at the top. This has been discussed a few times already, but not real plans or work have been done yet.

A downside is that it would change the order of the option in the latter case (think of e.g. the Select menu being sorted to the menu bottom is there is no selection) and not show some at all in the former case (if e.g. all disabled options would not be shown at all in GIMP menus).

Regards,
Michael
GPG: 96A8 B38A 728A 577D 724D 60E5 F855 53EC B36D 4CDD

On 28/03/15 11:46, Michael Schumacher wrote:

A context menu that acts like a real context menu, i.e. shows options that are most relevant to the current context either exclusively or at least in some kind of prominent position, e.g. at the top. This has been discussed a few times already, but not real plans or work have been done yet. A downside is that it would change the order of the option in the latter case (think of e.g. the Select menu being sorted to the menu bottom is there is no selection) and not show some at all in the former case (if e.g. all disabled options would not be shown at all in GIMP menus).

These contextual menus are a mixed blessing. Of course they make things simple, but it can be somewhat too simple. How will new users discover options or functionalities that are new to them(*)? The people who really benefit from this are the advanced users but they don't really care...

(*) taking that to an extreme: you wouldn't see the bump map filter until you have at least two layers of the same size in your image, or "Text along path" unless you have already created a path....

Gez (listas@ohweb.com.ar) wrote:

El vie, 27-03-2015 a las 09:16 -0400, Elle Stone escribió:

On 03/26/2015 08:16 PM, Ofnuts wrote:

It was also not so obvious to some more advanced users :) let's face it, in a software with the breadth of Gimp, everyone is going to overlook some feature.

+1.

I'm the kind of users who read the tooltips, so I knew the feature and although I have no personal interest in having it changed, I wouldn't mind if the behavior is reversed (clicking on new layer creates a new transparent layer and shift+click brings the dialog for alternate options).

we had that this way for a while. Turns out that with the shift-click not really being discoverable a bunch of features basically "disappeared". We then reverted it back.

Bye, Simon

simon@budig.de              http://simon.budig.de/

On 03/28/2015 09:13 AM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

If i need the main menu surely I can access it from the top of the app where it's already visibly available. Right-click should be left for the context menu.

Everyone uses GIMP differently. In Preferences, under "Image Window Apperance", I uncheck showing the menubar. I access the main menu by right-clicking.

On 03/28/2015 07:00 AM, Ofnuts wrote:

These contextual menus are a mixed blessing. Of course they make things simple, but it can be somewhat too simple. How will new users discover options or functionalities that are new to them(*)? The people who really benefit from this are the advanced users but they don't really care...

Everyone wants fewer clicks and less hunting for the tool in a menu. But "better menu access for some workflows" might well mean "worse menu access for other workflows".

I forced myself to learn Krita keyboard shortcuts from the beginning. But I got into the habit of using GIMP without using keyboard shortcuts.

For people who already use a lot of keyboard shortcuts when using GIMP, how much does using keyboard shortcuts mitigate or eliminate the useability problems for which the contextual menus are a proposed solution?

El sáb, 28-03-2015 a las 05:28 -0400, Elle Stone escribió:

On 03/27/2015 10:45 PM, Gez wrote:

It seems reasonable to require an extra click for committing extra options and having the most commonly used option accessed quickly, without interruptions to the workflow.

What's the most commonly used option for a new layer varies from user to user. When I make a new layer, almost always it's either the foreground color or white.

Sure. I'm not claiming that everyone uses tools like GIMP the same way. But I'm pretty sure that if there were some statistics about what people need the most when creating a new layer it would be a transparent layer, since it doesn't occlude the underlaying layers. Furthermore, creating a new empty layer and then dragging the foreground or background color from the toolbar swatch to the image takes exactly the same time and effort (maybe less) than selecting the same option in the current dialog.
But again, since not everyone uses GIMP the same way, it is impossible to come up with something that makes everyone happy. That's when a good interface designer should "design" the best possible solution which of course won't make everyone happy but maybe will make the target users of the program more productive. Unfortunately, a solution that covers "I don't read tooltips or manuals", "it's easy to find", "it doesn't clutter the UI with millions of options", "it makes advanced users happy", etc. is plain impossible.

I'm baffled to learn that the default used to be creating a new transparent layer but it was changed back because people didn't find it, pretty much the same way they are not finding that alt+click creates a new transparent layer now.
It's a good thing that features are easily discoverable, but as you said, when a program becomes more complex it's not always possible to keep everything at hand.
That's when hints like tooltips and text in the status bar come in, and I don't think it's a bad thing to use them. Is it really a good idea to pop up in front of every user face a complex dialog just because some other users are lazy enough to not read the documentation, the tooltips or the status bar not even once?

Gez.

On 03/28/2015 07:54 PM, Gez wrote:

I'm baffled to learn that the default used to be creating a new transparent layer but it was changed back because people didn't find it, pretty much the same way they are not finding that alt+click creates a new transparent layer now.

It is Shift+Click, and it doesn't create a transparent layer, but one with the default values or last values used in the dialog.

One (probably arguable) bug is there: the size is always reset to the image size.

As mentioned on this thread already, there is an enhancement request to make this consistent across all dialogs and menu entries.

Is it really a good idea to pop up in front of every user face a complex dialog just because some other users are lazy enough to not read the documentation, the tooltips or the status bar not even once?

Um...

Regards,
Michael
GPG: 96A8 B38A 728A 577D 724D 60E5 F855 53EC B36D 4CDD

Am 26.03.2015 um 09:50 schrieb Alexandre Prokoudine:

26 марта 2015 г. 12:27 пользователь "Tobias Oelgarte" написал:

Why not combine both approaches? For example: - Left click on New-Layer Button: Create a layer of the same type the

user added last time.

Left-click on a button in a dialog is not just inconsistent with the rest of UI in GIMP, but also with the rest of apps out there.

Personally, I see no harm in reversing the existing behavior, but I guess this is where some bigger picture wouldn't come amiss befor applying any changes.

Alex

If that is inconsistent, why not use a split button instead? So you can right click for the last option (the button) and also right click for a drop down menu. This should be the most obvious and effective solution for all users.

Tobias Oelgarte

El sáb, 28-03-2015 a las 20:31 +0100, Michael Schumacher escribió:

On 03/28/2015 07:54 PM, Gez wrote:

I'm baffled to learn that the default used to be creating a new transparent layer but it was changed back because people didn't find it, pretty much the same way they are not finding that alt+click creates a new transparent layer now.

It is Shift+Click, and it doesn't create a transparent layer, but one with the default values or last values used in the dialog.

Is it really a good idea to pop up in front of every user face a complex dialog just because some other users are lazy enough to not read the documentation, the tooltips or the status bar not even once?

Um...

Haha, double fail!

Even though I mixed up the keystroke (which I do use everyday, but my memory betrayed me at the moment of writing it down) and described its function wrong, the question remains. Popping up that dialog with several options is usually NOT what the user needs, and it interrupts the workflow a bit. My point was that, if it's done for the sake of discoverability, the existence of a tooltip listing the alternate functions with modifier keys should be enough.
I have the habit of checking the tooltips and status bar everytime I use a new tool, and when I teach other people to use GIMP and other free software packages I always point them to check there for hints about how to use each tool.
As I said before, I'm not even interested in having this changed. It's the argument of "discoverability" something that I find arguable.

That being said, I think Tobias' idea is a good solution which provides both an uninterrupted workflow and an easily discoverable set of alternate functions.

Gez

On 03/28/2015 02:54 PM, Gez wrote:

El sáb, 28-03-2015 a las 05:28 -0400, Elle Stone escribió:

On 03/27/2015 10:45 PM, Gez wrote:

It seems reasonable to require an extra click for committing extra options and having the most commonly used option accessed quickly, without interruptions to the workflow.

What's the most commonly used option for a new layer varies from user to user. When I make a new layer, almost always it's either the foreground color or white.

Furthermore, creating a new empty layer and then dragging the foreground or background color from the toolbar swatch to the image takes exactly the same time and effort (maybe less) than selecting the same option in the current dialog.

What you just described - shift-click the new layer button plus dragging the foreground/background color - works perfectly, MUCH better than using the new layer dialog. Thanks! Many thanks!! By comparision, using the new layer dialog really is cumbersome.

That's when hints like tooltips and text in the status bar come in, and I don't think it's a bad thing to use them.

The tooltips pop up only after the user hovers over the New layer icon for a couple seconds. On the one hand, this tooltip delay is necessary to prevent the UI from becoming excessively distracting from tooltips popping up all over the place. On the other hand, though I'm sure I hovered over all the buttons and icons at some point in the past, I didn't remember that particular tooltip. I had to search around to figure out where to "shift-click".

Where's the documentation for these two shortcuts? I did a quick internet search and didn't find any tutorials or documentation regarding "shift-click" plus "drag the color".

-- Elle

On 03/28/2015 02:54 PM, Gez wrote:

But again, since not everyone uses GIMP the same way, it is impossible to come up with something that makes everyone happy. That's when a good interface designer should "design" the best possible solution which of course won't make everyone happy but maybe will make the target users of the program more productive.

Sure. I'm not claiming that everyone uses tools like GIMP the same way. But I'm pretty sure that if there were some statistics about what people need the most when creating a new layer it would be a transparent layer, since it doesn't occlude the underlaying layers.

A lot of people make statements to the effect that "Most GIMP users do this or that", but I've never seen anyone offer any supporting logical justification or hard evidence.

What studies have been done to determine what GIMP's "high end" target users really want in terms of useability?

The Krita devs went out and asked their target users: professional artists and PhotoShop users who were looking to switch away from Adobe products
(http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/Krita-KDE-s-Powerful-Graphics-Editor-Takes-on-Photoshop-and-GIMP). Krita got a lot more useable once the devs actually asked potential users in the target group to try using Krita.

Libre graphics is coming up. Maybe the GIMP devs could find a couple of would-be PhotoShop escapees who are advanced enough in their editing skills to make full use of all that PhotoShop has to offer, and ask them to try using GIMP. It would be nice if at least one such would-be PhotoShop escapee produces what I will call "fine art photography" for lack of a better word, and preferably someone who routinely edits in RGB working spaces other than sRGB.

On 29/03/15 18:02, Elle Stone wrote:

A lot of people make statements to the effect that "Most GIMP users do this or that", but I've never seen anyone offer any supporting logical justification or hard evidence.

How hard would it be to add meaningful usage statistics in Gimp?

Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2015 19:57:38 +0200 From: ofnuts@gmx.com
How hard would it be to add meaningful usage statistics in Gimp?

It was done some years ago. The GIMP wikipedia page reports it was created by the University of Warterloo and called ingimp

On 03/29/2015 02:32 PM, Kevin Payne wrote:

Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2015 19:57:38 +0200 From: ofnuts@gmx.com
How hard would it be to add meaningful usage statistics in Gimp?

It was done some years ago. The GIMP wikipedia page reports it was created by the University of Warterloo and called ingimp

Quoting the Wikipedia article on GIMP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP#Forks_and_derivatives

"Instrumented GIMP (ingimp): Created at the University of Waterloo to track and report user interaction with the program to generate statistics about how GIMP is used, first released on 5 May 2007. Statistics collected by ingimp were publicly available freely of charge on the project's website after being anonymized.[61] As of 2014, the ingimp website is no longer functioning."

Whatever statistics were collected, they are no longer available unless someone can find an archived copy.

Also, those statistics pertain to 8-bit GIMP users. There are a lot of people in GIMP's target group of high end users who have never used GIMP precisely because it didn't support high bit depth image editing.

Hi Elle. I may be one of the people you are looking for, Re: professional Photoshop user who now does everything in GIMP. I'm at your service. Please let me know how I can best help.
As an example, I have done luxury branding with GIMP and Inkscape that was very well received at the CeBit convention in Hanover, earlier this month. The website is www.alstoncraig.com, and I shot the models and scenes for this separately myself, then edited them together in GIMP to look photo realistic. I can provide full resolution shots if needed. All the product shots are mine too, and done with GIMP. I would be happy to share my various workflows with you and the team, if that will help. Honestly, the biggest things that slow me down are adding alpha changes to imported image files, and the lack of the unified transform tool, which I am very much looking forward to. I also find myself having to turn off the guidelines on perspective transform, and hiding the layer to edit phone screens onto the fake devices we have for product photo shoots. The layer dialogue doesn't bother me, because just hitting the enter key does the last thing, and now that I know the shift click trick it will be even faster.

Let me know how I can help. Thanks,
-C

On 29 Mar 2015 16:58, "Elle Stone" wrote:

On 03/28/2015 02:54 PM, Gez wrote:

But again, since not everyone uses GIMP the same way, it is impossible to come up with something that makes everyone happy. That's when a good interface designer should "design" the best possible solution which of course won't make everyone happy but maybe will make the target users of the program more productive.

Sure. I'm not claiming that everyone uses tools like GIMP the same way. But I'm pretty sure that if there were some statistics about what people need the most when creating a new layer it would be a transparent layer, since it doesn't occlude the underlaying layers.

A lot of people make statements to the effect that "Most GIMP users do

this or that", but I've never seen anyone offer any supporting logical justification or hard evidence.

What studies have been done to determine what GIMP's "high end" target

users really want in terms of useability?

The Krita devs went out and asked their target users: professional

artists and PhotoShop users who were looking to switch away from Adobe products (
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/Krita-KDE-s-Powerful-Graphics-Editor-Takes-on-Photoshop-and-GIMP). Krita got a lot more useable once the devs actually asked potential users in the target group to try using Krita.

Libre graphics is coming up. Maybe the GIMP devs could find a couple of

would-be PhotoShop escapees who are advanced enough in their editing skills to make full use of all that PhotoShop has to offer, and ask them to try using GIMP. It would be nice if at least one such would-be PhotoShop escapee produces what I will call "fine art photography" for lack of a better word, and preferably someone who routinely edits in RGB working spaces other than sRGB.

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On 03/29/2015 01:57 PM, Ofnuts wrote:

On 29/03/15 18:02, Elle Stone wrote:

A lot of people make statements to the effect that "Most GIMP users do this or that", but I've never seen anyone offer any supporting logical justification or hard evidence.

How hard would it be to add meaningful usage statistics in Gimp?

I'm not sure there is an easy way to add meaningful usage statistics. I think the better course really might be to follow Krita's lead and ask actual and potential users who fall into GIMP's "target users" groups to use GIMP and provide feedback on what works, what doesn't work, what could be better, and so on.

Obviously there are people right on this list who can share their workflows and the useability problems they've encountered, perhaps in a more structured way than popping onto the list with "the export dialog needs to be improved" (that was my latest complaint) or "adding a new layer is cumbersome" (which it really is unless you know about click-shift and dragging colors).

On 03/29/2015 04:35 PM, C R wrote:

Hi Elle. I may be one of the people you are looking for, Re: professional Photoshop user who now does everything in GIMP. I'm at your service. Please let me know how I can best help.

C R offered to share his workflow. C R, do you primarily do product photography? Or also other kinds of photography?

I'm also an ex-Photoshop user, and the more I use high bit depth GIMP, the more I like it, but I keep running into the same useability issues over and over again. I mostly use GIMP for editing photographs. I did a marathon editing session and kept useability notes, which I could organize into a "top ten" list.

What other categories of uses for GIMP are represented by users on this list?

Would any of you be interested in "watching yourself edit", so to speak, and putting together a short description of your workflow and your personal "top ten useability issues", and maybe also say what you like about GIMP?

And if five or ten or twenty people on this list go to the trouble of putting together a short description of their workflow, plus their personal "top ten useability issues", would any of the GIMP developers be in a position to make use of the collected information?

Best, Elle

On 03/30/2015 05:57 AM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

On 29 March 2015 at 23:32, Elle Stone > wrote:

, would any of the GIMP developers be in a position to make use of the collected information?

BIG question ! But I like the idea of the opinion poll at gimpusers.com

http://www.gimpusers.com/polls/32

Certainly, Gimp developers would know what to do with the feedback from an opinion poll provided someone is willing to take on the task(s).

An opinion poll by its very nature presents a fixed list of options and so necessarily reflects the point of view of the person who writes the poll. What options would you put in an opinion poll?

I'm interested in GIMP 2.9 useability, and specifically in open-ended feedback from users who might want to or already do use GIMP 2.9 because it's a very capable high bit depth image editor.

Yes, people do produce excellent work using an 8-bit image editor. But many kinds of editing simply can't be done using 8-bit precision.

In the real world, light and colors blend linearly. This means that proper blending of colors while editing images or creating digital art *requires* working in a linear gamma color space or on linearized RGB values.

At 8-bit precision, to avoid posterization you necessarily must use a perceptually uniform RGB working space, such as the regular sRGB color space with its "almost gamma=2.2" tone reproduction curve.

Consequently, you get all kinds of color blending "gamma" artifacts when using 8-bit image editors such as GIMP 2.8. The same is true of high bit depth image editors, if you don't use a linear gamma color space when required by the particular editing operation.

You can't even properly white balance an image in a perceptually uniform color space like the regular sRGB color space. If you try (and everyone does try!), you get incorrect and muddy colors, even if you aren't aware of just how incorrect and muddy your "white balanced" colors really are.

Correct white balancing *requires* linearized RGB values.

The CGI people went to high bit precision using linearized RGB values a long time ago, precisely to avoid having to deal with color blending gamma artifacts. People who edit photographs have been slow to realize the problems they create for themselves by working in perceptually uniform color spaces, partly, I'm sure, from lack of access to high bit depth image editors.

Elle

On 03/30/2015 08:08 AM, Joseph Bupe wrote:

When you say the opinion poll reflects the point of view of the person who writes it, does that mean the outcome is already decided in advance regardless of what the respondents will say?

Of course not. But the people responding to the poll can't make a choice not already listed in the poll, except "none of the above".

And also yes, to varying degrees the poll predecides the answers.

Anyone who has ever worked for a political campaign knows how easy it is to sway responses by how the options are worded, even if the person writing the poll isn't consciously trying to "predecide" responses.

People will actually answer the same question - repeated again with different phrasing - and give the exact opposite of the answer they gave the first time. Different phrasing makes us think of different considerations.

Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2015 07:23:51 -0400 From: ellestone@ninedegreesbelow.com Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Create New Layer Button

I'm interested in GIMP 2.9 useability, and specifically in open-ended feedback from users who might want to or already do use GIMP 2.9 because it's a very capable high bit depth image editor.

Elle

You might stand a better chance of getting this if there was a definitive "2.9" release, but at present it's a constantly changing animal that is even potentially broken on occasion.

Isn't it about time there was an interim release? - a "line in the sand" if you will.

Kevin Payne (paynekj@hotmail.com) wrote:

Isn't it about time there was an interim release? - a "line in the sand" if you will.

I think we will discuss this "live" at the libre graphics meeting at the end of april/beginning of may.

Bye, Simon

simon@budig.de              http://simon.budig.de/

On 03/30/2015 09:18 AM, Kevin Payne wrote:

You might stand a better chance of getting this if there was a definitive "2.9" release, but at present it's a constantly changing animal that is even potentially broken on occasion.

Isn't it about time there was an interim release? - a "line in the sand" if you will.

On 03/30/2015 09:41 AM, Simon Budig wrote:

I think we will discuss this "live" at the libre graphics meeting at the end of april/beginning of may.

I've been using GIMP 2.9 as my main image editor for over two years now, updating regularly. It hardly ever breaks and the main editing functions seem very stable.

Personally I think the main useability issue with GIMP 2.9 is the "babl flips" that automatically convert the RGB values from perceptually uniform to linearized and back.

One of my major complaints about PhotoShop was that converting from linear to perceptually uniform RGB and back required an actual ICC profile conversion.

The "babl flips" offer a way to very easily convert between perceptually uniform and linearized RGB without actually doing an ICC profile conversion. But the current user interface for switching between linear and perceptual RGB is very confusing (imho) and also doesn't give the user full control.

So for my working copy of GIMP I compile GIMP with the babl flips disabled
(http://ninedegreesbelow.com/photography/users-guide-to-high-bit-depth-gimp.html) and use ICC profile conversions to switch from linear to perceptually uniform RGB and back again.

I am very much looking forward to a version of GIMP where the UI allows the user to easily switch, as desired, between linearized and perceptually uniform RGB. Accomplishing this task by ICC profile conversions is cumbersome.

Was thinking it may be of use to start a GIMP workflow thread on Google +, where people can post videos of their current workflows for jobs they do repeatedly. This could serve a threefold benefit:

1. It would give some insight into how people are using GIMP, and the intricacies and bottlenecks of their workflows 2. Give newbies some insight into how they can improve their own workflows in GIMP
3. Provide a space for workflow critique, and suggestions for improvement of the workflow within GIMP's UI as-is 4. Provide insight for how to improve GIMP's UI to speed up over-all productivity, and reduce common bottlenecks.

Would this be of interest?

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 2:41 PM, Simon Budig wrote:

Kevin Payne (paynekj@hotmail.com) wrote:

Isn't it about time there was an interim release? - a "line in the sand" if you will.

I think we will discuss this "live" at the libre graphics meeting at the end of april/beginning of may.

Bye, Simon

--
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Elle, to answer your question, I'm a graphic designer mainly, but I use photography as a graphic design tool. I would consider myself a decent photographer, but I'm much better at photo-editing than I am at photography, to be perfectly honest. :) From me, you would get a variety of workflows, which range from focus-stacking and layer duplication with layer mode filters and masks for non-destructive editing.

I would be very pleased to see your workflow as well, as it may help improve mine. It's always those one of two things that you don't think of, that just save you ages.

For example, in product photography, I used to fuzzy-select (magic wand in PS) the white space and shadow areas, and erase to white as close as I could get to the shadow area to maintain a clean transition, and then clean up the shadows a bit. These days, I use fuzzy select (or the curves tool for white object on white background, since fuzzy select doesn't work as well in these situations), then selection-to-mask (inverted), and erase the mask outward from the base of the object until I have as much shadow as I want. This ensures a smooth transition without any extra clean up, and allows much greater control over the image in a non-destructive way that only requires a few more button clicks, and is so much less of a pain-in-the-ass, it's ridiculous.

I will do a video of my various workflows, and make UI suggestions based on each of them, if that will help the team.

Let me know if this is something that would be useful.

On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 10:32 PM, Elle Stone

wrote:

On 03/29/2015 01:57 PM, Ofnuts wrote:

On 29/03/15 18:02, Elle Stone wrote:

A lot of people make statements to the effect that "Most GIMP users do this or that", but I've never seen anyone offer any supporting logical justification or hard evidence.

How hard would it be to add meaningful usage statistics in Gimp?

I'm not sure there is an easy way to add meaningful usage statistics. I think the better course really might be to follow Krita's lead and ask actual and potential users who fall into GIMP's "target users" groups to use GIMP and provide feedback on what works, what doesn't work, what could be better, and so on.

Obviously there are people right on this list who can share their workflows and the useability problems they've encountered, perhaps in a more structured way than popping onto the list with "the export dialog needs to be improved" (that was my latest complaint) or "adding a new layer is cumbersome" (which it really is unless you know about click-shift and dragging colors).

On 03/29/2015 04:35 PM, C R wrote:

Hi Elle. I may be one of the people you are looking for, Re: professional Photoshop user who now does everything in GIMP. I'm at your service. Please let me know how I can best help.

C R offered to share his workflow. C R, do you primarily do product photography? Or also other kinds of photography?

I'm also an ex-Photoshop user, and the more I use high bit depth GIMP, the more I like it, but I keep running into the same useability issues over and over again. I mostly use GIMP for editing photographs. I did a marathon editing session and kept useability notes, which I could organize into a "top ten" list.

What other categories of uses for GIMP are represented by users on this list?

Would any of you be interested in "watching yourself edit", so to speak, and putting together a short description of your workflow and your personal "top ten useability issues", and maybe also say what you like about GIMP?

And if five or ten or twenty people on this list go to the trouble of putting together a short description of their workflow, plus their personal "top ten useability issues", would any of the GIMP developers be in a position to make use of the collected information?

Best, Elle

On 03/30/2015 12:14 PM, C R wrote:

Elle, to answer your question, I'm a graphic designer mainly, but I use photography as a graphic design tool. I would consider myself a decent photographer, but I'm much better at photo-editing than I am at photography, to be perfectly honest. :) From me, you would get a variety of workflows, which range from focus-stacking and layer duplication with layer mode filters and masks for non-destructive editing.

I would be very pleased to see your workflow as well, as it may help improve mine. It's always those one of two things that you don't think of, that just save you ages.

For example, in product photography, I used to fuzzy-select (magic wand in PS) the white space and shadow areas, and erase to white as close as I could get to the shadow area to maintain a clean transition, and then clean up the shadows a bit. These days, I use fuzzy select (or the curves tool for white object on white background, since fuzzy select doesn't work as well in these situations), then selection-to-mask (inverted), and erase the mask outward from the base of the object until I have as much shadow as I want. This ensures a smooth transition without any extra clean up, and allows much greater control over the image in a non-destructive way that only requires a few more button clicks, and is so much less of a pain-in-the-ass, it's ridiculous.

I will do a video of my various workflows, and make UI suggestions based on each of them, if that will help the team.

Let me know if this is something that would be useful.

Hi C R,

GIMP users can provide helpful suggestions for improving GIMP useability. But GIMP code still gets written one line at a time by whichever developers and code contributors have the time, ability, and inclination.

It's very possible that the core GIMP code is not at a point where it makes sense for the developers to worry too much about workflow-specific useability issues. That's why I asked about whether the developers would be able to use information about people's workflows and personal "top ten useability issues". I'm pretty sure that eventually the answer will be yes, but I'm not sure if now is the right time.

You are right about those "one or two [or 10 or 20] things that you don't think of" that make your workflow easier. Shift-click plus dragging a color to a layer is certainly one of those things for me. So even if the GIMP devs aren't at a point where worrying about useability is a high priority, GIMP users can learn from each other about ways to improve our workflows, if people want to share such information.

Mostly I use GIMP for editing photographs, and like yourself I like working in the digital darkroom as much or more than actually taking photographs. My photography workflow is pretty simple. If I'm starting with a camera jpeg, I use RawTherapee to recover crushed shadow detail, deal with lens vignetting, etc. If I'm starting with a raw file, I use RawTherapee or darktable to produce a "flat print" with no alteration to the original image other than fixing things like lens vignetting and chromatic aberration. Many people do most of their editing in a raw processor and only use programs like GIMP or PhotoShop for touch-ups. I'm sort of old school - I use GIMP for almost the entire process of creating a final black and white image. Using GIMP, I make any necessary repairs to flaws in the original image, and then make a luminance-based black and white rendering, recovering the original channel information at the same time in case it might be useful. Then I modify global and local tonality layer by layer, using masks to confine modifications to the desired area.

This page has a couple of screenshots showing typical layer stacks, but doesn't talk about useability issues (it's a tutorial on some layer blend modes that haven't yet made it into GIMP master): http://ninedegreesbelow.com/photography/gimp-lch-blend-modes.html

Elle

Elle, Thanks for sharing your workflow, and the link. I'm sure the information contained in that page will be very useful (I have bookmarked it), as these are not things I typically play with (mostly, there just aren't enough hours in the day, and I'm the graphics/media department for the entire company).
I appreciate the honesty. I will hold off on the idea for now, but the offer is open to anyone who might like to share processes and workflows, or use them with the intention of adding features to GIMP.

One question: Is there a plugin or feature planned for displaying keystrokes on the screen as you are typing them? This would make it somewhat easier to record workflows without having to manually overlay each keystroke in the final video.

Thanks again. -C

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 8:57 PM, Elle Stone wrote:

On 03/30/2015 12:14 PM, C R wrote:

Elle, to answer your question, I'm a graphic designer mainly, but I use photography as a graphic design tool. I would consider myself a decent photographer, but I'm much better at photo-editing than I am at photography, to be perfectly honest. :) From me, you would get a variety of workflows, which range from focus-stacking and layer duplication with layer mode filters and masks for non-destructive editing.

I would be very pleased to see your workflow as well, as it may help improve mine. It's always those one of two things that you don't think of, that just save you ages.

For example, in product photography, I used to fuzzy-select (magic wand in PS) the white space and shadow areas, and erase to white as close as I could get to the shadow area to maintain a clean transition, and then clean up the shadows a bit. These days, I use fuzzy select (or the curves tool for white object on white background, since fuzzy select doesn't work as well in these situations), then selection-to-mask (inverted), and erase the mask outward from the base of the object until I have as much shadow as I want. This ensures a smooth transition without any extra clean up, and allows much greater control over the image in a non-destructive way that only requires a few more button clicks, and is so much less of a pain-in-the-ass, it's ridiculous.

I will do a video of my various workflows, and make UI suggestions based on each of them, if that will help the team.

Let me know if this is something that would be useful.

Hi C R,

GIMP users can provide helpful suggestions for improving GIMP useability. But GIMP code still gets written one line at a time by whichever developers and code contributors have the time, ability, and inclination.

It's very possible that the core GIMP code is not at a point where it makes sense for the developers to worry too much about workflow-specific useability issues. That's why I asked about whether the developers would be able to use information about people's workflows and personal "top ten useability issues". I'm pretty sure that eventually the answer will be yes, but I'm not sure if now is the right time.

You are right about those "one or two [or 10 or 20] things that you don't think of" that make your workflow easier. Shift-click plus dragging a color to a layer is certainly one of those things for me. So even if the GIMP devs aren't at a point where worrying about useability is a high priority, GIMP users can learn from each other about ways to improve our workflows, if people want to share such information.

Mostly I use GIMP for editing photographs, and like yourself I like working in the digital darkroom as much or more than actually taking photographs. My photography workflow is pretty simple. If I'm starting with a camera jpeg, I use RawTherapee to recover crushed shadow detail, deal with lens vignetting, etc. If I'm starting with a raw file, I use RawTherapee or darktable to produce a "flat print" with no alteration to the original image other than fixing things like lens vignetting and chromatic aberration. Many people do most of their editing in a raw processor and only use programs like GIMP or PhotoShop for touch-ups. I'm sort of old school - I use GIMP for almost the entire process of creating a final black and white image. Using GIMP, I make any necessary repairs to flaws in the original image, and then make a luminance-based black and white rendering, recovering the original channel information at the same time in case it might be useful. Then I modify global and local tonality layer by layer, using masks to confine modifications to the desired area.

This page has a couple of screenshots showing typical layer stacks, but doesn't talk about useability issues (it's a tutorial on some layer blend modes that haven't yet made it into GIMP master): http://ninedegreesbelow.com/photography/gimp-lch-blend-modes.html

Elle

El dom, 29-03-2015 a las 11:53 -0400, Elle Stone escribió:

What you just described - shift-click the new layer button plus dragging the foreground/background color - works perfectly, MUCH better than using the new layer dialog. Thanks! Many thanks!! By comparision, using the new layer dialog really is cumbersome.

Dragging bg/fg colors to the editing area is definitely a handy option in GIMP, and it also has predefined keystrokes (ctrl+. and ctrl+,). iirc the keystrokes are the same that PS uses. If clicking just created a transparent layer, it would be much faster and less disrupting to fill the new layer afterwards when it's required. The only situation that would require an extra click is filling with white if other BG/FG colors are set, but it's just one click away.

Where's the documentation for these two shortcuts? I did a quick internet search and didn't find any tutorials or documentation regarding "shift-click" plus "drag the color".

GIMP official docs:

http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-tools.html#gimp-toolbox-areas

The shift-click on the new layer button is not documented though, it's only available as a tooltip

http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-dialogs-structure.html#gimp-layer-dialog

The docs also say that "A good way to visualize a GIMP image is as a stack of transparencies: in GIMP terminology, each individual transparency is called a layer."

http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-image-combining.html#gimp-concepts-layers

I think that makes a reasonable case for a default using transparency and putting the extra options in a second level. As I said earlier, Tobias' proposal allows that keeping discoverability and reducing workflow interruptions.

Regarding your question about hard evidence that backs my claim about most of the people expecting layers to be transparent, I don't have it and I don't think a public poll is the best way to get that. I'm a graphic designer like C R, and my workflow is similar. I'm not a photographer, but cutting out and touching up photos is part of my regular work. I use GIMP "professionally" (which means it is one of the tools I use to do work that pays my bills) so I think I am a "target" user.
You can interview other "target" users of GIMP and get better results that what you'd get from a poll, and that's exactly what Peter Sikking and his team did a couple of years ago when they interviewed a group of users for input on their usage patterns.

If you put a poll in a public website you will receive answers from everyone, not just from the target users. That will result in useless data. Imagine that you get 20 replies from people who hardly uses GIMP and are just hobbists who need to remove red eyes from point and shoot photos and 2 replies from serious photographers with high-end requirements. I wouldn't like that decisions on usability are done that way.

For the same reason some automated statistics won't necessarily throw what target users prefer or need.

Gez.

On 04/03/2015 07:44 AM, Gez wrote:

El dom, 29-03-2015 a las 11:53 -0400, Elle Stone escribió:

What you just described - shift-click the new layer button plus dragging the foreground/background color - works perfectly, MUCH better than using the new layer dialog. Thanks! Many thanks!! By comparision, using the new layer dialog really is cumbersome.

Dragging bg/fg colors to the editing area is definitely a handy option in GIMP, and it also has predefined keystrokes (ctrl+. and ctrl+,). iirc the keystrokes are the same that PS uses. If clicking just created a transparent layer, it would be much faster and less disrupting to fill the new layer afterwards when it's required. The only situation that would require an extra click is filling with white if other BG/FG colors are set, but it's just one click away.

Where's the documentation for these two shortcuts? I did a quick internet search and didn't find any tutorials or documentation regarding "shift-click" plus "drag the color".

GIMP official docs:

http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-tools.html#gimp-toolbox-areas

The shift-click on the new layer button is not documented though, it's only available as a tooltip

http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-dialogs-structure.html#gimp-layer-dialog

The docs also say that "A good way to visualize a GIMP image is as a stack of transparencies: in GIMP terminology, each individual transparency is called a layer."

http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-image-combining.html#gimp-concepts-layers

I think that makes a reasonable case for a default using transparency and putting the extra options in a second level.

>

As I said earlier, Tobias' proposal allows that keeping discoverability and reducing workflow interruptions.

As long as shift-click and dragging a color to the new layer keeps on working, changing the new layer dialog doesn't present any problem that I can see.

In case anyone else doesn't already know this, if you have a selection made, dragging the color to the layer fills the selection. It's a very convenient shortcut.

Elle

Not to be a pain, but if you have a selection already (that you want to keep), clicking and dragging a colour fills the selection, which is not the same as making a new layer with foreground/background, or white. If I'm outvoted on the issue though, I will simply change my workflow. The hotkeys for fill with fg and bg are useful. Also don't forget the "x" key, which swaps foreground and background colours (I use this a lot when painting masks). The "d" key changes the fg and bg colours to black and white (d for default) as well. This is the same in Photoshop.

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 5:47 PM, Elle Stone wrote:

On 04/03/2015 07:44 AM, Gez wrote:

El dom, 29-03-2015 a las 11:53 -0400, Elle Stone escribió:

What you just described - shift-click the new layer button plus dragging

the foreground/background color - works perfectly, MUCH better than using the new layer dialog. Thanks! Many thanks!! By comparision, using the new layer dialog really is cumbersome.

Dragging bg/fg colors to the editing area is definitely a handy option in GIMP, and it also has predefined keystrokes (ctrl+. and ctrl+,). iirc the keystrokes are the same that PS uses. If clicking just created a transparent layer, it would be much faster and less disrupting to fill the new layer afterwards when it's required. The only situation that would require an extra click is filling with white if other BG/FG colors are set, but it's just one click away.

Where's the documentation for these two shortcuts? I did a quick

internet search and didn't find any tutorials or documentation regarding "shift-click" plus "drag the color".

GIMP official docs:

http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-tools.html#gimp-toolbox-areas

The shift-click on the new layer button is not documented though, it's only available as a tooltip

http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-dialogs-structure.html#gimp-layer-dialog

The docs also say that "A good way to visualize a GIMP image is as a stack of transparencies: in GIMP terminology, each individual transparency is called a layer."

http://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/gimp-image-combining.html# gimp-concepts-layers

I think that makes a reasonable case for a default using transparency and putting the extra options in a second level.

As I said earlier, Tobias' proposal allows that keeping discoverability and reducing workflow interruptions.

As long as shift-click and dragging a color to the new layer keeps on working, changing the new layer dialog doesn't present any problem that I can see.

In case anyone else doesn't already know this, if you have a selection made, dragging the color to the layer fills the selection. It's a very convenient shortcut.

Elle

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El vie, 03-04-2015 a las 20:36 +0100, C R escribió:

Not to be a pain, but if you have a selection already (that you want to keep), clicking and dragging a colour fills the selection, which is not the same as making a new layer with foreground/background, or white. If I'm outvoted on the issue though, I will simply change my workflow. The hotkeys for fill with fg and bg are useful. Also don't forget the "x" key, which swaps foreground and background colours (I use this a lot when painting masks). The "d" key changes the fg and bg colours to black and white (d for default) as well. This is the same in Photoshop.

That's a good point, but may I ask how often do you have to create a new solid layer while keeping a selection? I can think about a few cases, and not really critic ones since the creation of the new solid doesn't depend on the selection.

Anyway, I don't think anyone is asking to remove the extra options from the layer dialog. I think it's rather about making it less invasive.

Gez

Personally, every time I want to mask out the current selection (sometimes I make 3 or 4 in a row for stacked layer mode edits). This is probably considered far beyond the scope of what a typical user does, though, so I'm willing to personally sacrifice and rework my work flow if most people think it's better to get rid of the layer dialogue (or hide it behind the shift-click instead). A minor rework for me, as long as the options remain the same in the dialogue. Admitedly, I found it a little frustrating when coming directly from Photoshop to have the dialogue pop up every time, but it's something I've come to appreciate when working with GIMP as a non-destructive editor, which I never did much of in Photoshop. The fact that it saves the last layer type, means that you can just click the add-layer button, and hit enter to get the same kind of layer as you chose before. Maybe setting the default to transparent would be enough for most people to forgive the dialogue, and then you could still use it to make sure users know that "transparent" isn't the only option for a layer. I am not a fan of dragging and dropping a colour from the colour dialogue, as it's far far slower than just hitting enter once to repeat the last layer chosen. I make a lot of white layers (Amazon requires everything to have a pure white background, for example) so in an editing workflow it can require several hundred create white layer operations in a day. It may also be noted that what looks "white" in the colour-picker may not be white; if it's off even a little, you may not notice, but Amazon's picture scanning tools certainly will, and then you may have to do a whole batch over again, depending on how long ago you accidentally changed the colour to almost white. ;) This has happened a few times, in the past, so I've personally found the "white" new layer option quite handy. This is not something I would have ever known about until this thread if it was hidden behind the shift-click thing. I would not consider myself the typical GIMP user, though, as I use GIMP for EVERYTHING. If it helps GIMP to be more useful for the average user, I'm willing to change my workflow, however. I can probably hotkey a fill-white action if I really need to.

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 8:46 PM, Gez wrote:

El vie, 03-04-2015 a las 20:36 +0100, C R escribió:

Not to be a pain, but if you have a selection already (that you want to keep), clicking and dragging a colour fills the selection, which is not

the

same as making a new layer with foreground/background, or white. If I'm outvoted on the issue though, I will simply change my workflow. The

hotkeys

for fill with fg and bg are useful. Also don't forget the "x" key, which swaps foreground and background colours (I use this a lot when painting masks). The "d" key changes the fg and bg colours to black and white (d

for

default) as well. This is the same in Photoshop.

That's a good point, but may I ask how often do you have to create a new solid layer while keeping a selection? I can think about a few cases, and not really critic ones since the creation of the new solid doesn't depend on the selection.

Anyway, I don't think anyone is asking to remove the extra options from the layer dialog. I think it's rather about making it less invasive.

Gez

Come to think of it, I've changed my mind, and agree with making transparent the default action. My reason is this:

When I was teaching Photoshop at University, I tried to think of a good physical paradigm for explaining how layers work to people who always worked on a single layer for fear of messing with the layers.

I wound up stealing some transparencies from an overhead projector and using each transparency sheet to show everyone a real-world example to demystify the rather abstract notion that flat images can be separated/layered in Photoshop. That worked extremely well, and have since used it to teach several friends and a few workmates the same concept. Now, admittedly, I could have inserted a white bit of paper in there to represent a white layer, but maybe that's a bit too much extra info, or actually irrelevant, since it's obvious you can fill an entire layer with a colour to achieve the same effect. In short, hiding the dialogue may aid first-time user of layers, and prevent them from producing confusing layers (like layers with no alpha-channel, for example). In fact, unless there is some awesome reason for having new layers with no alpha channel, I'd recommend against it. There is nothing more confusing than a "special" layer that doesn't behave like every other layer, and there is no indication at all why the eraser tool isn't working as it should, and erasing to transparency. Photoshop solves this by making the bottom layer by default with no alpha channel, and making every new layer transparent. I think this is a decent way of handling it. What I really hate is that the default for dragging new images into GIMP is creating new layers with no alpha channel. Typically, if I'm dragging in files, I'm making a collage where I will immediately erase the background out of each new layer in the image. Invariably, I forget to manually add alpha channel to each layer (It's a pain++ to have to do that). Mercifully, when you add a layer mask to a new layer, it automatically adds an alpha channel, so again, it's not that big of a deal since I've changed to non-destructive editing methods. For users that don't like masks everywhere, it's going to be 10x more frustrating, though. Again, we could just set the default to have an alpha channel, and then people can remove it later if they really don't want it. They could also just paint/fill over it, and accept that every layer has an alpha channel as well.

Thoughts?

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 9:46 PM, C R wrote:

Personally, every time I want to mask out the current selection (sometimes I make 3 or 4 in a row for stacked layer mode edits). This is probably considered far beyond the scope of what a typical user does, though, so I'm willing to personally sacrifice and rework my work flow if most people think it's better to get rid of the layer dialogue (or hide it behind the shift-click instead). A minor rework for me, as long as the options remain the same in the dialogue. Admitedly, I found it a little frustrating when coming directly from Photoshop to have the dialogue pop up every time, but it's something I've come to appreciate when working with GIMP as a non-destructive editor, which I never did much of in Photoshop. The fact that it saves the last layer type, means that you can just click the add-layer button, and hit enter to get the same kind of layer as you chose before. Maybe setting the default to transparent would be enough for most people to forgive the dialogue, and then you could still use it to make sure users know that "transparent" isn't the only option for a layer. I am not a fan of dragging and dropping a colour from the colour dialogue, as it's far far slower than just hitting enter once to repeat the last layer chosen. I make a lot of white layers (Amazon requires everything to have a pure white background, for example) so in an editing workflow it can require several hundred create white layer operations in a day. It may also be noted that what looks "white" in the colour-picker may not be white; if it's off even a little, you may not notice, but Amazon's picture scanning tools certainly will, and then you may have to do a whole batch over again, depending on how long ago you accidentally changed the colour to almost white. ;) This has happened a few times, in the past, so I've personally found the "white" new layer option quite handy. This is not something I would have ever known about until this thread if it was hidden behind the shift-click thing. I would not consider myself the typical GIMP user, though, as I use GIMP for EVERYTHING. If it helps GIMP to be more useful for the average user, I'm willing to change my workflow, however. I can probably hotkey a fill-white action if I really need to.

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 8:46 PM, Gez wrote:

El vie, 03-04-2015 a las 20:36 +0100, C R escribió:

Not to be a pain, but if you have a selection already (that you want to keep), clicking and dragging a colour fills the selection, which is not

the

same as making a new layer with foreground/background, or white. If I'm outvoted on the issue though, I will simply change my workflow. The

hotkeys

for fill with fg and bg are useful. Also don't forget the "x" key, which swaps foreground and background colours (I use this a lot when painting masks). The "d" key changes the fg and bg colours to black and white (d

for

default) as well. This is the same in Photoshop.

That's a good point, but may I ask how often do you have to create a new solid layer while keeping a selection? I can think about a few cases, and not really critic ones since the creation of the new solid doesn't depend on the selection.

Anyway, I don't think anyone is asking to remove the extra options from the layer dialog. I think it's rather about making it less invasive.

Gez

On 04/03/2015 03:36 PM, C R wrote:

Not to be a pain, but if you have a selection already (that you want to keep), clicking and dragging a colour fills the selection, which is not the same as making a new layer with foreground/background, or white. If I'm outvoted on the issue though, I will simply change my workflow. The hotkeys for fill with fg and bg are useful. Also don't forget the "x" key, which swaps foreground and background colours (I use this a lot when painting masks). The "d" key changes the fg and bg colours to black and white (d for default) as well. This is the same in Photoshop.

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 5:47 PM, Elle Stone >
wrote:

As long as shift-click and dragging a color to the new layer keeps on working, changing the new layer dialog doesn't present any problem that I can see.

In case anyone else doesn't already know this, if you have a selection made, dragging the color to the layer fills the selection. It's a very convenient shortcut.

The very convenient shortcut that I meant was dragging the color to the layer.

Earlier in this message I think someone mentioned that their workflow involved making a selection and only filling that selection with a color, which is why I mentioned that if you already have a selection made, the dragged color will fill the selection.

In my own workflow, I don't fill selections with colors. Instead I use a mask to mask off the area that I want to be affected by the layer color.

Thanks! for the tip about using "x" for swapping the foreground and background color. That's a lot more convenient than moving the mouse to click the swap foreground/background button.

Elle

No problem, Elle, glad to help. I find the "d" and "x" hotkeys handy for painting/erasing the mask layer, because "d" ensures pure black and white are in the foreground/background colours, and x swaps them, so the paintbrush/airbrush/eraser (whichever you are using to paint your mask) then becomes a switch-able painter and eraser with one touch of the x key, rather than trying to use different hotkeys to switch tools. I've found this is less confusing to new students than trying to use the eraser (which should always erase transparency, in my opinion), but may or may not erase to transparency based on what is the foreground and background colour. The idea of painting transparency (which is what you are doing with a mask) seems to be much easier to grasp than erasing to transparency based on the state of the eraser.

On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 3:04 PM, Elle Stone wrote:

On 04/03/2015 03:36 PM, C R wrote:

Not to be a pain, but if you have a selection already (that you want to keep), clicking and dragging a colour fills the selection, which is not the same as making a new layer with foreground/background, or white. If I'm outvoted on the issue though, I will simply change my workflow. The hotkeys for fill with fg and bg are useful. Also don't forget the "x" key, which swaps foreground and background colours (I use this a lot when painting masks). The "d" key changes the fg and bg colours to black and white (d for default) as well. This is the same in Photoshop.

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 5:47 PM, Elle Stone >
wrote:

As long as shift-click and dragging a color to the new layer keeps on working, changing the new layer dialog doesn't present any problem that I can see.

In case anyone else doesn't already know this, if you have a selection made, dragging the color to the layer fills the selection. It's a very convenient shortcut.

The very convenient shortcut that I meant was dragging the color to the layer.

Earlier in this message I think someone mentioned that their workflow involved making a selection and only filling that selection with a color, which is why I mentioned that if you already have a selection made, the dragged color will fill the selection.

In my own workflow, I don't fill selections with colors. Instead I use a mask to mask off the area that I want to be affected by the layer color.

Thanks! for the tip about using "x" for swapping the foreground and background color. That's a lot more convenient than moving the mouse to click the swap foreground/background button.

Elle

On 03/30/2015 07:23 AM, Elle Stone wrote:

You can't even properly white balance an image in a perceptually uniform color space like the regular sRGB color space. If you try (and everyone does try!), you get incorrect and muddy colors, even if you aren't aware of just how incorrect and muddy your "white balanced" colors really are.

Correct white balancing *requires* linearized RGB values.

My statements above are incorrect. You really can white balance in a perceptually uniform color space. My apologies, I don't know what I was thinking about, but I was wrong. Or at least the differences are very very small.

When using GIMP 2.9 there is a slight difference in results of white balancing in a linear gamma vs a perceptually uniform color space. For example, after white balancing in a linear gamma color space the shadows are slightly lighter than white balancing in a perceptually uniform version of the same color space, each time using Levels "pick white point", followed by moving the lower value slider to bring the RGB values low enough to avoid clipping. But I don't know where these difference comes from.