Crew (paul@wideshots.co.uk) wrote:

You've never heard of Adobe Premiere, Kdenlive, Apple Final Cut, Apple Logic, Audacity, Cubase, Ardour, Blender? That's OK. Now you have

Using the examples of video editing packages is rather disingenuous as they are all project based programs that work on the expectation of combining multiple files and outputting in a different format. A very different case.

you mean compared to a project based image manipulation program, which works on the expectation of combining/editing multiple images and outputting in different image formats?

Very different indeed :)

Bye, Simon

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

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 9:46 PM, Crew wrote:

Welcome to Prokoudine' Friday night tour to GIMP, the image editing application that mends broken hearts.

You've never heard of Adobe Premiere, Kdenlive, Apple Final Cut, Apple Logic, Audacity, Cubase, Ardour, Blender? That's OK. Now you have

Using the examples of video editing packages is rather disingenuous as they are all project based programs

So is GIMP. You probably haven't noticed, but it has layers, layer groups and masks. This is called compositing which is, essentially, project based. As the rule. Anywhere.

that work on the expectation of combining multiple files

So does GIMP. The new image processing core makes it possible to do stuff like hotlinking external bitmaps and SVG files. That's the future. And in both past and present GIMP has that thing called "Open As Layer". You might find it useful, although you are probably used to just dropping files on the canvas from your file manager of choice.

and outputting in a different format

So does GIMP. Drop PNG in, export JPEG. Drop SVG in, export TIFF. Just earlier today at work I had to cut/scale/refine a bunch of JPEGs out of a PDF file. That's outputting different format, all right.

Care to give any examples of the genre of image editing programs that insist on defaulting to working on intermediate formats ?

As a Linux user, I don't have tons of image editors to try. But hey, I'm quite ready to believe that most of them are doing it wrong :)

Sometimes it's better to accept a program's development has gone wrong and return it to a more acceptable workflow that matches the expectations of it's users.

And you are exactly the person to judge what users expect, aren't you? :)

Let me see.

- Filmmakers tell me the new behaviour works great for them and matches their expectations.
- 3D artists who produce textures with GIMP tell me the new behaviour is awesome and even want us to take it further. - Designers tell me they just love it (admittedly, not all of them).

But what do they know, right? :)

I can see how this is going to become yet another boring thread on a tired subject. Please don't count me in.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 10:11 PM, Crew wrote:

you mean compared to a project based image manipulation program, which works on the expectation of combining/editing multiple images and outputting in different image formats?

So you're saying that thinking of The Gimp as an image editing program is wrong then, it need to be primarily regarded as a project based compositing program ?

That is what we've been saying for the past 7 years.

Not sure people coming to it fresh will see it that way.

And there are probably better ways to deal with that.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On 06/14/13 12:46, Crew wrote:

You've never heard of Adobe Premiere, Kdenlive, Apple Final Cut, Apple Logic, Audacity, Cubase, Ardour, Blender? That's OK. Now you have

Using the examples of video editing packages is rather disingenuous as they are all project based programs that work on the expectation of combining multiple files and outputting in a different format. A very different case.

Care to give any examples of the genre of image editing programs that insist on defaulting to working on intermediate formats ?

Sometimes it's better to accept a program's development has gone wrong and return it to a more acceptable workflow that matches the expectations of it's users.

Paul Holman www.colourprofiles.com
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Agreed 100%, also do not know why Audacity is in there. I expect audio to be saved in Audacity in wav file format (which is what it does), with a project file in some Audacity-specific format (which it does) and then when I'm done on the project, to export it to something other than wav (which I knew it would be in to start with). Totally different expectations then we have had for GIMP for over 10 years now. I'm getting used to the change, but I still do not like it one bit and it is still an interruption to the normal flow of work (open, edit, save, close, done). Now it's Open/import, edit, export, make sure image actually saved, close - dismissing any useless dialogue boxes because GIMP now works differently then it has for 10 years.

Yours in Christ,

Joseph A Nagy Jr
"Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, But he who hates correction
is stupid." -- Proverbs 12:1
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
Original content CopyFree (F) under the OWL 
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On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 10:41 PM, Joseph A. Nagy, Jr wrote:

Agreed 100%, also do not know why Audacity is in there. I expect audio to be saved in Audacity in wav file format (which is what it does)

Which is what it does not. Audacity famously saves only project data and exports everything else. And yes, that includes WAV.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 10:20 PM, Crew wrote:

On 14/06/2013 19:06, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

As a Linux user, I don't have tons of image editors to try. But hey, I'm quite ready to believe that most of them are doing it wrong:)

Right I see now.
"I write for Linux I don't need to conform to user requirements, I know better"

You are not users, Paul. You are a user. Singular noun, not a plural noun.

Besides, you conveniently ignored the part where I list the kind of pro users who love the new behaviour. Of course, they don't support your opinion, so they should be dismissed. Is that what's happening? You tell me :)

The vast majority of photographers DON'T use Linux because there's been nothing credible for them.

It's amazing that there are people who actually believe that. What's next? "Great product doesn't need advertizing"?

There are all sorts of reasons the vast majority of anybody doesn't do something. Picking one single reason and claiming it's _the_ reason is an insult to intelligence.

I'd seriously thought that as colour management had finally arrived in The Gimp things might be changing, but I guess I was wrong.

Color management arrived to GIMP in v2.4 that was released years and years ago.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

Meant to send to list the first time, more non-standard behavior.

On 06/14/13 13:43, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 10:41 PM, Joseph A. Nagy, Jr wrote:

Agreed 100%, also do not know why Audacity is in there. I expect audio to be saved in Audacity in wav file format (which is what it does)

Which is what it does not. Audacity famously saves only project data and exports everything else. And yes, that includes WAV.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org
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You must not use Audacity, then. I happen to use it on a regular basis. All the project file does is point to all the wav's it creates as it records. Delete those wav's you lose your project. The .aup is just an xml file.

Care to try again?

Yours in Christ,

Joseph A Nagy Jr
"Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, But he who hates correction
is stupid." -- Proverbs 12:1
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
Original content CopyFree (F) under the OWL 
http://copyfree.org/licenses/owl/license.txt

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 10:52 PM, Joseph A. Nagy, Jr wrote:

You must not use Audacity, then.

Yeah, well, you know how it is... I actually use Ardour for my audio stuff. That's basically the reason I quitted the Audacity team a few years ago after having been part of it for, ugh, 8 years? Something like that, yes. But hey, I'm open to all new information about the project's evolution.

So they merged saving and exporting?

I happen to use it on a regular basis. All the project file does is point to all the wav's it creates as it records. Delete those wav's you lose your project. The .aup is just an xml file.

No, they didn't after all :)

You comment is rather irrelevant to the dicussion. Let me explain you why.

The controversy is about the fact that GIMP v2.8 doesn't allow to save stuff back directly into the original PNG/JPEG/TIFF/whatever file and only saves to XCF which is project data.

In terms of Audacity that would be like complaining that Audacity can open MP3, but cannot save it back directly. Which is exactly what it does: it tells you to export your stuff. That its project file is XML-based is simply not the point.

And trust me, Audacity team used to be sweared at for this design decision. With F-word, M-word, and an exciting variety of A-words.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 12:27 AM, Crew wrote:

The vast majority of photographers DON'T use Linux because there's been

nothing credible for them.

It's amazing that there are people who actually believe that.

Why would you believe anything else ?

Because I have a brain and I happen to use it for its primary function which is thinking.

Consider this statement of yours:

That sort of proportion is in keeping with what people are using on the big photo forums like Luminous Landscape, Fred Miranda, DPReview etc.

Now, the first thing a person of an analytical persuasion would ask is: is the choice for Win/Mac and proprietary software an informed one?

In a world where people still think that GIMP is a strictly multiwindow application and there's no color management on Linux, are you, Paul Holman, owner (?) of www.colourprofiles.com, prepared to testify that you personally interviewed each of your clients and each visitor of those said forums, and as the result of that study you found out that yes indeed -- all of them are informed about their options on Linux, more or less follow the progress of GIMP and darktable, but simply don't find them good enough?

A simple 'yes' or 'no' would suffice.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

Every time people insist on cluttering the list up with weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over Save vs. Export, it is...

A Sad Case Of Regression

:o/

Steve

Actually I know nobody who likes the new distinction between save and export.

But the whole discussion seems to be at a point of no return anyway and developers seem to defend the change as a matter of principle rather than aiming for maximum usability, so it seems quite improbable anything will change.

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 8:47 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine < alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 10:20 PM, Crew wrote:

On 14/06/2013 19:06, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

As a Linux user, I don't have tons of image editors to try. But hey, I'm quite ready to believe that most of them are doing it wrong:)

Right I see now.
"I write for Linux I don't need to conform to user requirements, I know better"

You are not users, Paul. You are a user. Singular noun, not a plural noun.

Excuse me, Alexandre, but you're being DISMISSIVE AS HELL here.

No matter how big your love for the project, swashbuckling rethoric, and your own ego,
saying "You're just an user, not users" when people disagree with you by the bucketload,
dismissing someone because "oh you're just one!" is called BEING ARROGANT.

ARROGANT.

ARROGANT.

ARROGANT.

I know typing it three more times won't allow you to wrap your head around it, but what
the hell.

I'm not saying this guy is right, but your "holier than thou" attitude is corrosive and self-satisfied.

You probably think it's charismatic or something.

On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 1:55 AM, Psiweapon wrote:

Excuse me, Alexandre, but you're being DISMISSIVE AS HELL here.

Yes, I am.

I'm not saying this guy is right, but your "holier than thou" attitude is corrosive and self-satisfied.

Oh, not holier :) Just smarter. And I can prove that.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 12:02 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine < alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 1:55 AM, Psiweapon wrote:

Excuse me, Alexandre, but you're being DISMISSIVE AS HELL here.

Yes, I am.

I'm not saying this guy is right, but your "holier than thou" attitude is corrosive and self-satisfied.

Oh, not holier :) Just smarter. And I can prove that.

Are you sure? I'm not saying you're not, but you'd need *his *credentials too to prove that.

Oh, and being smarter doesn't make you a better person. Your smarter than you is still corrosive and self-satisfied.

Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org
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On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 2:09 AM, Psiweapon wrote:

I'm not saying this guy is right, but your "holier than thou" attitude is corrosive and self-satisfied.

Oh, not holier :) Just smarter. And I can prove that.

Are you sure? I'm not saying you're not, but you'd need *his *credentials too to prove that.

Yeah, I'm working on that :)

Oh, and being smarter doesn't make you a better person. Your smarter than you is still corrosive and self-satisfied.

You see, I never claimed to be a good person. I'm not even remotely interested in looking like one.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 6:16 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine < alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh, and being smarter doesn't make you a better person. Your smarter than you is still corrosive and self-satisfied.

You see, I never claimed to be a good person. I'm not even remotely interested in looking like one.

Alexandre Prokoudine

It's too bad I can't force quit a list thread like I can processes. At any rate this discussion is stale. Quit the whimpering and Alexandre enough of the attitude.

SAM

On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 12:16 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine < alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 2:09 AM, Psiweapon wrote:

I'm not saying this guy is right, but your "holier than thou"

attitude is

corrosive and self-satisfied.

Oh, not holier :) Just smarter. And I can prove that.

Are you sure? I'm not saying you're not, but you'd need *his *credentials too to prove that.

Yeah, I'm working on that :)

Now that sounds horribly underhanded.

Oh, and being smarter doesn't make you a better person. Your smarter than you is still corrosive and self-satisfied.

You see, I never claimed to be a good person. I'm not even remotely interested in looking like one.

Your lack of interest and claim on the issue doesn't make it any less of a shortcoming.

Hey, wait. I *am* acting holier than thou. My apologies :X

So. You only take feedback from the elite? Honest question.

I can understand that the extent of the *undying backlash* is probably a pain in the ass,
although I wouldn't be surprised AT ALL if it was completely beneath you...

You just come across as some sort of self-appointed boyar, which I'd expect from a
mainstream software corporate honcho - not from an open software big fish.

*"It's too bad I can't force quit a list thread like I can processes. At any
rate this discussion is stale. Quit the whimpering and Alexandre enough of the attitude."*

Okay. I'll shut up now.

Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org

On 06/14/2013 02:47 PM, Eduard Braun wrote:

Actually I know nobody who likes the new distinction between save and export.

But the whole discussion seems to be at a point of no return anyway and developers seem to defend the change as a matter of principle rather than aiming for maximum usability, so it seems quite improbable anything will change.

Hey Eduard, I'm Tom and it's a pleasure to meet you! :)

I've been a long time GIMP user and the new save/export behavior was a surprise to me as well, but I actually like the new behavior since I tend to save in XCF format more frequently, which prevents me from making accidental mistakes. In the past, I would open an image file, forget to save it as a XCF file first, make some changes to it, save the file (either clobbering the original or saving it as a new file), and then later regret NOT saving to XCF format because I would want to make further modifications later or to find out which font I had used, if I added text, etc.

The new behavior forces me to be more conscious about my saving action, which I think is a good thing. I also agree with adding a setting to control the save behavior, so users can choose which method suits them best.

With regard to all the discussion about "Linux" in all this, we can't forget the numbers of people who use GIMP on Windows and the "Freedom of Linux" doesn't relate to that platform.

As for Audacity, I'm running Audacity 2.0.3 on Ubuntu 13.04 Linux (64-bit) right now. I have a MP3 audio file loaded and when I click the "File" menu, the save options are "Save Project", "Save Project As", and "Save Compressed Copy of Project". Then, I have two Export options, "Export" and "Export Multiple". I made a change to the audio track and tried to close Audacity and it prompted me to save the project (.AUP) file and stated if I wanted to save in another audio format, I must use the "File > Export" function. Maybe Audacity on Windows behaves differently.

Peace...

Tom

/When we dance, you have a way with me,
Stay with me... Sway with me.../

Like Tom, the change from Save to Export was a bit of a surprise to me as well. Over time, I got used to it. Once you think about it, it actually makes more sense to use this method than it does the previous method.

Just my two cents :)

p.s. People should really stop arguing about this. It has been discussed many times before, and has always yielded the same outcome; the change will remain and you'll just have to get used to it.

Sent from my iPod

On Jun 14, 2013, at 6:38 PM, Tom Williams wrote:

On 06/14/2013 02:47 PM, Eduard Braun wrote:

Actually I know nobody who likes the new distinction between save and export.

But the whole discussion seems to be at a point of no return anyway and developers seem to defend the change as a matter of principle rather than aiming for maximum usability, so it seems quite improbable anything will change.

Hey Eduard, I'm Tom and it's a pleasure to meet you! :)

I've been a long time GIMP user and the new save/export behavior was a surprise to me as well, but I actually like the new behavior since I tend to save in XCF format more frequently, which prevents me from making accidental mistakes. In the past, I would open an image file, forget to save it as a XCF file first, make some changes to it, save the file (either clobbering the original or saving it as a new file), and then later regret NOT saving to XCF format because I would want to make further modifications later or to find out which font I had used, if I added text, etc.

The new behavior forces me to be more conscious about my saving action, which I think is a good thing. I also agree with adding a setting to control the save behavior, so users can choose which method suits them best.

With regard to all the discussion about "Linux" in all this, we can't forget the numbers of people who use GIMP on Windows and the "Freedom of Linux" doesn't relate to that platform.

As for Audacity, I'm running Audacity 2.0.3 on Ubuntu 13.04 Linux (64-bit) right now. I have a MP3 audio file loaded and when I click the "File" menu, the save options are "Save Project", "Save Project As", and "Save Compressed Copy of Project". Then, I have two Export options, "Export" and "Export Multiple". I made a change to the audio track and tried to close Audacity and it prompted me to save the project (.AUP) file and stated if I wanted to save in another audio format, I must use the "File > Export" function. Maybe Audacity on Windows behaves differently.

Peace...

Tom

-- /When we dance, you have a way with me, Stay with me... Sway with me.../
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On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 1:12 AM, Crew wrote:

is the choice for Win/Mac and proprietary software an informed one?

Yes.

Wrong answer. See below.

You might not like the information they made their choices on, but it's not entirely random.

Finally you made a statement that makes some sort of sense :) Again, see below.

In a world where people still think that GIMP is a strictly multiwindow application and there's no color management on Linux, are you, Paul Holman, owner (?) ofwww.colourprofiles.com, prepared to

testify that you personally interviewed each of your clients and each visitor of those said forums, and as the result of that study you found out that yes indeed -- all of them are informed about their options on Linux, more or less follow the progress of GIMP and darktable, but simply don't find them good enough?

A simple 'yes' or 'no' would suffice.

No. As I said, all I ask is what OS they use to provide installation instructions. That tells me what software they actually use, not why or how they arrived at that choice it's not relevant to the information I need.

So you don't know why they made their decisions, but you nevertheless claim that the decisions were informed. That's pretty amazing. How can you make this kind of statement and still feel like a rational, intelligent human being?

Now, allow me to explain what's wrong with your approach.

There's this widely popular claim that a great product sells itself. While there is some truth to it, in reality markets don't work like that.

If you study some trendy market like, um, let's say, mobile apps, you'll see that for many categories it's close to impossible to get anywhere near TOP10 with a new product. You've got to have something truly outstanding that goes viral. And you have to be able to maintain public's interest -- that's an important bit, you'll see in a while.

If you study the online advertizing market (which is my professional background), you'll see pretty much the same picture: you can't suddenly become competitive against e.g. big retailers. You need to find a different way to get to your audience, and it still takes time, money, and human resources.

But let's get back to our niche. Case in point: there's a number of advanced image editors like Photoline (http://www.pl32.com/) that have all those fancy things like high bit depth precision, CMYK, vector layers and suchlike. But they never have a wide adoption. Why?

- Is that software unusable? - Maybe more expensive than Photoshop? - Or the developers are so arrogant that they annoy their users? :)

Nope. While features, social aptness etc. have a share in the general effect, at some point it's marketing that becomes decisive.

Here's an example:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=mypaint#q=mypaint&cmpt=q

See that first spike around August 2009 after which the public's interest towards that free painting application started rapidly growing? Here's the reason:

http://www.sintel.org/videos/tutorial-painting-time-lapse-by-david-revoy/

Blender Foundation's open movie projects typically draw a lot of interest, so the video demonstrating MyPaint (used along with Alchemy and GIMP) went viral.

Take another look at that graph. You'll see another huge spike in Nov-Dec 2011. Here's the reason:

http://mypaint.intilinux.com/?p=621

v1.0 releases are traditionaly regarded as a symbol of software becoming mature. So MyPaint 1.0 got quite a few coverages online which ensured that interest spike. Not mentioning a bunch of useful features in that release.

Now, why are those spikes so spiky? Why is all that interest so rapidly lost?

Is MyPaint a horrible software, and the interest is accidental with a bit of vapourware flavour? No, people make quite amazing artworks with MyPaint, and it doesn't more time than in, er, conventional software. So how come?

The reason is that the community isn't yet capable of producing those amazing artworks _every day_ in an amount that would stand anywhere close to the amount of artworks people create with Photoshop or Corel Painter.

Free software projects do not have huge marketing teams (up to 50% of employees in some cases, I'm not kidding you). They don't have the funds to hire artists, do roadshows etc. Bottomline: they cannot ensure stable visibility online.

A huge percent of Blender's success can be attributed to websites like blendernation.com, blenderguru.com and blendercookie.com whose maintainers had either the guts or the funds to maintain that interest towards the software. And yet there's still plenty of 3D artists who never even tried Blender, while having heard all sorts of good things about that. A lot of those people only found out about it, because websites like 3DMag occasionally post artworks made with Blender -- like 4-5 times a year.

Still with me? (I'd be surprised, but stranger things happen.)

I spend up to 20 hours weekly just looking through artworks people do with GIMP, Inkscape, MyPaint, Krita, Blender etc., and reading various relevant forums and communities.

Do you know what I see?

- People who never heard of GIMP saying "Wait, I can do it with this free app? For real?"
- People who tried GIMP years ago and still carry around long obsolete notions about the feature set and the UI. - People who have been using GIMP for years and nevertheless say things like "Oh hell, I had no idea I could do that!"

I could give you quite a few examples of commercial photography work done with free software, and you won't be able to tell if it was Lightroom/Photoshop or darktable/GIMP postproc.

And yet here you are with your blunt, research-lacking argument that not using free software on Linux is always an informed decision. Is there any wonder I'm so dismissive?

You don't have to be some sort of -- what was it again? elite? -- to be listened to. Just be a sensible, reasonable human being. Analyze things you see. Dig deep. Study. Otherwise you will always be dismissed.

Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

So you're saying that thinking of The Gimp as an image editing program is

wrong then, it need to be primarily regarded as a project based

compositing

program ?

That is what we've been saying for the past 7 years.

GIMP = Gnu Image Manipulation Program.

Right?

Helen Etters
using Linux, suse12.3

On 06/14/2013 02:34 PM, Steve Kinney wrote:

Every time people insist on cluttering the list up with weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over Save vs. Export, it is...

+1

KevinO

Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 02:02:58 +0400 From: alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] A Sad case of regression.

On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 1:55 AM, Psiweapon wrote:

Excuse me, Alexandre, but you're being DISMISSIVE AS HELL here.

Yes, I am.

AND being perfectly civil at the same time. :)

As for the rest . . . well, I can sympathize that the "if you don't like it, don't use it" line is an almost Godwin-class argument.

(There, I said it.)

-- Stratadrake strata_ranger@hotmail.com
--------------------
Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.