I am contemplating writing a tutorial on gimp color management. I'm not sure I know enough yet to do it, but I suppose someone has to begin.

It would help me a lot if I could actually examine the code to see what gimp is doing. Otherwise I have to keep running experiments, and aside from being time consuming, it sometimes gives misleading or inconsistent results, particularly since my understanding of color management detail still has some gaps. At various times in the past, I've tried to delve into gimp code to see what it does, but it is not an easy task for someone who may be familiar with C but has not worked with the complex development tree.

Anything along those lines that would help would be appreciated.

On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 21:25 +0100, Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 13:43 -0600, Leonard Evens wrote:

I am contemplating writing a tutorial on gimp color management. I'm not sure I know enough yet to do it, but I suppose someone has to begin.

I am sure the gimp-docs team would love to get a chapter on color management for the user manual. Perhaps you want to coordinate your effort with them.

Sven

I would be happy to do that, but I don't know how. I checked the Gimp documentation Developer's web page, and figuring out how to join in looks like an imposing task. I understand why that is necessary for such a project, but at my age I'm not sure I'm ready to master a whole new framework and set of skills, e.g., using XML. It was hard enough mastering the basics of color management and how to use profiling tools, and I still haven't figured out all of that.

I think I will prepare a simple tutorial, explaining what I know and let anyone make any use of it that they may.

On Sat, 2008-02-09 at 03:06 +0100, Axel Wernicke wrote:

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Hi,

I just wanted to let you know that there is already "something" about the new color management features in the documentation. Feel free to read this

- - http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-imaging-color-management.html - - http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-pimping.html#gimp-prefs-color-management - - http://docs.gimp.org/en/glossary.html#glossary-rendering-intent - - http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-imaging-color-management.html

and please, don't hesitate to correct what's written or fill the gaps. Everything in there is to my best knowledge but I'm sure it is neither completely correct nor are all necessary topics in there yet.

Greetings, lexA

I am attaching a second installment of comments as a text file below. I'm afraid the comments come across just as criticisms, so let me emphasize how much I appreciate what you've already done. Ideally, rather than just complaining about this or that, I should suggest how I would phrase it instead. Unfortunately, I don't feel comfortable about writing documentation of this kind yet, so I would rather just raise points and hope you can figure out what I'm saying and include it in the documentation if it seems appropriate. I'm sure you will do a better job of it than I would at this stage. When I feel more comfortable, I will suggest appropriate wording.

Also, remember that there are several color management issues and, more important, issues about exactly what gimp does that I find mysterious. So some of my comments might just indicate ignorance or misunderstanding. Even so, I am a relatively experienced gimp user who is Linux savvy and knows something about color management. So if I am confused by something, there is good chance that an average user will also be confused.

I would find it easier to understand what gimp is actually doing if I could get at its guts. Instead, I have to do experiments and the results can sometimes be misleading. I've tried several times to look at code, but I've been defeated each time, not by the code, but by the complex structure of the source tree. Any suggestions about how to learn about that without making it my life's work would be appreciated.

P.S: as Julien already mentioned - if you feel not comfortable writing docbook xml, just give us plain text to incorporate.

- -- Remember: There are only two tools in life. WD-40, for when something doesn't move, and should, and Duct Tape, for when something is moving and it shouldn't.
So does the universe explode if you spray duct tape with WD-40?

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On Sun, 2008-02-10 at 00:11 +0100, Axel Wernicke wrote:

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Hi Leonard,

Am 09.02.2008 um 17:58 schrieb Leonard Evens:

On Sat, 2008-02-09 at 03:06 +0100, Axel Wernicke wrote:

...

and please, don't hesitate to correct what's written or fill the gaps.
Everything in there is to my best knowledge but I'm sure it is neither
completely correct nor are all necessary topics in there yet.

I am attaching a second installment of comments as a text file below. I'm afraid the comments come across just as criticisms, so let me emphasize how much I appreciate what you've already done. Ideally,

Since I explicitly asked for it, I should (and do) stand that now ;) By now I did not fully examine what you wrote, but I'll do so in the next couple of days.

rather than just complaining about this or that, I should suggest how I
would phrase it instead. Unfortunately, I don't feel comfortable about
writing documentation of this kind yet, so I would rather just raise points and hope you can figure out what I'm saying and include it in the
documentation if it seems appropriate. I'm sure you will do a better job of it than I would at this stage. When I feel more comfortable, I
will suggest appropriate wording.

Well, let it put me this way: your english can't be worse than mine. Unfortunately there are right now 0 (in words: zero) native speaking people in the documentation team - the only reason for me writing english content is that there is no alternative :(

Your English is fine. My concerns about my writing documentation are more basic than that. I'm worried that were I to write documentation, I might make it so complicated it would be useless. It is question of deciding how to put things so people can understand it easily but aren't led astray by having things be oversimplified. But give me some time. I've lots of experience explaining complex matters to generations of mathematics students, and some of that may carry over.

I would be happy to be the resident native speaker of English. I haven't seen any problems of that nature yet, but should I find any, I will be happy to correct them.

...

I would find it easier to understand what gimp is actually doing if I could get at its guts. Instead, I have to do experiments and the results
can sometimes be misleading. I've tried several times to look at code, but I've been defeated each time, not by the code, but by the complex structure of the source tree. Any suggestions about how to learn about
that without making it my life's work would be appreciated.

I most probably can't answer them too. If in doubt we need to ask the devs.

Greetings, lexA

- --- Remember: There are only two tools in life. WD-40, for when something doesn't move, and should, and Duct Tape, for when something is moving and it shouldn't.
So does the universe explode if you spray duct tape with WD-40?

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