Sometimes, people will remember that GIMP is a program allowing to do digital photography on Linux. And, often, many people think that it is only available on this relatively uncommon platform. But, as a matter of fact, GIMP also exists on Windows. And, because of its price but also because of its features, it is recommended to at least try this Windows software.

The big news of this version 2.8 is the arrival of what its developers designate with the ugly name of single-window interface, which is actually a presentation based on a free window along with tools palettes.

This version is also able to handle layers (individually or as a group), to work on 16-bit or 32-bit pictures, but it’s the more discreet improvements that may be the most critical for user comfort and efficiency. Things like:

• The use of the Cairo library (which gives a much improved rendering of texts and graphics)
• The use of independent processes for save and export operations (which offer a much faster feeling for these long operations)
• Direct editing of text strings (rather than the editing in a separate window, for better Wysiwyg)
• The nicer design of many little tools like spin buttons and many controls

So, if you are not fully convinced by the small fortunes that Adobe is requiring from the customers at each new version, it is now time to upgrade your mind and check GIMP.

To get even more:

• All GIMP-related posts
• Download (freely) GIMP v2.8.0

• Instant Vintage Photo Effects with the FIL Script for GIMP
• How To Create Amazing Text and Font Effects in Gimp 2.6
• Fake Depth of Field in Gimp – DOF Explained will teach you how to handle (and produce) depth of field in a pictureusing GIMP (and it will also provide useful information which will be useful for every photographer, not only GIMP users).
• 5 top tips for GIMP users
• GIMP 2.7 for Photoshop Expatriates
• Content-aware resizing in Gimp is available through the excellent Liquid Rescale plugin for GIMP
• Free GIMP Plugins for Photographers
• Créer un effet de vignettage avec Gimp et Photoshop
• Puis, un site francophone très riche et principalement consacré à GIMP avec de nombreux guides et tutoriels sur la retouche photo (1point2vue.com).

• Install digiKam 1.6 on Ubuntu 10.10
• RAW Magic In Digikam: Understanding RAW Photo Settings
• Process RAW Files in digiKam
• New Features in digiKam 2.0: Geolocation
• New Features in digiKam 2.0: Face Recognition
• Work with Photo Metadata in digiKam
• How to find duplicate images on Digikam
• Geotag Photographs with Open GPS Tracker and digiKam
• Sieve through Photographs with digiKam’s Light Table Tool
• Batch Process Photos in digiKam

But Digikam is not the only tool in Linux photographers life… Particularly, if you are looking for software programs to handle the RAW files from your digital photo camera, the choice is still quite large and diverse enough to have you fooling around for quite some time:

• Editing RAW Photos on Linux with Rawstudio 2.0
• Convert RAW Files to DNG with DNGConverter
• Process Raw Image Files for Free with RawTherapee
• Process RAW Files with Rawstudio

digiKam special!

This nice software program has earned its own sub-list of links because of its own quality:

• Introduction to Digikam
• Finetune digiKam by Tweaking Its Settings
• Find the Shutter Count Value with digiKam
• Publish Photos on a WordPress blog from Digikam

Additionally, some users may want to also have Digikam running on Windows (even if Linux is a better host for such a program). In this case, you would be well inspired to go and visit “Amarok and Digikam on Windows.”

Once again! More links, more sites, more web pages to serve the needs of the photographers using GNU/Linux. As we noticed, most of the Linux-based photographers seem to be speaking English (and nothing else).

• Add brushes to The GIMP
• Krita – The KDE Answer to GIMP
• Ubuntu 10.10 Adds New Photo Manager, Improves Multimedia Experience
• Tackle Color Management on Linux
• 3 Photo collage programs on Linux
• 3 programmi per foto collage su Linux
• Install CHDK on Your Canon Camera Using Linux

photo credit: andyspictures

• 60+ Best GIMP Tutorials of 2010
• 30 great tutorials for GIMP
• GIMP tricks to isolate parts of images and more GIMP tricks for doctoring images
• How to make a globe/planet photo manipulation in GIMP. See a nice little example of a planet-photo here on the right.
• Gimp 2.7 released for testing and we are Impressed with the outcome!!, by Ubuntu Manual
• How to make Photographs Vintage in GIMP
• Making a Watercolour-Paint Photograph in GIMP
• Wedding Photo Enhancement using The GIMP
• Gimp Paint Studio expands GIMP with new brushes, presets

• Unshake is a free photo editing software written in Java that can remove blurs from your photos. It can be used on virtually any platform (Linux, PC, Mac, etc.)
• GIMP is the GNU/Linux-based photo editing software. It also exists in versions for Windows, Mac OS X. Since it has a full system of plug-ins, you can go quite far (including improving your photos with the Refocus-It and Iterative Refocus plug-ins for sharpening the photos).
• Another specific noise-reduction plug-in for GIMP is the GREYCstoration plugin (it will work well to improve photographs shot at high ISO levels).

That’s worth trying, isn’t it?

Besides, an for those of you who are strictly interested in using GIMP, there are additional resources to check:

• techZilo has compiled a handy list of its top 40+ plugins for GIMP.
• How To Use Photoshop Plugins On Linux

This month, it’s time for a new round of GIMP links. Of course, the Linux-based photographers are the primary target of this list. But, remember that GIMP is also available as a valuable option for the money-sensitive user of Windows, too.

• Use GIMP to Process Time Lapse Photography (from LifeHacker)


• GIMP 2.8: A preview of the new features!


• GIMP vs. The World: The State of GIMP


• GIMP 3-D, 3 Ways: Drop-Shadows and Bump Maps and Lighting Effects


• Video: Preview of The GIMP 2.7.1 and New features


• Fixing Your Holiday Photos With GIMP: Redeye, Low Light, Exposure Settings, Healing Blemishes


• Making Skies dramatic in GIMP


• And, for the most adventurous ones (with some code programming ability): Add your own GIMP features (Dive into the code base of the GNU Image Manipulation Program)

Overview of Changes from GIMP 2.6.8 to GIMP 2.6.9
=================================================

* Bugs fixed:

612618 – Font selection remains visible
622234 – gimp.desktop: image/x-psd in MimeTypes twice
622196 – Unportable test(1) construct in configure script
620604 – Description of “histogram” procedure is slightly inaccurate
541586 – Tool options not saved/loaded correctly?
614153 – Importing PDF files with long titles
600112 – blur-gauss-selective.exe crashes
599233 – Dialog of “Save as BMP” ignores changes which are not made
with a mous
565001 – Text-Tool crashes when edit a 2.4.2 version XCF file
610478 – Layer preview suddenly stops getting updated
609026 – leaks shared memory
609056 – Exporting to Alias PIX format fails
608188 – a few strings in Save as… > Raw image data dialog are always
in English
604820 – GEGL Operation “path” crashes GIMP
603711 – Crashes when using path tool
607242 – GIMP 2.7.0 fails to build against libpng 1.4.0
606372 – Saving to .ppm fails on indexed colorspace
605237 – the “Antialiasing…” message in the progress bar does not show
translated
604508 – gimp-layer-new-from-visible should work from updated projection

• Selective Noise Reduction with GIMP — Repairing Noisy Skies pour une meilleure gestion des réparations locales des photos.



• How to Enable Photoshop Save For Web Feature in GIMP (minor improvement)
• How to replace a sky with GIMP, suit les mêmes principes mais pour un nettoyage définitif (par remplacement)
• L’accentuation avec Gimp
• How To Remove Red Eyes With GIMP, pour nettoyer les yeux rouges.
• How to Find and Use Scripts in Gimp
• How to turn a photo into a card with GIMP
• 6 GIMP Tricks Everyone Should Know! (rounded corners, cropping, red eye removal, image size change, file size reduction)
• GAP is a collection of GIMP plugins that make it possible to create animations as sequences of single frames
• Opening RAW Images In GIMP with UFRaw For Windows – The Basics

In the end, I would sum it up with the 10 Reasons GIMP is Better Than Photoshop:

• GIMP is free
• GIMP is small
• GIMP is fast and stable
• GIMP is more user-friendly
• Anybody can modify the code and develop plug-ins
• It has a better management for automated actions
• GIMP opens, edits and saves Photoshop .PSD files
• Upgrades are free
• GIMP can look-and-feel like Photoshop
• GIMP is portable

photo credit: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML

Blair Mathis decided to reduce the distance between them by the installation of several plugins on GIMP. And the result is astonishingly interesting. All the more because the process is fully documented step-by-step, which makes it little more than a longer software installation.

1. PSPI
2. Layers
3. Separate+ from Yellowmagic
4. Liquid Rescale from Wikidot (for an image rescale without deformation as in CS4)
5. Additional brushes from Blendfu
6. GIMP Animation Package
7. Enable GEGL

But if this is not enough, there are also a few hacked versions of GIMP that have been already prepared for the Photoshop lovers. The most renowned are:

• GimpShop whose interface is specially good
• GimPhoto is slightly less convincing but is based on a more recent (and more powerful) GIMP version

Once again, here is how you can (nearly) download Photoshop for free, while being well on the right side of law.

photo credit: John Flinchbaugh

For all of us who would hesitate to use GIMP because of the stock of brushes they collected and use with Photoshop, I like to remind that GIMP supports the Photoshop brushes (in ABR brush file format) from version 2.4. This is limiting the risks and issues to the strict minimum.

GIMP has a default of 48 brushes; It is also possible to create and download new ones. Even better, the compatibility of GIMP with Photoshop brushes allows to install ABR format brushes which is very common on the Web. These brushes are then usable with all tools: pencil, rubber, aerograph, clone, perspective/3D clone and correction.

To be noticed too:

• AbrViewer is a small Windows program that does not need to be install and allows to export .ABR file to .PNG format (for easier viewing).
• Gimp Batch Brush Converter Script can be used to convert a Photoshop brush into a GIMP brush for those of you who may still have transfer or compatibility issues.

Here is the application with a rather dull image taken from the back of La Défense in Paris.

1st solution: Photoshop

Let’s start preparing the picture with Image > Adjustment > Shadow/highlight.... We’ll start with quite heavy settings! Shadows: amount:50%, tonal width:45%, radius:44px ; Highlights: amount:67%, tonal width:65%, radius:46px ; Adjustments: color correction:+20, midtone contrast:0, black clip:0,01%, white clip:0,01%.

You have one heavily modified “base” layer. Duplicate it and select an interaction of color dodge. Highlights are burnt and totally white. But the colours have been hightened.

Do the duplicate dance again, but with an interaction of linear burn. Now, there is too much black. Set black as foreground color, then Select > color range... and apply a fuzziness of 100. Now add a new layer mask using the little icon with a circle in a rectangle at the bottom of the layers box.

Now, duplicate it again, but with an interaction of Overlay. Press Ctrl-I. You can start playing with the opacity of the last two layers, preferably 40% for “overlay” and 60% for “linear burn”.

Set white as foreground color, then Select > color range... and apply a fuzziness of 100. Select the “base” layer, duplicate it, and move it up the list of layers. Again, use the icon to add a layer mask. You may want to apply a Gaussian blur with Filter > Attenuation > gaussian blur... with a radius of 2. This step is giving the kind of halo that is most visible in most HDR images, so choose the adequate radius value for your image.

last step could be to correct the always-possible color shift (or to create one) by adding an adjustment layer (using the black-and-white circle icon), option color balance.... But it is not often needed:

Source: a now-closed web site at www.hdrphotos.net.

2nd solution: The Gimp

Using The Gimp, you may use directly the plugin from Gimpology.com. It’s propably a little less extreme than my prefered solution.

3rd solution: Photoshop tutorial

I found another Photoshop tutorial on the web at Various Photography Thoughts.

Final Note

CreateHDR which is supposed to do all this for free and online does not seem to work anymore, except -sometimes- for very small pictures. Did they have too much success?