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#21
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GIMP
Mike -- Email Ignored wrote:
I use Nikon Capture NX, but I need healing and patch tools. A friend suggested I try GIMP. Any comments? It's free. What have you got to lose by trying it for yourself, but for a little time? |
#22
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GIMP
On Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:05:07 +0000, Mike -- Email Ignored wrote:
Yes, I looked further and found how to save the bib file. That is good. But I have a good portrait of a man with a short beard that has a bad artifact near his lip due to dirt on the sensor. I can clean it up nicely with Photoshop clone and stamp tools, but I have not been able to do it with the Bibble spot tool. It seems that multiple applications of the tool at different magnifications do not interact well. Mike. I have not had an issue with the clone or spot tools as of yet but then I shoot strictly nature so its easier to correct without seeing the correction. James |
#23
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GIMP
Me wrote:
nospam wrote: In article SrEuk.209$sq3.51@trnddc07, Mike -- Email Ignored wrote: I use Nikon Capture NX, but I need healing and patch tools. A friend suggested I try GIMP. Any comments? photoshop elements is a much better choice. another alternative is adobe lightroom, which can edit images nondestructively as well as manage image libraries. Why is elements a better choice for that? It's a better choice generally. User interface is better than the quirky Gimp - Gimp is sometimes in realtime with preview; sometimes set and wait and retry. Some filters in 8 bit/color; some not. Versions of Gimp that do wxyz some that do uvwx but none that do uvwxyz... (To be fair, not all of the features in Elements work above 8/b/col either; but you can process an image at one level (16b/col) and then when done, convert the image to 8 bit to continue with the other filters/features). Elements has the Adobe raw import built in and as new cameras come out and you need the raw you DL it and drop it in the right directory and it's done. Gimps gets raw via an add on s/w package (whether this is a plug in or a pre-process, I'm not sure... but it certainly means maintaining both Gimp and the bolt on s/w. You can try Elements for free for 30 days or so (and you can get Gimp for free, period). I've used only v. 3 of Elements and the prior "PS lite editions" and they do 98% of what any serious amateur will need. (I now use CS3). For the OP, you can get rid of dust spots against skies etc using NX , selection tool & blur, or painting them out using the brush tool (select b/g colour using colour picker). Obviously not for more complicated cloning etc. Elements. Or CS3. Or Lightroom. But Elements is the least expensive. -- -- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm -- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin -- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch. -- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out. |
#24
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GIMP
In article , Me
wrote: which raw processor is very subjective. some people prefer camera raw, others prefer nikon's software (or canon's), bibble, capture one, dcraw or one of the many others. each one does things a little differently. most of the time, the technical differences are minor and won't even be noticable in a print or when displayed on a screen. I don't agree. The difference in the ability of the raw processor to extract detail is visible. If you look at the Nikon D300 review at DPReview, there are test chart shots with various raw converters, very clearly showing that CaptureNX extracted more detail from nef files, with less artifacts near nyquist than any other raw converter, incl. ACR. It's picky - 100% pixel view is perhaps looking too close - but it's very clear to see if you look, and for people who don't look - hey perhaps Ken Rockwell is right, and everyone should just use jpeg... i just took a quick look at the review and i saw comparisons with raw from other cameras, but i didn't see where he compared camera raw and nx, let alone comparing with other raw converters. and dpreview is just one example, there are other sample images that show different results. that's why it's subjective; people like different 'looks.' and with something like lightroom or aperture, shooting raw+jpeg is redundant. working with raws is the same as working with jpegs and it's just as fast (the difference is hardly noticable). You miss the point. If you use the workflow as it's possible to do, then you don't need to edit many (*nef) shots at all. there's no need to do much editing in a lightroom workflow, unless one wants to. nikon's software is not all that fast. Sure - it's mainly slowed down by the raw converter re-compressing the /edited/ embedded jpeg. I shudder to think what it will be like with 24mp D3x files - a fast computer won't be a luxury - it will be essential. i found it slow just to open the nef, as well as making adjustments, compared with photoshop & camera raw. are you saying it rewrites the embedded jpeg *each* time an adjustment is made? i would expect that it does that at the end. Well, the OP has NX, and that is a very good program (though often maligned). For post-processing that might be needed *after* doing the hard stuff in NX, then I don't see the need for full PS - Gimp does well for cloning etc., but YMMV. (and as I think I've said, I use PS anyway - because I want/need good soft-proofing and gamut warning - but that's because I'm fussy about prints). the *full* photoshop is overkill. elements is most of what most people need at a very reasonable price (and it's often bundled for free with various products). As far as non-destructive editing goes, then yes, NX does it, but saves edits as metadata within the *nef. For long term archiving, I think that's a big advantage (sure some potential - but unlikely - pitfalls too). it avoids having to deal with sidecar files, but it risks corrupting the .nef itself when rewriting it. i'm of the opinion that the raw file should never be altered, with all changes stored separately. |
#25
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GIMP ... yes, it sucks
Mike -- Email Ignored wrote:
I use Nikon Capture NX, but I need healing and patch tools. A friend suggested I try GIMP. Any comments? I just downloaded a recent v. of GIMP for iMac. Runs under X11. As I wrote earlier it does not support 16 bit/color very well. In fact on loading a scan from yesterday (TIF) it immediately declared incompetence and converted to 8 bit/color on loading. For light editing this is not a huge deal, I admit, but it does make changing contrast/bright/colors, etc. a lossy deal. The USM is ________HORRIBLE________ a) The preview is on a tiny area of the scene and you have to move sliders around to select an area (imagine a 8500 x 8500 pixel image and preview area of approx 200x200 and you want to check for detail and halos at a dozen places... Oh my... crap! b) and then the results of the USM are just plain terrible compared to those in photoshop. It did, BTW, a reasonable job reading a DNG file and a Minolta raw file (Maxxum 7D) but converted both to 8 bits on load, of course. Really, I wish the Gimp folks well, but it is not something anyone serious about photography would use. Get Elements for much better results and get CS3 for heavy lifting. -- -- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm -- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin -- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch. -- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out. |
#26
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GIMP ... yes, it sucks
Alan Browne wrote:
I just downloaded a recent v. of GIMP for iMac. Runs under X11. As I wrote earlier it does not support 16 bit/color very well. In fact on loading a scan from yesterday (TIF) it immediately declared incompetence and converted to 8 bit/color on loading. For light editing this is not a huge deal, I admit, but it does make changing contrast/bright/colors, etc. a lossy deal. When done correctly, with the RAW converter (at 12 or 14 bit depth) during the conversion process, it makes virtually no difference for editing photographs. The USM is ________HORRIBLE________ Actually, it's great. a) The preview is on a tiny area of the scene and you have to move sliders around to select an area (imagine a 8500 x 8500 pixel image and preview area of approx 200x200 and you want to check for detail and halos at a dozen places... Oh my... crap! Thank goodness for that! Instead of waiting while it applies USM to your imaginary 72MP image, you only have to wait while it does a 200x200 image. That allows you to very precisely adjust for the correct USM. b) and then the results of the USM are just plain terrible compared to those in photoshop. See above, about adjusting it correctly. That does help greatly. It did, BTW, a reasonable job reading a DNG file and a Minolta raw file (Maxxum 7D) but converted both to 8 bits on load, of course. Really, I wish the Gimp folks well, but it is not something anyone serious about photography would use. Get Elements for much better results and get CS3 for heavy lifting. The fact that you can't use it properly does not indicate a flaw with the program. -- Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) |
#27
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GIMP ... yes, it sucks
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Alan Browne wrote: I just downloaded a recent v. of GIMP for iMac. Runs under X11. As I wrote earlier it does not support 16 bit/color very well. In fact on loading a scan from yesterday (TIF) it immediately declared incompetence and converted to 8 bit/color on loading. For light editing this is not a huge deal, I admit, but it does make changing contrast/bright/colors, etc. a lossy deal. When done correctly, with the RAW converter (at 12 or 14 bit depth) during the conversion process, it makes virtually no difference for editing photographs. Of course it does in any image that gets a lot of color, tone, contrast, brightness, etc. adjustments in edit before final rendering as quantization errors accumulate rapidly with 8 bit/color depth. This is so basic. You're right about "done correctly" and that is in doing it at 16 b/color before rendering to JPG. The USM is ________HORRIBLE________ Actually, it's great. No. In PS CS3, a very light touch USM on an area of fine detail worked fine. Identical settings (emphasis is on _light_) in gimp on the same image created halos as well as deepened blacks with blocking up in shadow areas. This likely includes further artifacts from the 8b/color processing whereas in CS3 it is done at 16b/color. Plain horrible. a) The preview is on a tiny area of the scene and you have to move sliders around to select an area (imagine a 8500 x 8500 pixel image and preview area of approx 200x200 and you want to check for detail and halos at a dozen places... Oh my... crap! Thank goodness for that! Instead of waiting while it applies USM to your imaginary 72MP image, you only have to wait while it does a 200x200 image. That allows you to very precisely adjust for the correct USM. Imaginary? A 4000 dpi Nikon 9000ED scan of a 6x6 (56mm x 56mm to be precise) slide is actually 8818 x 8818 pixels for about 77 Mpix. I did a half dozen of these yesterday alone ... these can easily print to 30 x 30 inches with only the lightest touch of USM. And of course, CS3 does this with all of the image on the screen previewed... as one does USM at at least a 100% view to see the effect and to make sure oversharpenning does not occur, the entire image is not previewed, but it's a lot more than 200x200 pixels or so... I suppose on your snapshots, Gimp USM is likely fine, but on 8800x8800 pixel posters with area selections for different levels of sharpening, tedious Gimp USM does not even begin to cover the problem. b) and then the results of the USM are just plain terrible compared to those in photoshop. See above, about adjusting it correctly. That does help greatly. See above. I use USM a lot, in selected areas and I use it as lightly as possible by examining its effects throughout contrast areas in the whole image. Gimp USM is not only a poor tool for this ... but it does not do what it says it will do. It did, BTW, a reasonable job reading a DNG file and a Minolta raw file (Maxxum 7D) but converted both to 8 bits on load, of course. Really, I wish the Gimp folks well, but it is not something anyone serious about photography would use. Get Elements for much better results and get CS3 for heavy lifting. The fact that you can't use it properly does not indicate a flaw with the program. Geez. I've used Gimp many times over the years and it has improved in some areas; in the meantime PS Elements (!) and of course CS3 was always ahead at all times, including now. Really: Gimp is not enough despite being free. -- -- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm -- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin -- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch. -- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out. |
#28
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GIMP ... yes, it sucks
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Alan Browne wrote: I just downloaded a recent v. of GIMP for iMac. Runs under X11. As I wrote earlier it does not support 16 bit/color very well. In fact on loading a scan from yesterday (TIF) it immediately declared incompetence and converted to 8 bit/color on loading. For light editing this is not a huge deal, I admit, but it does make changing contrast/bright/colors, etc. a lossy deal. When done correctly, with the RAW converter (at 12 or 14 bit depth) during the conversion process, it makes virtually no difference for editing photographs. The USM is ________HORRIBLE________ Actually, it's great. That's my opinion too - nothing at all wrong with implementation of USM in Gimp! (oops... except for the fact that the slider for "radius" is set by default to 5, and resetting it doesn't "stick" after closing the program - only for the session) a) The preview is on a tiny area of the scene and you have to move sliders around to select an area (imagine a 8500 x 8500 pixel image and preview area of approx 200x200 and you want to check for detail and halos at a dozen places... Oh my... crap! Thank goodness for that! Instead of waiting while it applies USM to your imaginary 72MP image, you only have to wait while it does a 200x200 image. That allows you to very precisely adjust for the correct USM. b) and then the results of the USM are just plain terrible compared to those in photoshop. See above, about adjusting it correctly. That does help greatly. Ummm... If you resize the USM tool window, you automatically resize to scale the preview window. If you click the 4-way arrow icon, you can easily select where on the entire frame the preview is taken from. Jeesh - it's not even "not difficult", it's plain easy and straight-forward. It did, BTW, a reasonable job reading a DNG file and a Minolta raw file (Maxxum 7D) but converted both to 8 bits on load, of course. Really, I wish the Gimp folks well, but it is not something anyone serious about photography would use. Get Elements for much better results and get CS3 for heavy lifting. The fact that you can't use it properly does not indicate a flaw with the program. Agreed. |
#29
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GIMP ... yes, it sucks
Me wrote:
Agreed. Hardly. See my reply to Floyd. -- -- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm -- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin -- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch. -- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out. |
#30
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GIMP ... yes, it sucks
Alan Browne wrote:
Me wrote: Agreed. Hardly. See my reply to Floyd. Where you sarcastically denounce his photos as "snapshots" whilst providing anecdotes to support your own brilliance? No thanks. |
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