[plug] Oxymoron: Microsoft, innovation

[Timothy White]

>
> > Another example of open source missing the point or re inventing the
> > wheel is Gimp. Highly rated by those who use it, but come from
> > only using Adobe Photoshop in all its glory, because the company
> > can afford the real deal and all the plugins. The transition to Gimp
> > is far from easy, as they put everything in different places to where
> > you expect them, if you can find them at all.
>
> I worked with Photoshop for several years (though I usually found Paint
> Shop Pro easier to work with for all but the more complex tasks), but
> always found it cumbersome. I didn't like the Gimp 1 interface, but
> after the 2.0 release came out, I switched to that, and nothing has
> ever felt so natural. I guess everyone is different. For those who get
> confused when things move, there's always Gimpshop. (Personally, my
> main gripe with Gimp is the lack of adjustment layers, but I would
> probably not be able to use it practically anyway; memory consumption
> is already a problem for 8MP pictures.)

Not having used Photoshop, I come from the other side, having grown up
with Fireworks (for a small amount of time, when I was developing in
Flash), and Gimp.
I stil haven't gotten around to prioritising a tablet high enough, to
buy one. Today I was at the Photography Studio, enquiring about some
prints, and I didn't even hear what the guy said they cost. Instead, I
was watching his son, digitally restore an image. I think it was a
lithoprint of some  sort, as it was a 'plain' (aged) background, with
grey lines all over it creating some sort of image.
What got my attention, was firstly the totally lack of a UI, it was
just a single window with the image in it, I assume he knows his
keyboard short cuts. ;-) Secondly, was how quickly, and well he
worked. He 'roughly' selected areas to clone INTO, then he moved
around the image, and in real time, it cloned INTO the area he
selected (rather than how I work in Gimp, selecting areas to clone
from). When he found the bit that matched 'best', he could then, in
real time, rotate and tweak the cloning, to make it fit exactly! I was
shocked, not only was this cloning INTO an area a wonderful idea (and
I assume it's not permanently cloned in, until you accept that it's
ok), but how he could also rotate the bit he was cloning from.

Now if someone can show me how to do that in the Gimp, then please do.
But if someone knows what application he was using, PLEASE let me
know. Cause what ever it was, it is IMHO, bloody well made!

Tim (who is still in shock, at seeing 'fast photo restoration made easy' ;-) )
-- 
Linux Counter user #273956