[plug] Oxymoron: Microsoft, innovation

Mark J Gaynor mark at mjg.id.au
Sun Jun 18 02:11:11 WST 2006



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On 16/06/2006 at 8:06 PM Timothy White wrote:

>>
>> > 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!

That sounds like a vector graphics application, you will find that Gimp
cannot deal with that.

I had  access to a vector graphics program that had a 3000 dot per
inch resolution and a menu matrix of about 20 x 10 to about 35 levels
in some cases. It was awesome and that was over 15 years ago. I have
seen anything since that can match its performance but we are talking
seriously big bucks. You only get what you pay for.
 
>
>Tim (who is still in shock, at seeing 'fast photo restoration made easy'
>;-) )
>-- 
>Linux Counter user #273956
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