What computer is Amber using?

[Turnsky]

Looking at the rant for Monday's pre-update, I can't help but wonder if Amber's tried GIMP... (Since llearch is a linux-user, [Debian, nontheless.] I figure he's mentioned it to her once or twice before...)

photoshop users eat the GIMP with fava beans and a nice Chianti.



jus' speaking from experience, yo.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

For what it's worth, my experience is that Gimp is much the same as Photoshop.

However, for power users, Gimp is very much not the same. The actual grunt work - transform image from a to b - is probably very similar, but the serious user tends to get used to a lot - and I do mean a LOT - of keyboard shortcuts to get things done. And your power user is someone who's been using the interface for many years, and knows all the tricks and shortcuts to get stuff done. And then there's the things like pre-organised formats for things, which will be set up totally differently in Gimp. And colour palettes. And numerous other things.

I mean, take, for example, my UI. I've been fiddling with various UI options for the last fifteen years. I've probably used my current window manager for the last 6 years. And I'll bet I've done a heck of a lot LESS than Amber to make it comfortable and easy to use, if only because one of my priorities is to keep it mostly standard so I can use other machines as well. I'd expect Amber to have an awful lot of changes she makes to make her work experience faster and easier. And slower and harder in some cases, because she finds it helps her to concentrate. The Gimp, while a lovely tool, will perforce have a totally different interface, and a totally different paradigm.


And, of course, I respect Amber's choice. I'd be very impressed if she got a shiny new machine, put ubuntu on it, and started messing about with Gimp, but I also would be very surprised if she didn't keep her old machine doing most of the daily comic work, and stayed that way for a couple of years.

Horses for courses.

[Damaris]

Having watched her with Photoshop, and having used the GIMP myself (it's what I have on my computer, actually) - GIMP is completely unsuitable for the level of demand. The functionality is very, very different, and the performance is not quite up to snuff.

I'll use it for minor photo editing, but even that usually involves cursing on my end. (at least, more cursing than Photoshop inspires)

[Drayco84]

Having watched her with Photoshop, and having used the GIMP myself (it's what I have on my computer, actually) - GIMP is completely unsuitable for the level of demand. The functionality is very, very different, and the performance is not quite up to snuff.

I'll use it for minor photo editing, but even that usually involves cursing on my end. (at least, more cursing than Photoshop inspires)

Huh... Didn't know that... I thought they were both essentially the same in performance, function, and interface... (Not surprised at how keyboard shortcuts are different, though.) I know that Open Office and Office Word were pretty similar and is was fairly easy for me to transition from Word to Open and was wondering if Photoshop and GIMP were similar like that. (I also rarely use keyboard shortcuts.)

But anyways, I can understand the difficulty and learning curve of trying to re-learn and re-master a different kind of software. (I still remember learning to use PCLOS... MANY times I wanted to chuck the netbook out the window and run over it with a car... I only stuck with it because malware borked XP and I was afraid to reinstall it. Go laziness and fear, I guess...)

I'm mostly only wondering if it could be used as a temporary solution or something... If Amber doesn't want to use it, then she doesn't want to use it. The. End. And now, I'll be quiet.

[Turnsky]

the thing is, if amber's style of using photoshop's anything like mine, there will be layers.

lots and lots of layers. and the Gimp completely folds up like a coke-can submarine when it comes to the ludicrous amount of layers i can use at any given time.

it's not that i'm dissing all those GIMP users out there, it's just that the program's completely unsuited for what i do, and i'm willing to bet that might be also the case with Ambargh.

[Maark30]

Lets just face the facts, Amber needs to have her computer tented to kill all the Fraggles and Gremlins. 

Just saying

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Having watched her with Photoshop, and having used the GIMP myself (it's what I have on my computer, actually) - GIMP is completely unsuitable for the level of demand. The functionality is very, very different, and the performance is not quite up to snuff.

I'll use it for minor photo editing, but even that usually involves cursing on my end. (at least, more cursing than Photoshop inspires)

Interesting. I'll admit my own use tends towards less cursing, and more lack of practice/ability (more the latter, but a healthy slice of the former as well). Cursing at a program seems ineffectual to me, so I prefer to avoid getting myself worked up that much.


... some microsoft apps can do it, though.

[Tapewolf]

Huh... Didn't know that... I thought they were both essentially the same in performance, function, and interface... (Not surprised at how keyboard shortcuts are different, though.) I know that Open Office and Office Word were pretty similar and is was fairly easy for me to transition from Word to Open and was wondering if Photoshop and GIMP were similar like that. (I also rarely use keyboard shortcuts.)

One thing GIMP does emulate pretty well from Photoshop is crashes, at least in the Windows port.  It has a very annoying tendency to deadlock if you try to do two things in quick succession, typically if it's been an hour or so since you last saved.  Solid as a rock under linux and the mac though, so it must be a bug in way GTK is implemented in windows.

[Attic Rat]

I've never used Photoshop, but I assumed that it must be a superior product just because it has become an industry standard. This quarter I'm taking an introductory course in Flash CS5 though, and my respect for the Adobe corporation's software documentation is ...not so high any more. It might as well be open-source in that regard. The best Flash tutorials are those on YouTube. I hope Photoshop is better supported.

[Talis Mahn]

Another issue with theGimp is the lack of CMYK support.  Its still RGB.  But you can also install interfaces styles.  I recall a few years back that there was a template called the thGimpshop, that gave it the same menu overlay as Photoshop.

On the other hand Photoshop seems to hover between Silver and Gold functionality under WINE http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=17 very much like EVE Online.  Too bad no one is that interested in getting Caligari Truespace to work under it.  Wonder If I can get CorelDraw to run under it....Ummm never mind.

[Tapewolf]

Another issue with theGimp is the lack of CMYK support.  Its still RGB.  But you can also install interfaces styles.  I recall a few years back that there was a template called the thGimpshop, that gave it the same menu overlay as Photoshop.

For print stuff, this is a problem.  For a webcomic it's irrelevant since you're targeting RGB displays anyway.
For what it's worth Photoshop doesn't support CMYK either unless you buy the full version, which is £630 ($1020).  Elements won't do it, last I heard, which is a pain because I do need to do RGB->CMYK conversion on occasions.

Too bad no one is that interested in getting Caligari Truespace to work under it.

I have run TS3 under it...

[Turnsky]

however its worth noting that for amber it was a hardware issue, not a software.

talking Gimp, photoshop, windows, linux, is all good and fine but it doesn't do diddly squat if the hardware that it runs on has given up the ghost.  

[Talis Mahn]

I've used Linux to resurrect dead machines!!    Require the main parts to work or be replaced where necessary.  Its always the fun part, finding the parts to swap.

[RobbieThe1st]

I've used Linux to resurrect dead machines!!    Require the main parts to work or be replaced where necessary.  Its always the fun part, finding the parts to swap.

That's very true - a LiveCD of some sort(Ubuntu's pretty good) is an -excellent- trouble-shooting and testing tool. It's not exactly the kind of thing Amber'd use, though -  More like something the person fixing the machine has.

Mind, another interesting tool for someone like llearch is Inquisitor - It's got all sorts of stability tests and benchmarks. -Crucial- if you're OCing your CPU/ram(CPUBurn and Memtest x86).

[Darkbunny]

One thing GIMP does emulate pretty well from Photoshop is crashes, at least in the Windows port.  It has a very annoying tendency to deadlock if you try to do two things in quick succession, typically if it's been an hour or so since you last saved.  Solid as a rock under linux and the mac though, so it must be a bug in way GTK is implemented in windows.

It's not a bug, it's a feature! 

...Namely, the 'emulate Windows look and feel' feature, which is enabled by default on Windows builds of GIMP.  I disabled it a year ago and it hasn't crashed since.  Frozen for minutes at a time when I tried to push it past what my hardware could reasonably do, yes, but never actually crashed.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

It's not a bug, it's a feature! 

...Namely, the 'emulate Windows look and feel' feature, which is enabled by default on Windows builds of GIMP.  I disabled it a year ago and it hasn't crashed since.  Frozen for minutes at a time when I tried to push it past what my hardware could reasonably do, yes, but never actually crashed.

Now _that_ is interesting. Have you bugrepped that back to the developers? That sort of thing is gold, because it narrows a bug down to a specific set of code. Makes it much much easier to find the darn thing. Or to replicate the fault, even.

[Turnsky]

further interesting to point out is that unlike the GIMP, Photoshop CS4 (at least, the legit version   ) doesn't crash on me unexpectedly.

unless you count it taking just under 5-7 minutes to load up a single PSD because it's huge and has something like 40+ layers.  

edit: tried the PSD on the latest version of the Gimp.... had to cancel it near 15 minutes... granted that was a file some 500 or so meg in size. 

[Anker Steadfast]

Frozen for minutes at a time when I tried to push it past what my hardware could reasonably do, yes, but never actually crashed.

Wait, wait ... you can actually overclock your computer without it exploding like a handgrenade ?

Damn, and here I thought that when the movies taught me how to keep a fire exstinguisher and a flakvest around when overclocking, it was good advice !

[Darkbunny]

Wait, wait ... you can actually overclock your computer without it exploding like a handgrenade ?

Damn, and here I thought that when the movies taught me how to keep a fire exstinguisher and a flakvest around when overclocking, it was good advice !

Nah, no overclocking.  Just trying to perform complex operations on large files.  GIMP doesn't warn you when something is going to take ten minutes to finish.  It just freezes until it's done with whatever you requested.

[AmigaDragon]

It's not a bug, it's a feature! 

...Namely, the 'emulate Windows look and feel' feature,

The feel of impending freezes and crashes?

further interesting to point out is that unlike the GIMP, Photoshop CS4 (at least, the legit version   ) doesn't crash on me unexpectedly.

How often does it crash expectedly?

[Turnsky]

How often does it crash expectedly?

quite frankly, most of the 'restarts' i've had to do was because i needed to refresh its memory to run 'save for web' on an absurdly large piece.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Curious. I wonder what "save for web" does that causes it to use such a lot of memory.

[AmigaDragon]

Dad has found that when working with large scanned files in Paint Shop Pro 8 the printed files are humongous unless he saves, purges then reloads to print. HUGE difference in printed file size.

[Talis Mahn]

That is one thing that has always weirded me out about printing.  'Puter has multiple gigs of ram.  Printer has huge amount of ram.  The file to be printed is only a few megabytes...  The print-job itself???  How the hell can it be that friggin huge?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Talis, the format that the printer speaks is not "here's an image, put it on the page" that the PC does.

it's "here's a page. Go to point A, draw a line from point A to point B of thickness Y. Make it of colour X. Then go to point B. Draw a line from point B to point A of thickness Z. Make it of colour W."

... etc. It's very very _very_ verbose and very very specific.

It also scales extremely well, so the same data can trivially draw something at 30 pixels across and 30,000 pixels across. Which makes it useful for printers, but not so useful for the conversion from desktop to printer.


That help?

[Talis Mahn]

Yes that helps a lot.  I hadn't really thought about it like a plotter.  (Which was the cool printer when I was in school many years ago).  Reminds me of an old CAD program we used in drafting class.  That was pretty much how you drew the picture on the screen.  Ahhh, the pre AutoCAD days.   

Now I need to obliterate that nightmare again!  Alcohol!!!! 

[RobbieThe1st]

Yes that helps a lot.  I hadn't really thought about it like a plotter.  (Which was the cool printer when I was in school many years ago).  Reminds me of an old CAD program we used in drafting class.  That was pretty much how you drew the picture on the screen.  Ahhh, the pre AutoCAD days.   

Now I need to obliterate that nightmare again!  Alcohol!!!! 

Actually, AutoCAD does the same thing. You just get a nice GUI to interact with it, if you wish - Or, you can just use the command line if you wish.

----
Speaking of Gimp, it does -not- like rendering PDF pages(mostly vector data) to 22000x34000(~6GB swapfile). I was able to render fine at 1/4th the pixels fine, though.

[Turnsky]

Talis, the format that the printer speaks is not "here's an image, put it on the page" that the PC does.

it's "here's a page. Go to point A, draw a line from point A to point B of thickness Y. Make it of colour X. Then go to point B. Draw a line from point B to point A of thickness Z. Make it of colour W."

... etc. It's very very _very_ verbose and very very specific.

It also scales extremely well, so the same data can trivially draw something at 30 pixels across and 30,000 pixels across. Which makes it useful for printers, but not so useful for the conversion from desktop to printer.

it does make you wonder how big those files would get when they finally perfect colour 3d printing.

[RobbieThe1st]

Talis, the format that the printer speaks is not "here's an image, put it on the page" that the PC does.

it's "here's a page. Go to point A, draw a line from point A to point B of thickness Y. Make it of colour X. Then go to point B. Draw a line from point B to point A of thickness Z. Make it of colour W."

... etc. It's very very _very_ verbose and very very specific.

It also scales extremely well, so the same data can trivially draw something at 30 pixels across and 30,000 pixels across. Which makes it useful for printers, but not so useful for the conversion from desktop to printer.

it does make you wonder how big those files would get when they finally perfect colour 3d printing.

Well, you can probably look at CNC G-code for a hint: There, you're turning 2D/3D work into a series of "move to point" commands(essentially). If you are just doing flat surfaces and "2.5D" work, files are in the <100k range easily. If you are doing true 3D contours, files can be a -lot- bigger - Easily several MB in size and larger than some machines' memory capacity(you end up feeding it a stream from your PC instead).

With 3D printing, the -methods- for creating surfaces and such are completely different, but the methods for designing them are similar. Code size will end up depending on the brains in the 3D printer: If you have almost no brains there(doing most calculations and vectorization on the PC end) as in a typical CNC machine, the filesizes will be quite large. If, however, you throw a whole PC in there(or use a stream from the PC), the file sizes will be a lot smaller(or, if streaming, large but not actually saved anywhere and computed on the fly).

[AmigaDragon]

Talis, the format that the printer speaks is not "here's an image, put it on the page" that the PC does.

it's "here's a page. Go to point A, draw a line from point A to point B of thickness Y. Make it of colour X. Then go to point B. Draw a line from point B to point A of thickness Z. Make it of colour W."

... etc. It's very very _very_ verbose and very very specific.

But for inkjets, the output to the printer is a bitmap, not vectors. What gets us is that the same file being printed is a much larger print job before the save/purge/reload than after.