Linux for Designers

When i looked around what happened in Gimp development i read that the first addition additions to Gimp 2.5.2 has been arrived. Sven Neumann posted in his blog a screeny of the Online Help feature too.

Besides the development of Gimp 2.6 a bugfix release of the Gimp 2.4 series is available. Gimp is a feature rich image editor with a functionality similar to Photoshop.
All changes of Gimp 2.4.6 are listed in the news file. Users of Ubuntu Linux can download a Deb package too.

There is a first development snapshot of Gimp 2.5 available and some screens about it. You can download this unstable version and read the complete list of changes.
besides this good news of Gimp development the Gimp User Manual is updated to version 2.4.1 and is available for download too.

Another bugfix release of the Gimp 2.4 series. Gimp is a feature rich image editor with a functionality similar to Photoshop.
All about Gimp 2.4.4 is listed in the news file.
If you are using Ubuntu Linux you can grab deb archives at getdeb.net.
An the GIMP Animation Package (GAP), a collection of plug-ins to extend GIMP with capabilities to edit and create animations, is released as version 2.4.

The new release of
XnView 1.92 is available. Improved features, more supported file formats and bugfixes, all in detail can be read here.
It is a Windows application (the Linux version is outdated and got a ugly GUI) but with some tweaks and a actual release of Wine it runs perfect on Linux too. There are some tweaks for let it running smooth:
* tell XnView in the options (F12) to use the registry for store settings (if not any settings get lost after closing XnView)
* change the ugly Win95 colors of Wine by running the Wine registry editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors and setup the colors you like. You can tweak the GUI to give it the look of your desktop.

Another bugfix release of the Gimp 2.4 series. Gimp is a feature rich image editor with a functionality similar to Photoshop.
All about Gimp 2.4.3 is listed in the news file.
If you are using Ubuntu Linux you can grab deb archives at getdeb.net.

When browsing through directories and searching for an image it would often be helpful getting an thumbnail of an image. But Nautilus the files manager of the Gnome Desktop didn't support many images formats like Photoshop's PSD, Silicon Graphics RGB or Gimp's XCF files.
I created a Thumbnailer Gimp Python Plugin (copy it into "~/.gimp-2.4/plug-ins" and make sure it is executable) that generates thumbnails for Nautilus using Gimp.
That's the first version (of something like this) which means:
* No automatic thumbnail generation, you have to call it via Nautilus Scripts or Nautilus Actions like:

gimp-console  -i -n -f -d -s -b '(python-fu-thumbnailer RUN-NONINTERACTIVE "/your/path/here")'

or for Nautilus Actions:

gimp-console -i -n -f -d -s -b '(python-fu-thumbnailer RUN-NONINTERACTIVE "%d")'

* Didn't running inside of Gimp (toolbox)
* "Browse Images..." in Gimps image window isn't implemented yet
* no visual feedback at the moment how much thumbnails are generated

Another demonstration that the new shorter development cycles of Gimp are working: Gimp 2.4.2 is released. Again some bugfixes and minor improvements to make Gimp more stable.
If you are using Ubuntu Linux you can grab deb archives at getdeb.net.

XnView 1.91.5 is available. This is again a bugfix release of 1.91!
It is a Windows application but with some tweaks and a actual release of Windows. Wine it runs perfect on Windows. And it can handle Gimp (XCF) and Photoshop (PSD) images (overall 400 know formats).
You can tweak the GUI to look more in Ubuntu style.

XnView 1.91 is available.
It is a Windows application but with some tweaks and a actual release of Windows. Wine it runs perfect on Windows. And it can handle Gimp (XCF) and Photoshop (PSD) images (overall 400 know formats).
You can tweak the GUI to look more in Ubuntu style.