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GIMP turns to crowd funding to add updates like high bit depth & layer effects

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GIMP’s often toted as the main alternative to Photoshop for folks who don’t want to spend any money. GIMP has been around since 1995. In the last 22 years, it’s already seen a lot of progress, but it still doesn’t really hold up for most photographers in comparison to Photoshop.

At its heart, GIMP relies on the GEGL image processing core, and while the software is entirely open source, a massive chunk of the work is done by just one man; Øyvind Kolås. It’s thanks to him that GIMP 2.1 will be shipping with a great many new features users have been asking for. But now they need our help.

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This is how Photoshop resizes your images, mathematically speaking

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The mathematical side of photography has always interested me. It can be mostly ignored by photographers, often only required to understand the exposure triangle. For me, though, the maths is part of what initially drew me into photography.

In this video from Computerphile, we learn what goes into some of the calculations that allow us to easily resize our images inside Photoshop with just a couple of clicks. It used to be that there was only one method of resizing images, and it wasn’t very good. Then, as processing power increased, we were able to perform more complex tasks more quickly. So, more advanced resizing methods become viable.

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How to install Photoshop keyboard shortcuts in GIMP

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With Adobe’s long standing global domination and the current buzz around Affinity’s recent announcement of impending Windows versions of their software, it’s easy to forget that there is another application out there that can satisfy the needs of a good number of photographers, especially those who run Linux.

That application is GIMP.  One of the struggles with GIMP, however, is the shortcut keys, especially if you’re already used to working with Photoshop or another application that has a similar default shortcut key setup.

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Photo Editing for Free – Pixls Offers Tutorials for Open Source Software Like Gimp and Darktable

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I am a huge proponent of the open source platform.  Sure, there are two sides to the open source vs. proprietary argument, but it’s still too early in the week to be arguing something that heavy.

There are numerous reasons to use open source software for photo editing.  Perhaps you prefer the Linux operating system, maybe you’re on a tight (or nonexistent) budget, or maybe you just wanna “stick it to The Man.”  Whatever your reason, there are an increasing number of solutions available to you.

This is where Pixls.us comes in.  Founder Pat David started the website as a resource for those looking to use open source editing software.  There are treasure troves of information and quality tutorials for applications like Photoshop and Lightroom yet very little (in comparison) for programs like Gimp and Darktable.  David aimed to change that.

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How To Do A 2.5D Parallax Animated Photo Effect Using Only Free Software

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I had been fiddling with creating these 2.5D parallax animated photos for quite a few years now, but there had recently been a neat post by Joe Fellows that brought it into the light again.

The reason I had originally played with the idea is part of a long, sad story involving my wedding and an out-of-focus camcorder that resulted in my not having any usable video of my wedding (in 2008). I did have all of the photographs, though. So as a present to my wife, I was going to re-create the wedding with these animated photos (I’m 99% sure she doesn’t ever read my blog – so if anyone knows her don’t say anything! I can still make it a surprise!).[Read More…]

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