* Basil Chupin
OK, I accept this - but Fred has told me many times that if one forgets about all the other fang-dangled, "you-beaut", apps and get to know Gimp then you become 'The Master of the Universe'. Afteral, Photoshop came from Gimp.
Gimp is an excellent tool, but does not fit all usages as few tools do. The learning curve quite steep for even the most basic of tasks but once reached, also quite rewarding. For one working small groups of raw photos (emphasis on raw) or only jpgs, gimp is quite capable and gimp does not alter your jpg (non-destructive) but *you* must learn to save to a new filename. gimp can somewhat save your history steps but requires saving in gimp's own format imtermediately which it endeavours to force upon you. Working on raw photos is another story. gimp requires converting those to a format it can use, tiff and png being the *best* choices quality wise, then saving your final gimp processed image before going to the next. The first conversion can be batch processed but then working them in gimp is a singular operation, one at a time. Darktable and AfterShot{Pro} both read most raw images, allow you to adjust each image saving those adjustments to a *sidecar* file and finally processing the batch output while you do something else. Again as with all good tools comes the learning curve. I find gimp to seemingly be quite devious and operations not as expected and time consuming which is a great restraint to someone working large groups of photos. Darktable is much better but in a quite different way and AfterShot{Pro} very good. But I like Darktable's product much better, expecially in lower light situations, than that of AfterShot{Pro}.
BTW, as it so happens I had to take some photos a few minutes ago of a couple of handbags my wife bought (ahem, that is which 'I' bought :-) ) for her birthday today (she wants to send the pics to some of her friends) and I used DigiKam to transfer the photos onto the HDD.
I like the idea of Digikam but it also is quite convoluted, steep learning curve, *lots* of mouse clicks, and I am quite capable of transferring files from a chip into my desired file system and renaming them according to their internal datestamp (original record date). At the same time I also include the gps data.
Not that I was importing RAW pics but did you know that DigiKam has the ability to automatically adjust RAW pics, or leave them in original state, when importing them to HDD?
Yes, but Digikam cannot automagically know my preferences/desires for individual shots, turning the camera 15 degrees to the sun can completely change the color cast of the entire photo, ie: grass changes from deep green to yellowish. So if Digikam is going to make adjustments and then I have to *remake* them, DigiKam is just using cpu and time wastefully. Anyone shooting large quantities will tell you that time is very precious.
DAMMIT! Why did this thread have to come up! Now I getting that strong urge to get back into photography and the desire to get my hands on the Canon EOS 5D Mark III (to replace my couple of A1s). I need to stop reading posts about photography :-)
It's what makes the world go round and fills retirement with challenges. btw: I have only touched upon most points but enough words for now. One uses what fits best, or that which they are most comfortable. You have Canon and I have Nikon. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org