[Gimp-developer] Useability enhancement request: unified/expanded file export dialog

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

The GIMP bug report guidelines say to ask on the mailing list before 
filing enhancement request bug reports.

When editing images using GIMP 2.9, one useability issue kept cropping 
up over and over again, and that's exporting images to disk. Here are 
some proposed enhancement requests for consideration:

1. Right now the precision of the exported image depends on the image 
precision plus the maximum precision supported by the export file 
format. Assume the user is editing an image at 32-bit floating point 
precision:

Exporting to jpeg currently produces an 8-bit jpg, which is expected.

Exporting to png currently produces a 16-bit png. But maybe the user 
wants an 8-bit png.

Exporting a tiff currently produces a 32-bit floating point tiff. If the 
exported image is to be opened in another image editor for further 
editing, the other image editor might not be able to read a 32-bit 
floating point tiff.

It would be enhance useability if the user could choose the export 
precision as part of the export dialog.

2. File export dialog presets:

Some of the file export dialogs have the ability to save a set of 
options as the default options, and some don't.

Having to click open the export dialog options and make the same choices 
that were made the last time the same export dialog was opened is 
time-consuming, awkward, and easy to forget. It would enhance useability 
if all file export dialogs made it possible to save default settings.

Dither dialog:

As a related issue, in GIMP 2.9 changing the precision to a lower 
precision means dealing with the precision conversion dithering dialog 
Every. Single. Time. Personally I never use dither when changing 
precision and it would enhance useability to be able to permanently 
dismiss the dither dialog. This may sound like "just a click, no big 
deal". But to the person who has to deal with making the same choices 
over and over again, it does add up. Default presets and permanently 
dismissable dialogs would be a genuine useability enhancement.

The next two enhancement requests might be considered as "way too much", 
but here goes:

3. Scaling upon export:

When exporting an image for display on the web, the image usually needs 
to be resized, and sometimes you might want to make some additional 
edits at the reduced size before the final export. But not always. It 
would be convenient to have the option to scale the image as part of the 
file export dialog, leaving the GIMP XCF file at the original size.

4. Assigning and converting to another RGB color space upon export:

The editing RGB color space might not be the color space the user wants 
the exported image to be in. It would be extremely convenient if the 
export dialog allowed for both converting to another color space as part 
of the export dialog, and also assigning another color space.

Consider working on an sRGB image. If you are using the GIMP built-in 
sRGB color space, that's a V4 color space with a parametric curve. And 
for whatever good reasons, GIMP won't embed the built-in sRGB profile.

The ability to assign a profile from disk upon export would be a very 
nice option. Here's why this matters especially with sRGB images that 
will be displayed on the web:

When editing an image, because of how LCMS2 treats profiles with point 
curves, you really don't want to use a V2 sRGB profile because the V2 
sRGB profile has point curves.

But when exporting to disk for display on the web as a photograph or 
digital art (not talking about web design graphics for which different 
considerations apply), given the peculiarities of default Firefox color 
management, you really do want an embedded sRGB profile, and you want 
that embedded sRGB profile to be a V2 profile, not a V4 profile.

Elle