Re: [Gimp-developer] New Image/Color Management option

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

On 06/04/2016 12:12 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

> What re-evaluation are you talking about? Is this
> discussion for real?

I think there does need to be a real and on-going discussion.

If GIMP is being developed for high end workflows as specified in the 
Vision statement, then it's important to get input from people who 
actually use high end workflows. Gez is exactly such a person. I think I 
qualify, though I'm not a professional.

I've had a small number of high end users including two bonified 
professionals from very different fields look at both default GIMP and 
my patched GIMP which has the babl flips disabled. Unanimously these 
people say that there is no way they would use default GIMP because the 
babl flips interfere with their workflow. Plus they need the option to 
work in wider color spaces than sRGB. But they liked using my patched GIMP.

One comment was that my patched GIMP, and especially with the extra LCH 
functionality, felt natural to use and was an easy replacement for 
PhotoShop. A related comment was that the LCH functionalities open up 
new possibilities for digital painting.

One comment was that if my patched GIMP had one additional feature 
that's already on the GIMP roadmap - something to do with 
non-destructive ediing but I don't remember the specifics - it would be 
the preferred editing application for many high end users. Other people 
also mentioned non-destructive editing and of course adjustment layers 
and the ability to easily record and replay repetitive actions.

A comment made by a couple of people was that the unbounded floating 
point ICC profile editing was incredibly useful, something apparently 
PhotoShop and most other image editors don't support very well.

Let's be completely clear about this: These high end users and 
professionals aren't praising  *my* coding ability or *my* vision for 
GIMP. I'm a terrible coder and all I've done in my patched GIMP is 
disable the babl flips, add a few extra LCH functionalities, and 
recently added "anyrgb".

These people are talking about the truly awesomely excellent work that 
*everyone* on the GIMP team has done, with Mitch doing most of the 
actual coding for GIMP. So they were complimenting all of you devs, or 
all of us devs (people keep telling me I'm one of the GIMP devs).

And speaking of vision, I never would have realized the usefulness of 
unbounded image editing, which I think is from Pippin's vision. But now 
I can't imagine going back to editing bounded RGB.

As Gez has suggested, I think the GIMP devs should start seeking out 
high end users and asking for specific concrete feedback, which is 
something I've been trying to do for the last year.

Keep in mind that many "don't know/don't want to know" users do manage 
to use high end software like PhotoShop, Krita, and Blender without the 
software being hampered by training wheels, belts and suspenders.

Best,
Elle