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Via GimpUsers

Seen at Gimpusers.com:

Years over years GIMPusers waited for this feature – now a dream has finally become true: Layer Groups for GIMP will be available in GIMP 2.8!

Yesterday, when writing our extensive preview about GIMP’s new features in version 2.8, it was still not clear if the layer groups would make it into the final release of GIMP 2.8. Our user eek then notified us of a developer comment which said that they just implemented layer groups and that they work already in a basic way. We just compiled the latest master of GIMP – and what we just saw is awesome You’re now able to create a layer-folder – then you can create layers inside or move other layers into it. After that make the whole set of layers visible/invisible for example or move the whole group up or down in the layers dialog. This will make it possible to manage large amounts of layers in an intuitive and easy way, you can combine layers thematically. [More...]

It’s time we have some new rules for dealing with images as evidence.

I don’t mean legal guidelines, per se, although it’s likely that the era of defendants being convicted on the basis of photos or videos will be drawing to a close soon. I mean the rules that we use in our day to day lives to grapple with the flood of information, online and off, or the common sense heuristics we go by to avoid being lied to. In a world of easy manipulation of images, it pays not to be too credulous.

Here’s a draft of five rules for the photo-fakery era. I welcome suggestions, corrections, and updates:

1. A single photograph is evidence of nothing. No matter how much you want to believe (in aliens, in Apple iPads, or in foreign-born U.S. Presidents), a single image is no better than a nicely-illustrated urban myth. This doesn’t mean that it’s a lie, only that you should trust the image no more than you’d trust someone just describing it in words.
2. Multiple images from the same source is no better. Anyone who can fake a single photo can fake a series of photos.
3. Just as with photos, a single video or source of video should be regarded with extreme skepticism. It’s getting easy to do professional-level composites with inexpensive or free video tools that run on even modest laptops. It’s not yet as easy as working with Photoshop or the GIMP, but that goal gets closer with each passing year. Moreover, the relatively low-resolution video images typical of even new cameraphones make some kinds of hacks simpler, especially when shown via Flash video. If you can’t clearly read a speaker’s lips, changing what they have to say becomes a matter of a small edit of the soundtrack. This is something of an artifact of the technology of the moment, however; as HD becomes more prevalent, along with 4G or faster upload speeds, it should temporarily get harder to hack video for awhile.
4. Conversely, the more sources, the more believable. This comes down to human behavior–when you have lots of people involved in a hoax, the faster it will be revealed. As Benjamin Franklin said, “three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.” Even well-disciplined cadres and true believers tell their friends and spouses; the less-well-disciplined will brag on Facebook.
5. With technology as well as people, the more diversity of sources, the more believable. If there’s video of, say, a UFO, there should be photos, too. With consistent GPS tags. And people Twittering about seeing it. And mobile phone records of a burst of phone calls in the area as people call to say “you wouldn’t believe what I’m looking at right now!”

A bit much perhaps? Maybe not. I have seen photos that people virally pass around as the truth without ever taking a second glass because s/he wanted it to be true. Really, there is no advice here expect be skeptical. The obvious photo/gimpshops usually end up on Photoshop Disasters, but you won’t see the carefully done images there.

Q Brushes has a set of 36 different Gimp tutorials:

The Gimp is a free open source image editing application that can do many things to suit your needs, whether they be making a gig poster for a local concert, or touching up a few family photos, the Gimp can do it. Here is a top 30 list of Gimp tutorials hand selected by Gimper and SGlider12 that will help you to add many new Gimp design techniques to your arsenal.

It’s a pretty decent collection.

Many DPS readers have requested more and more information about GIMP (sometimes referred to as The Gimp) photo editing software.  As a freely licensed bit of photography software, the high interest is understandable.  Before diving into some specific GIMP tips and tricks in future posts, I’d like to help bring those up to speed who may, after reading this far, still be thoroughly confused about what exactly I’m talking about.  What this introduction will not be is a comparison between Photoshop and GIMP, but merely a stand alone introduction to the software you may find useful.

GIMP is a an attempt at answering the call for freely distributed image editing software.  While Photoshop is widely regarded as the industry standard for all kinds of image manipulation, it’s costly and overblown for the average photographers use (ok, so I let in a *little* comparison).  Yes, Photoshop has a ton of useful tools, support and plugins available, but it was never available for Linux operating system users until the introduction of Wine.  And it was those users of Linux who initially requested something to run on their operating system to manipulate photographs. [Read more.]

For those on a budget or just wanting to play with web graphics design before investing in a more expensive web graphics editor (like Photoshop or FireWorks), then it’s well worth learning how to use the GIMP first.

Because many of the tools work the same in Photoshop and Fireworks. And unless you’re going to become a professional graphic design artist, then the GIMP might just have everything you need. It’s great for creating buttons header graphics, working with photographs, etc.

Just click on any link below to learn more about that particular feature of the GIMP. Our GIMP video tutorials are all free. They walk you through the essentials you’ll need to start your own graphic adventure.

Ever want to create a simple animated banner? In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to take a simple banner images and create moving text with a blur effect:

In this tutorial I’ll be showing you how to easily create an animated gif using GIMP 2.6. Using GIMP for animation uses lots of layers, which you should be looking at as the individual frames of the animation.

Read the entire tutorial here.

H/t

Rather than our public-sector education organisations paying for software, they should in fact not only get the software for free, they should actually be billing the software vendors for the right to place their wares and branding in front of millions of school students. Much like television and radio stations offer up a bidding system to advertisers who want to capture the eyes and ears of the ‘audience’, schools could operate a bidding process where vendors bid for accessing student’s attention for their software.

I couldn’t get one single cogent answer from my audience as to why this wasn’t a viable idea. The idea would not only reduce the software costs to our schools by hundreds of millions, but perhaps, with the right kind of negotiation, wipe out the costs to schools for much of their IT needs, as the vendors’ payments might just cover the costs involved for hardware acquisitions, networking and support.

And two:

Imagine what would happen if a generation of school kids was raised, from an early age, to be Linux, OpenOffice.org and Gimp users?

What’s that I hear you say? Kids can’t use that software? Rubbish. I know of many experiments which had school classes split into two; one group learning something like the Gimp for image editing, the other Photoshop. At the end of training, the groups were swapped. And while yes, the Photoshop-trained kids complained that the Gimp wasn’t intuitive, the Gimp-trained students said the same thing about Photoshop!

Now, imagine once more, if a whole generation of school kids was raised on Linux and open source software. Imagine what that would do to the current proprietary vendors who enjoy a strangle-hold in certain platform and application market segments. Imagine what that would do to their markets. Imagine again how much said vendors would pay to ensure that that never happens. And now you can begin to understand the incredible leverage that national school boards and departments of education have.

This idea isn’t that radical; businesses (mostly small) are beginning to deploy usage of open source applications and software. This only takes it to the next step. Why not schools? If these more traditional software companies make you pony up a bunch of cash for students to learn, causing strains in other areas of education, perhaps there’s no better time than to switch to open source. Will this be the wave of the future? I hope so!

5. Pixelmator
4. Inkscape
3. Fireworks
2. GIMP
1. Photoshop

Not surprisingly, Photoshop is the winner by a landslide, garnering over half of all the total votes. Photoshop is what comes to mind when image editing is involved there’s very little that can be said about it that hasn’t been said already.

I disagree with the outcome, yet it was awarded via poll– what ever that means. The Gimp surely outweighs Photoshop, IMHO. My favorite part being that its portable! And how much lighter of a program it is in general.

The first few Gimp versions, I longed for some Photoshop features, but – as of right now – the only  thing I would really like to be able to do: Group layers.

Otherwise, The Gimp rocks all socks. I love how its not a huge program in a single giant window. And I love, love, love how there is a portable version that also rocks. Each new version brings new things to light that I either never thought of or was assuming they’d get to it by the next upgrade. Because they always do.

Some of these little handy tips provided by Smashing Magazine are more obvious than others, but they all bear noting. Here’s the short list:

1. Add the PSPI Plug-In
2. Install Layer Styles
3. Add CMYK Color Separation
4. Install Liquid Rescale
5. Add Essential Brushes
6. Anchor Windows
7. Install Animation Package
8. Enable GEGL

Brushes? Well I got all kinds of brushes. And what I don’t have, I suggest DeviantArt for a wide array. But there are so many sources, you can even use Photoshop brushes now in the Gimp. Super awesome!

Here’s more on Liquid Rescale.

A couple of these I have yet to do, so I should get on it!

I wanted to open a bunch of photos at the same time. Many of these photos needed to be rotated. I found it annoying that I couldn’t just check a box that would allow me to rotate all. Hence, this is what I submitted.