mike's blog

Update for webresize script

Posted Wed, 03/02/2010 - 23:01 by mike

Hi folks,

just to let you know, there is an updated version of the webresize script available. More information and download here.

greets mike

Use ImageMagick within gimp

Posted Thu, 21/01/2010 - 21:10 by mike

Hi folks,

at the moment I'm investigating workflow possibilities for photos (mainly on linux). So there are programs for organizing and viewing, like digiKam, F-Spot and Geeqie, programs for editing, like dlRaw and gimp, and libraries (or commandline tools) like gmic and ImageMagick.

For my personal workflow I want the programs to interact, this means for example, I want one kind of tagging and rating, and this should be the same in all used applications... Another thing, I don't want to open a photo in several applications one after another, to get each step in one application done. This costs time, and it is very easy to loose metadata, color profiles or image quality (did I say time?).

For me there was one essential step missing. After editing in dlRaw some pictures need aditional work in gimp. Ok, thats no problem, just one click and the image is in gimp. But then when finished there, I need a resized version for the web... Ok resizing is possible in gimp, but when comparing the results I didn't like the builtin algorithms of gimp. So I always used ImageMagick's convert on the command line. So, save the image, navigate to the folder, open command line, typing the command with the right names... Not nice! 

Finally I found a way to get rid of this. So, here is a python script for gimp, which saves a temporary file, calls an ImageMagick command on that file, passes the result to gimp and cleans everything up. This script calls the Lanczos resizing algorithm, which gives a sharp and clear resized version without any need to sharpen afterwards, if the original image was sharp (same method as in dlRaw). Exif data and color profile is preserved within the script.

Of course this script idea is much more flexible, one could builtin other functions from ImageMagick, or any commandline tool which can handle tiffs, or one could program ones own filters without the need for a gui, and use an adopted script for the gui...

Installing is easy, make sure you have python enabled in gimp (python in gimp for windows), then copy it to your local gimp plug-ins directory and set the file executable. Of course you need the ImageMagick package for your system (on linux it is most likely installed; on windows you have to download and install it manually). Finally on windows you have to change the path for mogrify in the script according to your installation, but this is not hard at all, just look in the file.

So, have fun with a new resizing method in gimp. Comments and further ideas are very welcome Smile

greets mike

UPDATE (03.02.2010): There is a new version of the script attached.

Weather pictures and Jpegs

Posted Mon, 04/01/2010 - 21:50 by mike

Hi folks,

so do you still like the new year Wink At least we got snow during the last days, so outside it is white and not the usual grey... But both situations allow nice shots, so how do you like mine?

Of course there are some other news. I've implemented Jpeg and Tiff support, with 16 bit, fully color managed and of course with exif support. So it will be possible to use one program for all photos and to work on 8 bit files with 16 bit precision (to loose as little as possible). For me there are more reasons why a RAW converter should support Jpeg and Tiff.

First it allows retouching already processed photos and many people like to (or even have to) shoot Jpeg anyway. Furthermore colors are a big issue with non supplied RAW converters since the algorithms of the camera producers are kept secret. So many people like to process their RAWs first in the supplied tool (for the best color rendering), but these are usually not very feature rich... Last thing, if you use film cameras and scan your images afterwards, you also won't have RAWs... From another perspective, this will hopefully help to enlarge the user group (once it is released) and this will help the project.

So stay tuned for the upcoming developments,

greets mike

 

Christmas time...

Posted Mon, 21/12/2009 - 00:27 by mike

Hi folks,

are you also enjoying the "most wonderful time of the year"? Usually a quite busy time... So there were many things to do, and I had only little time for programming. Actually, I cannot report about any new filters, just a few bug fixes and small changes for the gui. Most time consuming was the windows build, so it is working on windows again, with a new compiler, multithreading and still one code source. So enjoy your holidays, and I'll try to have new filter for next year Wink

greets mike

Sad views in Berlin

Posted Sun, 06/12/2009 - 15:55 by mike

Hi folks,

here is a small picture update. These are some shots I took recently in Berlin. The new texture enhancer and the new crossprocessing simulation were used. Hope you like the effects and the photos.

greets mike