Linux anyone

Hi all,

Any one is using LInux flavors for working on their UW pix ?

If so which ones ?

Can Gimp, the linux equivalent of photoshop work on RAW images / or Oly images ?

Shil

Hi all,

 

Any one is using LInux flavors for working on their UW pix ?

If so which ones ?

Can Gimp, the linux equivalent of photoshop work on RAW images / or Oly images ?

 

Shil

I'm using Fedora Core 7, UFRaw to deal with my Canon RAW images (white balance, exposure, & contrast adjustment), and Gimp for other things like selective blurring, unsharp mask, dodge & burn masks. The downside to gimp is it can't deal in 16-bit color space, only 8-bit. If you can deal with that, you can't beat the price!

cheers,

Christophe

Hi Shil,

I have a long history of working with Linux (as well as IRIX and Solaris) and though I have a fondness in my heart for Linux and Opensource, it isn't the best system for doing any serious imaging work. For me, it comes down to two specific weaknesses on the Linux platform.

1.) As already mentioned, 16bit processing isn't available in the GIMP. There are other alternatives to the GIMP that do support 16bit editing (cinepaint and Krita), but I found neither to be as mature as the GIMP. Bibble Pro runs on Linux AFAIK, so this maybe a commercial solution.

2.) Linux is seriously deficient when it comes to hardware profiles and color management. Building and loading ICC profiles for a monitor on Linux is a BEAR!!! It's command line driven, requires you to compile software yourself (No distro's that I know of package Argyll), has very limited driver support for profiling devices and AFAIK requires the user to manually loaded look up tables. And I haven't even considered getting accurate profiles for a printer. Because of this, you'll find it difficult to get consistent and predictable color for either web publication or printing on Linux.

Whether these features will affect you or not depends on what you expect from your digital darkroom. If you can live with an 8bit work flow and aren't picky when it comes to color reproduction, then any flavor of Linux with GIMP (and dcraw/ufraw)included should suit you fine. But, if you want precise and predictable color management, you'll find that there are a few roadblocks to adopting Linux for your creative work.

Cheers,

Mike

I just found this blog post. Using Linux for Photography, where we stand

It should help answer some of you questions.

HI all,

Thanks for putting in info on Linux as OS for photography. Seems to be lagging behind other OSs, but I will be trying to fool around to learn a bit.

Shil

That's basically what I'm doing. I just spent my replace-the-computer money on a housing, so my 5yr old laptop will have to do for another few months. Being new to photography, I find that Gimp's 8-bit limitation is not likely the biggest problem with my images, and I can otherwise learn processing methods from using it.

Cheers,

Christophe