[Openicc] Color management in gimp - not really

[Hal V Engel]

On Sunday 03 April 2005 12:54 pm, Robin Rowe wrote:
> Hal,
>
> > Apps like CinePaint and Scribus, as nice and as powerful as they are,
> > are aimed at a small segment of specialized users and therefore have
> > little influence over what other will do.
>
> Pro tools like CinePaint, Scribus, and GraphicsMagick have the users,
> mission and domain expertise for CMS. GIMP, an 8-bit paint program targeted
> to Web imagery users and hobbyists, is not relevant to the professional
> imagery market.

But this needs to change.  If GIMP is not going to become "relevant to the 
professional imagery market" what app will have that role for users of open 
source software?  We need something that has the power to do what users in 
closed environments use Photoshop to do.  Right now there are simply no other 
viable candidates.  Yes GIMP needs a lot of work to get it to that state but 
it is improving at a fairly rapid pace now and we should be encouraging and 
supporting that progress.  And as Craig Bradney points out Scribus relies on 
GIMP so it appears the Scribus folks think that GIMP is the only viable 
option at this point.  In the long run a better GIMP will benefit all of us 
even imagery professionals.

>
> > GIMP is making it's first steps into color management.  These appear to
> > be baby steps at this point but it is starting to happen.  Have a look
> > here http://developer.gimp.org/NEWS
>
> What are we supposed to be looking at there? Relevant to CMS, theres
> exactly one line on that web page. It says,  "first steps towards color
> management".

This web page does not have any details only high level bullet items.  I was 
just making the point that there is progress on GIMP with CM and that with in 
a few months a widely used app (GIMP) with some color management awareness is 
going to start appearing on open source desktops.  This is a real milestone 
for CM in the open source world.  

After all how many open source users use CinePaint and/or Scribus?  Maybe 1% 
or 2% at most 5%. These apps are targeted at a small specialized group of 
users so these low numbers are to be expected.  On the other hand at least 
90% of open source desktops have GIMP installed and most Linux distros 
install it by default.  When you ask any Linux user about editing photos or 
doing graphics work almost the first thing they say is something about The 
GIMP.

Another way to gage how much impact the GIMP CM work is having is to look at 
the activity on this list.  If you go back 6 months before GIMP started 
working on CM and look at the average number of messages on this list it 
would probably be 2 or so per month.  In the last month there were over 40 
messages on this email list.  There were no messages on this list between 
when I joined on 5/23/04 and 11/03/04.  There were 4 messages in Nov 04, 20 
in Dec 04 and none in January 05.  Then on February 12 the list was told of 
the GIMP CM work and the number of messages exploded.  

One other point.  The GIMP team is not leading the way on CM.  Rather they 
almost had to be dragged into this.  CinePaint and Scribus are definitely the 
open source leaders when it comes to CM.  What the CM effort in GIMP does is 
pushes CM more into the mainstream and as a result it will push other 
projects to start looking at and working on CM awareness.

>
> Robin
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Robin.Rowe at MovieEditor.com   Beverly Hills, California
> www.CinePaint.org - Open source digital motion picture software