Anyone use CinePaint ? (OSX in particular)

[Ken Lee]

I have a new iMac, and have installed CinePaint. With support for 16-bit color spaces (and higher) I look forward to it, as a possible alternative to Photoshop.

A few of the features don't quite work on my machine.

Anyone here use it on OS X ?

[Ben Syverson]

CinePaint is a cool project, but you have to understand... It's under active development. The paint tools and simple image manipulation (Levels, etc) should work well, as that's what CinePaint is most often used for. From what I understand, it's used a lot by small shops (often in the developing world) to do dustbusting and wire removal for Hollywood's visual effects shots... As you move outside that core functionality, you may hit some walls.

For example, I just downloaded the OS X version, and the gaussian blur doesn't work. You can set shortcuts for things like Increase Brush Size, but how you actually get those to take effect is unclear. In fact, it seemed to ignore keyboard shortcuts altogether.

If you're willing to be patient and deal with the clunky interface, there may be enough in there to make it a PS replacement for simple tasks... Unfortunately, it's not quite there yet for me.

[Ken Lee]

Thanks !

Gaussian blur indeed. I sent a note to the fellow who run the team.

I installed a couple of Linux VMs on my Mac, to run under VMWare. Perhaps I will get some time and build CinePaint on one of those. Apparently, that's the only way to really get the thing to work.

[Ben Syverson]

Yeah, the OS X build is an interesting proof of concept, but it really lives in Linux.

[Ken Lee]

I was just able to get it running on Fedora10, running under VMWare on the Mac.

You have to install their script Fedora.sh before you use the yum command to install cinepaint.

Like everything else, when it works, it's easy. Until then, it's frustrating.

Now I can evaluate it, and see if it's a good replacement for Photoshop. Apparently, it handles ICC profiles and not only 16, but 32-bit color spaces.

Whether one can print, is another matter :-)

[Ben Syverson]

Let us know if you get it all working!

[Ken Lee]

Let's not hold our breath. On further consideration, I recognize the value inherent in a system like OS X.

It's fundamentally a Unix OS, but all the configuration issues have been handled for you in advance. The Linux distros I have tried recently, look a lot like a poor-man's OS X.

We might want to think of OS X as an already-mature Linux distro, where we have simply paid a "nominal fee" for a seamless platform integration, and for the guarantee that hardware and software are compatible.

The same might be said of Photoshop: one could think of it as a mature CinePaint, where all those thorny issues like printing and OS integration have been resolved in advance, for a... "nominal fee".

[D. Bryant]

The same might be said of Photoshop: one could think of it as a mature CinePaint,

Don Bryant

[Ben Syverson]

That makes a lot of sense...

Open Source really shines as a model when you have a well-specified problem with well-known solutions, and a base of users who are unlikely to pay. Web browsers and word processors are perfect OSS candidates, which explains the success of Firefox and Open Office. CinePaint, in my opinion, is attacking a fuzzily-defined problem set, doesn't come through 100% with solutions, and its users are professionals who generally can afford a commercial alternative. It saw a lot of development back when a few post production studios were using it internally, but I think most of those studios have moved on to off-the-shelf tools or custom apps...

[Richard Wheat]

I used to use Cinepaint (and Gimp) - up until about a 18 months ago - for all my photo processing.

I can tell you that when I moved to Photoshop my productivity increased about 10 fold.

Photoshop is designed for processing photographs, and, in my opinion, Cinepaint is a long way behind - not necessarily in technical features, but definitely in overall usability.

Hope this helps,
Richard.