Linux digital image processing/editing software?

[sog1927]

So, I recently acquired not one, but two film scanners (a SprintScan 120 for the little stuff, and a SprintScan 45 Ultra for 4x5). Vuescan works quite well., but my post-scanning options seem to be a bit limited, however. GIMP is reasonably powerful and relatively easy to use, but it only supports 8-bit color which makes it completely useless for photographic purposes. Both cinepaint and krita handle 16-bit color, but cinepaint does simply bizarre things to grayscale images. Krita is so slow and unresponsive as to be unusable - especially for any operations that require significant data movement (I suspect that the RPMs were built with no optimization). Are there any other worthwhile alternatives?

Steve

[JonathanPerkins]

Hi Steve,

Let me prefix my comments by saying I'm a fan of Linux - I've used it both professionally and at home for over 12 years, have professionally developed Linux kernel drivers and currently do all my software development at work on Linux desktop and embedded in our product.

But after using GIMP and dcraw for a while I ended up switching to Mac and running Lightroom+Photoshop. OK perhaps a slight part of that is a need to get away from Linux at home now its a main part of my job, but mostly its because I can now do so much more, more effectively and with better results with the Adobe tools. And thats before we even mention colour management...

I'd be interested in anyone elses recommendations for Linux photography tools,

Hope that doesn't sound too negative a post, as generally I'm a big fan of Linux. But it didn't really work for photography for me.

Jonathan

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

but it only supports 8-bit color

This is no longer true for the very last versions.
Check here :
http://gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.6.html

[Brian Stein]

Krita is so slow and unresponsive as to be unusable - especially for any operations that require significant data movement (I suspect that the RPMs were built with no optimization). Are there any other worthwhile alternatives?

Steve

Apart from ensuring you are using the latest version of krita (1.6.3), you could
a. try version 2.0 but its in late alpha
b. build it yourself from source with appropriate optimization

[Joseph O'Neil]

I love linux too, but I sure wish adobe would make a linux version of photoshop or even Corel make a linux version of Photopaint.

If anybody has an answer, let me know.
joe

[sog1927]

but it only supports 8-bit color

This is no longer true for the very last versions.
Check here :
http://gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.6.html

I *am* running 2.6.

Even with GEGL enabled, a 16-bit color image is converted to 8-bit on input. The internal operations are done in a larger colorspace, but the data is still truncated when you read it in (at least if you're processing a 16-bit TIFF).

Cinepaint seems to work well for color images, but grayscale drives it nuts.

[sog1927]

Hi Steve,

Let me prefix my comments by saying I'm a fan of Linux - I've used it both professionally and at home for over 12 years, have professionally developed Linux kernel drivers and currently do all my software development at work on Linux desktop and embedded in our product.

Likewise. I've been an OS (and occasionally run-time system for C and Fortran) developer since the late 70s. I have a miniscule Window$ partition (whose main purpose seems to be downloading security patches for XP ).

I'd be interested in anyone elses recommendations for Linux photography tools,

Hope that doesn't sound too negative a post, as generally I'm a big fan of Linux. But it didn't really work for photography for me.

Alas, sometimes free software is worth exactly what you paid for it.
Thanks!

Steve

[Ben Syverson]

Alas, sometimes free software is worth exactly what you paid for it.

Yeah, unfortunately, that does seem to be the case currently with 16 bit image processing in Linux.

This is one of those situations where the price of Photoshop is actually less than the hourly rate you would charge if you were setting up the "equivalent" in Linux. Especially considering that you're an engineer, so your hourly rate would be pretty high!

[D. Bryant]

So, I recently acquired not one, but two film scanners (a SprintScan 120 for the little stuff, and a SprintScan 45 Ultra for 4x5). Vuescan works quite well., but my post-scanning options seem to be a bit limited, however. GIMP is reasonably powerful and relatively easy to use, but it only supports 8-bit color which makes it completely useless for photographic purposes. Both cinepaint and krita handle 16-bit color, but cinepaint does simply bizarre things to grayscale images. Krita is so slow and unresponsive as to be unusable - especially for any operations that require significant data movement (I suspect that the RPMs were built with no optimization). Are there any other worthwhile alternatives?

Steve

LightZone is available for Linux:

http://www.lightcrafts.com/linux/

Don Bryant

[sog1927]

Thanks, Don! Assuming that the reference to "the 16 exposure values in an image" means 16 bits per channel, it sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. I'll download the trial and put it through its paces!

Steve