Basic photo viewing/editing for Xfce?

[Tim Daneliuk]

On 1/11/20 1:43 PM, Ralf Mardorf via freebsd-questions wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 14:11:38 -0500, Jerry wrote:
>> The question you have to ask yourself is which is more
>> important to you, cost or usability?
> Unfortunately there is a third question.
> 
> Are we willing to stand a restricted proprietary policy?


I have been a serious photographer for over 4 decades.  I still
shoot mostly film and process it myself in a wet darkroom.

When I do shoot digital images, I use a pro-level Nikon D FX series
camera.   I find GIMP (and Darktable) not restrictive in any meaningful
way.  These tools far exceed my photo manipulation requirements.  The
ONLY reason to use Photoshop is that it is the default go-to for
professional studios and production houses.  That's where the pro
ecosystem was built and remains.  This doesn't make it better, it's
just the standard among pros.

There are limitations to GIMP.  If you're shooting with a 16bit/color,
100Mpix back on a $50,000 digital camera, yeah, GIMP will be limiting.
But for the 99.9999% of people who are manipulating far lower end
imagery, GIMP is just fine.  But in this case, you're likely working
on a Mac, not reading freebsd-questions :)

In any case, the effort very few people bother with that makes way
more of a difference than photo editor: Calibrating their monitor
and printer (if they print their own stuff).  Color space matching is
crucial if you want to get a final result that looks like what you see
on screen.

P.S. I would also note that most people vastly over manipulate their images.
     I have seen more garish dreck produced with excessive HDR and color
     saturation adjustment than the most stoned filthy hippie painter in
     the 1960s could have imagined ...

P.P.S. A few examples of my work - some with fairly low rent
       equipment.  All of the digital stuff and scans of the silver
       prinnts edited with GIMP on an unremarkable Linux desktop:

          Digital:  https://www.tundraware.com/Photography/MyPhotographs/DigiPix/
          Analog:   https://www.tundraware.com/Photography/MyPhotographs/Silver/


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Tim Daneliuk     tundra at tundraware.com
PGP Key:         http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/