Re: [Gimp-developer] Gegl gaussian blur gamma error

[Elle Stone <l elle stone gmail com>]

On 8/8/12, Michael Natterer <mitch gimp org> wrote:
> By discussing here, you turned yourself into a contributor to
> the definition of that future workflow and feature set. Since
> you know quite a lot and have an opinion, why not suggest how
> it *should* work, in your opinion, along the constraints that
> the conversions will only ever happen upon import and export
> (plus the possibility to convert a buffer in order to correct
> wrong profiles).
>

At first the idea of doing away with assigning and converting except
on import and export seemed a bit extreme (translation: not what I'm
used to!). However, after thinking about it, the only case I could
think of where it might cause a problem was as I described, when
wanting to try several profiles before choosing one profile to apply
to the raw color image. Or when profile testing.

How it should work would be as described, that during image import,
Gimp would provide the option of "trial assigning" more than one
profile to the image. The image might or might not have an embedded
camera profile. If it does, then Gimp will probably ask "should it be
converted . . ." and the answer would of course be "no, keep the
existing . . ." But then in fact the next step would be to start
assigning alternative profiles. (Perhaps a check box: profile
testing?)

This same procedure - the ability to "test assign" multiple profiles -
would also be of use when importing an image when you don't really
know what profile the image ought to have, either because either the
wrong profile was embedded (it does happen!) or because there is no
embedded profile.

Although cases of missing/wrong profiles are probably somewhat common,
I will guess that most people will likely not ever bring a raw color
image into Gimp in the manner I described, as most people likely use
their raw processing program to apply the camera profile and then
convert to a standard working space.

So if what I described above isn't super easy to accomodate (or
already planned as possible), then personally I don't think it's worth
worrying about. To put into context, if I had to choose between easy
profile assigning/testing and easy soft proofing, I would take easy
soft proofing any day of the week:

Soft proofing is something I want to do with any image that I really
care about. Camera profile testing is something I do only
occasionally. And I only remember one time needing to guess which
profile an image ought to have, though some people probably encounter
this issue more often, depending on how images arrive in their digital
darkroom.

Kindest regards,
Elle