Re: [Gimp-developer] assets in the high bith depth age

[Boudewijn Rempt <boud valdyas org>]

On Sun, 9 Feb 2014, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm curious if we have a plan for assets in v2.10 and onwards now that
> 16/32 bit is possible. Color palettes and gradients are still based on
> raw 8bit RGB values, and pattern files are 8bit as well.

Jumping in sideways... I'm getting interested in this as well. The current 
resource file definitions, which we (that is Krita) mostly use, we just 
choose to make sure we were compatible with gimp, and they are a bit 
limited.

> FilmGIMP/Cinepaint "fixed" that in the past by converting everything
> to 16bit integer (afaik, integer), but I'm not sure if that's such a
> good idea.

I'm sure it isn't :-) There's the same limitations, except for that one 
tiny difference.

> Some things to consider, in no particular order:
>
> - IMO, ideally, stock color palettes should be using a linear
> device-independent color space (some sort of LCh?);
> - it should be possible to use palettes that rely on arbitrary color
> models (RGB, LAB) to make paint vendors happy;
> - we still need to solve the i18n issue that was raised recently
> (non-translatable palettes/colors/etc. names).

Three times yes.

> In my opinion, a sensible way to approach that would be using an
> already available, but somewhat forgotten file format devised by
> Olivier Berten during his work on SwatchBooker:
>
> http://selapa.net/swatchbooker/
>
> To reiterate my earlier email to create@, the benefits of this file format are:
>
> - simple combination of XML + ZIP
> - (nearly) any color model + optional mapping to an embedded ICC profile
> - flat colors and gradients supported
> - spot colors supported
> - i18n-ized names of all metadata fields and color names
>
> There is no other file format that would provide the same set of
> features for us, free or non-free:
>
> http://www.selapa.net/swatches/colors/fileformats.php
>
> So the questions are:
>
> - Is changing the assets file format something we need to do for 2.10
> (or maybe at all)?
> - Is the SwatchBooker's file format right for us?
> - do we actually have resources to make the switch?

I cannpt answer for GIMP, obviously, but for me, one of the reasons I 
didn't put time into a switch is that I didn't think any other relevant 
(that is, free) app would follow suit. Resources for Krita are stretched 
as well, and one of the big issues is creating software that can create 
resources in the new format, but I really would like to leave the 
twentieth century and get current...

Boud

(Who needs to find a way to work on Krita's gradient editor anyway.)