GNOME.org
 

Re: [Gimp-developer] Creation of a "set of operations" item

Hi folks,

I wanted to offer some comments about the macro discussion.

While I would agree that macros are not a single solution to a problem,
they can be a real convenience and what I feel is more important, have a
positive contribution to the quality of the work. If for example, you use a
macro to create a layer, and assign it's name and position in the layer
stack, then the name and position are reliable (no misspellings / forgot to
name it) if you are going to access that layer with another macro.

I actually find that associating a set of commands with the 'state' of the
editing process makes the difference between a 'macro' that I use
occasionally verses a 'step' that I use for ever image that I process with
Gimp. There are a couple of advantages to associating a 'step' with the
sate of the editing process:

You can apply the 'step' to many images at a time instead of one at a time.
(for each image in the directory - bump it to the next step)

You don't have to keep track of the order in which you apply steps, in the
case of a macro, if it wants to access of use a layer that hasn't been
created yet the results can be counterproductive.

As a user, the types of things that I do with 'steps' are the preparation
work for something that I would do by hand and they are the things that I
would do on every image (in a particular order).

As an example, the first - by hand - operation that I am going to do is see
if I need to use the rotate, transform or crop tool. My personal workflow
is to do these operations before I create any new layers. The automated
preparation work is:

1st Step

   Set the grid spacing to be 24 squares (based on long side) and centered
on the image

   Expand the canvas by 25% (of long side)

   Rename the 1st and only layer "Original"


Following this example, the next step would be to get the image ready for
using the 'curves' tool.

2nd Step

   Shrink the canvas to fit the layer "Original"

   Set the grid spacing - one grid = image perimeter, essentially turning
grid off

   Extract the Color information from "Original" to a new layer
"ColorLayer" & push it to bottom of layer stack

   Create a copy of "Original", name it "DynRange" & push it to the top of
the layer stack

The sets of commands whether they are macros or steps aren't the big
decisions, but being able to package all of the little decisions and apply
them to several (whether it is 2 or 3 - 20 or 30) has a dramatic impact on
the time that it takes to edit the images, produces consistent results, and
does not negatively impact the part of the process where creativity or
human judgment is desired.

Of course there is no one workflow that will be the right one for every
one, or even a modest percentage of the people who use Gimp, but if it is
fairly easy to record steps and associate those steps with the state of a
workflow that an individual wants to set up, it can be a real nice thing.

I don't know where the development team would want to draw the line how
much to provide, but it seems that good set of tools for people to
customize their own workflow would be a good goal.

Stephen Kiel


On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:33 PM, peter sikking <peter mmiworks net> wrote:


hi all,

Joao asked me personally to comment here, so here I am.

I will do some horrible top-posting because I think
I can summarise quite a bit what you wrote.

I believe what you refer to below are 'macros.'

simple enough: at any point in GIMP where an operation
can be applied, a macro can also be applied.

I intent to help GIMP users to make/edit macros in many ways:
record them; grab a bunch of operations from the operations
stack and put a name on it; write some source text in a file.

do keep in mind that macros are nothing but a convenience
for some GIMP users, not all GIMP users. a macro is never
the single solution to a problem.

first working with operations (see
<http://blog.mmiworks.net/2012/01/gimp-full-gegl-ahead.html>
for an old sketch, will be updated at lgm) has to work in
a sufficient fashion before we can think of introducing macros.

ps: first we would have to start supporting 'export pipelines'
where users can define a series of operations for each pipeline,
and save these to be used in different xcf files, before macros
could be used in these pipelines.

users should not have to learn macros to make use of these
pipelines (a macro is never the single solution to a problem).


Hi,
I would like to discuss about the possibility
of a "Set of operations" GIMP item -

In the current state of GIMP, I think one
nice thing to have would be the ability to
specify sets of GEGL operations that could
be re-used across the UI in some different places.

One example of such "Set of operations" could be,
for example, a gaussian blur filter - the set
includes the parameters as well. Another
example could be a "Resample to 50% size, Unsharp mask"
set.

Where could those be used?
I thought of primarily two places - with more potential
nice places to come along:

   1. As an "adjust layer" - just that - have
   a special Layer class that encapsulates a set
   of Gegl operations, and apply then to the
   rendering of the layer imediatelly bellow.
   This would give us "Adjustment layers"
   as they are called in other software,
   essentialy "for free"

   2. Attached to an image, as a set to be
   automatically applied before exporting the
   image to an specific format.
   Currently, the "merge-visible-layers" action
   is performed at this stage, for most formats.
   But in some mail-threads here it became clear that
   the ability to resize an image to an specific
   size, among other things, could greatly
   simplify the current workflow for keeping
   a high-quality XCF image, and exporting
   incremental versions of down-sampled/filtered
   versions for production. (Like in edit, save,
   resize to 50%, export as PNG - undo to further
   editing the image, and the resize is lost, and must
   be reapplied when exporting the new version)

And there could be some "bonus places" to attach these
"sets of operations":
   3. To patterns, before applying them - so
   that rotation and scaling of patterns would
   be easy
   4. To brush masks, as part of the painting dynamics.


Can we discuss this further along?
I know Mitch is experimenting with
operations attached to layers, but I don't
know wether they are along thse lines, or more
like recording all operations mad in a layer,
in an early quest to "non destructive editting".

Maybe there is a roadmap for a similar
thing already, that I am not aware of - but
having the "sets of operations" behave
as regular GIMP items that can be used - and
being able to pick/create then at the layers dialog
bucket fill tool options, export dialogs, could
be a nice way of enabling the possibilities
of GEGL and non-destructive editing to end users.




    --ps

        founder + principal interaction architect
            man + machine interface works

        http://blog.mmiworks.net: on interaction architecture



_______________________________________________
gimp-developer-list mailing list
List address:    gimp-developer-list gnome org
List membership:
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-developer-list





-- 
Stephen Kiel
26602 Strafford
Mission Viejo, CA 92692
*Mobile/SMS (949) 702-1993*
Home (949) 367-2915
snick kiel gmail com
http://stephenkiel.blogspot.com/
[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]