Re: [Gimp-developer] Create New Layer Button

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

On 03/30/2015 05:57 AM, Joseph Bupe wrote:
> On 29 March 2015 at 23:32, Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com
> <mailto:ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>> wrote:
>
>     , would any of the GIMP developers be in a position to make use of
>     the collected information?
>
>
> BIG question ! But I like the idea of the opinion poll at gimpusers.com
> <http://gimpusers.com>
>
> http://www.gimpusers.com/polls/32
>
> Certainly, Gimp developers would know what to do with the feedback from
> an opinion poll provided someone is willing to take on the task(s).

An opinion poll by its very nature presents a fixed list of options and 
so necessarily reflects the point of view of the person who writes the 
poll. What options would you put in an opinion poll?

I'm interested in GIMP 2.9 useability, and specifically in open-ended 
feedback from users who might want to or already do use GIMP 2.9 because 
it's a very capable high bit depth image editor.

Yes, people do produce excellent work using an 8-bit image editor. But 
many kinds of editing simply can't be done using 8-bit precision.

In the real world, light and colors blend linearly. This means that 
proper blending of colors while editing images or creating digital art 
*requires* working in a linear gamma color space or on linearized RGB 
values.

At 8-bit precision, to avoid posterization you necessarily must use a 
perceptually uniform RGB working space, such as the regular sRGB color 
space with its "almost gamma=2.2" tone reproduction curve.

Consequently, you get all kinds of color blending "gamma" artifacts when 
using 8-bit image editors such as GIMP 2.8. The same is true of high bit 
depth image editors, if you don't use a linear gamma color space when 
required by the particular editing operation.

You can't even properly white balance an image in a perceptually uniform 
color space like the regular sRGB color space. If you try (and everyone 
does try!), you get incorrect and muddy colors, even if you aren't aware 
of just how incorrect and muddy your "white balanced" colors really are.

Correct white balancing *requires* linearized RGB values.

The CGI people went to high bit precision using linearized RGB values a 
long time ago, precisely to avoid having to deal with color blending 
gamma artifacts. People who edit photographs have been slow to realize 
the problems they create for themselves by working in perceptually 
uniform color spaces, partly, I'm sure, from lack of access to high bit 
depth image editors.

Elle