Re: [Gimp-gui] Improving Export

[Jehan <jehan girinstud io>]

Hi,

On 2015-10-13 06:16, Liam R E Quin wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Oct 2015 00:12:49 +0200
> Jehan <jehan girinstud io> wrote:
>
> > There have been a recent feature request about having the open dialog 
> > as
> > a dock rather than a dialog:
> > https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=756197
>
> Inkscape does this - I actually hate it, because (1) it takes up a lot
> of space when i dont' want it, and (2) it doesn't go away when the
> drawing is exported.

I see. Well there are other ways to tell whether an image is exported 
though. There could be a message in the export box for instance saying 
"Last export at 14:45 to /some/path/bla.png". For the space, if the UI 
is well thought, this could also be managed.

Anyway that's a good feedback. It makes some food for thoughts.

> So I go into the folder and check the file is
> there, outside Inkscape. Just as now, in GIMP, to know an image has
> been exported, I click on the [x] on its tab (in single window mode,
> or close its image window) and the dialogue box tells me whether the
> image has been exported.
>
>
> My current workflow is to save an image at several sizes - very common
> for Web work, e.g. for "download" and "preview" and "thumbnail"
> versions of an image..
>
> 1. save archival PNG version (and also XCF if there's more than on 
> elayer)
> 2. scale down
> 3. sharpen (e.g. unsharp mask; the older "sharpen" filter was actually
> slightly better for this for
>    some of my images)

Just a small off-topic remark: is there a bug report about this, and/or 
is it known by Mitch or other devs? If the former algorithm was 
performing better in some condition, this could be of interest and maybe 
should be fixed, no?
Especially if the old filter is meant to disappear in the end.

> 3. file->export brings up file chooser, then options
> 4. experiment with preview and options to minimize file size
> 5. enter quality settings into the JPEG comment field
> 6. OK, export the file
> 7. undo the sharpen
> 8. undo the scale
> 9. gaussian blur
> 10. scale down further
> 11. sharpen; may need to go back to 9 and repeat until OK
> 12 export again
> 13. undo lots,
> 14, gaussian blur more
> 15 scale down to 200 pixel preview
> etc etc
>
> It's possible to get OK results with nohalo or lohalo scaling instead
> of cubic, and not need to sharpen, but then it can easily take 10
> minutes to scale an image instead of a matter or seconds.
>
> Its pretty common to sharpen after scaling down. You can't re-open a
> JPEG file and sharpen it afterwards, as (1) you'd lose the benefits of
> the convenient workflow, and (2) it'll sharpen and increase the JPEG
> compression noise, and (3) you'll end up with a much larger file
> because of the increased high-frequency components around the
> compression artifacts. Although you could export to PNG and then
> reopen, I don't see any point - I'd stick with the "scale and undo"
> workflow.
>
> Hope this helps,

It does. That's a pretty concrete and detailed workflow, the kind that 
many of us have had to do once in a while (of course some more than 
others, like yourself), and which show that the export process can 
definitely be improved!
Actually I think I'll link the feedback in the wiki.


Jehan

> Liam (ankh)