Re: [Gimp-user] HATE the new save vs. export behavior

[Daniel <daniel yacg com>]

On Fri, 2013-08-09 at 21:02 +0200, Ofnuts wrote:
> On 08/09/2013 12:42 PM, pitibonom wrote:
> > It's quite natural to hope saving a pic in the format it has been loaded. Load a
> > jpg ? ok, modify it and save it as jpg. Why is it natural ? just because jpg
> > format ( though it degrades the image quality at each save, but this is another
> > question ) is red by ALL tools, unlike xcf that cannot even be used as import in
> > any tool.
>
> Hmmm.
>
>   * Open your favorite spreadsheet application.
>   * Load a CSV.
>   * Create complicated formulas to compute more values.
>   * Save as CSV, "naturally"
>
> Oops. What were these formulas again?
Sorry, but that's a really bad argument for Gimp.  After all, much
metadata is lost when it imports photos and other images which contain
metadata.  

Seriously, ideally, Gimp should save in the format of the file that was
opened INCLUDING the metadata.  And if someone wants to be clever about
it, then if there is data or format changes of the image for which data
may be lost or the original format cannot handle, then XCF should be
selected as the target format when saving.  (for example, the original
image was RAW or JPEG and the image changes call for an alpha channel,
or perhaps a layer has been added to the original image.)

And I understand not wanting the program to do too much thinking for the
users because it can simply get in the way, but the new change already
crosses that line by thinking for the user that every file should be
saved into XCF format and of course, the user loses all metadata.

(And before anyone offers it, I will acknowledge, the metadata would be
preserved if the original source image is unchanged.... true but not the
point.)