Re: [Gimp-user] A sad case of regression ?

[Richard Gitschlag <strata_ranger hotmail com>]

Ah, finally, some concrete specifics.  Let me digest that...

> Old way:   Create file 300x300, work on it.

Okay, you now have one window/tab displaying your image.  (Since this is just an example, I'm not going to 
question whether the image is 300x300 pixels or some arbitrary size tagged as 300dpi.  But always include the 
unit-of-measure with a number.)

> Save as orchard.xcf, all layers intact, everything fine.

Gotcha.

>  Scaled image to 72x72, named it Orchard-scaled.png (or .jpg if that's what they ask for).

Right, so you did indeed rescale the image size (and update the dpi to reflect the new pixel dimensions) and 
after that you output it as a separate file using a standard image format.  No problems here.

> I then had that Orchard-scaled.png on my screen and I could make changes if I wanted to before mailing it.

This is because in the 2.6 model the open image is named according to its most-recently-saved filename 
(regardless of file format).  So yes, if say you forgot to add a watermark or something you could simply make 
the change and hit "Save" to re-output orchard-scaled.png .  Note that by doing this you lose the ability to 
quickly save said changes back to your XCF unless/until you specifically tell GIMP to "Save As..." an XCF 
again.  (Ironically, since you did an image rescale between the XCF and PNG, GIMP losing track of the XCF is 
probably a good thing.)

> It seems I can't do that any more. Now, if I want to see my 72x72 Orchard-scaled.png, I have to open it, 
> and as soon as I open it, it becomes a file that I can't mail because it's no longer a .png.

Not exactly.  The open image window is labelled something along the lines of "Untitled [original filename]".  
'Untitled' refers to the XCF associated with the open window (or in this case the lack thereof, since it was 
opened directly from a standard image file) but the window title does note that the image was nonetheless 
loaded from a file.  

More importantly, the file on disk remains completely unchanged (and mailable); GIMP doesn't even place a 
lock on the file handle (unlike many commercial products); you could open your mail software and attach/send 
a copy of your PNG even while GIMP is still running.

I agree, though, in some cases you do want to verify what the exported file looks like, in which case you do 
need to open that file in a separate window/tab.  No way around that, in fact there never was :(

> So my Q, is there a way to open that .png, keep it a .png,  tweak it if I want to, save the .png and mail 
> it? 

Yes, just use the "Export" commands instead of the "Save" commands, keeping in mind that in 2.8 Save only 
works on XCF files:

- When you are working on an XCF, you will be prompted for the filename (and assorted filetype options) the 
first time you hit the Export command, but after that, as long as GIMP remains open you can re-export that 
image at any time (with no additional prompts or dialogs) by using the "Export to [filename]" command.

- When you open a standard file format, one of the "Export" options will become "Overwrite [filename]" which 
is the equivalent of a quick save back to the original filename with as few GIMP prompts/dialogs as possible. 
(Note that in practice you should never do this with JPG files)


-- Stratadrake
strata_ranger hotmail com
--------------------
Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.