Support the Libre Graphics Meeting

Libre Graphics Meeting is happening May 6 to 9 2009 in Montréal… and needs your help, if you can. Thanks!

And if you are coming, Montréal is a beautifull city, full of shooting opportunities. So much, in fact that Popular Photography has it on its list of photo treks.

Using Linux for Photography, Can we make it better?

Following my post “Using Linux for Photography, where we stand“, Svetoslav Trochev sent me an email inquiring about Photography oriented Linux distribution. Months later, I received another email from Svetoslav: he hadn’t abandoned the project but rather had given it lots of thoughts and wanted to share his  reflexion with the community. It is my pleasure to have him as the first external contributor to Linux & Photography blog. Thanks a lot!

RawSpeed and Rawstudio: exciting projects

These are exciting times for photography on Linux. With Krita 2.0 round the corner and GIMP getting (some) higher bit depth functionalities in its next 2.8 version.

Rawstudio is not sitting still either with a couple of great projects down the line.

G’MIC, next-gen GREYCstoration

I received an email from David Tschumperlé (interview, web) the author of GREYCstoration (blog), introducing G’MIC, GREYC’s Magic Image Converter. GREYCstoration’s capabilities (read: algorithms) have been moved to this new high potential framework: all the operations are now filters written in an easier-to-program macro language (gmic). That makes it more simple to add new custom made filters while retaining the power and infrastructure of G’MIC.

G’MIC is available here as a command-line tool or as a GIMP plug-in.

News from Krita

Boudewijn Rempt just published a long (4000 words) blog post about the state of Krita: where it is coming from and what it is up to for the upcoming 2.0 release. Lots of cool new features that I am looking forward to play with.

Well worth reading and kudos to the team!!

PS: and in the meantime, it looks like GIMP 2.8 will have some support for 16bits / pixel. Exciting times ahead.

An exclusive interview with Martin Nordholts

For a long time I wanted to do an interview with one of the GIMP developers. Then I came across Martin Nordholts (aka enselic) website and read the following description of his involvement with GIMP:

Here is my list of most critical features GIMP needs and which I intend to help bring into existance:

• High bit deepth editing through GEGL
• Non-destructive editing through GEGL
• A completely color managed workflow
• Native CMYK and spot color support

I decided he was the man and bugged him for an interview. So here is one of the core contributors to GIMP telling us about the current state of affairs, helping us to understand what is going on deep inside the GIMP (and GEGL) as well as lifting a corner of the veil about what is to come.

Wishing you a merry Christmas and a blessed 2009…

… with 3 square format images from the day I spent in Narnia.

No need to enter a magical cupboard: take the tube to “De l’Eglise” on a glorious winter day just after a freezing rain and fresh snowfall. Winter in Montreal is fun (so far).

2008 in 120 images

It is that time of the year again. So here is a retrospective of 2008 in 3 series of 40 images from The Boston Globe. Well worth watching.

part 1

part 2

part 3

Download an ICC profile for your monitor

I came across the French website Focus Numérique which offers freely downloadable icc profiles for some monitors and laptops. You can use them with xcalib on your Linux system. It assumes that you keep your monitor settings as from the manufacturer.

It is not as good as owning a colorimeter – since calibration varies over time and from sample to sample. But still, it is much better that the poor man’s calibration – that is, if your monitor is in the available models.

Linux & Unix horror stories

I came accross this collection of disasters: too good not to pass on, even if it is completely off topic. Very funny if you are reading what happened to someone else.