Topic: Gimp question

Howdy all... long time no see

I recently started experimenting with Gimp to process my photos, as I've had to get a new computer, lost old P/shop disc and can't currently afford to update to CS3

Anyway... when saving images to the same approx file sizes that I used in P/shop, the image quality is terrible; I hear only good things about Gimp, so presumably I have some sampling criteria at a crappy default setting ??

Any ideas where I should look... I've looked through a few tutes, but I'm real pressed for research time atm, as my real job (currently 0600 - 1800 hrs, outside work, 30+deg, 50+% humidity) is keeping me from proper keyboard stuff and I'm knackered when I get home!!

Tks in advance

oops, quick edit... it is 4AM here

(Edited by lan on 09-02-2008 20:27)

What is it that it does when you edit it in Gimp?
Is the image itself in CMYK? Because GIMP doesn't do anything with CMYK which is why a lot of people don't like it.

Can you give us a sample of what the image is in PS and then one in GIMP?

Oh, and there's a guy at this site that really knows his stuff about GIMP. He goes by the name Klaatu. Sometimes you can catch him at #lottalinuxlinks or #linuxcranks on freenode if you IRC at all.

Later,

C:\

(Edited by CPrompt on 09-08-2008 23:00)

Tks C:\

Here's the sample image; as you can see it's shocking, but at 93kb should be reasonable... all I can think is that somehow I've reduced amount of image data but not the actual size of the image

Something stooopid, no doubt, that just happens a little differently from P/shop... it looks like I've buggered up the sampling somehow... I think I need more sleep and a clearer head

Sorry for the delay in replying but work calls... I suspect that the income will go to a new copy of P/shop but I would like to persevere with Gimp for a while; I could use the money for a lotta other stuff.

The image is RGB btw, plus I'll follow up the link you posted. Cheers!

(Edited by lan on 09-11-2008 22:32)

Ian, can you post the original picture? What is it that you did to the original? Just save it in GIMP? That is pretty bad. I've never had that kind of result from GIMP but I am not 100% sure what you did.

As for work...I know the feeling. I'm putting in a few hours myself and freelancing is taking the rest

Later,

C:\

jpegtran?

The image is 2057x2591 pixels ... can you seriously expect any quality at 93kb?

Tks people

CPrompt... all I do is tune the image up a bit, nothing too much and then crop to size.

Original image warning 3meg file!

Gimp file warning 14meg file!!

resio I'll have to read that when I gotta lot more time... got a headache just reading the wiki page

Arthurio... that's my prob; Gimp has a little slider to adjust the image size, but it looks like it changes the file size not the image size. I normally crop them in P/shop to 450x300 to post in my grandsons' blog, which gives an acceptable result, but seems like Gimp doesn't work like that. If I set crop in Gimp it crops 450x300 out of the image... I can't find out how to have that ?"elastic type" crop that ya have with P/shop where ya set the crop size and the just select an area.

Boy... wish I hadn't had ta buy a new computer and then loose my P/shop disc and number... as you can see from the blog, I'm waaay behind... think I'll put in a bit more o/t , bute the bullet, and ante up for CS3

(Edited by lan on 09-15-2008 22:52)

the slider is for jpeg quality ... if you set it to 0 then guess what :P ... has nothing to do with the dimensions of the image

Er...

I think I might be getting the wrong end of the stick here, but in case I'm not I'm going to post anyway.

Ian, I've taken your original image and produced this from GIMP.

I opened your Original image file in Gimp, went to Image > Scale image, set the width to 300, it automatically set the height to 400 to maintain aspect.

I then went to Save as, and made sure that jpg was the extension to my file name, the quality bar was set to 96% and this gives me an image of 76.57kB.

Is this what you were looking for or have I missed the issue completey?

^Arthurio.... aaaaha; "quality"

^Blaise... yep, that's pretty much it; I tried that way but I want to crop the image at 300x450... it's easy as in P/shop, and I'm sure it is in Gimp too, but so far it's eluded me... more embarassment!!

If you want to crop the image then why not use the crop tool (Shift+c)? (looks like a knife) Otherwise resizing in Gimp is called scaling but don't use the scale tool because it only affects the selection/layer. Use Image -> Scale Image... instead. There you can set width to 450 or whatever and choose to keep aspect ratio if you like.

edit: If you only need it for things like that then there's no excuse for buying expensive software such as photoshop. There are plenty of applications that can do these simple things. Gimp may not even be the best option if you need to resize more than a few images.

(Edited by Arthurio on 09-16-2008 11:49)

Ah well there's a few ways to do that, the most straight forward way I found was to go use the select tool, and make it the size you want, then Image > Crop to selection

Alternatively you can go to Image > Canvas Size and this will give you a preview of what you will have remaining after you've cropped so you can position things, just right.

I guess I'm still not sure what your final piece should be like, as in Photoshop there's more than one way to skin a cat.

^ Arthurio and Blaise

I tried all those methods previously but couldn't seem to achive the result I wanted... maybe I'm coming at it wrong. I can get the result I want by dragging out a cropping box manually in the large image in multiples of 300x450 and then scaling but that seems cumbersome. In P/shop I just set cropping dimensions, the crop box scales automatically as you drag the corners and then you can drag the selection or use the arrow keys to move it; then just set the file size and "save as" = all done. I'm sure that can be done in Gimp by you guys but not by me... so far. I gotta get up at 4AM ta get quiet time ta experiment with this stuff... yawn, yawn.

^Arthurio... I use P/shop for making logos and I also use Imageready a fair bit when I have "playtime" but I'm just a bit short of time and spare cash atm. I also spend heaps of time (when between jobs) repairing old photos; I'm not that good at it, hence the "heaps of time"... ya know how it is, practice, practice The old sig contest was something that I wanted ta get into for years (even when I was a lurker), but could never seem ta find the time.

(Edited by lan on 09-16-2008 21:54)

Ah I see, well you should have said earlier!

I'm not so sure there's such a straight forward way in Gimp, but it's still pretty painless.

Disclaimer: I no little about GIMP, so there may be a better way yet.

• First select the crop tool, looks like a scalpel.
• Then in the tool preferences you should select the 'Fixed' checkbox and set this to Aspect Ratio.
• Then set the Aspect ratio to be 300:450 (for simplicities sake).
• Select the area of your picture you'd like to crop, hit return to crop selection.
• Finally use the Image scaling method 'Image > Scale image...' to resize to 300x450, the ratio will be perfect.

It's only really one more step than Photoshop's.



(Edited by Blaise on 09-16-2008 22:49)

quote:

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Blaise said:

*Then in the tool preferences you should select the 'Fixed' checkbox and set this to Aspect Ratio.

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Many thanks Blaise... that's the tip I was looking for... works exactly like I wanted

(Edited by lan on 09-17-2008 14:26)

Groovy