Crotchety? I am fed up with Windows users telling me that Linux is OK but not good enough for photography. The same goes for Apple users. I know that they have all paid a lot more for their software. Their own personal investment is much higher than mine in financial terms. I on the other hand have invested time in helping the developers of Linux. Not a great deal but what I can afford. I do get cantankerous when people tell me it is not as good as their system.
Some myths can be blown to pieces. 16 bit colour? Of course the Gimp does not support it yet, Cinepaint and DigiKam have for some time. Just like Windows or Mac OS then? Some support it and some do not. Colour management is supposed to be none existant. I am sure that the Argyllcms project would be miffed. There are many other examples. What can Windows do that Linux cannot? I thought I could name name one, tethered shooting. But I have hit upon an old favorite, gphoto, while browsing. It does not fit into my current workflow, so I just did not bother with it. I find it can now provide remote control of cameras.
I have not looked at it in great depth but it does work. It can be used for time-lapse photography, for tweaking the settings on your macro photograhy. There are even options on my Nikon DSLR to control the flash system, giving it the potential to be used in the studio. I think it will be a toy for most of us at present, until we get a photographer friendly interface.
It can download a picture without it ever hitting the memory card! This gives me even more space for long shoots when I am tethered. For me this is no great benefit, but the ability to review a shot on a larger screen is. You can use a script to pipe the shot directly into your favorite editor or even print directly, providing a very large and expensive Polaroid PoGo camera! You may have gathered that I will not use it that much. This though is an advantage of the freedom of Linux, I am free to do what I want.
I would use it more if it were not a command line interface. I can write a few scripts if I really needed it. No GUI? There is in gtkam but this does not ship for my Fedora system (and compiling it is beyond a quick ./configure && make && make install). I have started to write a GUI based application for my Camera. I can take a snap, see it on the screen (if it is a jpeg, it does not work with RAW files). I can review lots of settings, but set none. If I get time it may work. If I can make it a little more flexible I may even release it to the world.
Does this make Linux better or worse than Windows/Mac? Both! I have to say the only solution I know of for tethering is a mere toy (multican is also available for Canon users). On the other hand I have seen several postings from Windows users asking for gphoto for Windows! Why? They are Windows users who do not want to pay for Nikon's solution, there are others who just want a command line utility. Windows users also want some freedom.
This highlights the advantages and disadvantages of Linux. You have to be willing to put the effort in. If you do not put in the effort, become part of the community then why do you expect it to give you what you want? Do I do my bit? I think I do but as with most I probably do not do enough.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Books are done for
Cantankerous? I am. Running Linux at home has given my local bookshop and Amazon a boost in sales. At work it is different. It appears the days when my employer is willing to pay for a book are over. Now I have to "download a pee dee eff". Books are a source of nourishment for me. Their demise is a sad day. Only this week I was in a bookshop and glad I did not have a spare few British pounds in my pocket. I would have bought another book I did not need or want, until I saw it in the store and the desire set in. I will get the money for this volume eventually, pay day comes along soon.
I am crotchety about the demise of books, even passionate. But they are not the books in the subject of this rant! My subject is netbooks! I believe that they are dead! When they first arrived on the scene in the UK £200 appeared to be the price target. This appears to be moving upward and ever closer to the falling price of the laptop. Be honest, what would you prefer the 15 inch screen and dual core processor of the £500 laptop or make do with a 10 inch screen and a single core atom for £300.
What accounts for the price increase of the netbook? The Atom processor is new but should be a similar price to the older processors, especially in these hard times. The biggest change is the move to Windows! As soon as Linux was replaced these units became small laptops. Many linux distributions have been written for these devices, a special user interface developed. I saw a windows machine in a large electrical retailer's store this week. You guessed it. It looked just like Windows. No special account of the small 10 inch screen, it is a small underpowered laptop. I have now seen a 14 inch, Windows powered netbook advertised, at a higher price still! Why is this a netbook? Presumably the atom processor.
The move to Windows has been welcomed by some. Linux fanatics may be annoyed that open source is again loosing ground to commercial reality. I am saddened to see the demise of a machine type. What is frightening is that this battle has killed the very machine form it was all over.
Neither Windows or Linux has won with the merge of the netbook and laptop into a single form. The looser is the user. He has less choice. This for me is what Linux is about, choice. I do not want Windows to fail, I want the choice. I choose to be crotchety. What my operating or machine form is is I don't care. I just want that choice.
I am crotchety about the demise of books, even passionate. But they are not the books in the subject of this rant! My subject is netbooks! I believe that they are dead! When they first arrived on the scene in the UK £200 appeared to be the price target. This appears to be moving upward and ever closer to the falling price of the laptop. Be honest, what would you prefer the 15 inch screen and dual core processor of the £500 laptop or make do with a 10 inch screen and a single core atom for £300.
What accounts for the price increase of the netbook? The Atom processor is new but should be a similar price to the older processors, especially in these hard times. The biggest change is the move to Windows! As soon as Linux was replaced these units became small laptops. Many linux distributions have been written for these devices, a special user interface developed. I saw a windows machine in a large electrical retailer's store this week. You guessed it. It looked just like Windows. No special account of the small 10 inch screen, it is a small underpowered laptop. I have now seen a 14 inch, Windows powered netbook advertised, at a higher price still! Why is this a netbook? Presumably the atom processor.
The move to Windows has been welcomed by some. Linux fanatics may be annoyed that open source is again loosing ground to commercial reality. I am saddened to see the demise of a machine type. What is frightening is that this battle has killed the very machine form it was all over.
Neither Windows or Linux has won with the merge of the netbook and laptop into a single form. The looser is the user. He has less choice. This for me is what Linux is about, choice. I do not want Windows to fail, I want the choice. I choose to be crotchety. What my operating or machine form is is I don't care. I just want that choice.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Matching Colours.
Photography on Linux is not the smoothest of rides. Good software is available to do most things. There are problems. The Gimp is a good example. Photographers want 16 bit colour, the project does not want to deliver it just yet. It should not be too difficult, Cinepaint has already proven that. What is the problem? The project's priority. We should try not to get crotchety about this. Projects have to set out their stall, let the community know what they are working on. In the case of larger projects like the Gimp these paths have to be agreed. What photographers need to do is get more involved in the communities so that their voice is heard when project plans are considered.
16 bit colour has not been a problem for me. What has been a problem is colour matching. You know, the profile for you camera, printer and screen are all loaded and then colours look the same on all the devices you use. Apple users have had it for ages, Windows has had colour profiling for quiet a long time. It has even been available on Linux for some time, but it was not integrated well between applications. My friends include a couple of KDE users, who tell me that colour management is now available on KDE and has been for a short time. Now Richard Hughes has given Gnome a package, available in the GIT. It is not perfect yet, far from it. My workflow is not yet all covered but it is getting better.
Has it made a difference? It has. Suddenly my prints have at least the colour cast I expect. It has made a much bigger difference than 16 bit colour ever has for me. And I said that the Gnome package was far from perfect, but is being actively worked on. Even with this development package colour profiles have made such a difference to the enjoyment I get from photography. So much so, I am looking at hardware calibration possibilities! This could cost a lot of money but it looks like it will be worth it.
A Huey is reasonable value and will allow my screens to be calibrated. A ColorMunki is more expensive but allows the printer to be calibrated. If anyone can give me advice I would welcome it.
Cantankerous? Not at the moment. I am excited at the prospect of having real colour profiles and ending the problems I have suffered since I purchased my DSLR.
16 bit colour has not been a problem for me. What has been a problem is colour matching. You know, the profile for you camera, printer and screen are all loaded and then colours look the same on all the devices you use. Apple users have had it for ages, Windows has had colour profiling for quiet a long time. It has even been available on Linux for some time, but it was not integrated well between applications. My friends include a couple of KDE users, who tell me that colour management is now available on KDE and has been for a short time. Now Richard Hughes has given Gnome a package, available in the GIT. It is not perfect yet, far from it. My workflow is not yet all covered but it is getting better.
Has it made a difference? It has. Suddenly my prints have at least the colour cast I expect. It has made a much bigger difference than 16 bit colour ever has for me. And I said that the Gnome package was far from perfect, but is being actively worked on. Even with this development package colour profiles have made such a difference to the enjoyment I get from photography. So much so, I am looking at hardware calibration possibilities! This could cost a lot of money but it looks like it will be worth it.
A Huey is reasonable value and will allow my screens to be calibrated. A ColorMunki is more expensive but allows the printer to be calibrated. If anyone can give me advice I would welcome it.
Cantankerous? Not at the moment. I am excited at the prospect of having real colour profiles and ending the problems I have suffered since I purchased my DSLR.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Change, change, change. Some things never change. Using Fedora 12 in earnest.
I got Fedora 12 on its release date (17th November) and now all my systems have been running Fedora 12 for almost a month. Is it good? I think so. But what about the accolades that Fedora 11 got? I thought they were over the top. It was not the great step forward that everyone else shouted about. For me Fedora 10 was the big step. And Fedora 12 is a much better release than 11, in my opinion. Other than self-inflicted problems, it all went well.
Before I rant let me mention the good things. First unlike Fedora 11's boot time boost 12 gets a real boost on my systems! I am now up and running so fast that I have not yet seen the new graphical boot screen (I am also prone to slight exaggerations)! It looks good. This is the first time I can say that one of my Fedora Desktops looks and feels as slick as I can get with Windows. On my laptop the touch screen works out of the box, or at least it is usable out of the box. In general the hardware support looks much better.
The KVM/qemu virtulisation package ran like a dream rather than my usual Virtualbox. I have not managed to get USB working yet, something I do use so until that is fixed Virtualbox will be my virtual environment. What I can say is that KVM appears to run a little quicker than Virtualbox and gives no errors on the systems tested (including Windows 7). I am hopeful on this one.
Photographic software has all just worked. There is no great leap forward in facilities. I am still awaiting the real Linux break through on workflow but I continue to use Geeqie, LightZone and the Gimp.
I use TurboPrint, a commercial print driver, for my Canon printer. This worked fine with Fedora 12, in fact it integrates even better than before. TurboPrint is a great piece of software and I do not object to paying the developer for this one. If only he made a driver for my Canon Lide 500 scanner. This one piece of equipment is what I need a copy of Windows for. I would probably still have a copy of Windows just out of interest so it is no real extra cost. My advise to anyone who uses Linux is to avoid Canon if you can, their support is patchy at best.
What is wrong? First, my finger print reader still does not work. Support for this stopped with Fedora 11, when they introduced better support for finger print readers. This was the one exotic device that I did use and I miss it. For some reason the developers are not going to bring back this 'legacy' device into the development cycle.
My Nvidia graphics card in my laptop (a Geforce 6150 Go) does not work correctly in 64-bit Fedora with the Nouveau driver. It works fine with the 32-bit release but I use 64 bit Fedora for a reason, I am a masochist. I have spent most of the weeks since the release attempting to get this working. This is a new driver and it is working much better than previous releases. At least I can use my laptop. There are just two features I know of that I cannot get working. First the suspend function does not work, a big disadvantage with a laptop. If this worked I would consider the Nouveau driver a success. The other thing not working is 3-D support. This is something that I can live without. My desktop being dragged across the surface of some virtual cube is not a requirement for business, just yet.
Fedora 12 problems for me all hang around hardware drivers. This is not dissimilar to the Windows 7 situation. I can say that Linux is getting very close to Windows on hardware support but it is not quite there. If you run the 64 bit versions you are more likely to encounter problems, but this is true on Windows as well.
Back to Fedora 12. Is it worth the trouble? It is. Does it compete with other Linux distributions? As always Fedora is pretty cutting edge, not always the safest option. It is full of the latest software Gnome 2.28, OpenOffice 3.1.1, AbiWord 2.28.1 and so on. This list is no different to the other distributions, although Fedora usually manage the latest versions of the big guns before the others. While the cutting edge stuff should make it less stable it is normal for Fedora to have some of the old Red Hat reliability. Fedora 12 is certainly a stable release. A small number of problems effects any new release of an operating system, Fedora 12 was no different. Other than my Nouveau driver problem nothing affected me.
After a month of 'live' running can I recommend it? Of course, it is a pleasure to work with and does what I want.
Before I rant let me mention the good things. First unlike Fedora 11's boot time boost 12 gets a real boost on my systems! I am now up and running so fast that I have not yet seen the new graphical boot screen (I am also prone to slight exaggerations)! It looks good. This is the first time I can say that one of my Fedora Desktops looks and feels as slick as I can get with Windows. On my laptop the touch screen works out of the box, or at least it is usable out of the box. In general the hardware support looks much better.
The KVM/qemu virtulisation package ran like a dream rather than my usual Virtualbox. I have not managed to get USB working yet, something I do use so until that is fixed Virtualbox will be my virtual environment. What I can say is that KVM appears to run a little quicker than Virtualbox and gives no errors on the systems tested (including Windows 7). I am hopeful on this one.
Photographic software has all just worked. There is no great leap forward in facilities. I am still awaiting the real Linux break through on workflow but I continue to use Geeqie, LightZone and the Gimp.
I use TurboPrint, a commercial print driver, for my Canon printer. This worked fine with Fedora 12, in fact it integrates even better than before. TurboPrint is a great piece of software and I do not object to paying the developer for this one. If only he made a driver for my Canon Lide 500 scanner. This one piece of equipment is what I need a copy of Windows for. I would probably still have a copy of Windows just out of interest so it is no real extra cost. My advise to anyone who uses Linux is to avoid Canon if you can, their support is patchy at best.
What is wrong? First, my finger print reader still does not work. Support for this stopped with Fedora 11, when they introduced better support for finger print readers. This was the one exotic device that I did use and I miss it. For some reason the developers are not going to bring back this 'legacy' device into the development cycle.
My Nvidia graphics card in my laptop (a Geforce 6150 Go) does not work correctly in 64-bit Fedora with the Nouveau driver. It works fine with the 32-bit release but I use 64 bit Fedora for a reason, I am a masochist. I have spent most of the weeks since the release attempting to get this working. This is a new driver and it is working much better than previous releases. At least I can use my laptop. There are just two features I know of that I cannot get working. First the suspend function does not work, a big disadvantage with a laptop. If this worked I would consider the Nouveau driver a success. The other thing not working is 3-D support. This is something that I can live without. My desktop being dragged across the surface of some virtual cube is not a requirement for business, just yet.
Fedora 12 problems for me all hang around hardware drivers. This is not dissimilar to the Windows 7 situation. I can say that Linux is getting very close to Windows on hardware support but it is not quite there. If you run the 64 bit versions you are more likely to encounter problems, but this is true on Windows as well.
Back to Fedora 12. Is it worth the trouble? It is. Does it compete with other Linux distributions? As always Fedora is pretty cutting edge, not always the safest option. It is full of the latest software Gnome 2.28, OpenOffice 3.1.1, AbiWord 2.28.1 and so on. This list is no different to the other distributions, although Fedora usually manage the latest versions of the big guns before the others. While the cutting edge stuff should make it less stable it is normal for Fedora to have some of the old Red Hat reliability. Fedora 12 is certainly a stable release. A small number of problems effects any new release of an operating system, Fedora 12 was no different. Other than my Nouveau driver problem nothing affected me.
After a month of 'live' running can I recommend it? Of course, it is a pleasure to work with and does what I want.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Windows or nothing - I'll take nothing
In a previous post I ranted on about the supply of software for Linux systems. I decided that it is time to moan in style on these pages. I am moaning about companies who are inflexible in their support of Linux, and many companies take a similar attitude towards Apple's Mac OS X. Note this rant and rave is not about support for Linux but the inflexible attitude of some companies towards a different operating system. I have suffered this for years having always run what is a minority operating system because I prefer that OS at the time.
The background, why I run Linux: I used Acorn's RISC OS. I needed some extra disc space and a few more peripherals. RISC OS was expensive to add the latest peripherals to. The best way of getting them was to put in a server and supply them from that. I looked at Windows and Red Hat Linux. Red hat was the cheaper solution, even though I then paid the full Red Hat license. The big plus for Red Hat was the inclusion and support of the various servers I needed. Once I made this move to Red Hat Linux 5.1. Slowly I used it more and more until it replaced RISC OS. Please note that I have nothing against Windows and I do use it on Virtual machine at times, I just prefer Linux.
So what is my problem? I have just changed the ISP supplying my broadband. The new ISP set-up could be done from Windows or Mac OS. In fact it could be done from Linux or any other operating system if only they would tell you how! That is my problem. They do have a small section on how to setup routers other than the one they supply on their web pages, from that you can set up your own router on your Linux system. How do I access this before I get on to broadband? Could they also not include similar instructions on how to set-up the router they provide? Could they not even put these in the box, just in case you are on Linux or some other operating system.
They also warn you that there could be problems if you cannot run their test program if you have problems. They of course only supply this for Windows and Mac OS X. Everyone else takes pot luck. This is the norm in the ISP market. Don't tell me about the Linux friendly ISPs, I am not in their price bracket at present. I have only moved to save money. Besides many ISPs are the same even though they support Linux, they will not help a React OS chap for example.
What I find appalling is that I sit at my bash prompt typing away attempting to configure the router via telnet or ssh. I then look at this router and realise that this CLI stuff is familiar. Is this Linux in another guise, probably. All the Windows fans who would not give Linux a home should throw out their routers. My ISP is willing to send you a Linux box but not support one, strange but true.
Is this a major problem? No. I have yet to be refused support by any ISP just because I run Linux. I have yet to fail to get a router working just because I run Linux. Most ISPs are accommodating. They want your custom. In fact I am very happy with my ISP for giving me what I want at a price I can almost afford. What they don't want to do is just give that little extra help that they could. And it is something I can use to step onto this, my favourite soap box.
What they need to do is give a simple list of technical information. An A5 sheet in the box explaining the required settings would help. They can put a little warning on it that this is only for users of minority systems and not for those willing to let their scripts configure things for them. Most have the information hidden away on their web pages, but you can see the problem with this. I am sat at home with my new ADSL connection, a new router and no instructions to help me. I am sure that the information would also be useful to those Windows and Mac OS users who prefer to do things themselves. We live in the information age, all I want is one small piece of paper.
The background, why I run Linux: I used Acorn's RISC OS. I needed some extra disc space and a few more peripherals. RISC OS was expensive to add the latest peripherals to. The best way of getting them was to put in a server and supply them from that. I looked at Windows and Red Hat Linux. Red hat was the cheaper solution, even though I then paid the full Red Hat license. The big plus for Red Hat was the inclusion and support of the various servers I needed. Once I made this move to Red Hat Linux 5.1. Slowly I used it more and more until it replaced RISC OS. Please note that I have nothing against Windows and I do use it on Virtual machine at times, I just prefer Linux.
So what is my problem? I have just changed the ISP supplying my broadband. The new ISP set-up could be done from Windows or Mac OS. In fact it could be done from Linux or any other operating system if only they would tell you how! That is my problem. They do have a small section on how to setup routers other than the one they supply on their web pages, from that you can set up your own router on your Linux system. How do I access this before I get on to broadband? Could they also not include similar instructions on how to set-up the router they provide? Could they not even put these in the box, just in case you are on Linux or some other operating system.
They also warn you that there could be problems if you cannot run their test program if you have problems. They of course only supply this for Windows and Mac OS X. Everyone else takes pot luck. This is the norm in the ISP market. Don't tell me about the Linux friendly ISPs, I am not in their price bracket at present. I have only moved to save money. Besides many ISPs are the same even though they support Linux, they will not help a React OS chap for example.
What I find appalling is that I sit at my bash prompt typing away attempting to configure the router via telnet or ssh. I then look at this router and realise that this CLI stuff is familiar. Is this Linux in another guise, probably. All the Windows fans who would not give Linux a home should throw out their routers. My ISP is willing to send you a Linux box but not support one, strange but true.
Is this a major problem? No. I have yet to be refused support by any ISP just because I run Linux. I have yet to fail to get a router working just because I run Linux. Most ISPs are accommodating. They want your custom. In fact I am very happy with my ISP for giving me what I want at a price I can almost afford. What they don't want to do is just give that little extra help that they could. And it is something I can use to step onto this, my favourite soap box.
What they need to do is give a simple list of technical information. An A5 sheet in the box explaining the required settings would help. They can put a little warning on it that this is only for users of minority systems and not for those willing to let their scripts configure things for them. Most have the information hidden away on their web pages, but you can see the problem with this. I am sat at home with my new ADSL connection, a new router and no instructions to help me. I am sure that the information would also be useful to those Windows and Mac OS users who prefer to do things themselves. We live in the information age, all I want is one small piece of paper.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Geeqie Whiz!
I have said that I have an interest in photography and I use Linux. Naturally my photographs are processed on Linux. In fact last week I ranted on about the supply of software for Linux systems. I had used the services of fotoinsight to produce a photo booklet. This was such a success I tried two more! So thanks to the chaps at fotoinsight they have made my family happy and supported Linux. Now my family can see my photographs so I need to improve.
There are lots of columns and articles describing photographic software available for Linux. I have tired most of it but do keep looking. In fact I have just lashed out on a commercial product, LightZone, but I am not going to tip you off about the advantages I think it presents. I do still look around for the perfect Free solution. I have not found it but I have found a gem that almost does what I want. I want something to organise my workflow. Geeqie is a fork of the GQview project. I like it. It is quick and simple. I found it very quick to review a shooting session. Problems? Of course it does not do all I want.
There is little to complain about in Geeqie other than its simplicity. This is also its strength. The authors appear to have written a specification and stuck to it. Admirable. I can see how the software could be improved. That is not too difficult as it lacks a lot of features that I would want. Most of these are available if I use the link that allows me to use the GIMP (or any other image editor) to edit my photographs. The problems are not with Geeqie but with my demands.
What are my problems with the software? I want to change a whole batch of RAW files to JPEG. This is a normal thing for those of us that shoot RAW, our friends often cannot see the photographs if we send them a RAW file (as well as saving lot of bandwidth). I have not yet found a method of converting the RAW files to JPEG in this software. On the other hand the software is the fastest way to review a shoot I have! That is praise I cannot express too loudly.
My second complaint is on Printing to a boarderless 6x4 (snap size) results in a small white margin at the bottom, left and right of the picture even though I have reduced the margins to 0. This is a common problem for me with Linux and printing boarderless prints so possibly not down to Geeqie. You have to get the frame size ratio to match the paper size ration, much easier for the program to allow a little bleed. When all boarders are zero then it is probably best just size the image so that the image covers the whole area and bleed off a couple of pixels on one edge. The biggest problem is that resizing the image is not possible, so boarderless printing is a no go area. I also got a black and white copy rather than colour but I was confused by the printer selections so it could be me. I would not use it to print photographs as it was too much hassle. This is probably the biggest flaw.
The last complaint is just about lack of editing features. I am sure more simple additional 'edits' will come in later versions. I would need just 2 basic 'edits'. The most important would be format conversion, RAW to JPEG is important for me. Cropping would be useful, if only to get around the boarderless print problem. Others would be nice. If like me you use the on camera flash because it is too much trouble to get out that expensive plastic brick that weighs down the backpack then red-eye removal help is a must. Sharpening is a boost for most shots. Exposure and colour adjustments are often wanted so a simple first hit method would be nice. OK I can do all this in the GIMP but when a quick fix is required it is very slow to use from Geeqie.
With all these problems what does it do? Well first it does not require pictures to be imported into a database. It uses directories and files or this is the default mode. That is my own preferred method of filing my photographs so it suits me. You can choose to use collections. The tools are all there for the user to make their own choice. (Did I say this was simple software?)
The view pane can be structured to almost whatever you want. There are three basic panes. The image, the tools (and directory selection) and the files (image selector). You can see your photographs and decide if they are up to scratch and viewing them is fast. Since installing the software I have started to use this a quick method of reviewing a shooting session. I keep all my shots in directories based on the shooting session. Working like this makes Geeqie in folder mode work for me. Once in a shoot the thumb nails and first image are available in a flash. Even on my modest laptop it displays a session with a pace that I could only hope for.
You can get at the information your camera stored with the picture, the date and time and exposure information should all be available via the EXIF window. You can also overlay the image with a subset of the information and add a histogram of the exposure if you want. You can even show the RGB values of any pixel that the cursor happens to be on.
You can tag the photograph with a numeric mark from 1 to 6 and display the tags in the file list. You can add titles and keywords to each photograph. All this will make searches easier when you need to find a shot that you need. I admit this is where I am less than rigorous and will never keep up this matching of a shot to a keyword but the facility is there if I should choose to use it.
It is simple software! Simple in that it only does what it sets out to. Simple in that it is structured in its efforts. It is this simplicity that most of today's offerings should attempt to emulate. I can only recommend that you look at Geeqie if you use a Unix like operating system.The version I am looking at is Geeqie 1.0 beta 1. If like me you use RAW then the speed is as good as I have seen, Bibble and LightZone included. I can say that if I had seen this before I purchased LightZone it may have saved me money (but I do like LightZone, for exposure correction there is nothing better IMHO)! I expect that by version 2 Geeqie will be my preferred tool! I am already using it for the 1st review of a shoot. If they add a few basic edits and fix the printing then it will become more than a review tool. This tool has the chance of becoming the best Linux workflow tool about. Personally I think it is now, even with the limited features.
There are lots of columns and articles describing photographic software available for Linux. I have tired most of it but do keep looking. In fact I have just lashed out on a commercial product, LightZone, but I am not going to tip you off about the advantages I think it presents. I do still look around for the perfect Free solution. I have not found it but I have found a gem that almost does what I want. I want something to organise my workflow. Geeqie is a fork of the GQview project. I like it. It is quick and simple. I found it very quick to review a shooting session. Problems? Of course it does not do all I want.
There is little to complain about in Geeqie other than its simplicity. This is also its strength. The authors appear to have written a specification and stuck to it. Admirable. I can see how the software could be improved. That is not too difficult as it lacks a lot of features that I would want. Most of these are available if I use the link that allows me to use the GIMP (or any other image editor) to edit my photographs. The problems are not with Geeqie but with my demands.
What are my problems with the software? I want to change a whole batch of RAW files to JPEG. This is a normal thing for those of us that shoot RAW, our friends often cannot see the photographs if we send them a RAW file (as well as saving lot of bandwidth). I have not yet found a method of converting the RAW files to JPEG in this software. On the other hand the software is the fastest way to review a shoot I have! That is praise I cannot express too loudly.
My second complaint is on Printing to a boarderless 6x4 (snap size) results in a small white margin at the bottom, left and right of the picture even though I have reduced the margins to 0. This is a common problem for me with Linux and printing boarderless prints so possibly not down to Geeqie. You have to get the frame size ratio to match the paper size ration, much easier for the program to allow a little bleed. When all boarders are zero then it is probably best just size the image so that the image covers the whole area and bleed off a couple of pixels on one edge. The biggest problem is that resizing the image is not possible, so boarderless printing is a no go area. I also got a black and white copy rather than colour but I was confused by the printer selections so it could be me. I would not use it to print photographs as it was too much hassle. This is probably the biggest flaw.
The last complaint is just about lack of editing features. I am sure more simple additional 'edits' will come in later versions. I would need just 2 basic 'edits'. The most important would be format conversion, RAW to JPEG is important for me. Cropping would be useful, if only to get around the boarderless print problem. Others would be nice. If like me you use the on camera flash because it is too much trouble to get out that expensive plastic brick that weighs down the backpack then red-eye removal help is a must. Sharpening is a boost for most shots. Exposure and colour adjustments are often wanted so a simple first hit method would be nice. OK I can do all this in the GIMP but when a quick fix is required it is very slow to use from Geeqie.
With all these problems what does it do? Well first it does not require pictures to be imported into a database. It uses directories and files or this is the default mode. That is my own preferred method of filing my photographs so it suits me. You can choose to use collections. The tools are all there for the user to make their own choice. (Did I say this was simple software?)
The view pane can be structured to almost whatever you want. There are three basic panes. The image, the tools (and directory selection) and the files (image selector). You can see your photographs and decide if they are up to scratch and viewing them is fast. Since installing the software I have started to use this a quick method of reviewing a shooting session. I keep all my shots in directories based on the shooting session. Working like this makes Geeqie in folder mode work for me. Once in a shoot the thumb nails and first image are available in a flash. Even on my modest laptop it displays a session with a pace that I could only hope for.
You can get at the information your camera stored with the picture, the date and time and exposure information should all be available via the EXIF window. You can also overlay the image with a subset of the information and add a histogram of the exposure if you want. You can even show the RGB values of any pixel that the cursor happens to be on.
You can tag the photograph with a numeric mark from 1 to 6 and display the tags in the file list. You can add titles and keywords to each photograph. All this will make searches easier when you need to find a shot that you need. I admit this is where I am less than rigorous and will never keep up this matching of a shot to a keyword but the facility is there if I should choose to use it.
It is simple software! Simple in that it only does what it sets out to. Simple in that it is structured in its efforts. It is this simplicity that most of today's offerings should attempt to emulate. I can only recommend that you look at Geeqie if you use a Unix like operating system.The version I am looking at is Geeqie 1.0 beta 1. If like me you use RAW then the speed is as good as I have seen, Bibble and LightZone included. I can say that if I had seen this before I purchased LightZone it may have saved me money (but I do like LightZone, for exposure correction there is nothing better IMHO)! I expect that by version 2 Geeqie will be my preferred tool! I am already using it for the 1st review of a shoot. If they add a few basic edits and fix the printing then it will become more than a review tool. This tool has the chance of becoming the best Linux workflow tool about. Personally I think it is now, even with the limited features.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Support Linux?
Sorry for going quiet. I am attempting to satisfy all the family and their demands for my services. I like them but they are an unreasonable bunch. They just expect too much of me. I am a keen photographer and the dawn of the digital era was a gift to me. I can take photographs and only show those I want to. No longer do I need to dash from the darkroom clutching my most recent prints to a quiet spot, avoiding all human contact on the way. I do not like people to see the shots I am not happy with, most of them. Having been on the annual family jaunt to the coast I had taken a few (hundred) photographs. Now they wanted me to print them. Seeing them on my laptop is not a substitute for getting hold of paper copies I am told.
Why have I not printed them? Well not only do I moan but I am a miser. The cost of printing these photographs is getting astronomical. What can I do? Somebody suggested I get a book printed. There are lots of companies who allow you to print your own 'photobooks'. Yes, you can produce your own books for the coffee table. It all looks interesting. It costs about the same as printing the photographs but this is a new way. A new challenge.
Off I went on my search to find a suitable company. Many companies allowed you to compose your books on the internet. A good idea as you have to send the photographs to them. For me these remotely hosted applications are awkward so I avoid them. I made notes of those I liked but carried on the search for some software I could run on my desktop and demonstrate to the rest of the clan on my laptop.
My search uncovered many who offered software for Windows. Most even offered Mac OS software. I found only one offering that allowed me to use Linux, a requirement for me. I have therefore used fotoinsight to print my book. As a Linux enthusiast I have to show support for any company that supports my platform. In fact there are at least a couple of options, the software is written by cewe and their offering also uses the software.
I am not complaining about the minimal support for Linux. This is what is expected for a system used on so few computers. Most enthusiasts have access to Windows should everything else fail, this limits the minimal damage for companies. Why do I mention it? First I want those who do support Linux to know that I appreciate their efforts. Then I want to let others know that I do use commercial software when required on my Linux system. I have about 4 paid for applications on my Linux systems, that is more than my Windows using friends own on average! Linux users are not the people who make illegal copies of software, after all that is one of the points of the GNU license.
Those who follow free software do so because they care about copyright, supporting them could be worthwhile. I think you will get a better percentage of legal software take-up than on other platforms. What you will have to do is take a bit of verbal knocking from those who think that all software should be free (as in speech). If you cannot handle that then do avoid the Free Software world. If you can then we all attempt to do the right thing. But there is another option! Why create your own software? Why not put out a request to the Free Software world. Give them a specification and see if there are any takers, you may be surprised. Will this be Free (as in beer)? It should not be. The idea of Free (as in speech) is that we should all support via our support for the community. What the community will do is surprise you in the quality of their efforts.
Why have I not printed them? Well not only do I moan but I am a miser. The cost of printing these photographs is getting astronomical. What can I do? Somebody suggested I get a book printed. There are lots of companies who allow you to print your own 'photobooks'. Yes, you can produce your own books for the coffee table. It all looks interesting. It costs about the same as printing the photographs but this is a new way. A new challenge.
Off I went on my search to find a suitable company. Many companies allowed you to compose your books on the internet. A good idea as you have to send the photographs to them. For me these remotely hosted applications are awkward so I avoid them. I made notes of those I liked but carried on the search for some software I could run on my desktop and demonstrate to the rest of the clan on my laptop.
My search uncovered many who offered software for Windows. Most even offered Mac OS software. I found only one offering that allowed me to use Linux, a requirement for me. I have therefore used fotoinsight to print my book. As a Linux enthusiast I have to show support for any company that supports my platform. In fact there are at least a couple of options, the software is written by cewe and their offering also uses the software.
I am not complaining about the minimal support for Linux. This is what is expected for a system used on so few computers. Most enthusiasts have access to Windows should everything else fail, this limits the minimal damage for companies. Why do I mention it? First I want those who do support Linux to know that I appreciate their efforts. Then I want to let others know that I do use commercial software when required on my Linux system. I have about 4 paid for applications on my Linux systems, that is more than my Windows using friends own on average! Linux users are not the people who make illegal copies of software, after all that is one of the points of the GNU license.
Those who follow free software do so because they care about copyright, supporting them could be worthwhile. I think you will get a better percentage of legal software take-up than on other platforms. What you will have to do is take a bit of verbal knocking from those who think that all software should be free (as in speech). If you cannot handle that then do avoid the Free Software world. If you can then we all attempt to do the right thing. But there is another option! Why create your own software? Why not put out a request to the Free Software world. Give them a specification and see if there are any takers, you may be surprised. Will this be Free (as in beer)? It should not be. The idea of Free (as in speech) is that we should all support via our support for the community. What the community will do is surprise you in the quality of their efforts.
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