March 10th, 2010 by Rolf (23 Comments)
March 10th, 2010 by Rolf (7 Comments)
#135 is just going up to the server and I have some time to kill. 
I got several questions about the mobile version of the show. I don’t know which encoding to choose from the menus at Handbrake and would love to have a command line option for that. Here help is needed.
Is Ogg Theora (the free video format) an option for the show? Who can not decode it? Should I switch to it? Add it as an option?
Torrent questions came up too. I need some help with setting this up properly.
Comments to all topics very welcome!
March 2nd, 2010 by Rolf (11 Comments)
I seem to have destroyed my Ubuntu system with too much experiments. It is running, but stuff crashes, especially UFRaw. So I have to repair that before I can do the next show. 
February 22nd, 2010 by Rolf (12 Comments)
Download the Video! (37.8 MB, 19:53)
Download the Torrent!
(Mobile version tomorrow)
The German word “Terrorie” was coined by a kid in a Physics lesson of my late colleague Helmut Mohr in Hamburg. It is what it sounds like – and today’s video is full of it. No GIMP, no images, only the blackboard and me talking. Please consider this as a WARNING.
We had a lively discussion in the forum about the theory behind making images, circling around the term “dynamic range”. There is a big difference between light and dark parts of our world, often more that a camera can catch. And nearly always more than fits onto paper or a computer screen.
The process of squeezing this big range into the small output range is called Post Processing. Either you do it via RAW anf GIMP – or the smart chip in your camera does it while saving your iage as JPEG. What I forgot to say – if you do it, you can redo it. The RAW file still exists. If the chip does it, the RAW file is discarded and you are stuck with the version of the image made by the chip.
I got a lot of information about this subject from a wonderful paper by Karl Lang at Adobe(R). Worth to download and read, even if you decide to skip the video this week.
The TOC
02:04 Orders of Magnitude
04:00 How much light is in a scene? (Dynamic range ramp up)
06:00 There is no black and white
06:30 Dynamic range of a scene
06:50 Dynamic range of LCD and prints
08:50 Dynamic range of the camera
09:50 Exposure = slide the dynamic range
11:05 Post processing by the camera
12:15 RAW -> GIMP -> print
13:00 Slides and egatives in analog photography
15:05 A source at Adobe(R)
15:15 8 Bits – a problem (sometimes)
17:10 Why is it possible to make images? Because our eyes are no camera and our brain no computer.
“Meet the GIMP” by Rolf Steinort is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.
February 17th, 2010 by Rolf (7 Comments)
February 13th, 2010 by Rolf (14 Comments)
Download the Video! (31.0 MB, 16:18)
Download the Video for mobile devices! (29.8 MB, 16:18)
Download the Torrent!
Download the Companion File!
This week I have a challenge for you. Do my homework and edit my shot from our Samba Carneval. You’ll find the JPEG and the NEF (RAW image by a Nikon D200) of a shot I did from my window. It is not a good photograph but catches a beautiful moment. Improve the image, store it somewhere on the Internet and post a link to it in the comments. You can embed a small version of it in a comment, just copy the HTML code from 23, flickr or other sites. It should be there in a box to cut and paste.
Then I’ll tell you why you always shall set your camera settings to a defined standard state before you put your camera in the bag or cupboard. I didn’t and it has ruined a whole series of shots from this occasion.
Have you ever wondered how to make a selection with a zig-zag border? Well, if you have, I have the answer. (Stolen from Saul Goode, BTW ) I was reminded that a Quickmask is an image and so can be editied much better than a selection. Making waves and sawteeth into it then is “elementary”.
And finally I reveal how I built a dust free blackboard and chalk with GIMP. The blackboard from the “Basics” series looses its mystery.
I made a TOC and forgot to save it.
February 1st, 2010 by Rolf (6 Comments)
After a lot of work in the last two weeks I went a bit under the weather this (for me long) weekend. I think I’ll be fit again when school starts. Sometimes I think it would be smarter to move the schedule of the down time from free time to school time….
But there are two nice places to check out for you in the time until the next show.
GIMPtricks on Youtube are made by Jolie from the Netherlands. I recommend to get a close shave with the healing tool and then check out the rest.
And if you have caught yourself wanting to print a logo on a plain T-Shirt after you made an image from it - here is the solution in Spanish and English made by a young woman in Venezuela. There are 5 more videos to watch. (Thanks to medyr for the tip.)
So, drown them in Clicks!
January 22nd, 2010 by Rolf (8 Comments)
Download the Video! (59.0 MB, 31:03)
Download the Torrent!
The Video for Mobile Devices! (57.3 MB, 31:03)
Download the Companion File!
This week there is only a little bit of GIMP, but a lot more about the free video editor Cinelerra. I use it to make a kind of slide show video used to illustrate a short “bumper” for Martin Bailey’s blog and podcast about his (mostly nature) photography. Martin is living in Japan and has a lot to tell about photography and Japan. Highly recommended!
Cinelerra is a full “non linear” video editor for Linux – and so perhaps a bit overkill for making a slide show. Non linear says that the program does not change the video and sound data and that you can access all your media easy and fast because only references are moved around. I forgot to introduce it properly at the start of the video. There are programs around for Windows and MacOS which do the same, I am sure.
Cinelerra comes in a lot of different flavours. I take the version from cinelerra.org.
The final version of the bumper, the used images and the Cinelerra XML file are in the companion file.
And here are, as promised, my settings. Compare if you have problems, my setup is running, but I am not sure why….
Playback – check for “Stop playback locks up” if you encounter stutter – uncheck “Play every frame” for performance
Recording – Important is the last point about images
Performance
Interface – Check “Show Thumbnails”
About – for version information
This week we have a mobile version of the video again. It’s not on the feed, because I don’t know if this version fills your needs. So feedback please!
Sorry, I could not make a TOC this time, too much school stuff around.
Meet the GIMP Episode 132 by Rolf Steinort is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.
January 20th, 2010 by Rolf (3 Comments)
Now also RawTherapee qualifies for a show in Meet the GIMP – they have opened their source and published under GPL. A very early Alpha of the new major version (3.0) has been published and I already got some promising reports from viewers. Congratulations!
I’ll try RawTherapee when they have put on a more mature Alpha and make a podcast about it.
January 14th, 2010 by Rolf (17 Comments)
Download the Video! (57.9 MB, 30:27)
Download the Torrent!
After a bit of “housekeeping”, which includes thanks to contributors and a nod over to the Focus Ring, I try to use the stuff hidden in the <Image>/Color/Auto menu. My results are not that good and I try to do it better with curves.
Why did I fail? No idea, it may be the software or perhaps my choice of image was bad. Please share your experiences with this option.
At the end of the show I lift the secret behind the numbers 1 – 1.4 – 2 – 2.8 – 4 – 5.6 – 11 – 16 – 22 …. – aperture numbers decoded.
I couldn’t decide which of the two shots I made for the show image should go into the post, so here are both. 
The TOC
00:20 Starting 2010 – thanks and a guy selling GIMP
04:30 New Forum policy
05:40 New Focus Ring Episode
07:00 Exporting an image from F-Spot to GIMP
07:20 The Histogram shows underexposure
08:00 Exploring /Colors/Auto
09:15 Equalize, stretch contrast, stretch HSV
11:50 Color Enhance
12:50 The manual curves approach
15:30 Unsharp Maks (USM) for getting details in snow
17:00 Selection with layer mask
19:00 Basics: Apperture numbers explained
Meet the GIMP Video Podcast by Rolf Steinort and Philippe Demartin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.
