If you remember my shot at making a comic out of a portrait you’ll know that I want some day to make an image like Roy Lichtenstein did.
Well, Richard Querin at screencasters .heathenx.org brought me a big step forward to that goal. I think we have to forget about making this automatically and take up the pen….
Sometimes last year some people connected to the user interface design of GIMP have set up a discussion blog for brainstorming ideas about user interface features.
http://gimp-brainstorm.blogspot.com/
You find everything there - from small changes to radical new redesigns. The rules are simple - you just send in your image. All the text you need to explain your idea has to be on the image. And, as everything is CC, you can take an image, modify and comment it and put it back into the pipeline.
Both images are from the site, the top one made by J.D. Chambers , the lower one by “Tobias”.
Podcast Video (38.2 MB): [28:19m]: Play in Popup | Download (8995)
Torrent: Download (382) The image as XCF file and the script: Download (793)
Finally the “Zone Adjustment Plugin” - formerly known as “Meaningful Black Script” is shown in its full glory. You find it here and in the companion file.
EDIT: This plugin has evolved tremendously. Go to the Forum entry and search from the last postings backwards for it’s latest incarnation!
And I present a plugin for displaying EXIF information in an image, a split toning plugin and a plugin for applying the “Lazlo Dragan effect”. (Download should now be possible without need to register - sorry, made a mistake in the configuration.) All were published in the Forum of Meet the GIMP.
You can find information about the installation of these plugins there too. Basically you just copy them into your plugin directory (not the scripts directory) and make them executable. The last step is not necessary under Windows.
The show starts with a short introduction into the Zone System of Ansel Adams. Before we go deeper into this, we have to calibrate our cameras. Set your camera to manual mode, set the metering to spot or center based and shot a well exposed image of something middle grey or whitish with a bit of structure in it. I took a white door, but raw concrete is fine too. Then shoot two series of images, the first one closing down one stop in each image, the other in opening up one stop for each step. We’ll look at my images next week.
The TOC:
Ansel Adams and the Zone System 0:27
Calibrating your camera for the Zone System 7:00
Plugins in the Forum 9:36
Working with the “Zone Adjustment Plugin”, formerly know as “meaningful Black” 11:25
Detaching menues in GIMP 12:23
Sample Points 12:50
Finding the Dark and Bright point 15:25
Using the plugint 19:40
The proof: white is grey - and black too! 25:25
The image used in this podcast was made during a performance of Pascale Loiseau from the Belgian WAZOVOL artists group. I found a video of her performance.
Edit: I changed “script” to plugin - there is a bit of confusion….
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Joel Cornuz has written a long and thoughtful article about it. A must read for all Linux users here!
Podcast Video (32.1 MB): [22:07m]: Play in Popup | Download (10334) Torrent: Download (338) The image as XCF file: Download (402)
Uploaded a new video - all downloads from the first 1 1/4 hours are corrupt!
This week I have a guest on the show. Philippe Demartin from Chile shows how to make letters out of blood without pain and no need to clean up afterwards.
EDIT: Be sure to read the two comments from eBrnd below. They are really good additional material for this show!
gimpusers.com has a nice tutorial about this which influenced this show.
No Gimps were harmed in the process of making this podcast!
Just an afterthought: You can use the bumpmapping also with photographies, inserting your logo for example. I’ll look into that.
Next week will see the publishing of the first product of the MTG-Plugin Factory. 
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Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License.
You find it here: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6959948.html! (Link works now)
Sorry, couldn’t resist….
In other, this time true news: The plugin for getting “meaningful black” a la Versace is making real progress. Check it out in the forum. The attachments are only visible for registered members, but I’ll publish the script on this site when it’s really usable and documented.
What’s “meaningful black”? It’s a concept out of the book “Welcome to Oz” from Vincent Versac. It’s for this other program, but I try to convert it to GIMP. It’s not so easy - so we have to write a script to do the tedious work. This script is also covered here.
EDIT: This plugin has evolved tremendously. Go to the Forum entry and search from the last postings backwards for it’s latest incarnation!
Information about the Zone System is at Wikipedia and a lot of other sites. Chris Marquardt has made a simple version of it for digital cameras.
At the end of the video I do some ironing. I made some promotional images for our organic shop around the corner. The team had donned brand new aprons with all the creases from packing still in them. Awful! I show you a way to iron them out after the shot. BTW, this works too with wrinkles in the skin of a portrait model.
The “Old Ink Challenge is still open. Give it a try!
I also have some updates about the forum and ask for input with a new design for this web site. Daniel (DRB) is helping me a lot - and he has made a great interactive and collaborative storytelling site at StoryEverTelling.com . If you are into telling stories with a twist or reading them - check this out and help him to build this up.
Old Ink challenge update (1:30)
Forum update (1:55)
Daniel’s “Story Ever Telling” (4:40)
Meaningful Black (6:25)
- Zone System (9:42)
- Finding the Black Point (12:00)
- Twisting the curves (16:05)
- Building a Plugin (19:00)
Ironing an Apron with GIMP (20:10)
This video has been rendered in a different way. Is the problem still there that it calls itself a MP3 audio file? Is it playing everywhere?
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License.
Podcast Video (36.1MB): [33:09m]: Play in Popup | Download (8986) Torrent: Play in Popup | Download (418)
This week I take a trip into the future of GiMP - by visiting Cinepaint. I read in the book “Welcome to Oz” from Vincent Versace (Tip for the German audience: Wenn ihr das Buch bei einem an den Großhandel LIBRI angeschlossenen Buchhändler bestellt, ist es billiger als bei Amazon!) how to adjust colours in LAB mode. He claims that it is much more intuitive than in RGB - and he is right.
I was so fascinated by playing with these colours that I spent a long time with that. If you get bored - just switch off. The only information after the start of John Pazdan’s “Lazy Ass” music is, that I save the curve for later use with the big image.
Result of this expedition into color space: There are no dragons out there, but now I want 16 bit and I want LAB! Now!
For converting an image to LAB you need a colour profile. I got mine from here, but the whole site is worth a visit.
Some more links: Wikipedia has a lot about Colour, Colour Spaces, RGB, LAB and HP has a Colour Distance Calculator.
At the very start of the video I take up the “opacity painting” and forward you a tip from Daniel, how to select an area of uniform opacity.
I said once: “No ads here!”, but here is one:
The TOC of this Episode
Selecting areas of same opacity (update for #54) 1:30
Colour spaces 4:00
LAB colour space 6:47
LAB degrades images in 8 bit 14:22
Cinepaint 18:37
Visualisation of the colourspace by Cinepaint 21:36
Converting to LAB 22:36
Correting colours with the curves tool in LAB 24:00
Playing with the colours 27:10 (No real information after this point)
Music “Lazy Ass” by John Pazdan
Saving the curve for the large image 33:00
BTW, “hic sunt dracones” means “Here are dragons” and was used by a map maker in medieval times to mark unknown territory.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License.
I tried to upload the last torrents to Pirate Bay several times. Either the site wasn’t there or I got kicked out for typing in a wrong captcha. It was right, BTW.
How important is the listing at Pirate Bay if the torrent is available here? Or is there one of the torrenters out there who can put the torrent on the site?
The latest videos New on the Forum Pascal de Bruijn's Photography Blog Section Joel Cornuz's Linux Photography Blog heathenx and Richard Querin about Inkscape gimpusers.com John Pazdan's Free Music
The Photocast Network is an association of photography related podcasts. It publishes the "Focus Ring" roundtable where I participate from time to time.
Focus Ring