Episode 003: A Ship in the Fog - Part 1
You are in for a mix of topics in this screencast.
I start with answering the first comment I got 
and show some ways how to get the GIMP 2.3 for different operating systems.
The site I mention in the podcast is www.gimpusers.de. EDIT: There is an english version of that site under www.gimpusers.com. The Mac stuff is at gimp.org.
Then I begin to work at an image of a ship coming down the river Weser on a foggy morning. The image is mostly gray and very low in contrast. As this was shot in RAW, it is possible to get something usuable out of it. You get a lecture about the difference of 256 steps between black and white in JPEG and why the 4096 steps in RAW are better.
(I assume there would be more detail in an JPEG out of the camera because it does some postprocessing…)
I show how to access the menues of the GIMP in three different ways, how to analyze an image with the histogram tool and the colour picker, how to rotate an image just a little bit and how to crop it using the Rule of Thirds (not a LAW - but a nice rule of thumb) to get an aesthetic result. And I nearly forgot to save the image in GIMP’s native image format - XCF.
Please let me know what you think about the show. Too slow? Too fast? Too much ramblings? Or too much information? Even if you like everything - write a comment or drop me a mail at info@meetthegimp.org
You can leave your comments on this blog or go to the Tips from the Top Floor Forum.
This work is licensed under a
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Tags: colour picker, crop, gimp menues, histogram, rotate, Rule of Thirds, XCF
July 31st, 2007 at 5:09 am
What a surprise to see my name and comment right at the beginning of this episode. I’m happy to report that I’ve installed 2.3 thanks to your link, and I am loving it. But you have probably just delayed my switch to Linux a little longer…
August 1st, 2007 at 12:21 am
Thank you for these very well done tutorials.
It is obvious that you are a professional teacher. The
material is very well organized, and the explanations are
clear, intelligent and informative.
I have read some of the help documentation from the
GIMP and learned to do simple things. Reading about
more advanced techniques has often left me wondering
exactly how to do them, and even why would one
want to do them. “Looking over the shoulder” of an
advanced user makes all of that much more clear.
Thank you again.
August 4th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Another great episode. I personally would be very interested in a show dealing with RAW conversion in Linux.
As mentioned by Alan, looking at the video really makes learning the Gimp (at least for me) so much easier - this is especially true as your shows are geared towards photo manipulation.
A real inspiration to just get into it.
Cheers
Ed
August 18th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
hi rolf! super videos! mach weiter so! es freut mich dass du gimpusers.de erwähnt hast
ich denke du hast relativ viele englische user, falls du nochmal unsere seite erwähnst kannst du auch gimpusers.com nehmen, da ist alles englisch! ciao & lg,
bernhard
August 21st, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Hello!
Thank you for doing all this! I’ve found the feed via Miro guide and watch using Miro on Mac. Content is great but it would be better to have greater quality because when you do small corrections with images video compression errors render them nearly invisible. Maybe you could try H.264 codec? Anyway keep going!
August 28th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I am learning so much from your demonstration on GIMP. I was going to get photoshop but now it looks GIMP is just as good for a novice. Thank you.
September 1st, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Wow - I’ve seen my post in the latest Q&A )))
So back to the issue: 640×480 is good; when you resize from 800×600 single-pixel line will become a bit blurry but won’t disappear (it could happen if you’ll resize to 400×300 or less). The problem is not with size but with compression artifacts. MP4 encoder that you use now takes an area of pixels (say 10×10) with similar colours and writes in the output file that there are 100 pixels of the same average colour. As a result video becomes ‘pixelated’; there are noticeable tiles instead of smooth gradients.
In some cases it’s not a big deal but in our case it’s a problem. When you edit the picture with a ship in fog there are lots of halftones that make up the fog and compression scheme literally kills them so it’s not possible to see fine adjustments.
I also watch ‘PixelPerfect’ (https://miroguide.com/channels/1558) and ‘Lightroom for Digital Photographers’ (https://miroguide.com/channels/3340) podcasts; I’ve noticed that they use H.264 codec. The video is very clear so I’ve decided to recommend this to you. I didn’t know that it costs money but I’ve found that there is a free x264 implementation and it’s available on linux as Advanced Video Codec (AVC). Here is the article http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9005
[Link editied by Rolf]
September 1st, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I tried that codec during my tests and got only misses. But I had not found this article. I’ll give it a try and then use 2 pass encoding - no problem to encode while I sleep…..
September 6th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Thanks for a great set of shows Rolf! As Alan has already said, looking over your shoulder is a great way to learn. I find that if I prop my iPod up near my computer’s monitor I can follow along with you.
Now, if only I had more spare time…!
September 19th, 2007 at 6:09 am
I’ve tried so many different methods now I lost track and I’ve yet to get satisfying results. That trailer of yours looks absolutely fantastic though.
October 5th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Hi Rolf, I really enjoy your show so far (I’m slowly working my way through them at the moment). As Ed said above, I’d also be interested in learning about RAW processing.
Also, why do you prefer to use Gimp 2.3 when the release available through Ubuntu package management is 2.2? Is 2.2 that bad, or are there significant differences which make it more useful for photographers?
Thanks again for your very professional videos.
tim
October 5th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
RAW is covered in show 11 and 12. You’ll reach there in a while…
I prefer the 2.3 (or now the 2.4RC - release candidates) because they are stable as a lot of commercial programs - perhaps not as rock solid as 2.2 - and have a lot of new and improved features. If you compare the video with Gimp 2.2, you’ll see some differences.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Have you ever tried to compile ffmpeg with h264 support? I’ll give it a try with my Kino and let you know soon.
Do you use Kino for video editing?
October 24th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I am using cinelerra at the moment. I am not very happy with it (too much crashes and no autosave…), but I learned how to use it a bit. I “need” multitrack editing or an other convinient way of overlaying graphics. The rest of cinelerra is nice but overkill. Like the zooming around in the first intros.
I’ll look at Kino again, thanks for the reminder.
Please check that h264 stuff out. I have no real clue about video encoding and put this together with trail and error. I “documented” the stuff at http://make.meetthegimp.org
Thanks for getting this stuff on the torrents too!
October 25th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
I looked into Kino - it does only DV format. So I can’t use it. Cinelerra crashed twice while editing the last show….. I need something else.
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:55 am
Rolf, love the tutorials. thanks for this contribution.
December 4th, 2007 at 3:49 am
[...] Episode 003: A Ship in the Fog - Part 1 [...]
December 5th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
I don’t know much about video editing, but here are some editors you might want to give avidemux a try:
http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/
December 5th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Sorry about messing up the wording, I was going to post more links, but the other ones turned out to be specialized for 2d. Should of read my post over before submiting.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I have some help from Ivan with the video stuff. Expect some improved quality in the new year.
Avidemux is good for converting and splicing some clips. I need a full editor to cut out some stuff, do some titles and so on.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Now I looked your podcast also.
I’d like to point out that gimpusers.de is also available in English from gimpusers.com. Awesome site!
December 15th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I have recently entered the world of DSLR photography and obviously need to be able to work on my images. Having used Linux (Ubuntu) for just over 2 years I knew about the Gimp and have toyed with it for many hours. Unfortunately, most of that time, although not totally wasted, was not that productive. Your tutorials have cleared up many points, and I can’t wait to work through them all. Your presentation is very clear and well paced.
One question, what did you use to record your desktop? I have an interest in producing some tutorials in the future, so that some of my friends can learn a bit about Linux.
December 15th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
@Martin: http://meetthegimp.org/how-i-record-the-show/
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Great episode, you’re an expert teacher.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:04 am
Thank you very much Rolf for the time you are investing in these tutorials.
I very like them, clear and nice
Thanks!
February 4th, 2008 at 2:33 am
It is easier to learn GIMP with video tutorials. The written documentation its a little hard to follow.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Rolf,
Thanks for the great tutorials. I’ve only seen the first three vids and I’ve learned alot.
dave
July 6th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Excelent!!! Thank for the vids
Is it possible to obtain the original picture? not the XFC (the layer is croped)
I want to practice with the same picture.
Many thanks.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Hallo Rolf,
I agree with migue, it would be very helpfull to have the original picture of the ship in the fog.
Vielen Dank südlich vom Weisswurstäquator
Rudl
July 11th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
@ migue:
I´ve found out, when you download here: http://meetgimp.googlepages.com/meetthegimp the resources for episode 6, you can find jpg´s for episod 1,6 and 7.
Rudl
July 11th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
@ migue:
I´ve forgot, there are also jpg´s for episode 3.
July 12th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Now you have found out for yourself.
I’ll change the list with download links.
Sorry for being so late, just too much to do.