First of all, let me say hello to everybody in this forum: I would like to introduce you a new open source RAW editor, called PhotoFlow, hoping that there will be people interested in the project.

I've actually already introduced PhotoFlow here, but that was long time ago and things have greatly improved since then. I hope that posting about a project not directly related with gimp (but using G'MIC for some of the image processing) does not break any rules...

PhotoFlow is a fully non-destructive layer-based editor, which means that the image processing is performed using layers and layer masks (like in gimp, or photoshop). It can directly read and process RAW files, using code inherited from Darktable and RawTherapee.

The list of provided tools is already quite complete:

* loading of RAW, TIFF and JPeg files, including EXIF data and embedded ICC profiles
* fully color-managed processing in floating-point precision
* real-time preview of the processed result
* on-the-fly colorspace conversions
* several color-correction tools:
- brightness/contrast adjustment
- custom tone curves
- channel inversion
- horizontal, vertical and radial gradient
- hue/saturation adjustment
- black & white conversion (desaturation or channel mixer)
* gaussian blurring
* sharpening
* cropping, scaling and rotating
* optical corrections via lensfun (experimental)
* interface with the G'MIC filters:
- several smoothing algortihms, including the well-known "dream smoothing"
- color and B&W film emulation
- tone mapping
- interactive foreground extraction
* freehand drawing

All tools are implemented as non-destructive layers (except a couple of very slow ones), meaning that the tool parameters can be tweaked at any moment and the effect immediately seen in the preview window. The layers structure, including masks and tool parameters, can be saved as a sidecar XML file.

I am providing an up-to-date windows installer, and Ubuntu packages are available from Dariusz Duma PPA. Linux users can also compile the code from source.

I can provide additional links to online resources (github repository, google+ page, dedicated blog with step-by-step tutorials) if people are interested and I'll be allowed to post links.

The project is relatively young (about 1 year of spare-time development) and the program is likely to crash from time to time, however I think that it has already reached a stage where complex edits can be created, saved and exported to TIFF or JPeg. Moreover, given the editing approach similar to photoshop, lots of gimp tutorials and well-known techniques can be successfully used in photoflow with (hopefully) not too many difficulties.

I will greatly appreciate any positive or negative feedback, with the hope to get professional and advanced users involved in the project, especially for reporting their experience and suggestions for improvement. Please take into account that I'm by no means earning my life with this project, I'm just working on it for fun, intellectual interest and personal research.

Thanks for looking!

Welcome to Gimp Chat aferrero2707!
Your program sounds pretty cool.You should be able to post links after 5 posts.

Here is the topic from your first introduction of the program.
http://gimpchat.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=9938

Found the program at GitHub also.
https://github.com/aferrero2707/PhotoFlow

Link to downloads
http://aferrero2707.github.io/PhotoFlow/

Rod, thanks a lot for your warm welcome and for posting the links!

What might be of particular interest for the readers here is the fact that PhotoFlow is directly interfaced with G'MIC, something like the gimp plugin although less "automatized" (one has to explicitly write some code for each implemented G'MIC filter). The G'MIC filters are then directly associated with adjustment layers, and can be applied non-destructively and in real-time (apart from few very slow exceptions).

Not too bad. I don't like how it wants to stay on top all the time though. Is there a way to set this option so it isn't always on top? Instead of having to minimize the window to get to your desktop?
Perhaps some mouse over text for adding (+) layers.

The "tool dialog always on top" problem is definitely something annoying, and has basically to do with my misunderstanding of how to correctly implement non-modal dialogs in GTK... as I am in the process of "consolidanting" the program and fixing the various open issues, this will most likely be fixed in the near future.

Tooltips are also badly missing in various places (as you point out for the "+" button), I agree...

What do you think about the general idea and approach of the program?

Must try this...need more coffee to compile lol

You have pre-compiled packages if you are on Ubuntu... just search for "Dariusz Duma my way PPA" on google...

However, the last version on the PPA seems to be broken (not a fault of Dariusz himself)... compiling from sources is at the moment the best option. The next PPA update should fix the issue.


Keep some coffee for testing the compiled code !!!

I like the program. It just needs some mouseover tooltips to make it easier to understand. If you fix the always on top issue it would be much better also, imho.

The "always on top" stuff is already fixed in the github repository... and I'm just now following your suggestion to add tooltips. I've also decided to add some brief description of the available tools in the "New layer" dialog: the idea is to show some text that shortly describes the selected tool, with links to relevant web pages when existing... this should help guiding the new users, or at least I hope so.

Few more resources...

Dedicated blog with step-by-step tutorials: http://photoflowblog.blogspot.fr/

Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/112083183053602 ... osts?hl=en