well sort of
i know what it is, but i dont know what to do with it

i know its a filter pack, but all the countless options are overwhelming me

i do kind of know there are some applications in it that would help me with what i do with GIMP, but even that is hard for me

so for example i know you can use the enhancement filters for smoothing jaggies or smooth out certain aspects you get when you make chromed text, but i never know which one to choose and what settings to use....

i know you can make 3D text with it, but then it really ends

i tried having a look at the documentary, but that didnt help much either

so any tips ?

what do you use G'Mic for ?
any tips what is especially good or would be useful for the stuff i normally do ?

The only thing I can say is download it and try all the different plug-ins and just experiment. It has some great enhancements to manipulate your art etc. When installed it will be under Filters > GMIC

just check out the online version

https://gmicol.greyc.fr/

that's the most painless way to discover what it can do

the main difference between the online version and what you can do on your own GIMP is that in GIMP you can use layers to combine different filtered images

for right now, just keep it simple and see what it can do on just ONE image.

But isn't that Esper's problem now- There are so many effects (400+) that it's become impractical to try them all. What's needed is some sort of "expert opinion" to filter down the list - "Which are the useful effects?"

Kevin

I agree Kevin. I get overwhelmed when I get into GMIC, Just to remember where everything is, is a problem for me. There are so many fantastic effects...but where to find them.

More choice is better than fewer, you never know which ones you're going to need in the future. "Useful effect" is too subjective to define. Obviously, I'm not gonna need them all, but it's easy to find the ones I need - I add GMIC filters that I like better or use more often to the Faves.

esper: i don't think there's any settings in the filters that are "best", it depends so much on the images. but i've now done some experimenting with the smoothing filters in g'mic-enhancement and have found some favourites, particularly thin brush smoothing because it's pretty easy to tweak and i think i know what will happen when i change the settings.
i use g'mic for something in almost every image i make these days. i have my favourite filters, one of them is samj:s metallic filter. i've recently started to play with some screen dumps of old collages i made at polyvore.com and the g'mic filters are really useful to me there. for example, here's a cutout portion of a collage that i wanted to make more like a drawing or painting:

it's a rather tricky thing to get the photo part to look painted without getting the background all messed up, but i like what these g'mic filters did:

(g'mic colours-boost/fade, set to boost, then testing-photo comix-metallic grain)

(g'mic artistic-colored pencils-output new layer, set layer mode to hard light before i clicked ok. very useful to be able to play with layer modes and preview in g'mic before you confirm an action)

(g'mic artistic graphic novel)
and here's the result when i just applied some thin brush smoothing:


i also use g'mic for making patterns and since i'm lazy i use the array filters a lot when i make symmetrical layouts.

Esper - Go to the GMIC site at sourceforge and check out all the effects with images to illustrate the results of each filter.

http://gmic.sourceforge.net/gimp.shtml

Might help you get an overview of what all the filters do. It just takes some time to get used to it like everything else. It wasn't too long ago that David organized everything a little better and moved some of the stuff around. They are categorized pretty well now so you shouldn't have too much trouble now.

indeed and thank you for saying this

on the other hand i took cecilia's advice and tried a few things to find out that most of the stuff G'Mic does, is not what i really need

but one of the categories that do seem useful to me is the enhancement stuff
and here, my problem is even bigger:
there are ten different filters for smoothing and i have no idea which one to choose
i originally downloaded G'Mic because it was needed for a tutorial i followed and you needed anisotropic smoothing to smooth the edges of a bevel but never used it again since then

another use for the online version is that the filters are listed there just as they are listed within your personal copy of G'MIC.

so, you can get a bit familiar with how these basic filters are laid out.

it wasn't so long ago that I was new to G'MIC myself - I learned about it from this very forum (thanks guys!). And I'm hardly a master of it, but my fun with GIMP has been greatly enhanced by having it available.

G'MIC has preview option (with zoom) and "Reset" button on each filter. Is there anything to prevent you from experiment and learning about what does each filter?

My recommendation is that you experiment with an image and applying filters, and you also learn to use "input layers ..." and "output mode ..."


I totally agree with that.

A while back with Davids permission i added this to our forum.
A handy image effect chart for GMICs filter effects

This may help you a little bit.

That's actually really helpful to me, too, Rod. Thanks!

I use GIMP more as an enabler then a do all Esper. Once you get a mind's eye understanding of how all the effects work (and also a mind's eye of what the result will be despite the not so good preview), then you can use it as a tool.