I copy here two posts I made for Lucy on her topic about photo enhancement
because they could be of some interest for somebody

first post

Lucy,
I was curious about your error in installing GMIC.
Because I do not have problems BUT I USE WINDOWS 32 bits, I took a laptop with win 7 64 bits without Gimp, I installed Gimp (last version) then downloaded Gmic 64 bits, unzipped and followed - like you did - all the instructions (which btw are just "move all four unzipped files/folder into your user-name plug-in folder") and when I started Gimp I got exactly your error.
No chance modifying the folder where to put the files (using instead the bin in Programs/Gimp for the .dll and the other two under Program/Gimp...plug-ins, or moving everything in the Program/Gimp...plug-ins folder...), so i can only agree with you: in a clean installation it simply DOES NOT WORK just following the instructions. I let a guru here to solve where come that error from.

second post

GOOD NEWS if you want to try G'mic!
In spite of being working (in this moment, it is not my home computer) on a Windows 7 64 bits, in spite of having started with a "clean" environment (no previous Gimp installed), in spite of having installed the Source-Forge installer for last Gimp release 2.8.6 (there is NO indication about 32 bits of 64 bits on that file or somewhere else in Source-Forge, as mentioned also by other users in other Gimp-chat topics), when adding G'mic 64 bits (the "famous" four component of the zip file) GIMP-GMIC does not start properly, as you and me noticed.
Because I'm suspicious and curious, I removed the G'mic 64 bits components, downloaded the 32 bits installation module, run it and - surprise - GIMP+GMIC work!
So, if you want to experiment with G'mic, just do the same:
1- remove the famous four components of G'mic 64 bits, wherever you have them now
2- download the 32 bits G'mic installation module (it's an exe autoinstalling)
3- run it
4- et voilà you may work with G'mic (32 bits running on a 64 bits machine and over a nn bits Gimp (not specified)
Enjoy!

This is a very, very bad advice to use G'MIC 32-bit with Gimp 64-bit:
- It may be that it does not work (according to the installations and versions).
- The execution speed is slower.
et voilà ...

Well, I'm not RECOMMENDING the 32 bits version on a 64 bits computer, but as long as somebody does not succeed in installing the G'mic 64 bits in spite of all the suggestions, guidelines, etc found here and there, IF he/she wants to EXPERIMENT G'mic, this is just ONE WAY.
Then, as soon as the appropriate installation succeeds, he/she can improve the system.
If you can give to Lucy (and others, I don't know) the correct input for a well balanced installation (64 with 64), I guess she will appreciate.
So far, no tutorial, no suggestion helped her...

People can try installations where everything is installed, here are three 64-bit Windows :

--- Only 64-bit plug-ins ---
http://partha.com/downloads/Gimp-2.8-portable64bit.exe

--- 32-bit and 64-bit plug-ins ---
http://www.aljacom.com/~gmic/gimp_2_8_6 ... rtable.zip
http://www.aljacom.com/~gmic/gimp-2.8.6 ... rtable.zip

Of these three versions the plug-ins are installed.

The most up-to-date version is : gimp_2_8_6-64bits-Sourceforge-Portable.zip

G'MIC clearly lacks a good plug-in installer for win64 bits. This is on the to-do list, but I've no access to win64 machines.
I have a working .iss configuration file (Ino Setup Script) that I use for win32, and I guess it could be used for win64 as well, but it seems there are always problems with .dll.
That's quite annoying.

thanks Samj for all the 64-bits users (as you know, I'm a 32-bits user)
but just one curiosity:
are there ONLY portable versions which could run 64 with 64?
does this mean that REALLY it is not possible to INSTALL gmic 64 on an installed source-forge gimp ?
maybe, someone (at Source-Forge) could provide in the next future an auto-installable exe of the 64 bits gmic, as it is available for 32-bits users like me

edit: I read now the post of Ronounours, so it's so...pity

@K1Te
the official SourceForge is "bits undefined! (I don't find, neither me, neither other users, the indication: this is for 32 bits and this for 64 bits)
So i would say: the official SF release of Gimp, without specifications, and that is the one I installed here and Lucy too.
Samj's versions are specific (good!) but portable, as she indicated.
So, of which "installation" are you speaking about?
May be you can help Lucy and others...

It will be very difficult to create an installer for G'MIC.
Those that exist are bad because they are provided with DLL that can interfere with other plug-ins and Gimp.

The best solution is to put G'MIC and DLL in a folder.
From this folder, several possibilities:
- Declare the folder manually in Gimp preferences.
- Make a system that will handle this automatically.

Always observe the following principles:
- Do not mix 32-bit DLL and 64 bit.
- Do not overwrite existing DLLs.
- Avoid putting plug-ins and DLL in the Gimp plugins directory (\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins) via an installer (you must know what you are doing).

*****
Samj's versions are specific (good!) but portable, as she indicated.
Versions are normal and portable. It's much better.

i'm using Partha 2.8.6 64 install and portable with no problems with gimp or g'mic

@samj
following your indications I did the following:
1 - uninstalled gmic-gimp 32-bits
(but kept gimp from source-forge installed)
2 - downloaded from the link you posted as
Post subject: Test compilation (Windows 64bit) G'MIC for Gimp 2.8.6
3 - unzipped all included there
4 - taken only the folder gmic_gimp-2.8_plugin and placed under user/gimp-2.8
5 - launched gimp (no gmic obviously in the list of filters!), open gimp preferences and inserted that folder in the list of plug-ins folders
6 - closed, restarted gimp: no errors and gmic is there in the list of filters!.
I hope this can help also Lucy.
Thanks a lot Samj!

Even if i prefer use portable version of gimp i tried also the official 64 bit version , and gmic install without problem

May be several reason for a faulty install, most probable is a few kb lost during download (happens often and not always the browser note missing file )
Only way to avoid this risk would be control the checksum or use a trusted torrent , alas the official win version does not offer neither options

First try to download again.

If not that may be a clone of same dll used by gmic to cause the problem , but i don't think so because in case should be a error message ...a misleading error message about "missing dll" that is more often caused by duplicate of the same dll
(often is the zlib.dll , because used also by other plugins that may have added it somewhere )




About installers , i believe i never had problems because i never used the installer but only zipped file :
A automatic Win installer may only dump gmic in the plugin folder with all the others

That work most of time but not always because the risk of conflicting dll from other third party plugin , that is minimized if placing gmic in a dedicated folder... but is a process that can't be automatized by a installer:

because the path for the new folder has to be manually added from gimp preferences.

@PC
another two points to investigate could be:
1-samj recommends to have a specific folder for gmic, it's what i did last time, linked afterwards through preferences, and it works; many other tutorials and guidelines around suggest to put those unzipped files either under Programs/Gimp... or under user/.gimp... I tried both before samj suggestion and none of those worked
2-samj package seems to contain one more element with respect to the source-forge gmic zip package, maybe this one is missing in SF solution

I've been using samj's compiles sinc she first started making them and they've worked flawless except the latest version which she figured out and fixed (forgot why it was an issue). I prefer 64-bit since I'm using 64-bit native GIMP now. Still cool that some folk got G'MIC 32-bit to run in 64-bit GIMP (never could at that time so gave up then).

Hi dinasset, I'm just trying again to get GMIC working following these instructions, so I've removed the previous GMIC things I had and am now up to number 2 - downloading from the link in the quote above. Sorry if I'm missing something but I can't find this link or am not sure which it is?! Is it part of a different post?
Thanks Lucy

Hi Lucy,
the link is the following:
http://www.aljacom.com/~gmic/gmic-beta_full_64bits_win.zip
(you may also search the topic Post subject: Test compilation (Windows 64bit) G'MIC for Gimp 2.8.6)
-download the zipped file (around 26 MB)
-unzip it, so you ...
-... get four folders
-take the one named 64bits
-inside that there are three folders
-take the one named gmic_gimp-2.8_plugin
-place it in the folder your-user-name/gimp-2.8
-launch gimp (for now you do not see gmic in the list of filters!)
-edit gimp preferences
-point to plug-ins
-add that folder in the list of plug-ins folders
-close, and restart gimp
=>> you should get no errors and find gmic in the list of filters!.
to ease you I attach here the zipped folder gmic_gimp-2.8_plugin

Thanks dinasset, just so as not to do anything wrong as I follow the instructions - when you say unzip the file do you just mean open it? Or does unzip mean something else? Sorry I am not very advanced with computers! I have downloaded the zipped file now (from the first link you gave). It is now in my downloads and I can find the folders and things you have mentioned but just not sure what unzip means and if I need to do anything! Thanks Lucy

PS when you say for ease you have attached the zipped folder gmic_gimp-2.8_plugin, did you mean that I would just need to download that and not the link with the 4 folders in? I assume if you did mean that I would still need to unzip that though?

Hi Lucy,
the attachments are normally "zipped", which means compressed, that's because each site wants to prevent having malicious self-executing attachment.
If you right-click on a zipped file - among the various options - you find references to unzipping programs like for instance "zip genius" or "7z" (whis is my favourite, it's free and you can download and install yourself if you don't have it yet: http://www.7-zip.org/download.html). In many cases the simple "open" will unzip them, so if you get the file or subfolder you look at, you can just move it on the desktop to copy-extract it.
About the attachment: it was just to simplify the first steps, but if you have already downloaded the full Samj's pack, that's OK (you will find the same gmic_gimp-2.8_plugin folder

Ditto
but in Win 7 and 8 is not needed a additional program to "unzip"(not simple ".zip" ; 7zip may be useful because may open also other types as " rar", "7zip" etc)
Anyway explorer (the normal file viewer) shows the content of "zip" as if was a normal folder and to drag & drop files from there.

so nothing to worry about zip , no extra program is needed