Gimp-G'MIC gurus: desaparecidos?

dinasset · **Posted:** Sun Nov 09, 2014 9:12 am **(#1)**

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that the major contributors to Gimp-G'MIC filters (not taking into consideration David, who from time to time creates some new fantastic filters, in addition to upgrading G'MIC itself), active in the recent past, are somehow "desaparecidos".
Just to mention only some of them:
- Iain
- Garagecoder
- Photocomix
- Tom Keil
.....
maybe they are active on other sites.
It would be nice to get them here in Gimp-chat again, either directly or indirectly.

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12834

Best to pose this request at Flickr's G'MIC forum Dinasset.

https://www.flickr.com/groups/gmic/

dinasset · **Posted:** Sun Nov 09, 2014 10:13 am **(#3)**

thanks, Lyle, but:
- I'm not a member of that group (thus I can't post a request)
- I just like to maintain only one site -Gimp-chat- as active member
- There it seems the discussions are on G'MIC per se, not on Gimp-G'MIC (if I'm not wrong)

but, if you like so, you may ask your friends there, I will appreciate to get news of those "desaparecidos"...

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12834

OK dinasset; started a thread there for you.

https://www.flickr.com/groups/gmic/disc ... 144487866/

dinasset · **Posted:** Sun Nov 09, 2014 10:22 am **(#5)**

many thanks, Lyle!

Iain · **Joined:** Feb 13, 2013 **Posts:** 86

Hello. I'm here from time to time.

Graechan · **Posted:** Sun Nov 09, 2014 7:45 pm **(#7)**

Ian it's always nice to hear from all our friends at Gmic especially if they have written new filters for us to test and give our helpful advice on

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12834

Cool to see you post here too Iain; your G'MIC presets are much appreciated.

dinasset · **Posted:** Mon Nov 10, 2014 4:03 am **(#9)**

Iain wrote:

Hello. I'm here from time to time.

very nice to hear that from you, we all appreciate a lot your filters

karo03de · **Joined:** Jul 02, 2013 **Posts:** 59

Hi dinasset,

I think G'MIC has made such a tremendous progress that it might be difficult to follow up adequately! I believe many of the "G'MIC guru" filters could be updated using the new functionality and syntax! But that is cumbersome.

On the other hand the "Gimp-G'MIC" community seems to be highly satisfied with the new interactive capabilities of the plugin. Interactivity is possibly not in the focus of filter programmers.

And there is the tremendous extension of the documentation of the G'MIC language by Gary Osgood and David. Which could be considered as an invitation to write own filters ..., possibly using the command interface directly without the limitations of the Gimp!

Ronounours · **Joined:** Jan 03, 2011 **Posts:** 1656

Hello dinasset, and all contributors

Some thoughts about this : As you may have noticed, G'MIC is a quite small project. I'm the only developer who code the "core" stuffs, and from the beginning I thought that I will stay alone for a while doing this. I was not wrong

I get "minor" contributions for the core code from time to time (bug reports, some code improvements), but it is very rare. And I'm not surprised at all, it is actually really hard for a new open source project to get external developers involved.
So, to maximize the chance of having code contributions, I've quickly created this 'filter update' system, where people can create and share their own filter quite easily through external sources. And fortunately, we had some people who put their hands in all this and created very nice filters. Thanks again dear contributors (you know who you are!

).
But this ease and independence of contributing also goes with a "drawback", which is the ease of stopping contributing

As filter coders are quite independent on the G'MIC core source code, once they get their filter working, they may want to move on to another goals (until a new idea for a new filter comes maybe, or for some other reasons).
Getting nice ideas for new filters is definitely not an easy task, and the more filter we have, the hardest it becomes.
And even if you have an idea, sometimes it can be quite hard to implement.
So, I'm not surprised either that people who wrote filters one day become quite silent after their filter have been integrated and advertised as they deserve it.
I'm not sure they will stop contributing, nor they do not read GimpChat anymore.
Maybe they are silent concerning G'MIC questions because they just feel someone else can answer G'MIC-specific technical questions (when you see the answers that Garry Osgood made to your questions, I understand this may be somehow intimidating

), or that they are looking for more flexible tools or whatever..
That's how I feel it, maybe I'm wrong.

In all case, I love you all, dear contributors for all the work you have already done on the G'MIC project either your quit or not :hugme

garagecoder · **Posted:** Mon Nov 10, 2014 8:33 am **(#12)**

Hi dinasset (and everyone else!)

I must confess to being a "lurker" for now, I still keep an eye on anything G'MIC related and the recent improvements are nothing short of amazing as usual

Alas my artistic side is mainly in music rather than art so it's rare I've got any other excuse to post here. But I do have dozens of things I want to fix/improve/update/add so I'm really hoping over winter I'll get the chance. In the meantime I'm very glad you keep up the interest in G'MIC!

dinasset · **Posted:** Mon Nov 10, 2014 9:35 am **(#13)**

karo03de wrote:

Hi dinasset,

I think G'MIC has made such a tremendous progress that it might be difficult to follow up adequately! I believe many of the "G'MIC guru" filters could be updated using the new functionality and syntax! But that is cumbersome.

On the other hand the "Gimp-G'MIC" community seems to be highly satisfied with the new interactive capabilities of the plugin. Interactivity is possibly not in the focus of filter programmers.

And there is the tremendous extension of the documentation of the G'MIC language by Gary Osgood and David. Which could be considered as an invitation to write own filters ..., possibly using the command interface directly without the limitations of the Gimp!

Hi Karo,
thanks for your comments.
It's certainly true that G'MIC can be fully exploited by using it standalone, but for a Windows user like me (I don't know which OS are you using), it's not very common to make use of a command line driven software, so until (who knows...) the G'MIC will stay lacking of the "trivial" windows approach (with all the other "trivial" nice possibilities which are implied in this approach), I will continue using Gimp+G'MIC.
Thus, I'm totally dependant from the gimp-G'MIC contributors, which "forced" me to post this topic.

dinasset · **Posted:** Mon Nov 10, 2014 9:42 am **(#14)**

Ronounours wrote:

Hello dinasset, and all contributors

Some thoughts about this : As you may have noticed, G'MIC is a quite small project. I'm the only developer who code the "core" stuffs, and from the beginning I thought that I will stay alone for a while doing this. I was not wrong

I get "minor" contributions for the core code from time to time (bug reports, some code improvements), but it is very rare. And I'm not surprised at all, it is actually really hard for a new open source project to get external developers involved.
So, to maximize the chance of having code contributions, I've quickly created this 'filter update' system, where people can create and share their own filter quite easily through external sources. And fortunately, we had some people who put their hands in all this and created very nice filters. Thanks again dear contributors (you know who you are!

).
But this ease and independence of contributing also goes with a "drawback", which is the ease of stopping contributing

As filter coders are quite independent on the G'MIC core source code, once they get their filter working, they may want to move on to another goals (until a new idea for a new filter comes maybe, or for some other reasons).
Getting nice ideas for new filters is definitely not an easy task, and the more filter we have, the hardest it becomes.
And even if you have an idea, sometimes it can be quite hard to implement.
So, I'm not surprised either that people who wrote filters one day become quite silent after their filter have been integrated and advertised as they deserve it.
I'm not sure they will stop contributing, nor they do not read GimpChat anymore.
Maybe they are silent concerning G'MIC questions because they just feel someone else can answer G'MIC-specific technical questions (when you see the answers that Garry Osgood made to your questions, I understand this may be somehow intimidating

), or that they are looking for more flexible tools or whatever..
That's how I feel it, maybe I'm wrong.

In all case, I love you all, dear contributors for all the work you have already done on the G'MIC project either your quit or not :hugme

Thanks, David!
I hope that those valid contributors who enriched Gimp-G'MIC sofar will have some "backfire" (I don't know whether this term, translated literaly from Italian, can be used in English as it is here, i.e. also for something you loved and return to love)
Spes ultima dea

dinasset · **Posted:** Mon Nov 10, 2014 9:49 am **(#15)**

garagecoder wrote:

Hi dinasset (and everyone else!)

I must confess to being a "lurker" for now, I still keep an eye on anything G'MIC related and the recent improvements are nothing short of amazing as usual

Alas my artistic side is mainly in music rather than art so it's rare I've got any other excuse to post here. But I do have dozens of things I want to fix/improve/update/add so I'm really hoping over winter I'll get the chance. In the meantime I'm very glad you keep up the interest in G'MIC!

Hence: Happy Winter! for us certainly, for you hopefully!
Thanks GC.
Just today I tried to understand piece by piece your "gcd_sharpen_tones" and also made personal additions (stolen here and there) to create my "gimp_sharpenhance_photo" filter...

Iain · **Joined:** Feb 13, 2013 **Posts:** 86

Well since you've all been so nice. :tyspin

I will let you play with a filter I am working on. :paint

It called savenoiseprint at the moment and should appear in my testing folder soon

The filter takes a noisy image and a denoised version and attempts to find the details the noise reduction missed.

Quote:

This filter requires 2 images as input, the bottom image should be noisey and the top image should be the same image only with some kind of noise reduction.
You need to do 2 passes of this filter to get the results. The first pass analyses the residual noise and creates a noise print and saves it to your computer. On the 1st pass you can click apply and the noise print will be generated after a while. When that has finished switch to 2nd pass and adjust the Detail Threshold to your liking and hit okay or apply

This is a dramatic example (look at it at full size) because the blur removes all of the details. A better noise reduction method would keep more details to start with and so there would be less to recover.

dinasset · **Posted:** Tue Nov 11, 2014 1:24 am **(#17)**

Wonderful, Iain!
I will play with it soon, thanks a lot and a warm welcome back!

garagecoder · **Posted:** Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:14 pm **(#18)**

Just to keep my hand in there's a new "emboss" filter under my testing folder. Been meaning to add it in for ages now anyway

Ronounours · **Joined:** Jan 03, 2011 **Posts:** 1656

Thanks Dinasset, it looks like you are a perfect "contributor booster"

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12834

Iain wrote:

Well since you've all been so nice. :tyspin

I will let you play with a filter I am working on. :paint

It called savenoiseprint at the moment and should appear in my testing folder soon

The filter takes a noisy image and a denoised version and attempts to find the details the noise reduction missed.

Quote:

This filter requires 2 images as input, the bottom image should be noisey and the top image should be the same image only with some kind of noise reduction.
You need to do 2 passes of this filter to get the results. The first pass analyses the residual noise and creates a noise print and saves it to your computer. On the 1st pass you can click apply and the noise print will be generated after a while. When that has finished switch to 2nd pass and adjust the Detail Threshold to your liking and hit okay or apply

[ Image ]

This is a dramatic example (look at it at full size) because the blur removes all of the details. A better noise reduction method would keep more details to start with and so there would be less to recover.

Very cool preset Iain.