Cropping photos (Astronomy, Graphics & Video Software [WAS: VMWare / Wine))

[Jeffrey F. Bloss]

Patton Echols wrote:

> > That works - Picasa is a little easier & userfriendly. For any real
> > photo work I prefer Gimp.
> >   
> 
> Yes, that's what folks keep saying.  But did you find the learning
> curve steep?  

Having had a little experience with Photoshop, Fractal Painter, PSP,
and about a dozen other lesser known imaging software and layout
applications on both Windows and *nix, I feel Gimp has a comparatively
mild learning curve. Somewhat less than Fractal, similar to Photoshop
and PSP, and certainly nothing like Blender. But then that's no more a
fair comparison than you calling Gimp "unintuitive" simply because
you're use to different or "lesser" software. 

> I confess that the only thing I have tried with my
> linux install is a simple crop.  It took three tries to get an even
> psuedo-acceptable result, I finally figured out that you can't
> "select" an area and then crop the selection; you have to use the

Nonsense. Any of the three selection tools can be used to define an
area to be cropped to, which you do from the Image menu. Simple as pie.
The crop tool merely gives you more refined control over size and
position, aspect ratio, etc.

> crop tool, then navigate past the unexpected and counterproductive
> behavior.  My other Gimp experience is with an install under WinXp.
> Very very frustrating.  I never figured out how to do anything at all
> with a "selection" except "cut"

Almost every operation that's not not on the image or layer menus (and
some that are), almost every brush, as well as a considerable number of
scripts and "plug ins", restrict their influence to a selected area
when one exists. IOW, it's a little harder to find things *not* to do
to a selected region than it is to find things you *can* do.

> and then once you have selected
> something that selection drawing just stays there forever . . .

I can think of think of three ways to deselect off the top of my head.
Selecting another region (or selecting a region of zero pixels by just
clicking outside the selection), invoking Select -> None from the
menus, or a hotkey combination... SHIFT+ALT+A if my memory is worth
anything (doubtful), but it's noted in the menus anyway.

> <sigh>  But then this is a conversation for a Gimp forum, not here
> (but thanks for letting me "vent.")

You're probably better off here. I can almost hear the sort of "RTFM!"
replies you be getting from a bunch of real Gimp users... :(

-- 
     _?_      Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
    (o o)         Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-oOO-(_)--OOo------------------------------[ Groucho Marx ]---
                    http://wrench.homelinux.net/~jeff/
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