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

[Patton Echols]

On 02/25/2007 04:06 PM, Rob Unsworth wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Feb 2007, Patton Echols wrote:
>
>   
>> Yes, that's what folks keep saying.  But did you find the learning curve 
>>     

> You can crop images in the Gimp by selecting the area then cropping. Once 
> the area has been selected it is simply Image -> Crop Image  Now what is 
> hard about that.
>   

Nothing at all . . . if it works.  And I went back just now and tried 
it.  WooHoo! So why did it not work the other day?  Well, probably 
because I did something wrong.  But what? I have no idea.  Should I have 
looked in the "Image" section?  Sure, but cropping is a tool, right?  
There is a crop tool in that menu, but at least for me, it didn't work 
when I already had something selected . . . and then when I found the 
item in the "image" menu, that didn't work either, maybe because I had 
attempted to apply the other crop tool incorrectly . . .

> This is a classic case of someone spending years learning an OS or 
> application then switching to another OS/app and complaining because there 
> is a similar learning curve as with the previous OS/app
>   

Well, not quite.  I never spent that much time learning the windows 
photo editor.  The fairly simple things I wanted to do, were pretty 
straightforward.  (Like only one crop tool)  But that program was also 
fairly simple.  One of the reasons for my interest in linux is the 
availabliity of high powered applications like the Gimp, w/o having to 
pay a kilobuck for the one program.  I knew the learning curve would be 
there, but I confess to being frustrated.  Apparently not that 
uncommon.  This text is from the Gimp help file:

==== Quoted====
All right, okay: you're stuck. You're trying to use one of the tools on 
an image, and nothing is happening, and nothing you try makes any 
difference. Your fists are starting to clench, and your face is starting 
to feel warm. Are you going to have to kill the program, and lose all 
your work? This sucks!

Well, hold on a second. This happens pretty frequently, even to people 
who've used the GIMP for a long time, but generally the cause is not so 
hard to figure out (and fix) if you know what to look at. Lets be calm, 
and go through a checklist that will probably get you GIMPing happily again.
====End Quote====


> What I can't understand, you are working with images yet you aparently 
> haven't even looked in the "Image" menu.
>
>   
As I mentioned, I thought I was looking for a tool, I eventually did 
look in the right place, just in the wrong order, and apparently got 
stuck.  So now I need to do some reading so that I don't do that again.
  While we're on the subject, why can't I make a selection by going to 
the "select" menu?  Oh right, because it's a tool. ;-)

Thanks for your thoughts,
Patton