Open Source Creative Tools

[Sam I Am]

One thing I've noticed is that there is tons of free and open source software out there and there are so many people that know nothing about them. Many seem to think that they are only available on Linux. This isn't true. Many of these applications also run on Mac OSX and Windows.

The following video is from Redhat's Fedora team I believe. As I noted though, many of the media applications she lists are also available on Windows and Mac OSX. To top it off, there are usually hoards of "How Tos" videos on Youtube and other locations on the web on how to use them.

I just wanted to share this with everyone. You don't have to pay out the ying yang to do some very cool stuff with media.

Enjoy.

[JonJon]

Great vid. I already have Gimp and I go to it before Photoshop CS5 in some circumstances.

[Signals]

I ran across Gimp about a month ago and was pretty excited about it until I tried to use the color tools in the program. Typically color tools are fairly straight forward and easy to figure out, but Gimp's color tools were way-over-the-top-and-pathetically-impossible-to-use. I just wasn't willing to jump through that many hoops to change one color. Unless the program didn't install correctly, I don't recommend it.

Thanks the the video though, I will have to check some of these others out. Opensource.com looks like a very useful site.

[Sam I Am]

Originally Posted by Signals

I ran across Gimp about a month ago and was pretty excited about it until I tried to use the color tools in the program. Typically color tools are fairly straight forward and easy to figure out, but Gimp's color tools were way-over-the-top-and-pathetically-impossible-to-use. I just wasn't willing to jump through that many hoops to change one color. Unless the program didn't install correctly, I don't recommend it.

Thanks the the video though, I will have to check some of these others out. Opensource.com looks like a very useful site.

You are probably used to a different way of doing things. This is common for Photoshop users that try Gimp. Not everything works the exact same way.

I would suggest you check out some tutorials. They will help ease the learning curve. Even first time Photoshop users have difficulty learning to use Photoshop.

[Signals]

Originally Posted by Sam I Am

You are probably used to a different way of doing things. This is common for Photoshop users that try Gimp. Not everything works the exact same way.

I would suggest you check out some tutorials. They will help ease the learning curve. Even first time Photoshop users have difficulty learning to use Photoshop.

This is probably true.

[Signals]

Originally Posted by JonJon

Great vid. I already have Gimp and I go to it before Photoshop CS5 in some circumstances.

JonJon, what do you think about Gimp's color tools?

[arglebargle]

Open source stuff tends to suffer from poor user interfaces. Never let the engineers or programmers design the GUI.

The best GUIs allow you to customize things to accommodate your workflow preferences: The worst ones are locked in to someone else's idea of the perfect arrangement. Especially if they are the engineer/programmer.

[trickblue]

Originally Posted by arglebargle

Open source stuff tends to suffer from poor user interfaces. Never let the engineers or programmers design the GUI.

The best GUIs allow you to customize things to accommodate your workflow preferences: The worst ones are locked in to someone else's idea of the perfect arrangement. Especially if they are the engineer/programmer.

QFT...

[Sam I Am]

Originally Posted by arglebargle

Open source stuff tends to suffer from poor user interfaces. Never let the engineers or programmers design the GUI.

While this is true about some open source apps, it definitely doesn't apply to them all.

Gimp definitely suffered from this for a while. With the release of 2.8, at least they now offer an SDI.

There are many other open source apps that have very good GUIs. Just don't try to use anything I wrote.