Krita 1.6 — State of the Art 212
brendan0powers writes to tell us Linux.com is reporting that while Krita 1.6 may have been released with the rest of the KOffice suite this week it is anything but a run-of-the-mill piece of productivity software. Krita is a 'fully-loaded raster graphics workhorse' definitely capable of standing up to most anything else available. Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
One of the more useful KDE apps (Score:4, Informative)
Hidden Gem (Score:4, Informative)
You don't hear about Krita nearly as often as The GIMP (or, of course, Photoshop), but it seems to be a great alternative. I can't speak for graphics professionals (not being one myself), but it gets the job done for what I need to do. I look forward to this new version, and I hope development continues on this hidden gem of an image editor.
Re:what about RAW photo formats? (Score:5, Informative)
What options are there to edit RAW photo files under Linux?
As with all *nix stuff, the RAW handling is done by a separate component. Investigate UFRaw [sourceforge.net] and DCRaw [cybercom.net]. UFRaw even has a plugin for the GIMP that works well. As an amateur photographer I use and highly recommend UFRaw.
Tried it (Score:4, Informative)
Very slow and clunky. Ugly as sin. Memory use a-go-go. Irritating KDE-style one-click interface for the file selector. Indispensable for its ability to handle CMYK and 16+bit.
I don't need it often and I'm always glad to close it afterwards, but until the Gimp handles 16bit at least for its working space, there's no way to live without it and do photo-manip under Linux.
Re:GTK port of Krita (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tried it (Score:2, Informative)
2. Ugly as sin? That's probably a function of your KDE theme. Redhat/fedora STILL deliberately mangles KDE to look and work like ass. Never use a kde package built by redhat or fedora...
3. Slow and clunky? Well, I dunno. Certain things do seem plain slower to process than the gimp, but only things that kind of interrupt workflow anyway (filter application). Less mature code -> less performance tuning, probably. But the fact the interface doesn't actually suck makes up for it
I do hate one _major_ thing about it, something the GIMP does vaguely right: in the gimp, every xinput device's brush selection etc. is independent. So my "eraser" on my stylus can be a blobby eraser brush, and the stylus nib a thin line. Krita munges them all together. This is probably beginner-friendly or something, but it's the one reason I still fire up the gimp to sketch in, despite the fact the gimp is "for" photo retouching, and krita has more of a from-scratch-art orientation ?! Sigh #2.
Re:what about RAW photo formats? (Score:3, Informative)
What options are there to edit RAW photo files under Linux? Does Krita handle those format(s)?
There are several, and yes, Krita does, too.
I probably missed one or two tools. In addition, there are lots of variants of dcraw floating around with different option sets. I sometimes use one by Robert Krawitz that has option sets focused on making it possible to get from RAW to paper (using one of the very high quality Gutenprint inkjet drivers) with no loss in image quality or dynamic range. The results are far better than you can get out of any commercial print lab that I know of (most of them don't even accept anything other than 24bpp JPEGs, meaning you *must* compress the dynamic range before they print it, even though many printers can handle greater color depths).
To summarize: Yes, you can convert RAW images on Linux, even with purely Free software, and you can get excellent results, as good as you can on Windows or OS X. It may take a little more effort, though. Looking forward to when the GIMP moves to the GEGL engine, or when Krita gets faster and more full-featured, RAW conversion will be as good or better on Linux than any other platform.
Re:finally! (Score:5, Informative)
What I'm saying is that anyone who would need 8/16 CMYK editing and profiling would still be left empty handed by the Linux world. Before anyone starts getting on my back about Scribus and 'save to PDF' crap, get out in the real world. When your dealing with printers with very specific PDF requirements, you need the customisability provided by Distiller. When they send you a colour profile to work with, It needs to be a easy as hitting Load Colour Space in Indesign. I guarantee they will not send a Scribus compatible file. And finally about Scribus - it is not the defacto industry standard.
Therefore, if you need a raster editor for Linux, you are almost guaranteed of not needing it for the print world - except for a minuscule amount of people - and can do with anything like Gimp which is sufficiently advanced for that sort of work, ie web work, backgrounds, avatars, etcetera...
My Two Cents
Terence Boylen
Production Manager
The Record Newspaper.
(Perth Western Australia)
Re:what about RAW wounds? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why is being KDE important? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Okay, random questions... (Score:2, Informative)
2) It should be pretty good, we spent a lot of time making it possible to draw with different pressure curves for darkness, size and opacity. It is also possible to have a different current tool for your mouse, eraser and stylus (I tend to draw with the mouse set to pan and the stylus to brush). Oh, and the "paint directly checkbox" should fix your issues with the brush tool.
3) Gimp and Krita use the same gradients, patterns and brushes. File format exchange is problematic, hence the OpenRaster effort that is being spearheaded by Cyrille Berger for Krita and Oyvind Kolas for Gegl.