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Digital Photography and Linux

Issue 150

From Issue #150
October 2006

Oct 01, 2006  By Adrian Klaver
 in
A primer for various digital photography programs available for Linux.
CinePaint

As mentioned previously, CinePaint is a fork of The GIMP. The program was developed to meet the needs of image retouchers in the movie industry. One of the requirements was the ability to work with high-resolution images. Consequently, CinePaint has native support for RAW images and other high-bit formats. The trade-off is the inability to use GIMP plugins. There is work in progress to correct this, but it is in the development branch of the project. Still, the program shares many features with The GIMP, so if you are looking for some fairly advanced editing of high-bit images, it is a simple step up (Figure 10).

Figure 10. CinePaint with Same Image as Shown in Figure 9

Conclusion

It is possible for a relative beginner to work with digital images in Linux. The tools exist, and if not installed by default, are readily available. My personal work flow is to use XSane for scanning my print and slide collection, digiKam for bringing in images from my digital camera and The GIMP for retouching images. This article has touched on the basics of the programs explored. See the on-line Resources for a wealth of documentation for those who want to delve deeper.

Versions of Software Discussed in This Article

  • The GIMP 2.2.8

  • CinePaint 0.19-1

  • digiKam 0.7.2

  • F-Spot 0.1.3

  • Kooka 0.44

  • XSane 0.97

  • gimp-ufraw 0.5

The Lowdown on RAW files

RAW images are, in essence, digital negatives. They represent the uncorrected output of the digital camera sensor. As such, they contain more photo information than a processed JPEG. For instance, a RAW will have bit depth of 12–14 per color versus that of 8 for a JPEG. The result is an image that allows for more editing opportunities. The downside is that this information increases the size of the files, so fewer images will fit on a memory card.

Resources for this article: /article/9196.

Adrian Klaver is a Linux enthusiast with an interest in photography and a desire to make the former work with the latter.

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Adrian Klaver, having found Python, is on a never-ending quest to explore just how far it can take him.

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