I’m a photographer and am looking for an application to do what I can in Photoshop. perhaps add a repository to my yast software to install it or whatever. I haven’t used opensuse in ages and it seems very improved
any help would be great
BTW, my external HDD is in NTFS and dolphin rocks!
Do you know about GIMP? If not try it. you do not need to add any repo for that, just install from Yast if it is not already installed…
You can run Photoshop in wine if you want follow the link in my signature
/Geoff
Photo and design studio here. After playing with gimp a few weeks I have no idea what gimp does. Photoshop user since PS3 on mac, linux for e-mail. Stay with Photoshop, yes pricy, but in the biz PS makes the images magic. 
Why don’t you use GNU Image Manipulation Program. It’s a great tools to edit your image. Or you ca install photoshop via wine. Install wine from yast, and then install your photoshop.
Gimp is quite limited for photographers, e.g. no 16-Bit per channel capability.
The original post was back in June 2009. Why resurrect this dead thread now? A pet peeve perhaps?
I use gimp. I’m not a photographer, and I do not need 16-bit per channel capability.
I do recall there are plans to add 16-bit to Gimp (with my having read something back in Feb 2009), but I do not know the current status …
I note this from a graphic site:
GIMP Deep Color: patch for 16-bit support of PNG | The Artist’s Guide to GIMP Effects
I note this from the gimp faq:
GIMP - Documentation - 16bit:
When can we see 16-bit per channel support (or better)?
For some industries, especially photography, 24-bit colour depths (8 bits per channel) are a real barrier to entry. Once again, it’s GEGL to the rescue. Work on integrating GEGL into GIMP will begin after 2.4 is released. Once that work is completed, GIMP will support 16 bits per channel. If you need such support now and can’t wait, CinePaint and Krita support 16 bits per channel now.It should be noted that for publishing to the web, the current GIMP release is good enough.
… but I’m still puzzling over this resurrection of an old dead thread.
I’m a photographer and need 16-Bit.
Current status: Gimp-2.6 doesn’t support 16Bit, the dev version 2.7 doesn’t support it, therefore version 2.8 won’t have it.
What we will get in 2.8. can be found here:
Tutorial: Preview: GIMP 2.8 - the new features - gimpusers.com
@oldcpu (Global Moderator):
The topic is not dead at all and as long as the thread is open it is certainly allowed to reply, isn’t it ? If you don’t want this, lock the thread, please.
Some versions of photoshop will work under wine
WineHQ - Photoshop 6.0
@steve09224 This is not about locking a thread.
But note the thread was originally to help user chrisj1968.
IMHO you would have been better served with a title that states exactly what you wished to discuss, … perhaps "Status of Gimp 16-bit support ?? " as opposed to “I am a photographer”. The latter will NOT IMHO grab the attention of the experts who only skim thru thread titles.
My intention was to help the user who opened the thread, even when it is a few months old. I guess he still around … he stated that he is a photographer and wants an application where he can do the same like in Photoshop, right ?
Some forum users recommended wine with PS: might work but I haven’t tested it because I don’t own a copy of PS.
Others recommended Gimp. My reply was: no 16 bit support in Gimp (not now and not in the near future), not suitable for a serious photographer who, perhaps, is shooting RAW images with twelve or fourteen bit and want max quality.
Anyway, why I consider 16 bits essential, even for users with just 8 bit output (web, etc.), one can read on just two pages here: www.colorfolio.com/infobase/16bit.pdf
I do a bit of photography myself and if I need to do pixel editing, I convert my .NEF (raw) to .TIF and open in Photoshop, but my version is CS2 and that won’t run on Windows 7 64bit. Anyway, I prefer GIMP, but it is only 8bit, and hurts.:’( I will be so glad when we have full 16bit GIMP. I’ll be in hog heaven.
I looked at that and it says:
Even if a print made with today’s output technology does not
make visible the differences, it is inevitable that manufacturers will begin to take advantage of the proliferation of 16 bit files by making their printers capable of outputting them without conversion to 8 bit. By converting to a 16 bit workflow now, you will be ready for the time when this is a reality.
Can’t see a compelling reason why 99% of people, even photographers, can’t manage with the GIMP for 99% of their work.
And another thing:
If you don’t own a copy of PS how come you are so sure? Many photographers who, unlike you, actually use PS stick with 8bit for most jobs because it’s quicker and makes no difference. Photographers as such don’t need 16bit if they make good photos to start with, the issues between 8bit and 16bit arise with too much processing, often to do with trying to turn poor photos into usable ones. It’s also an issue for post-processing print professionals because, although 16bits makes absolutely no difference in terms of output (your point relating to the web etc is irrelevant because even National Geographic uses 8bit technology), it does give more post-processing options (I won’t go into the intracacies of RGB v CMYK here). But not for most photographers as photographers.
You make it sound as though 8bit editing doesn’t do justice to photography. Well it does as anything beyond that is neither visible to the eye or makes any difference to printed output. It is, I repeat, “merely” a question of the potential damage done by editing. If the photo is good enough, no worries. If the demand on the printed output is modest (ie no more than glossy magazine standard…), no worries. In fact, in most real-life situations, no worries.
But as you don’t even use Photoshop you’ve probably picked up some technobabble on the web and don’t really understand the practical issues of photography and colour reproduction anyway. So there’s little point in mentioning, for example, that most photographers work visually rather than from historgrams, and that means working from screens which are never more than 8bits (and often poorly calibrated at that). Or that the most important issue if working for printed output is calibrating your editing screen to the output device, not technobabble about bits.
Disclaimer: of course, 16bits is better than 8bits. But to say that “photographers” can’t possibly work with the GIMP because it’s 8bits per channel is just ignorant pseudo-technical willie-waving that doesn’t relate to real-life issues. And if you don’t use PS yourself, how would you know anything about this?
I became interested reading this thread.
Does anybody know a way for me to see the difference between the same scene photographed in 12-14 bits and edited in 8 and 16 bits?
Hmm, might be you’ve overlooked a few things while reading or you haven’t understood the issue in detail:
Furthermore: my scan service supports already 16 bit per channel.
Partly agreed: 99% of the Gimp users can do 99% of their work with Gimp. But not photographers: 99% of the them don’t use Gimp at all. One of the reasons - there are more which you can find in the Gimp user forums - is the discussed bits-per-channel issue.
All major image editing applications in the Win and Mac world support 16 bit per channel for years. Certainly not only for fun or pure marketing purposes rather than for image quality reasons. Gimp is on its way to address this well known limitation. But not in the near future, unfortunately.
To address the thread’s original question: IMO, Gimp cannot be recommended for photographers. Not yet.
@Günter: I use Bibble, RAW-Converter to 16 Bit, with a bunch of noise reduction and editing plugins. PS is not the only application which supports 16 bit.
The difference is not visible as such because all output formats are limited to 8bits anyway. But a lot of editing can be more visible in the end product with 8bit files, simply because each step in editing a photo destroys data, and 16bits gives you more to play with in the first place. Also depends on the editing of course, it’s unlikely to make any difference at all with cropping 
Yes I understand that but as your article itself admits, the gaps in the histogram are unlikely to make any difference to the printed output.
- look at the summary which talks about “archiving”. Why does a pro or semi-pro photographer, who shoots in RAW with 12 or 14 Bit, should archive his precious image originals in a limited 8 bit format ? Archiving in the proprietary RAW formats of the camera vendors is no mid- or long-term option.
I have no issues with that, I’m not saying 16bits isn’t desirable to have. My point was:
Partly agreed: 99% of the Gimp users can do 99% of their work with Gimp.
That’s a lot, whereas the thread title and your posts suggest that “photographers” cannot use the GIMP. Well they used PS for years and it only acquired 16bit abilities with the CS edition. It all depends on what you mean by “photographers”: most (even most pros) don’t NEED 16bits to produce high-quality photos fpor high-quality output although it’s good to have it of course. Most pros have PS anyway, and I wouldn’t argue that PS is not superior to the GIMP, in more ways than the 8bit/16bit issue. But I do object to people jumping in, purely on the grounds of technical specs, to say that “photographers” can’t use the GIMP.
To address the thread’s original question: IMO, Gimp cannot be recommended for photographers. Not yet.
Well I politely disagree for all the reasons given. I wouldn’t recommend it over Photoshop either for those who have the choice, but I’d insist it makes a pretty good alternative for 99% of photographers who for some reason don’t have the choice.
Bibble looks interesting though I haven’t tried it myself as I do have Photoshop (CS2 and CS3, both legal licences of course), and Bibble is also proprietary closed source.