The GIMP and Adjustment Layers

[23dornot23d]

I find it extremely difficult to understand what you say.

I asked for an example ....






I will try to put it more clearly ..... post an example a photo .... a picture .....

Then post the modifications ...... that you think that I cannot achieve .....

Simple as ...........

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or post a link to a XCF file with all the layers in it .......

or even a PSD file if all you use is Photoshop ...........

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If this is too confusing or you have difficulty posting links or photos - I will help you do that.

as I do it on a regular basis , everyday HERE

[prokoudine]

I asked for an example ....
I will try to put it more clearly ..... post an example a photo .... a picture .....
Then post the modifications ...... that you think that I cannot achieve .....

What? Ever? For?

You have a project with several layers. You want you tweak curves for all of them. So you group them in one layer group and add an adjustment layer with curves. You tweak curves, export to JPEG or TIFF and give it to someone. If that someone tells you that you should have gone easier on highlights, you just reopen that PSD, double-click on the adjustment layer and tweak just one node. That's all.

To adjust changes done in GIMP before, right now you would have to

1) Use "Create from visible' all the time
2) After reopening — delete or make invisible the layer with changes
3) Create a new layer from visible
4) Reconstruct the curve you were editing from scratch or, in case of 2.7, try to figure out which one in the automatically saved one is the one you need.

I already explained that before. What do you need a picture with example for?

[23dornot23d]

You have now explained it in more detail and your explanation makes more sense .... now.

Thank you for taking the time out to explain it ......

But to me the only person I am trying to please is me .... when I do an edit ....

I rarely need to go back and re alter things to suit someone else .....

This is good if you are a professional wanting to please a client ....... and then having to go back and re-do things because they
were not done to the other persons satisfaction.

This is no big deal for me........ and is definitely not the size of Texas ........

But I thank you for your time ....... and will look forward to seeing how they help me in the future ......

[Cranio]

Dear sir,

you are underestimating the importance of adjustment layers.

It's the *way* you work with the image that becomes completely different.

- It's easier to tweak every adjustment
- You can try and compare on the fly different adjustments to see which is better without saving/loading/undoing/redoing

Most of all:

You can stack different adjustment types (ex. "Levels" underneath a color adjustment), and you can tweak any adjustment at any level of the stack, and when you come to many levels of adjustment with selection mask, the difference in workflow is HUGE,

Let's say I have an image: i correct the Curves (1) and then Colors (2) and then select a part and make it Grayscale (3).

Without adjustment layers, you have to rebuild the whole chain: UNDO Grayscale, storing the selection mark in some way, UNDO Colors, TRY to remember settings or write them, UNDO Curvers, REAPPLY Curves, REAPPLY Colors, RESELECT mask, REAPPLY Grayscale

With adjustment layers: Simply change curves settings

[23dornot23d]

Thank you for the reply .....

As I already said I will look forward to the adjustment layers ......

At this moment in time I am not having to re-adjust or change anything as I work
...... and if I undo something its only the last thing I did .

Why would I need to undo everything to apply a curve to one layer at the bottom of the stack ........ unless of course I made a bad judgement when doing something at the start ..... In which case they may be handy ...... but I would have been failing to do my job properly if I missed something early on.

As of this moment in time I have never needed them and if it is such a HUGE problem to my workflow ........ then my workflow would be slow and awkward .

At this present time my workflow is smooth and fast ....... and I really enjoy editing photos.

If adjustment layers adds to my enjoyment and makes my workflow so much easier - then I may well revisit this thread and then thank you for pointing out what I am missing.

( It does feel a little like a guy pulling up next to me in a Porsche and saying look if you had a car like mine you would have all this extra luxury ......
But the point is - my vehicle still gets me from A to B ..... and whether or not all that extra luxury is needed is another matter . )

I am pretty sure that you use Photoshop as you seem to know all about what adjustment layers can be used for ...... as Gimp does not have them at this present time ........ but as I said its no real problem to me.

But I will look forward to them ........

[Cranio]

Thank you for the reply .....

As I already said I will look forward to the adjustment layers ......

At this moment in time I am not having to re-adjust or change anything as I work
...... and if I undo something its only the last thing I did .

Why would I need to undo everything to apply a curve to one layer at the bottom of the stack ........ unless of course I made a bad judgement when doing something at the start ..... In which case they may be handy ...... but I would have been failing to do my job properly if I missed something early on.

Yeah, I think it's fair and I'm non stating at all that you work in a wrong or otherwise unuseful way. If it seemed like that I apologize, sir

But I still don't agree at all on what you are saying.

Sometimes, you just have to tweak values afterwards, it's not necessarily a sign of bad workflow or bad judgement or a bad job. Expecially in cases in which many layers have a sort of influence one on the other.
Or in cases (very common in basic photo-retouching) in which you have to tweak adjustments and masks.

Main things is, it is a sort of philosphy, an evolution of the way we work with things called non-destructive editing (f.ex., average-to-advanced audio and video recording software work ALL also with this kind of paradigm).

As of this moment in time I have never needed them and if it is such a HUGE problem to my workflow ........ then my workflow would be slow and awkward .

At this present time my workflow is smooth and fast ....... and I really enjoy editing photos.

If adjustment layers adds to my enjoyment and makes my workflow so much easier - then I may well revisit this thread and then thank you for pointing out what I am missing.

( It does feel a little like a guy pulling up next to me in a Porsche and saying look if you had a car like mine you would have all this extra luxury ......
But the point is - my vehicle still gets me from A to B ..... and whether or not all that extra luxury is needed is another matter . )

Not quite, it's more like ... geez I hate those parallellisms ... like when you work wood and have to sand by hand, then a guy shows up and tells "hey man, you woodwork is really nice and good, and you seem expert in what you do and I'm sure you're really good at it, but how about giving a try to this set of electric sanding machine?", and imagine a set of machines that makes you work smoother and faster and less prone to errors and with more creative possibilities that can be tried in a very fast way.

Point is, with GIMP we could have those set of sanding devices for free

Please don't misunderstand, I'm just trying to explain the enormous benefits of this technique/feature, I'm not bashing your knowledge or skills in any way or trying to convince you

[23dornot23d]

Thanks ....

I can see that you were being helpful now ..... and one thing that I did pick up from what you said earlier that is quite important is being able to judge any difference between how we change something compared to the original work - or even between layers if we save as I do - every so often I take a snapshot and keep it as a layer,

( The way I have learned to work with Gimp - could be compared to always keeping something to fall back to at a earlier stage of the edit ..... if you do need to recover something ..... so I never lose the possibility of dropping back and altering things - should I need to. - this is done by creating a copy of everything visible at certain stages through the edit ... usually where you do major alterations ..... and you might want to step back and try it a different way ...... the way I work means you can still do this )


What I would like to see as well is a Split screen half and half ..... half showing the original work and half showing the modification.
( at the moment with gimp you can have two windows open and see it especially if you have a dual screen its more helpful )

Now that to me would be handy for most users ..... as well as the Adjustment layers , I do look forward to seeing what they can do.

I will check for a plugin .... it always amazes me with Gimp .... what else is available.


There are lots of addons that are not initially seen by the people - who do not use Gimp on a regular basis.


When I first started using Gimp with only the basic menu - I saw no real worries about things being complex and even felt that maybe Gimp was not that powerful a tool ..... but when you download such as Mathmap the nodes addon - plus the GMIC set of tools .... FxFoundary ... SriptFu ....... then it becomes quite a different animal ......

I have also picked up many other scripts along the way .... adjustment layers is not one that I have seen - but there are others like difference layers .....
Also one for layer groups which I believe to be similar to photoshop in some respects ...... and PSPI for paintshop plugins like GMLmatting so it does end up being quite a powerful tool.

If you like art like I do and have a wacom or G-pen you can also load up GPS Gimp Paint Shop .... which does alter it quite a bit ..... but this is
towards Arty things more than photoshop .....

What happened with me was I work alongside someone that uses Photoshop .... and the way it as worked is I try to reproduce anything that he can produce ..... if that means going and finding addons to do it then I have done it - but in the long process of doing this over the last few years , there is little I feel would worry me.

And as I said earlier I really do enjoy working with photos and editing ..... so all in all to me its not work but fun ......

But thank you for the kind words and nice reply ..... as I say I will look forward to the adjustment layers , maybe it will be like a power sander when I get it .......

But I have also seen what a Power sander can do in the wrong hands ...... where a block and a piece of sandpaper has been quite adequate ...... and destroyed less of that fine finish when the user makes a slip in the wrong direction with it ........

Ok its been interesting reading your reply and hopefully I will get some enormous benefits
from the adjustment layer feature once it has been added.

Thank you ....

[Cranio]

Thanks ....
Can see that you were being helpful now ..... and one thing that I did pick up from what you said earlier that is quite important is being able to judge any difference between how we change something compared to the original work - or even between layers if we save as I do - every so often I take a snapshot and keep it as a layer,

Right. Also, by undoing or taking snapshot, you often lose the perspective on very subtle changes that can make your work really outstanding.

Second things, these special layers can be grouped... very handy to toggle them on/off or create variations to compare.

( The way I have learned to work with Gimp - could be compared to always keeping something to fall back to at a earlier stage of the edit ..... if you do need to recover something ..... so I never lose the possibility of dropping back and altering things - should I need to. - this is done by creating a copy of everything visible at certain stages through the edit ... usually where you do major alterations ..... and you might want to step back and try it a different way ...... the way I work means you can still do this )

And that was the way I always worked with Photoshop (and the way I work now with gimp) before discovering the whole thing.

There is also another very important issue: every color alteration can produce a slight reduction of the number of the colors in the image. So if your images come with 8-bit color information, applying every adjustment (as in GIMP) could lead to worse results than calculating dinamically these adjustment in a more broad color space in your RAM.

What I would like to see as well is a Split screen half and half ..... half showing the original work and half showing the modification.
Now that to me would be handy ..... as well as the Adjustment layers , I do look forward to seeing what they can do.
I will check for a plugin .... it always amazes me with Gimp .... what else is available.
There are lots of addons that are not initially seen by the people - who do not use Gimp on a regular basis.

Yeah and I'm, still discovering the whole potential of the program as an ex PS user.
But a feature such as the adj. layers pertains to the very core of the software, so I hope to see this implemented soon to totally abandon Photoshop.
I feel really that GIMP misses that only things to be really competitive.

Ok its been interesting reading your reply and hopefully I will get some enormous benefits
from the adjustment layer feature once it has been added.
Thank you ....

Thanks to you, you're welcome

[23dornot23d]

There is also another very important issue: every color alteration can produce a slight reduction of the number of the colors in the image. So if your images come with 8-bit color information, applying every adjustment (as in GIMP) could lead to worse results than calculating dinamically these adjustment in a more broad color space in your RAM.

You have hit the nail on the head here ..... the 8 bit editing in Gimp is its main draw back.
I did not realise it degrades while adjusting from layer to layer ,,, though as this is still in memory ...... are you sure about this ?

It definately does if you go from JPG to JPG .... but we save as XCF to stop them degrading.
My final save is always as a JPG for posting on the web though .... even photoshop has to do this .... to keep the filesize low for the forum limits.

Once they change this I would feel confident to compete with anyone .... and I am sure that with time this will come .... GIMP V3.0 is when it happens ...

Here is what the Gimp menu looks like with the additional addons and things I use .....



Obviously its more important what options are in the drop downs for each one ......... but there are a lot of good ones now .....

I just hope that the developers retain them in the new version .......

[Cranio]

You have hit the nail on the head here ..... the 8 bit editing in Gimp is its main draw back.
I did not realise it degrades while adjusting from layer to layer ,,, though as this is still in memory ...... are you sure about this ?

It definately does if you go from JPG to JPG .... but we save as XCF to stop them degrading.
My final save is always as a JPG for posting on the web though .... even photoshop has to do this .... to keep the filesize low for the forum limits.

Once they change this I would feel confident to compete with anyone .... and I am sure that with time this will come .... GIMP V3.0 is when it happens ...

Yes but I was talking about a different and more subtle issue, just have a look here, when it comes about "banding", it explains well what happens:

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/p...stment-layers/