[ Thanks to Bonnie
Greene for this link. ]
“As the author of The Artist’s Guide to the GIMP, Hammel is a
recognized authority on using the free PhotoshopTM alternative. The
Birds of a Feather (BOF) session he led attracted mainly end
users–a relative rarity at this particular show. … Accompanying
Hammel in hosting the session was Ivan Reyes, who runs
linuxartist.org and who met Hammel in person for the first time at
last year’s ALS. …he’s not really a trained systems admin or
developer. He’s an artist by trade.”
“Of the topics discussed, the attendees appeared most
interested in learning about the new features in the upcoming GIMP
1.2, which Hammel says makes the latest stable version 1.0 look
like “a child’s toy. We spent quite a bit of time running over
new features in 1.2. The feature that drew the biggest ‘Now That’s
Cool!’ response was one that the developers don’t really talk about
much–the Navigator Preview. This feature allows you to quickly
position the Canvas Window on any portion of your image when the
image is larger than the Canvas Window,” he explains.”
“The Navigator Preview is just one of several new GIMP
developments coming down the pike with version 1.2, asserts Hammel.
“1.2 will be a vast improvement over 1.0, with extensive internal
and external changes. Internal changes include an infrastructure
that permits much better session management for both GIMP and its
plug-ins. Scripting support has been greatly expanded with a full
featured Perl-based interface. Brushes can be designed on the fly
and include a special brush type known as an ‘Image Pipe’ (similar
to Painter’s Image Hoses).”