Linux & vuescan / Photo editing

[Dan]

I've just installed Mandrake Linux on a second PC and am curious to
know what others think of using a linux box for scanning images,
specifically:

1) Which Linux implementations (Redhat, Mandrake, Suse, etc.) might be
best for graphics processing / editing / scanning?

2) Has anyone had any success running Photoshop CS under Linux using
Wine? (I haven't even installed Wine yet).

3) Does Gimp (if that is the best graphics program to use) allow for
editing IPTC information?

4) Will scanning with Vuescan under Linux be faster than Vuescan under
Windows on the same machine? (Athlon 1300 w/ 1-gb ram)?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Dan

 

[Dances With Crows]

1) Which Linux implementations (Redhat, Mandrake, Suse, etc.) might be
best for graphics processing / editing / scanning?

Huh? All the distros have very similar software packages available;
they'll all have GIMP and ImageMagick and so forth.

A better question to ask is "Which Linux distro can be upgraded without
much hassle and has a decent package manager?" That means RPM-based
distros are unusable without some sort of dependency-resolving mechanism
like apt4rpm. If that's built into your distro, that's great, but if it
isn't, you'll have to install apt4rpm and/or deal with RPM Dependency
Hell. Debian and Gentoo have very nice package managing and dependency
tracking, but their installation procedures may intimidate you if you
don't know anything about Linux.

3) Does Gimp (if that is the best graphics program to use) allow for
editing IPTC information?

s/best/only/ . If it does, it's not at all obvious how to do it in GIMP
1.2.3; maybe that's built into GIMP 2.0 or there's a plugin for earlier
GIMPs. Or if you don't mind using a program other than GIMP to edit
IPTC info, try http://freshmeat.net/projects/mapivi/ .

4) Will scanning with Vuescan under Linux be faster than Vuescan under
Windows on the same machine? (Athlon 1300 w/ 1-gb ram)?

I can't say since I've never used Vuescan.

--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
"We should have a policy against using personal resources for company
business." "The Company didn't pay for these pants, so I'm taking them
off at the door!" --J. Moore and A. DeBoer, the Monastery
Hire me! http://crow202.dyndns.org/~mhgraham/resume/

 

[Leonard Evens]

I've just installed Mandrake Linux on a second PC and am curious to
know what others think of using a linux box for scanning images,
specifically:

1) Which Linux implementations (Redhat, Mandrake, Suse, etc.) might be
best for graphics processing / editing / scanning?

They should be about the same.

2) Has anyone had any success running Photoshop CS under Linux using
Wine? (I haven't even installed Wine yet).

I don't really know, but I would be very surprised if it would run.

3) Does Gimp (if that is the best graphics program to use) allow for
editing IPTC information?

What is IPTC information?

4) Will scanning with Vuescan under Linux be faster than Vuescan under
Windows on the same machine? (Athlon 1300 w/ 1-gb ram)?

Probably not. In my experience, scanning speed is limited by the
scanner, not by the kind of interface or the speed of the computer. I
am currently using Vuescan with an Epson 3200 under RedHat 9.0 and
running on a 1.4 Ghz Athlon with 1.5 Gb of ram. I need the memory not
to run Vuescan, which would work fine with much less memory, but for
timely editing of scans from 4 x 5 negatives, which are very large.
Photoshop 6 under Windows 2000 on the same machine is not any faster
with such files.

I intend to upgrade to Fedora Core 2 on this machine. I've installed it
on a Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, and Vuescan does work with my scanner
under Linux on that machine (after some minor configuration adjustments).

My only concern now is whether xgamma will work under FC2 with a CRT.
It apparently doesn't work with my laptop, but that is not too
surprising. I use xgamma to calibrate my monitor.

 

[pioe[rmv]]

Dan wrote:

I don't really know, but I would be very surprised if it would run.

I do not know about CS either, but I use Photoshop 7.01 under Suse
Linux 9.1, as you can see here:

http://www.coldsiberia.org/public/photoshop_in_linux.jpg

(By the way, the scanner used to make the picure was the excellent
Nikon LS-5000)

I was lucky to buy the Photoshop CD/license one year ago before
Product Activation which no one should accept, it is difficult to
understand how anyone can accept a program that cannot be installed
and used independent from the manufacturer, now, tomorrow and in x
number of years. With my aforementioned setup, everything functions
nicely. Let us just wait for GIMP to have 16-bit support, color
management, LAB color, and better sharpening filters. Then we can all
say no to Product Activation.

If people meekly accept such practices, soon all users of proprietary
software shall sit with computers filled with software with similar
ties to their manufacturers, all requiring activation every time a
program is installed from scratch. Of course, when the day comes when
the activation support is stopped for your version, the service
becomes unavailable or they just refuse to activate, you are out of luck.

It does not matter if Adobe or MS "guarantee" that they will "always"
activate. The point is that any working tools ought to be controlled
by the user, and dependence on specific activation services in order
to create, access and work with our data just cannot be accepted. A
tool must be cabable of being used independent from its manufacturer.
This is why I started the migration to Linux as soon as I heard about
Product Activation back in 2001, since I foresaw what would come.

Of course, the ultimate goal of many in the proprietary software
industry is software-as-a-service, where you do not have the programs
on your own computer, but residing on central servers from where you
subscribe to the software and functions you want. That means you can
no longer maintain an independent working tool which you can access
and use whenever you want, how much you want. Product Activation can
be considered as a step in that direction, and it seems wise to stop
the proprietary software companies from realizing their wet dream.

Sorry for this rant, but it is important for the safety of our data
that we, and not the software companies, control the working tools we
use and need.

Per Inge Oestmoen, Norway

 

[Christian Tsotras]

Let us just wait for GIMP to have 16-bit support, color
management, LAB color, and better sharpening filters.

Did you try Refocus ?
http://refocus.sourceforge.net/

And at least one thing where Gimp is nice: JPG multiple tuning
settings when converting in this format (subsampling settings).

[...]

Sorry for this rant, but it is important for the safety of our data
that we, and not the software companies, control the working tools we
use and need.

OK, but if you store your data with widespread open standards, what will
stop you from using your files later with another software ?


PS: I use Vuescan+Gimp/Linux and store in TIF and XCF (Gimp's open format)