Hi folks, I’ve been fairly capable with ye olde Paint Shoppe Pro 9 (it was great before Corel munted it) on Windows for ages, but I’ve just given Windows the flick for Mint (dipped my toe in Linux many times over the years and retreated, but now I’m in the middle of a high-dive)… so I guess I should get my head around GIMP now. Does GIMP have adequate RAW processing ability (or can it be added with a plugin)?
What’s adequate, I hear you ask - well, for now I’m just trying to do a bunch of product shots (watches in a lightbox), with a poxy old A580 running CHDK (currently chewing through alkalines lol - I know it’s utter crap, but time constraints). Been getting some help from AI to figure out settings and whatnot (BTW, the prompt in the description here is pretty great for improving AI’s performance), but despite how much of a boon it is compared to a search engine, it’s still ultimately a case of garbage in, garbage out…
So I’m fully zoomed in, at 1/10s, f5.5 (the A580 has no aperture control), with the white background mostly clipping and the watch nicely exposed; I guess if I wanted to use the JPGs I’m good to go. But at this marginal resolution I’d rather avoid starting with compression artefacts… and I need a rather streamlined workflow; I have to generate about 500 pics, with the background replaced with a solid colour, and I’m hoping that maybe the RAW images offer the possibility of easier selection of the background somehow? This is the time-consuming bit.
Also wondering if it’s the case that I can be less fussy with shooting the pics with RAW; I’d like to be able to just get on with taking all the pics rather than having to constantly stop and pull the card to check them out on a proper screen…
If you are editing raw files you are better off using a dedicated raw program with darktable and Rawtherapee being the two most popular and supported programs. Gimp is suitable for editing JPGs but is not designed to edit RAW files without first converting the raw file in a third party program which might be DT or RT.
I personally use darktable because I like the drawn and parametric masking options enabling easy localised adjustments. Rawtherapee and its spinoff Art are very popular and may or may not be easier to initially learn than DT. However, your description of replacing backgrounds is certainly something I would have typically done in GIMP.
Shooting in JPGs should be sufficient for what you want and would work seamlessly in GIMP. Artefacts from a single round of editing in GIMP should not be significant.
DT has a composite module and an enlarge canvas module that could be used to replace backgrounds if you did want to shoot in raw and do it all in one program.
Maybe submitting an image as a playraw would allow people to demonstrate what the various programs are capable of.
I find that if you want to replace a background you could use the green screen method and I have also had good success with a grey screen if there is sufficient separation on the subject and the grey background. I have done this work extensively in the past and GIMP was my go to program for this work, but using tiffs and jpgs.
