Linux: not yet photo-friendly

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Aug. 22, 2008

Linux kernel maintainer Andrew Morton is fond of saying, "If you want the kernel team to do something, make us look bad." Perhaps somewhat in that spirit, a blog called "Linux Photography" has carefully outlined where Linux falls short today as a world-class environment for serious, production-oriented professional photographers.

The blog is maintained by Joel Cornuz, of Geneva, Switzerland, who describes himself as a serious amateur photographer.

Cornuz writes:

My goal with this entry is to brush a big picture of where Linux stands as far as photography is concerned. What are the achievements, where improvement are needed and being worked on, and which pieces are still missing. I will survey what I consider the three main areas that an OS has to cover for serious photography work: color management, printing support, and workflow.

After that, the gloves come off. The wish list goes something like this:

A system-wide preferences framework, like a GConf for color calibration settings, so that color editing profiles, monitor profiles, and rendering intents do not have to be configured separately for each application in the user's workflow
Support under Linux for the affordable printer colorimeters that are starting to appear, so that each printer/paper/ink combo can be easily profiled without booting into another OS
More universal support at the driver level for often-ignored features such as black and white photo printing, and full-bleed (to edge of paper) prints. Oh, and support for Canon Pixma printers would be nice, too
A high bit-depth photo editing program offering the 16-bit power of Cinepaint with the interface sophistication of the Gimp. Cornuz says pointedly, "If I [were] a billionaire in charge of a Linux distribution, I would hire Sven and Mitch to work on Gimp full time," later adding that without [16-bit color support in a good image editor], Linux will just not cut it for serious photography."
An image viewer/tagger that can handle both RAW images and JPEG images -- Linux's philosophy of orthogonal tools be damned

In a nutshell, Cornuz wants a few usable, well-integrated tools that handle the basics efficiently and quickly, rather than the mass of special-purpose tools currently available, none of which interoperate especially well. Commenting on the current state of things, he writes, "There is this push for more features that has been a trap in open source projects -- and closed source, when you come to think of it."

Sounds to us like most of the tools are there, and what's needed might be a special-purpose Linux Shutterbug Edition distro, similar to the 64Studio distribution for music production. Despite a few missing pieces (most of which are under construction), Conruz's biggest gripe seems to be the lack of integration between components, which all have to be configured to work together better before productivity can be achieved.

The complete essay can be found here.

-- Henry Kingman

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Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Except where otherwise specified, the contents of this site are copyright © 1999-2008 Ziff Davis Enterprise Holdings Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis Enterprise is prohibited. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.