GNU/Linux Graphics Programs in Ubuntu

My graphics/image manipulation needs are relatively simple. I’ve gotten by pretty well with MS Paint and IrfanView in Windows.

In the past several months I’ve started using the GNU Image Manipulation Program (the GIMP!) for Windows and have learned how to fix red eye and make downgraded transparent PNG files that display properly in Internet Explorer 6, but that’s mainly all that I’ve used it for. I’ve never used Adobe Photoshop so I can’t compare them from personal experience, but the GIMP is apparently loaded with comparable features. For those Photoshoppers who are confused by the GIMP interface, or for people who want to use Photoshop tutorials in GIMP, there is GIMPshop which emulates the interface of Photoshop.

I’m looking forward to learning the GIMP and performing its magic incantations, but more often than not I have simple jobs where I just want to get in and out with a lighter-weight program. If the high end in free software graphics is covered by the flagship GIMP, what about the economy class?

While writing the previous entry about password programs, I wanted to edit the logo for Password Gorilla and was curious to see what options I had in Ubuntu other than the GIMP, really hoping for something comparable to MS Paint, which I think is easy to use and has a good set of features.

Ubuntu Synaptic

I was very happy with what I found, and also pleased to experience again how well the Ubuntu program installer works. (I’m not sure what the difference is between Applications » Add/Remove… and System » Administration » Synaptic Package Manager. Is the “Add/Remove” applet just another face of Synaptic, only prettified and more accessible?)

I’ve already seen both of these installers in action and appreciated them, but using it the other day for installing these graphics programs just reinforced the convenience and power of the way that Ubuntu handles things. There are a lot of applications available “out of the box,” and in my experience so far it just takes a few clicks to add and remove them along with their dependencies. The whole process is seamless and quite satisfying.*

(Same goes for the software updater, although here I wish there was a way to suppress notice of an update until the next version is available, for example with vnc4server I don’t want to download the current update being offered because I think it will break my VNC setup. In the meantime I have that orange star-box sitting up there all the time and I’m in danger of becoming indifferent to its beckoning.)

A little searching for an MS Paint alternative in Ubuntu/GNU/Linux brought up several leads, including GNU Paint and KolourPaint. (I keep comparing and referring to MS Paint, not because I think it is the be-all-end-all of graphics programs, but because it’s what I’ve used for a long time. And I do think it’s a nice simple and functional editor, effective for many jobs.)

GNU Paint

I was inclined to try GNU Paint first because it is a GNOME program. It seemed like it would be simpler to try and be more integrated with my GNOME desktop environment. KolourPaint is for KDE, and while I have nothing against KDE, I so far haven’t had occasion to try any K apps and wasn’t necessarily looking to start installing the supporting libraries.

Installation was a snap: it’s just a single file. If you use the search box, don’t look for “gnupaint” like I did. You’ll want to try “gnu paint” or “gpaint”. It’s available in the “Supported Ubuntu applications” and “All Open Source applications” lists.

GNU Paint doesn’t become an option in the right-click “Open With” menu, but it’s easy enough to start it and find the file. Things went downhill from there.

(Update: I discovered that using the right-click “Open with Other Application…” will cause whatever application you pick to be automatically added to the list. Now I need to find out how to remove things from that menu. It would be nice if you had the option to add the application to the menu or not when you pick it.)

The interface looks roughly similar to MS Paint. The first thing I wanted to do was erase some text in the logo, but I didn’t see anything that suggested an eraser in the toolbox. I moved my mouse over a couple of buttons and was not rewarded with tooltips to tell me what they were. I hoped that maybe clicking on one would bring up some helpful text in a status box somewhere, but that didn’t happen either.

I moved on to the menus to see if there was something that would describe an eraser function there. I didn’t see it, but I noticed there doesn’t appear to be a resize function. This was my first real indication that this program is not ready for graphics editing prime time.

Still I pressed on and decided to try drawing something on the image. I made a stroke and then went to undo it… but what’s this? No undo feature?! How can this be? You need this feature when editing images. I can’t imagine a world where you’d never make a mistake or want to do something slightly (or hugely) different than you achieved on your first try.

The undolessness of GNU Paint ruled it out as a viable graphics editor, but I poked around to determine it also lacks options when saving files. For example, you can’t select different image types and associated options like quality level for a .jpg. I’ll grant that it might be smart enough to save the correct type according to the extension used, but you should be able to choose types and options, I think.

Finally, to complement the missing resize feature, there is no zoom either.

I don’t want to disparage the work of the developers on this application. Ubuntu installed “gpaint-2 0.3.0-pre5,” which suggests an extreme beta version. There is a base here that can be built on and turn this in to a decent free MS Paint alternative, but I can’t see how anyone would use the program as it is today, and the lack of users probably won’t help spur increased adoption and development. (I notice at sourceforge.net, the initial 0.1.1 release was back in 2000.)

KolourPaint

As mentioned, I was hesitant to stray in to KDE territory, but the Ubuntu installer handled this with no problems. I wondered how many supporting KDE libraries I’d need, but there were only about a dozen files to be installed.

I immediately liked the look and feel of the application. I felt right at home and quickly determined that it has everything I’m looking for in an MS Paint replacement. (And more!) :-)

It also integrates automatically with the Nautilus file manager right-click “Open With” menu. I like it when things are readily available that way. (See Update above.)

Even though GNU Paint didn’t pan out, the ease with which I could install and experiment with both of these applications was refreshing. It’s taken me much longer to write about it here than it did to research and investigate my options.

Other GNOME Image Programs

GNOME comes with “Eye of GNOME” which by default is used to open up graphics file. It’s a nice lightweight viewer. Simple, and starts fast. Let’s you use the arrow keys to easily browse through files in the same directory, resizing larger images to the window, which is one of the things I like in IrfanView.

I like that name: Eye of GNOME. (I wish it had a cool eyeball graphic for the logo.) Along with the GIMP, we have two great names for free software graphics programs.

Also installed by default is the gThumb image viewer, which appears to have more cataloging and browsing options, although in my hasty evaluation it doesn’t appear to let you use the arrow keys to browse through pictures. You have to click on buttons.

I’m ambivalent about yet another default installed photo app: F-Spot. I hear good things about it, but it’s a mono app and I’m not sure mono is a good thing. I’m all for copying ideas from Microsoft, but I don’t want to slavishly use their technology either. It seems like free software will always be playing catch-up in implementing C#/.NET stuff, not to mention the risk of patent violation exposure. (And it’s the only program that choked in my minimalist evaluation. Trying to rotate my gorilla jpg file gives me: Error while rotating photo. Received error “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” while attempting to rotate gorilla-logo.jpg.)

I’m not sure if I have an IrfanView replacement completely covered. KolourPaint has a couple of IrfanView options that MS Paint doesn’t, like “fine” rotation. I think I’ll just use GIMP for whatever I can’t do in KolourPaint, rather than look for another program. (Although I’ll need something like IrfanView’s batch processing. Very nice for resizing groups of pictures.)

* Figures… While writing about the package manager, I tried to install Achilles Life Simulator so that I could observe something about the installer. It appears to install ok but then doesn’t run. Complains about OpenGL. Now I’m curious about the application so will have to investigate. It doesn’t lessen my opinion that much of Synaptic, but it breaks the spell just a bit.