PhotoFlow v0.2.8 has been released

I am happy to announce that version 0.2.8 of PhotoFlow is now available from the GitHub repository.

Pre-compiled packages are available for Linux (in AppImage format), OSX and Windows.

The full changelog as well as installation instructions can be found in the GitHub release page.

Getting ready for version 0.2.8

The past few months have been mostly devoted bug-hunting and general stability improvements, as well as some nice improvements here and there. The code is now basically ready for a new official release, so it is a good time to summarise the recent developments.

Pre-compiled packages are provided for Linux, OSX and Windows. In the Linux case, the package is distributed in the form of an AppImage that can be run on virtually any recent Linux distribution, without the need of installing extra dependencies.
The links will be updated in case new the packages get published.

Please help testing the code and give your feedback! If no major problem with the current code is reported, it will be used as the basis for the next v0.2.8 release.

PhotoFlow keyboard shortcuts

The latest versions of PhotoFlow comes with few handy keyboard shortcuts. The list of implemented shortcuts is still rather small and, more importantly, the shortcuts cannot (yet) be customized, however this is a first step toward a better usability of the program.

The currently available shortcuts are all related to operations with layers:

• Ctrl+Shift+N: add a new layer
• Ctrl+Shift+G: add a new layer group
• Ctrl+Shift+D: delete the selected layer(s)
• Ctrl+Shift+C: copy the selected layer(s) to the photoflow clipboard
• Ctrl+Shift+X: cut the selected layer(s) to the photoflow  clipboard
• Ctrl+Shift+V: paste the layer(s) from the photoflow  clipboard
• Ctrl+Shift+O: open an existing preset (will be inserted above the selected layer)
• Ctrl+Shift+S: save the selected layers as a preset
• Ctrl+Shift+M: switch the current layer to "mask view mode"
• Ctrl+Shift+L: switch the current layer to "layer view mode"

Under OSX, the Ctrl modifier key must be replaced with Cmd.

The complete and up-to-date documentation of keyboard shortcuts can be found at any time in the PhotoFlow wiki.

How to run the PhotoFlow GIMP plug-in under Linux using the AppImage packages

Yesterday I have briefly described the new PhotoFlow GIMP plug-in. In this follow-up, I will show how to run GIMP and the PhF plug-in under Linux using the AppImage packages.

The latest GIMP and PhotoFlow AppImages can be downloaded respectively from here and here (you need to grab the most recent version). In the following I will assume that the AppImages have been downloaded into the $HOME/Applications folder, but any other folder on your filesystem is equally good...

In order to start the GIMP AppImage and let it find and use PhotoFlow for opening the RAW files and/or run as a filter on the existing layer data, open a terminal and type the following:

    export PHOTOFLOW_PATH=$HOME/Applications/photoflow.AppImage
    $HOME/Applications/gimp.AppImage

Of course you need to replace the paths of the photoflow and gimp AppImages with their actual paths and full names on your system...

The first line with the environment variable assignment is used to tell GIMP where to look for the PhotoFlow executable. The second line starts GIMP from the AppImage. You can also pass a file name as parameter to the GIMP AppImage, just like with the standard GIMP. The PhF plug-in also allows to directly open .PFI files with GIMP, in case you need to do so...

The new PhotoFlow GIMP plug-in interface

Recently I have been working on a complete re-write of the PhotoFlow GIMP plug-in interface.

The new plug-in code is a simple wrapper that saves and loads the image data into temporary floating point TIFF files, and then invokes the standard photoflow executable with those TIFF files as parameters.  It also saves and retrieves the accompanying PFI files with the processing parameters that get stored in the GIMP layer meta-data.

Non-destructive Lab editing with GIMP and the PhotoFlow plug-in

Since a while PhotoFlow is also available in the form of a GIMP plug-in. It means that PhotoFlow can be used directly within GIMP, to open and process RAW images as well as to apply non-destructive editing to any GIMP layer.

The most simple way to use GIMP in combination with the PhotoFlow plug-in under Linux is to download and run the AppImage package that is hosted on the pixls.us web site. This screencast explains the details of how to run the GIMP AppImage and briefly introduces the tools that are provided with it.

One of the possibilities offered by the PhotoFlow GIMP plug-in is to apply non-destructive edits in Lab colorspace to any GIMP layer. The Lab colorspace (or better CIELab) is an alternative representation of the pixel data that, unlike RGB, separates the luminance information from the color information. It is therefore possible for example to adjust the luminance of the image without changing the color components, or to adjust the color saturation in a way that is more natural and pleasing than in RGB.

Let's see how this works in practice.

PhotoFlow version 0.2.6 released

A new PhotoFlow version 0.2.6 is out!

This new version comes with lots of new or improved features and an updated GUI, including a better layout of the filters controls and an handy lateral toolbox that provides shortcuts for some of the most commonly used filters:

The image in the preview area is courtesy of Andrea Katifes