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Grokking the GIMP Grokking the GIMP, by Carey Bunks. GIMP is a multi-platform photo manipulation tool. GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. The GIMP is suitable for a variety of image manipulation tasks, including photo retouching, image composition, and image construction. GIMP has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. One of The GIMP's strengths is its free availability from many sources for many operating systems. Most GNU/Linux distributions include The GIMP as a standard application. The GIMP is also available for other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows™ or Apple's Mac OS X™ ( Darwin ). The title of this book, Grokking the GIMP, is drawn from Robert A. Heinlein's classic science fiction novel "Stranger in a Strange Land". His story is about Valentine Michael Smith, the only survivor of the first human expedition to Mars and raised from infancy by Martians. The rescue mission arrives twenty years later to bring a young man knowing nothing of his own kind back to earth. The story recounts his repatriation and his adventures as he comes to grok the human race and his place in it. Grok, a word he often uses, is the Martian word meaning "to drink", but which also serves as a quasi-religious metaphor in the Martian culture for having a profound appreciation and understanding for something. So, do you want to grok the GIMP? When I first came across it in 1996, I did. I started to look for help. I searched the Web, checked out books from the library, and little by little discovered useful things about the digital touchup and enhancement of photos. It was a slow and frustrating process, and it seemed like there was no unified, conceptual treatment of what I wanted to learn. The most annoying thing was that almost every book I picked up was full of tips and tricks. Tips and tricks? I felt like I was getting advice on betting the ponies. I didn't want tricks; I wanted the ideas. What is photo touchup and enhancement? Where's the beef? How could I work on my photos if I didn't understand the basic concepts? Moreover, I wanted to learn the practical techniques used by the master artisans of digital image manipulation. Out of the hundreds of functions and filters in the GIMP, which were the right ones to use, and why? After a lot of detective work and filling in the blanks myself I finally felt I was beginning to grok what the touchup and enhancement of digital images was about. What's more, I was getting to know the GIMP tools more intimately. The GIMP began in the summer of 1995 as an enormously ambitious project of two undergraduates at the University of California, Berkeley. When they began, they probably didn't realize just how impossible it was, and yet, they made it work. They created a beta version that captured the imagination of the open-source movement. Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis were those students. The seed of inspiration planted by Peter and Spencer attracted a talented group of core developers who have grown the GIMP into the powerful digital image manipulation tool that it is today. They are a loose-knit collection of men and women from around the globe, connected by only the thin wires of cyberspace. Most of them have never met face to face, and, nevertheless, they have collaborated and cooperated on a project of significant complexity and great value. What an amazing phenomenon the GIMP project is!
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