Beyond the obvious

This image of a seagull was processed out of RAW using UFRaw and Gimp, running under Ubuntu Hardy Heron (Linux). I've been using Linux OS and free Open Source software to process my pictures on and off for a week now. There's a lot to learn and I've only scratched the surface. My early impressions are that it takes a lot more effort and fiddling about to get the results that I want. Using Lightroom and Photoshop is like driving a Bentley to get from one place to another. Everything is comfortable, fast, smooth and easy. The Linux image editing tools I've used so far are more like driving a very basic small car (not naming brands here). It will get you to your destination too but you are going to feel the potholes more, you're going to have to top up the oil, the windscreen wipers aren't great...well I am sure you get my drift. Sadly from a professional photography workflow point of view Linux is too cumbersome. It is possible to use and to generate high quality ...

Taking the plunge. It's good to know that some of the best things in life are still free. Free Linux software, digiKam was used to tweak the above image and prepare it for upload. Free photo software that delivers image results as good as you get from Photoshop or any of the other paid for packages. Sounds too good to be true. Well I have been researching the possibilities here's what I found for the cash strapped photographer. Very topical, I'm sure you will agree. The image above of the Sand Piper was processed using digiKam, UFRaw and Gimp. My mission started two weeks ago when my shiny powerful PC had a hardware malfunction over the weekend. Our other PC was being put to full use so I hauled out my old laptop, 2003 vintage. It worked but was very slow despite a Gig of RAM. It had software driver conflicts and all sorts that needed sorting out. I got more and more frustrated with Windows. Suddenly I had a light bulb moment. It had been a while since I looked at Linux a...