
G'MIC, full-featured ImageMagick alternative - wx196
https://github.com/dtschump/gmic
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patdavid
It should be noted that the project CIMG/GMIC is _not_ built and billed as an
IM alternative. It's an image processing framework that happens to have
similar utility to IM for some folks and that is also available as a plug-in
to GIMP for visual+interactive use.

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tyingq
"In this setting, G'MIC may be seen as a serious (and friendly) competitor of
the ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick software suites."[1]

[1][http://gmic.eu/](http://gmic.eu/)

That feels a lot like being billed as an IM alternative to me.

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patdavid
As a single _example_ of one (of many) possible interfaces for it? Seems to
hardly qualify as 'billing' as much as one example of how it might be used...

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tyingq
One of two possible interfaces (command line vs not command line) The context
is that their command line interface is billed as an alternative to IM.

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jawngee
I recently using G'MIC to produce a video for a client. We used the G'MIC
plugin in GIMP to build up the look, then used those parameters to drive it on
the command line frame by frame. It's very slow, so we ended up having to
build a solution with AWS to do massively parallel processing, but in the end
it turned out great.

G'MIC is really good at that kind of thing. I wouldn't use it to replace
ImageMagick though.

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LeonidasXIV
Which G'MIC features did you use for the video?

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mrSugar
So, a question: why? Just so that there is an alternative (not that there is
anything wrong with that), or is there an issue with ImageMagick that
discourages some people from using it?

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LeonidasXIV
GMIC is far more powerful with a lot of very sophisticated filters [1] and a
completely different beast to ImageMagick to the point of this title being
actively misleading. Yes, both can edit images. But so can Gimp or Darktable,
but they are not trying to displace IM either.

[1]: [http://opensource.graphics/christmas-is-already-here-for-
ima...](http://opensource.graphics/christmas-is-already-here-for-image-
processing-folks/)

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dahart
I want to be nothing but encouraging, but I have simultaneous positive and
negative reactions. On one hand, we need better FOSS alternatives to
imagemagick, on the other hand, using imagemagick as the target to compare
against means it's doomed to repeat some of IMs mistakes. And sure enough,
using the online server's filter examples, so many of them seem to exist to
fill a checkbox and increase the filter count, but are utility wise, useless
as a serious filter, and aesthetically unpleasant to boot. I have the same
contention with a significant portion imagemagick's feature set.

The IM/GM command line is also a disaster of weird names for things and
inconsistent conventions and hundreds and hundreds of pages of manual.
Reinvent IM's command line to be pleasant and simple and make sense, and it'll
be a HUGE win!

What we really need is an open source alternative to is Nuke or Shake (RIP).
Anyone want to help build that? ;)

I can't get to the project page, but I hope that GMIC borrows the positive
developments from GraphicsMagick. One of the things GM improved over IM is
large image handling. GM can stream a gigapixel image resize in minutes, while
IM gets stuck in virtual memory swap for hours.

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wx196
Could you please mention good filters, both free and commercial, that you
think "aesthetically pleasant to boot"?

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dahart
Sure, though clearly I need to explain that it's not symmetric. I don't expect
a filter to output a beautiful image. It is possible for some filters to be
neutral while others spit out "ugly" results. And, of course, ugly is strictly
my biased personal opinion, not an objective result.

What makes filters more ugly to me is filters that aren't very functional as a
building block or a node in the middle of an image processing graph. When I
said aesthetically unpleasant, I was thinking about _design_ too, not just the
aesthetics. Filters that include any aesthetics at all, frankly, are not very
useful, and that is the main problem with many of G'MICs (and ImageMagick's)
filters. Photoshop has some too.

I'm using [https://gmicol.greyc.fr/](https://gmicol.greyc.fr/) as the
reference for filter names.

G'MIC Filters that are useful as a building block (filters you're likely to
find used by professionals), and are not aesthetically unpleasant:

Basics, Colors|Channel Processing, Contours|Difference of Gaussians,
Degradations|Blur, Details|Sharpen, Repair|Upscale

A small sampling of G'MIC Filters that are aesthetically unpleasant to me,
primarily because they are poor building blocks (less likely to be used in
professional work), secondarily because they add an aesthetic that I
personally don't like, and try to do too much:

Arrays|Puzzle, Artistic|Ellipsionism, Deformations|Rain drops, Frames|Tunnel,
Lights & Shadows|Shadow Patch, Patterns|Hearts, Rendering|Cupid,
Sequences|Lava Lamp

Note that many of these could be re-created easily using proper image
processing building blocks, like an over operator for compositing, or an
expression node for image warping.

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wx196
Ah, I see, thank you for detailed answer.

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jbverschoor
Does it support vectors? And PDFs, AI, EPS? Does it handle CMYK/RGB properly?

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sevensor
Looks like a raster library to me. I imagine if it does handle vector
graphics, it's only on the input side, same as ImageMagick. Didn't see any
indication one way or another on color spaces.

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mario14
It is announced as an "image processing tool". This is a field mostly
interested in raster images usually.

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mario14
G'MIC home page is : [http://gmic.eu](http://gmic.eu)

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overcast
The only thing I want to know is if it breaks every dependency, on every
update, like ImageMagick does.

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mario14
It's a very popular plug-in for GIMP. I don't think this is an alternative to
ImageMagick

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wx196
I marked it as alternative only because it has full command line support,
which is rare case for filters. But it is mainly strong _filter_ library, than
batch convertor/resizer, you are right.

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acqq
As far as I understood, it calls GIMP to do the work?

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sevensor
It appears the GIMP dependency is just so you can build the GIMP plug-in. It
appears to use (the same author's) cimg to do the heavy lifting.
([https://github.com/dtschump/CImg](https://github.com/dtschump/CImg))

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acqq
Thanks. CImg seems to be whole in one 2 MB header file? Wow.

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wx196
Yes, and all 450+ filters compiled in one 5 MB file.

