Reviving an old techno-toy
Oct. 20th, 2004 06:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoSpent the last weekend in Michigan, visiting my good friends Imperator ( ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goldenstallion ) and Bear from Tapestries MUCK. Hoped to enjoy some fall color, but the weather marred that with gloom and rain. Did enjoy some good old talk and companionship and got to meet their horses, finally.
I was also interested in Imperator's computer setup for artwork. A very fine traditional artist, he works in the usual media and has scanner and digital camera to get things online for viewing, but he also uses a drawing tablet to input sketches directly to the PC. Having had some disastrous encounters with trying to draw using a mouse, I wondered if this might really be better.
On the drive home, car loaded with good Michigan apples and cider, I remembered that my own partner had a digitizer tablet gathering dust. He used it while working on his master's thesis in geography, and it's rather dated compared to Imp's nifty Wacom, but the price was right. Partner obligingly dug out the rather insufficient manuals and old (DOS!) driver diskettes for me. This is a SummaSketch II, and it took me quite a while to get it working with Linux and The GIMP, but I think the effort may have been worthwhile. I may well have more drawings to share soon.
Anyone else use The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) for drawing? It's as heavily featured as Photoshop or Illustrator, and like most open source software, kinda short on documentation. I see there are a number of books available though. Recommendations anyone?
goldenstallion ) and Bear from Tapestries MUCK. Hoped to enjoy some fall color, but the weather marred that with gloom and rain. Did enjoy some good old talk and companionship and got to meet their horses, finally.I was also interested in Imperator's computer setup for artwork. A very fine traditional artist, he works in the usual media and has scanner and digital camera to get things online for viewing, but he also uses a drawing tablet to input sketches directly to the PC. Having had some disastrous encounters with trying to draw using a mouse, I wondered if this might really be better.
On the drive home, car loaded with good Michigan apples and cider, I remembered that my own partner had a digitizer tablet gathering dust. He used it while working on his master's thesis in geography, and it's rather dated compared to Imp's nifty Wacom, but the price was right. Partner obligingly dug out the rather insufficient manuals and old (DOS!) driver diskettes for me. This is a SummaSketch II, and it took me quite a while to get it working with Linux and The GIMP, but I think the effort may have been worthwhile. I may well have more drawings to share soon.
Anyone else use The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) for drawing? It's as heavily featured as Photoshop or Illustrator, and like most open source software, kinda short on documentation. I see there are a number of books available though. Recommendations anyone?
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GIMP
Date: 2004-10-20 01:26 pm (UTC)Re: GIMP
Date: 2004-10-20 01:35 pm (UTC)It's very powerful software, I can see that. But the user interface is a bit on the peculiar side when compared to other programs (like Photoshop) that I've used in the past.