[Gimp-user] Bit-depth Processing

[David Gowers]

On 9/27/07, Brendan <mailinglist at endosquid.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday 26 September 2007, saulgoode at flashingtwelve.brickfilms.com wrote:
> > Certainly the GIMP developers could have kludged the code to
> > incorporate 16-bit or higher bit-depths; and it would not have taken
> > nearly as long to do so. But the solution would be only temporary --
> > the ultimate necessity to have a separate library would still exist --
> > and would only apply to the GIMP project.
>
> Yikes, you had a good argument until this bit...
> Yes, what you say is true, but with 16-bit color, all of those professional
> graphics houses would have been eyeing Gimp for the last 6 years, instead of
> shunning it. They don't care about what code is maintainable. From an
> engineering standpoint, doing what the devels did was "right", but holding it
> up as the only choice that could have benefitted people is not accurate.

'best approach' does not imply that, and I see no other part you could
be referring to here.

Of course CinePaint (the hack/fork of Gimp 1.04 to support high
bitdepth and alt colorspaces) filled a need -- and the people who are
commercially using that are rather likely to switch to GIMP when GIMP
supports those things, as CinePaint then changes in perception from
being a superpowered cripple next to GIMP, to just being a cripple. I
believe this demonstrates both the good points and problems of the
quick-hack approach.