Test Driving Linux

Chapter 7. Edit Digital Images

These days, it seems like everybody has a digital camera. If they don't have a digital version of a traditional film camera, they have one built into their cell phone or PDA. The increasing popularity of digital cameras naturally leads to more digital pictures, which in turn leads to the need to store, manage, and manipulate those pictures. That's where this chapter comes in. It shows you the programs included on Move that will help you get your images off your digital camera, view them on your computer, and edit them to your heart's content.

The crown jewel of this small collection of software is the GNU Image Manipulation Program, known as the GIMP. This handy program is considered by some to be a capable alternative to Adobe Photoshop, and considering that the GIMP is free and Photoshop costs more than $600, it is probably worth your time to find out if this is true for you. Though the GIMP was originally developed for Linux and Unix systems, there is now a Windows version you can try out as well. Visit http://www.gimp.org for more information.

Getting Images

Before you can view or edit your digital images, you first need an image to edit. Though Move does come with a few wallpaper images, they aren't particularly interesting to work with. You can download all kinds of images off the Web, but you may prefer to work with pictures that have more personal value to you.

If you already have digital photos on your Windows hard drive, you can access them ...