Linux for Photography, Graphic Design and Web Development
For photography, graphic design and web development I found all the tools I needed on Linux and some of them are very good indeed.
I had watched Linux with interest over the years and was just waiting for the time when I could seriously consider using it for
real productivity and creative work on a professional level. More significantly, I have fallen in love with programming all over
again thanks to the tools I am using now
I spent weeks trying various flavours of Linux and I now have a system that didn't cost me a cent and which works like a charm. I opted for Ubuntu Linux because it ticked all the right boxes regarding availability of software applications and hardware compatibility. Linux is also backed up by a great support network within the community. It is lovely to use and my productivity and overall happiness has increased as a direct result of the switch. I also find that there are many other programmers and designers who share these sentiments and one thing they all agree on is that using free software can be a much more pleasurable experience than using proprietary software
There are some trade offs of course. Linux has some of the best multimedia tools on the planet but for photography it still has a few knots that need to be straightened out. However if you are dying to ditch Windows and Adobe then the day may be nigh
What Linux has to offer
A strong sense of trust, freedom and ownership of your software and computer
It's free. For the cost of Vista or Windows 7 you could buy a decent camera
An unlimited choice of free high quality software is available at the click of a mouse
It's easier to use than windows and installing software is ridiculously easy
The community gives you all the right answers fast and freely
No commercialism and persistent advertising
Hardware detection and performance
Ubuntu should detect all your hardware and there is no need to install drivers
It will pick up your printer, scanner and Wacom graphics tablet
It detects cameras and easily transfers images onto the PC
It can read and write to Windows file systems on removable media and Windows PCs
Linux file systems are superior - you never need to defrag hard drives
Linux security means no silly third party security applications hogging system resources
It never hangs or crashes
Linux applications open and close damn fast
Linux monitor calibration issues
Calibrating a monitor on Linux is still a pain at the present time. If you have Windows on another drive then you can use that to calibrate the monitor and then copy your monitor profile over to Linux. The problem here is that a lot of manufacturers don't care about Linux so we sometimes have to hack out our own solutions. This is where the Linux forums show their real value because there are always people willing to help you fix these problems. It's also the reason why Linux bugs are usually fixed within a day of two.
Linux photography, graphic design and productivity applications
Gimp - 8/16 bit bitmap and vector graphics editor for photographs and web graphics
Krita - 16 bit bitmap editing with colour management and layers
Digikam - a very good image manager with nice editing tools
Picasa - fast image viewing, editing and up-loading to the web
Inkscape - vector graphics editor thought by many to be better than Adobe Illustrator
Apache Web Server for design, development and running multiple web sites locally
Firefox - the only browser that counts for serious web development
Filezilla - for uploading files to your web site using FTP transfer
Bluefish - a very nice web page editor
gColor2 - a colour picking tool
iScan - an application for scanning documents and photographs from flatbed scanners
Shutter - a nifty little screenshot taker
RecordMyDesktop - for making screencasts and video tutorials
OpenOffice - I've used it for years for word processing and slideshows. It's great
Evolution Mail - an excellent MS Outlook clone
Nice music players CD burning / ripping tools and movie players
Emesene - msn client
Zim - a personal wiki for notes and creative ideas
ePDFView - a super fast PDF viewer
Linux desktop customisation
Virtual desktops for easily switching between different workspaces.
Community of artists providing free themes and icons for customising your desktop
Choose from 2 very popular desktops Gnome and KDE
Gnome feels like using a mac and KDE is like using Windows
You can make Linux look like a Mac or Windows if you like a sense of familiarity
Linux usability
Software installation is simple using the package manager application
Nautilus file manager - a super fast file explorer that is a pleasure to use
The uniform theme across all applications breeds familiarity and comfort
The documentation is simple and helpful
Choosing a Linux flavour for creative work
So you have read this far and want to take it for a spin. It all depends of what type of work you want to do and how much you are prepared to learn. If you are impatient and over demanding then you should stay with Windows or a Mac.
Debian Linux is the rock on which lots of other Linux distros are built. It is so solid that is it used on production servers run by all the major internet service providers. I also heard that it is so solid that Chuck Norris broke his hand while attempting to hit it. If you are a web developer running a local web server with copies of live client sites then this is probably the one to go with. Installing a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySql, Php) local testing server is very easy on Debian based Linux distros.
The following distros are all derived from Debian and have many loyal users:
Ubuntu and Mepis Linux are great for beginners and I found them really easy to use.
Ubuntu Studio is a professional multimedia studio.
64 Studio for professional audio work.
Other Linux flavours popular with beginners are Linux Mint, Mandriva and PCLinuxOS.
Linux for photography
Linux has excellent potential for the creative photographer looking for an alternative to expensive commercial offerings. For a dedicated photographer a Linux PC with Gimp and a Raw Converter might give you all the power you want. Photography on Linux still has a couple of shortcomings that will deter some more demanding photographers but I am of the opinion that the time is very near when there will be no excuse for not using Linux. Watch out for GIMP versions 2.8 and 3.0.
At the time of writing the latest version of Gimp is 2.6 and it has an improved user interface that can be turbo charged with an excellent range of scripts and plug-ins, including Photoshop plug-ins. Gimp 2.6 has a new experimental back end graphics library called GEGL that uses floating point calculations to enable processing of high bit depth colour images from scanners and camera RAW. It will be improved in version 2.8 and should be all systems go by Gimp version 3.0.
Using Linux for serious photography is more than possible and I will experiment with these tools just like I did when I switched from film to digital. I see workflow as being my biggest problem because I think Linux lags a bit behind Apple and Adobe who have this problem streamlined and very well tuned for photograhers. However as I said earlier you could buy a lot camera for the money they charge for a box of software and Photoshop / Bridge/ Lightroom runs like a pig on my machine.
Linux for web design
Here Linux does all I need. I can run a web server and design web graphics using applications from the list above. You still need to test your page layouts in Internet Explorer and a little gem I found is over in Germany at IE NetRenderer and is a very fast and superior alternative to Browsershots
Conclusions so far
Linux is ideal for me because it makes my work simpler and I am now more productive. I have years of computer experience but since switching to Ubuntu I have discovered a whole new philosophy that is a refreshing change from all the poor quality software I used in the past.
For example now I know the reason why I hated Photoshop - it's too bloody intimidating even for someone like me. What's it like for a beginner? If I did not have all this experience then I probably would have just stuck with Windows like most people do. But things are changing and lots of people are beginning to get the message
I can live with tricky Linux issues such as colour management and the calibraton problem because I know how to work around them. In every other regard I find the Linux way to be far superior to the proprietary altenatives and the freedom is great.
Interesting places
Eckhard M. Jager - A blog for designers, artists and developers programming websites, painting icons, creating multimedia content, doing dtp or constructing in 3D spaces using Ubuntu - Linux for Designers
A great blog post containing an article and tons of favourable comments from designers and developers who use Linux as their main tool for web development here
Free software directory - a list of free graphics editors
Joel Cornuz - a Linux photography blog - some great articles about photography workflow and colour management on Linux
Floss.net - manuals and tutorials for popular open source applications - here you can find some very good Inkscape and Gimp tutorials on photography and graphic design
Why Linux is better - a nice little site - that promotes the Linux way
Linux webmaster tools - Linux web design and development tools
