PDN with Picture Window or The GIMP?

[Lee L]

I'm curious to know if either Burkholder or Nelson's(?) books provide enough information for someone using Picture Window or The GIMP to calibrate and use their PDN methods without having to reinvent the system. I'm not interested in Photoshop because of cost, and the fact that I already have and like using the other software. I'm competent enough to make up my own curves if they give some basis for doing that.

Thanks,
Lee

[Jeremy]

Yes, you will have to transpose some of the information into picture window or gimp, but it should be an easy switch. What you will miss out on in Mark's book is a number of picture editing techniques which are probably Adobe-only based (never used gimp or picture window before), but they have naught to do with actually printing negatives.

[Lee L]

Thanks Jeremy.

The GIMP works a lot like PS and runs on linux and windows. Picture Window always leaves your base image alone and produces the effect in a "results" window, no layers per se. It also works in a very intuitive way for photographers, and was written and is supported by Jonathan Sachs, who wrote Lotus 1-2-3. Picture Window also comes with a 30 day trial download, and runs under Windows and under WINE in linux.

Lee

[titrisol]

I Use GIMP (it's free) and I'm very happy with it, most of the tips for Adobe can be extrapolated to it.
Check Eric Jeschke's www.gimpguru.org for tips/tutorials on image editting.