Begin with Post-Processing in Linux

[Gaurav Prabhu]

I'm a Linux user and currently an amateur when it comes to digital image post-processing. I just know a few basic tricks under GIMP. Can you suggest me a book which describes to use GIMP from a photographer's perspective. Also I need to know about software's which stitch panorama in Linux(apart from Hugin, as its too complicated for me) & allow one to edit RAW files.

[wulf]

To start with, any books about digitally processing photos should help (a much wider range than GIMP specific volumes). You might have to put in some effort to translate the instructions (although people here can help) but the experimentation involved will help you get to grips with what GIMP can do as an image processing tool.

Wulf

[BCampbell]

You should look into some plugins to expand GIMP's functionality. There's another recent thread on this:
Gimp Plugins?

[wulf]

Perhaps not to start though? I think the fundamental skills are:

a) Layers

b) Layer masks

c) Layer modes

After all that stuff with layers, perhaps curves and only then onto filters and plugins.

Wulf

[BCampbell]

Sure.

There is a GIMP-specific book, I haven't read it, but it's also being updated for 2.6 sometime in the fall, it seems. Searching Amazon for GIMP turns it up.

As for processing RAW files, UFRaw integrates very very well with GIMP and I've had good experiences with it. RAWTherapee is a little more robust, I've just started checking it out, but it's a good bit of free software.