8.3. Image Editing

The GIMP (http://www.gimp.org) is one of the best-known open source image manipulation programs. You can get GIMP for Mac OS X from Fink (see Chapter 13). With the GIMP, you can create drawings, touch up photographs, convert images, and do much more.

You can even use the GIMP as iPhoto 's default image editor. To do this, use the Script Editor (found in /Applications/AppleScript) to create the following AppleScript, and save it as an Application named /Applications/LaunchGIMP (select File Save As, and specify Application under File Format):

     on open all_images       tell application "X11" to activate 

Figure 8-5. VLC

       repeat with image in all_images         (* replace colons with slashes, prefix path with /Volumes *)         do shell script "perl -e '$f=shift; $f =~ s/:/\\//g;  " &            "print \"/Volumes/$f\";' \"" & image & "\""         set image to the result         (* set the X11 DISPLAY variable, and launch gimp-remote *)         do shell script "DISPLAY=:0.0; export DISPLAY; " &           "PATH=$PATH:/sw/bin; export PATH; " &           "gimp-remote -n \"" & image & "\""       end repeat     end open 

Next, go to iPhoto's Preferences window (iPhoto Preferences, or -,) and follow these steps:

1. In the Double-Click section under General, click on the radio button next to "Opens photo in". You'll be prompted to select an application (if not, click the Select button).

2. Choose LaunchGIMP as the application.

3. Close the Preferences window (-W).

4. Quit iPhoto (-Q).

When you relaunch iPhoto, you are able to use the GIMP as your image editing tool the next time you select an image file for editing.

Another solution would be to use Gimp.app, a self-contained installation of GIMP for Mac OS X that does not rely on Fink. You can find it at http://gimp-app.sourceforge.net. With Gimp.app, you can simply specify Gimp as the helper application for iPhoto.

There is a modified version of the GIMP, CinePaint (http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/) that is designed to meet the needs of film professionals. It has been used in the Harry Potter movies, Scooby Doo, and other movies. CinePaint was originally known as Film GIMP , and an earlier version was available through Fink at the time of this writing. Check out the CinePaint web site for the latest version.