Gimp and Astro Imaging from Chandra web site. http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/openFITS/overview.html
Quote:
"The industry standard software for processing & imaging work of this nature is Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop comes in a variety of "flavors" priced according to the needs of the user and is available for both Windows and Mac (unfortunately, not Linux). While we would like to maintain an open source workflow in the openFITS project, there are certain advantages to using Photoshop and the FITSLiberator plugin that will make this difficult. For the first tutorial, and anywhere else that is applicable, the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) will be used as this is completely open source, available for all platforms, and will be suitable for the more straightforward images. Although GIMP is perfectly capable of reading FITS files, it is extremely limited in its control over image scaling. As the difficulty level of the images increases, this limitation will force the use of Photoshop with the FITSLiberator plugin developed in conjunction with ESA/ESO and NASA. This plugin gives the user complete control over the appearance of data before it is projected to the screen and most of the scaling information is lost."

This is a good reason for the need to have a foundation with many contributors and support, like Libre-Office has. Professional Astronomers use Linux platforms allot, why this limitation in Gimp. Unacceptable!!.

Bob, you right about the foundation, but not just GIMP foundation. An Open Graphics Foundation should exist as a bigger umbrella for Inkscape / GIMP / Scribus / UF Raw / and other high quality graphics projects - because some of them them need to be interoperable in the future (at least GIMP / Inkscape / Scribus), and this foundation need to support a paid development model where individuals or companies can subscribe for technical help or for "pay for feature" model - it is possible on our days if the desire is strong enough.

In the past two weeks, the main GIMP and GEGL developers have created a new branch that has already seen the replacement of some GIMP internals by GEGL counterparts (e.g. GeglBuffers):

http://git.gnome.org/browse/gimp/log/?h=goat-invasion

GEGL uses floating point ops internally, but can accept and deliver arbitrary formats - in this 8 bit per component.

Film GIMP (http://www.cinepaint.org/)branched out because of the higher bit issue. Lots of folk (and only partially me; most of the time 8-bit's enough {wasn't that the name of a TV sitcome?}) are not happy with the delays to higher bit depth, but I'm only an end user and have no idea how complex it will be to support the higher bit depth within GIMP. It's been touted, however, that GEGL supposedly does support high bit depth, so the only conclusion that I can see is that GIMP and GEGL aren't very friendly with each other or am I wrong? :)

Various comments here about higher bit depth: Gimp 2.8 doesn't include this! It is "road-mapped" for version 3.0 (with version 2.10 to come first) at the moment - but if you look back through the development discussions - it was going to be a major feature of version 2 and has been kicked further down the list with each development cycle. Gimp 2.6 was released on 1 Oct 2008 so, assuming 2.8 makes it out this year (the release date estimate is currently in May) it will have been nearly 4 years in development. This is a a longer gap than most, but the gap between releases has averaged over 3 years over Gimp's entire history. So, assuming the current roadmap holds, two more releases to go - say 7 years - before 3.0. So you might have it by 2020!

You could discuss your UI suggestions directly with the UI redesign team, see http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/GIMP_UI_Redesign - I'm not sure if they read threads on this site.

Looks like Photoshop CS 6 is also getting a UI redesign.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/2601746315/photoshop-cs6-beta-new-features-for-photographers#ui

And it looks way better and more professional than Gimp's new thrown together design! Gimp devs up to the challenge??. Can you do better, and make Linux users proud?!.

Contributions don't have to be 'developmental' - for example, there a lots of bug reports where only some information is needed. Maybe it is unclear how a bug can be reproduced, or if it happens with the current development releases at all.

These bugs are marked with the NEEDINFO status in the bugtracker.

Follow http://bit.ly/gimpneedinfo , read the bugs listed there, grab a 2.7.5 GIMP (or a more recent Git build, if available) and check if you can provide additional insight.

Regards,
Michael

I yearn for 2.8 and higher bit depths, also. But I find it inappropriate for me or anyone else to criticize the length of time it has/will take to bring that version online. I cannot make a developmental contribution, and assume that others who criticize also have not made similar contributions. Hence, not fair to criticize, no matter what year it may be.
Any professional will fill gaps in his/her tool box some other way until Gimp x.x can sufficiently fill the need.

Caruso

Could care less one bit!!!. Want Gimp 2.8 and "32bit" color depth or higher. Need Gimp Foundation started!!!. So Linux can be a viable platform for professional photographers, graphics designers and enthusiasts. It's 2012 people!!. Would have been nice to see 2.8 in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Constant disappointment.

thanks a lot...