New switcher from PS here (CS.5), running on MacOSX 10.13 (I know, and old version, it has to do with my Windows BootCamp - long story). Point is, I'm a bit confused and want to be sure I'm understanding correctly.
In PS, things like brushes, gradients, patterns, etc. are stored as sets. So a brush file (.abr) or gradient file (.grd) might hold a dozen or more brushes, or elated gradients and so on. These can also be loaded dynamically, from any folder, from within PS.
From what I"m seeing, in order to use these kinds of add-ons in GIMP, I need to add them as single items? And they all get dumped in the application package itself? That seems....unwieldy at best?
I have roughly 3.5 GB of brushes, 250 MB of patterns, a hundred or so gradeint sets with as many as 10, 20, or more gradients each. Imagining trying to find what I'm looking for with everything individually sounds hellish, and I suspect it would slow things to a crawl.
I also keep these in my Dropbox Folder so they get updated as I add new things, and I can load them into Photoshop on any machine I'm working on. I'm guessing having GIMP itself reside on DB and be run from different machines would play havoc with the app, so how could I keep my resources up to date on multiple machines?
Am I just vastly misunderstanding how GIMP handles these resources? Halp! Thank you all!
The usual disclaimer, very few (none) MacOS users on this forum, they come ask a question and usually never seen again. As a linux user, I can drag out an old OSX (VM) for try-outs.
You are going to really struggle if you try and apply PS practice to Gimp. It just does not work the same way.
Quote:I have roughly 3.5 GB of brushes, 250 MB of patterns, a hundred or so gradient ....snip... I suspect it would slow things to a crawl.
You are correct. Do not load that amount of files. Gimp will definitely become constipated. A note about formats, Gimp can use some .abr brushes (version 5 and earlier) but not recent versions. your PS pattern and gradient files - not the same format although patterns can be .png or .jpg
If MacOS has a 2-pane file manager, you can easily move files in and out of Gimp and refresh without leaving Gimp
or
There is a resources manager that does that process. The most recent version from Ofnuts (the one I use in linux) I can not get to work in the OSX (VM) however an older (Gimp 2.6) version seems to work.
A set of python plugins attached. These go in your Gimp User Profile plugins folder. Make sure they are executable. Each plugin has a couple of lines to edit, as shown below. You need to enter the actual path to the folders - the regular gimp user folder and a folder "name"_alt which contains the brushes, patterns sub-divided into applicable sections.
07-11-2020, 05:03 PM (This post was last modified: 07-11-2020, 05:11 PM by rich2005.
Edit Reason: fix formatting
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(07-11-2020, 10:23 AM)rich2005 Wrote: The usual disclaimer, very few (none) MacOS users on this forum, they come ask a question and usually never seen again.
I'm surprised; I wonder what Mac folks are going to from PS, or for GIMP support.... But I tend to be annpyingly chatty, so I don't think I'll be vanishing! LOL
You are going to really struggle if you try and apply PS practice to Gimp. It just does not work the same way.
A note about formats, Gimp can use some .abr brushes (version 5 and earlier) but not recent versions.
your PS pattern and gradient files - not the same format although patterns can be .png or .jpg
Brushes are mosly from CS5 or earier, so I'll have to tinker and see what I can do there, thank you for that. Yes, it does seem to be a drastically different approach to resources - that will take getting used to.
If MacOS has a 2-pane file manager, you can easily move files in and out of Gimp and refresh without leaving Gimp
Not sure exactly what you mean by that. Of course, I can move files in and about to the GIMP Application package, but doing so while an program is running tweaks every best bractices thing I've ever learend - I would expect that to create some rather unpredeicable behavior?
There is a resources manager that does that process. The most recent version from Ofnuts (the one I use in linux)
I can not get to work in the OSX (VM) however an older (Gimp 2.6) version seems to work.
I'll work with these and look further, and thank you so much for the suggestions.
Can you answer one other thing, however? Do these resource managers (or GIMP) group resources into sets. Even if/when I can get them campatible, it is the case that the are hangled by GIMP are a single item each, or as a group of patterns gradients, whatever?
Quote:Do these resource managers (or GIMP) group resources into sets. Even if/when I can get them campatible, it is the case that the are hangled by GIMP are a single item each, or as a group of patterns gradients, whatever?
It is an uncomplicated plugin, takes a folder from something_alt and copies to the Gimp something folder. It is up to you to fill the something_alt folder with sub-folders of various categories, say for brushes - stars - plants - snowflakes - whatever you want.
You do not actually need a resources manager for that, make your own permanent sub folders in the Gimp User Profile.
In a regular Gimp and I am not sure this works in the Mac Gimp version, assets can be tagged. Using the resource manager that is by folder name. My OSX VM is back in the box, this is linux. I can thin available brushes down from a monster list to 'managable' by specifying the tag. This in my regular linux Gimp. I loaded some extra brushes, then selected a set by its tag.
07-11-2020, 09:25 PM (This post was last modified: 07-11-2020, 09:36 PM by migf1.)
Mithalogica, that's a humongous amount of assets!
As Rich said, your best bet is to create sub-folder hierarchies for each asset category in your hard-disk, and then add their parent folders to Gimp's: Edit->Preferences->Folders .They will then appear as tags, again as Rich shown.
I know it will take time, and the more assets you add, the more stress you put to the program (so try to add only those you really need).
As for multiple machines, I don't think Gimp has a cloud, but you can always copy your main assets folder to a USB stick (that is besides backing it up to your dropbox account and re-D/L it from different machines).
