I’ve been using a lot of GIMP since switching to Linux because while Photoshop inside WINE is fast, it’s buggy and opening up a virtual machine just isn’t worth the time for a small edit. I’ve been getting used to the differences and with the latest release of 2.6.6 (packaged with Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope) it’s really starting to come together.

Looking to get the most power out of this application, I headed over to this messy repository that is the official plugin registry. Doing a quick breeze through to see if anything caught my eye, it quickly did with this page about Liquid Rescaling. The picture was enough to catch my attention but the video below dropped my jaw.

Looking to learn more, I went to the official page to learn more. On the download page, I found out that it’s included in the Ubuntu repsitories:

sudo apt-get install gimp-plugin-registry

After installing, I went to the help >> plugin browser in gimp and found that it was under the ‘layer’ file menu. I gave it a shot and It really is magic!

Panoramic Sunsets are so much nicer, aren’t they? :-P

Step one, original picture:
sunset

Step two, mark the area I’d like preserved:
sunset-edit

Step three, magic:
sunset-panoramic