GIMP: Saver and Save/export clean plug-ins

[simonlang]

 

In GIMP 2.8, the developers changed the way you save files. "Save" is now used only for GIMP's native format, XCF (and compressed variants like .xcf.gz and .xcf.bz2). Other formats that may lose information on layers, fonts and other aspects of the edited image must be "Exported" rather than saved.

This has caused much consternation and flameage on the gimp-user mailing list. I can't link to all the threads, but you can find them in the gimp-user archives starting in mid-July of 2012 and continuing for years afterward.

Hoping for a productive solution rather than more flame wars, I wrote a quick save plug-in, "Save/export clean", which will save to any format, including XCF.

But I found that I wasn't using Save/export clean much myself, and eventually, I wrote a more general plug-in called Saver. That's what I'm currently using myself. In addition to overwriting the current image's name (like Save/export clean does), Saver has a couple of nice options:

• A Saver as... option so you can change the filename or file type.
• An option to save as .xcf or .xcf.gz and, at the same time, export a copy in another format, possibly scaled down. So you can maintain your multi-layer XCF image but also update the JPG copy that you're going to put on the web.
• Merges multiple layers so they'll show up properly in your JPG or PNG image.

Both Saver and Save/export clean mark the image as clean, so you won't get an "unsaved images" warning when you quit just because you've saved to JPG and not XCF.

Beware! Neither plug-in does much hand-holding like asking whether you want to saver over an existing file: it's easy to overwrite existing files, so be careful.

 

 

 

Get it via github:

link

 

click on "RAW" save the .py file, make it executable and copy/paste it to your gimp plugin directory, for 2.8 it is:

~/.gimp-2.8/plug-ins/

Then start gimp and under File you will find 2 entries called saver and saver as. this, as above written, can be used to replace the default save and export function, basically merging these 2 into one.

[Haggis Veteran]

I dont see the issue with just exporting all the above does really is just rename it lol

[simonlang]

I dont see the issue with just exporting all the above does really is just rename it lol

 

well for a long time gimp user it might be an issue. it happend to me that i for long time always clicked on save/save as expecting the .jpg (my prefered file format still) would be there an option, which is not in the newer gimp releases. it took me quite some time to remember that if you want to save something in gimp as jpg or png to use the export function.

it was even harder because in most other image programs, the save/save as function works as expected.

article proves that many in the community don't like the export function at all and i side with them.

you could argue now that learning to use saver now is another process, but i really prefer it that way as saver gives you all options and maybe as a side effect sooner or later gimp will revert to the old save function where you could save as jpg/png.

 

anyway, this is just a plugin, you don't like it? fine then don't use it. :)