By Ian Hollidae, 2025/06/30

The PNG specification is getting an update for the first time in twenty years. The main focus is to simply recognize what the web community is already doing with the format. However, there appears to be a number of conflicts on the horizon regarding the future of image formats on the web.

The biggest issue is Google pushing its own WebP format, to become the defacto web standard, which some people aren't happy about. I've run across this problem myself (uploading a JPEG image but having it download as a WebP) while image testing. I admit, I'm not thrilled with this development.

There's also the matter of JPEG XL, the official successor to JPEG, which already does what the new PNG spec wants to achieve. All the major browsers seem to support it except for Chrome. And of course, JPEG itself will be difficult to replace, having been entrenched for so long. It makes me wonder if we might be at a point where any sort of friction between format stakeholders, mainly browsers and graphic toolsmakers, will lead to larger problems down the line.

In the long run, the more formats and tools that are available, the better. Let designers and developers sort things out. Hopefully this PNG update keeps things on that path.

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/04/04

A couple of days ago, I ran across an unexpected article in my newsreader. The post was about SMIL and the authors surprise that it was still around. To be honest, I was surprised it may still be around.

For those who don't know, SMIL stands for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language. It was/is a way to create interactive presentations for the web (or whoever implemented the spec). One of the design purposes stated is:

Define an XML-based language that allows authors to write interactive multimedia presentations. Using SMIL 3.0, an author may describe the temporal behavior of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen.

For a myriad of reasons, SMIL never caught on. It's too bad because I thought it should have been a lot bigger. Bigger than Flash. Bigger than Silverlight. Maybe as big as SVG webwise (SMIL powers SVG animation). Like a lot of others, I thought SMIL had faded away living on only in spirit. I guess the question now is how alive is it?

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/03/24

Now that GIMP 3.0 is truly final, the question now is will the supposed UX improvements translate into a wider adoption. Does it really matter at this point? Outside the usual places where you'd expect this to be news, there really hasn't been much buzz. I realize I'm someone who would eventually upgrade to the next version, regardless of whether it was the brand new 3.0 version or merely a 2.11 update, so maybe I'm not the best person to ask the question. But I'm still curious.

For now, here are some reviews by people more qualified at graphics than me:

• I use GIMP every day and I'm loving its 3.0 release (ZDNET)
• Freeware image editor GIMP 3.0 arrives after seven years of incubation (Tom's Hardware)
• GIMP 3.0 is Finally Out (How-To Geek)

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/02/05

During my first stint in tech (started in 2000), I was eager to get into everything. The web was still wide open and there were plenty of areas to get involved. For me, it seemed the most logical approach to all of this was to be a jack-of-all-trades. And why not. Wordpress wasn't around yet. Dreamweaver hadn't taken over HTML development. Early versions of Linux were experiencing real growth and streaming media was still relatively new. However, there was one area where I completely ran into a brick wall and that was in graphic design.

The First Time Around

At the time, I attributed my struggle to a lack of artistic talent. Don't get me wrong, I never thought it would be easy. Looking back though, it was probably due to the fact that I wasn't really involved in a lot of projects that required it. And it never occurred to me the same focus and hardwork I used in programming/scripting/etc could also be applied to graphics. Regardless of my thought process, I had a full plate and decided to let my efforts on the graphics front fade away. During the rest of my stint in tech (left in 2012), there were a number of occasions where that decision came back to bite me.

Now three years into my second stint in tech, I decided I would make more of an effort on the graphic design front. The biggest reason is I'll clearly need it more this time around. Developed software will need icons and online documentation. Hosted websites will need layouts, logos, etc. Part of my preparation was reading through a couple of highly recommended design books, The Non-Designers Design Book (ISBN: 978-0133966152), in particular. Additionally, I went through a drawing book which was something I've been meaning to do for a while anyway. I even went as far as creating a private mac app that mimics the basic functionality of ColorHexa and Canva Color Wheel just for the purpose of immersing myself in color concepts.

The process has been interesting.

What Did I Learn?

What it's shown me is how much I didn't know, or failed to learn, in my first stint. The thing stands out most is the question of how to quantify good graphics. Or maybe I should say, how do you answer the question of whether something is wrong. Let me give you some examples.

The first issue would be in dealing with code (software, javascript, etc). You can tell when a bug is present or if your application is running too slow. There are specific things you can do to fix the problem.

Another example would be in HTML/SVG. You can see if things within the layout script aren't aligned and take steps to correct it.

In graphic design, there is no "make it look better" or "this lacks something" tool. So what do you do? This is where I've gained quite a bit of respect for people who answer the question successfully. Fortunately for me, all my graphic design projects are completely under my control so I can use the "I don't like this, I'm doing something else" button. Works everytime.

A Path Adjustment

In any case, the learning process has made me appreciate what I missed out years ago and I've enjoyed alot of it to this point. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm a guru. I doubt I'll be doing graphic design for customers. What it does mean is that I'm no longer looking at brick walls when I approach a graphics problem in the future.

That alone has made the effort worthwhile.

By Ian Hollidae, 2024/11/08

It's been a good year for open source graphic tools. Back in the summer, Blender released version 4.2 lts (long term support) [https://www.blender.org/press/blender-4-2-lts-release/]. Last month, Inkscape released 1.4 described as the "geek" version. And now, GIMP has finally gotten around to unveiling a release candidate for the long awaited version 3.

The GIMP release actually came as somewhat of a suprise. The new version was scheduled for early summer, but when that didn't happen, and no real movement was evident during the fall, I figured they wouldn't do anything at all this year.

One interesting thing about the announcement was an entire section dedicated to the change in GIMPs release process. The norm from now on will be smaller releases:

What [GIMP] ultimately want is to make smaller and faster release points. We gathered features we want to work on in separate roadmaps, though they may be spread through several releases, or oppositely released in a single GIMP version.

For now, it's just nice to know things are really moving forward. Maybe I'll break my own rule about avoiding broad/general reviews of new software (I tend to focus on task related items). However, if a new GIMP is out, I guess anything is possible.