[CinePaint] Exciting New Use For Cinepaint

Cinepaint has, I believe, found an exciting new use.

Recently, the ImageMagick set of image processing tools has incorporated
the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT).  In contrast to other FFT tools,
the ImageMagick implementation is highly accurate and can easily be used
on RGB color images.

FFT processing usually requires the creation of an image mask of some kind
and this is where Cinepaint can be utilized.  ImageMagick stores the result
of the FFT transformation in 32-bit floating point images and these images
can then readily be loaded into Cinepaint for mask creation.

The link describing FFT is here:

http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/fourier_transforms/fourier.html#noise_removal

Notice that the author mentions both GIMP and Photoshop as possible
editors for mask creation, but neither of these, for various reasons, is,
IMO, to be recommended.  Cinepaint is the best choice due to its deep-bit
capability and its Open Source nature.

Basically, the brush tool in Cinepaint followed by threshholding and
conversion to grayscale can be used to create quick masks for FFT
processing with ImageMagick.  The complete details are somewhat
involved and all those interested should consult the above link
as well as other sources.

Already I have experienced excellent results removing halftone patterns
from high resolution scanned images using Cinepaint with IM.  But this
is only one example of many possible applications.

I encourage everyone to check out the exciting new avenue for image
manipulation that is now afforded to the Open Source world via ImageMagick
in conjunction with Cinepaint.

Frank Peters

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