Creative Software

Useful Commands

Software Overview Useful Linux Commands

Ghostscript (Link)

RGB to CMYK Conversion

This command will PDFs in the RGB color space, such as those created in Inkscape, to CMYK for print. Within the terminal navigate to the file directory and replace out.pdf with the desired output CMYK file name and in.pdf with the existing RGB file:

gs -o out.pdf -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dUseCIEColor -sProcessColorModel=DeviceCMYK -

sColorConversionStrategy=CMYK -dEncodeColorImages=false -

sColorConversionStrategyForImages=CMYK in.pdf

Compress CMYK File

This command will reduce the dpi of a PDF to 300 (and possibly other compression). This is useful after converting PDFs to CMYK using the prior command because they can be very large. gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -sOutputFile=out.pdf in.pdf

Merge and Compress PDF Files

This command will merge two PDF files and reduce the dpi to 300. This is useful when generating PDFs in Inkscape. gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -sOutputFile=out.pdf in1.pdf in2.pdf

Convert PNG's to JPG's in a sub-directory

Inkscape only exports files in PNG format. This is a simple command to convert them those PNG files to JPG (with default compression?) using Imagemagick to a subdirectory called Exported_JPGs. Run this command inside of the directory of the PNG files. mogrify -path Exported_JPGs -format jpg *.png Software Overview

We use the following software during the course of our work. All of these applications are Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

Operating Systems

Solus - A GNU/Linux based with great performance and stability. Software packages are generally kept very current. Ubuntu - A GNU/Linux based operating system with very wide adoption, making documentation and software availability excellent. The software repository will however need to be augmented by PPAs for the latest versions of applications.

Desktop Applications

Audacity - Audio clip editing.

Blender - 3D modeling, animation, VFX, and video editing.

Darktable - Non-destructive photo development.

DisplayCAL - Display calibration software that works in conjunction with commercial calibration hardware. FreeCAD - Parametric modeling and CAD file conversion.

GIMP - Image manipulation.

Inkscape - Vector graphics and page layout.

Krita - Digital sketching and painting.

Natron - Video /VFX.

Scribus - Desktop publishing.

Server Applications

Cloudron - Self-hosted cloud application installation and management service.

Nextcloud - File synchronization, calendar, and contact book. Rocket.Chat - Team chat.

Wekan - Project management.