Submit YOUR Gimp Artwork!

Hello everyone,

The Deskwall blog (www.deskwall.blogspot.com) has a newsletter and is now starting to feature GIMP artwork in it.

To submit your artwork to be published in the latest issue e-mail your artwork to dwnews1@gmail.com and it will be featured in the next issue, please be sure to provide a name so we can tell everyone who made this picture.

For more information you can visit the Deskwall Blog at the link above.

****NEW****

Hi everyone, I have a new page with a downloadable PDF version of the tut as well . You can visit here... http://comicfan2000.googlepages.com/home

Cheers,

Paul

Qustions

If you have questions about Gimp, please leave comments here, thanks!

Paul

**Please read quickly**

Hi all, the blog is updated and it took forever. I had made my tut in Word, and tried to use every method possible to get it uploaded which didn't work, tried Google doc and spreadsheet among many other ways, finally I uploaded my images and pasted my text which , for a small post, no biggie, for a 27 page tut, BIGGIE. So I finally got all the images arranged the best I could and published. If there are mistakes, it's the best I could do for now.

That said, at the bottom of the page is Justin's post and comment section, so please take a peek as there is some info for you Gimpies.

Thank you and hope the tut helps some of you!

Paul

Hello!

Hello Gimpers!

The Blog is well under way and perhaps the most challenging part is yet to come. The goal is to keep "you" interrested and help you learn as well. Now, by no means am I a "Gimpspecialist" and as I stated, 60% of what I don't know, I am also trying to learn. However, I know enough to get me through and it's that amount of knowledge that I would like to use to help newbies. I know, you go to the site, you search on Google, you ask around and "usually" you don't get something you understand for an answer. Usually you are left scratching your head and buying a new keyboard due to the beating it probably took while trying to get answers.

Here I want it to be different. I want people to have a clear understanding of functions, so, if you are a more advanced Gimpie, please do NOT answer newbies in a way that shows your superiority , something like : E=mc2 x 3.14 divided by the total sum of transparency....please keep it simple, in this blog I stick to the rule of -THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DUMB QUESTION- and I aim to keep this standard. We all must start from dirt and work our way out and everyone learns differently.

On that note: If you must give a simple answer, please don't be overly simple or too blunt either in a way of superiority, something like: How do I use transparency? "Uh, Adjust it?" No no, this won't do, please explain an answer as well as possible without the two issues mentioned. Sarcasm and hot headedness will not be tolerated , nor will slang\swearing, etc...you will be deleted and perhaps if kept up, blocked for good. I know, i'm a big ol' meaner. "My almost 2 year old daughter says that to my older boys when they make her mad" Yaw a meana.

So, if anyone has anything valuable to add, tricks , tips, even if more advanced, we will try to explain as best we can. Enjoy!

Paul "comicfan2000" ADMIN

P.S. I have some clickable thumbs to the right that you can view of some of my work. Some of it older some newer. Also, if you ABSOLUTELY need to e-mail me, why I don't know, maybe just to let me know how you like the blog or because you are bored, errr..extremely bored , I have an old email that has no ties to me but for whatever reason it' s on the server so i'll use it ;) comicfan@charter.net

Hello. I asked myself where to begin the tutorial and figured, why not start with what you need to set up Gimp in the first place? Hey, that’s pretty good so let’s do this thing.

First the Basis of what we need!

Now, first of all what you need are two basic elements to setting up Gimp.

· GTK

· Gimp

Now that wasn’t so hard, oh wait, we have to get them don’t we? Ok to do this go to this link

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

Now, you notice the GTK and wonder what it’s for. Well to keep it simple as promised for now, you need this for Gimp to run correctly. Once

you install it, you won’t even know it’s there. The 2.10.6 for Windows 2000 or newer is the one to choose unless you run anything older. It states this very nicely under the download.

Gimp, yes you need this obviously. I suggest 2.2.13, as the 2.3 version isn’t stable yet and in testing. So download this right from the link I provided to you. J

Remember: You must install GTK first in order for Gimp to run!

Now that we assume you have this all in hand and installed, it’s time…time to open the cornucopia of a program that is Gimp. Your worst nightmares lay inside so beware! Nah, it’s not so bad so let’s take a peek at what you should see when you first open Gimp.

On the left is a window you will use all the time, it has many basic yet important controls.

On the right, this is a window you will hear many say, “I don’t use it, I don’t need it, it gets in the way”. This may be true to some users and in time, I will bet you could see this window occupying the desktop. Why? We’ll get into this in a bit, just let me state that this window will become very important for many who advance in Gimp or some who are new to it.

Another important note: Crash? No not THAT crash, yes the little Gimp character looks like Crash Bandicoot but isn’t. In fact his name is Wilber. The point here is Gimp tends to crash and freeze, this is by all standards, normal. I recommend you save a lot and after every major change you do. Hey, it only takes a couple of clicks and when you save to a file, it will remember where it is so you can save right to it\overwrite it or even change it.

For future reference and I will touch on this, save as xcf extension to save your work and layers and all, just the way you left them, only without the undo. Otherwise, you can save to MANY formats, which we will tackle as well.

Now, you say you want some explanations huh?

Let's start with the 3 tabs in the left window starting with the one called File, which opens a number of things. A brand new file, existing file, a file from URL, and a few other places as well. For this tutorial, we will stick with the basics and assume a new file for now.

*Xnts is basically a plugin browser for extra Gimp things we may want to add eventually or not. There is a script fu in there as well which we will briefly touch on later.

*Help says it all. I would assume everyone could figure out what this means, if not, it is to access the help file “if you installed\downloaded it”. If not, it will give you an error saying it can’t find the help file.

Now that we have the 3 basic options at the top covered, let’s get into the basic ones underneath. I call them basic but really they help define anything you do in Gimp.

I suggest this: Go to (File) open, new, and what you will usually see is a window about 420 X 300 by default and we will call it, “the work window”. Go ahead and choose this window since this will by your “scratch pad” of sorts. I only chose to do this so you may tinker with the options I’m going over with you. It may allow you to understand them better.

The options you should see in the work window are thus>File, Edit, Select, View, Image, Layer, Tools, Dialogs, Filters, Script-Fu.

If you don’t have these, something went terribly wrong, solar flare, global warming, earthquake, something. So if you do have these and no anomalies exist, we will move onto the left window and explain the “work window” controls as we go.

For all intents and purposes, learning about LAYERS is probably the most important thing you can do in Gimp. Layers are just as they sound. You can work with layers in many ways and we will get into some of them. Remember the right window we talked about? Yeah, this is where this important window comes in later on. Some of you, may keep this window up right now or minimize it, however if you feel brave, taking a look at the layers as they are being worked with may be very helpful to you in the long run. For now IF you keep this window up, make sure the stack of white paper tab is selected. This is the layer window.

Let’s begin by choosing the rectangular select button.

Note: if you hover your mouse pointer over the selections, you will get a small explanation that may help you if you forget. J

Since I am new to Word, you will see all sorts of little highlights and strange things, just ignore them.

Now, click on the rectangle button and it will remain pressed. Now, move your cursor over to the work window and left click the mouse button in a corner of the window, try the left corner to begin with but HOLD the mouse button down and drag, you should see a rectangle forming. When you have the desired size, let off the mouse button and you should have a rectangle that is slightly animated, like a bunch of ants moving in a rectangle pattern.

This screen shot shows the dragging rectangle, when you let off mouse button, should be a broken animated rectangle, not solid.

Now, this is where we delve into the work window options a bit or right clicking. Yes, we can right click for options too but we’ First let’s try some basic things like Bucket fill.

Note: if you click on an empty area around the rectangle selection, it will cause it to disappear
unless we use it first.

You can choose the little bucket in the left window and then mouse over to our square of moving ants and simply click inside the chosen rectangle. By default the color should be set on black and this is what you should get >

Note: let’s not worry about the options under BucketFill just yet; simply it should be on FG, “foreground color”.

Now, the tricky part about this is if you leave it o n the bucket fill icon, you will continue to just keep filling the same area. What you need to do is go back to the rectangle selection and highlight it yet again, mouse over to the work window, and notice when you move your mouse from the selected, filled region, to outside the region what happens. The cursor goes from a cross inside the region to a solid square outside it. That’s because the cross will move the selection or cut out the selection. When working with layers, this adds a new scenario but currently we are doing basics.

Now click outside the rectangle area and you will see the “ants” disappear. The selection is done and you are the proud owner of a black rectangle! L Yes, my excitement was restrained as well.

Please keep in mind this works the same with the circle and other selection tools with some slight difference, which will be later explained.

Now, lets try something, oh, oh, you say.

Nah, it’s fine. You will use the UNDO function which is VERY important and almost has unlimited undo ability and is one of the most helpful functions unless you are “Perfect Pete” whom doesn’t exist. Some may think so but we know better ;) That being said, let’s move on…

Up in the work window, select the EDIT tab and look at the options, and look on the top of the list for UNDO. What the undo says will vary with what you have done, although if you haven’t moved your rectangle at all, it should say: Undo select none. If not, click the undo until it does. This is simply going backwards from our steps; it will put the moving ants back. You should still have a black rectangle as well which we are now going to fill with a different color. Go over to the two color tiles with a bi-directional arrow between the corners. Double click the black color; the top color tile and a color window should open. Wooo hooo, we have color options!

Now, you can use this in a number of ways, one, you can click in the main large window and cross hairs will appear, drag the little cross around the window and you can select a shade. You can also use the HTML Notation which you must enter numbers for specific colors, this is handy when working with bitmapping skins and such when specific colors are needed but that’s also for another time. You can choose your sliders above and click on the radio buttons for specific color shade choosing options. As you can see, you have CURRENT and OLD color boxes, which the old shows last color selected.

For this purpose, we will use the cross hair method. Next to the large window is a smaller slim slider window that is vertical, if you click in it, a slider appears and slide that line all the way to the top. You should be in the red zone, also, in the large window, slide the cross hair point all the way to the upper right corner. What we should have is a nice red.

Click OK to accept the color and the window automatically goes on lunch break. Now what you should have in the left window is a red tile and white tile, you will also see the two little tiles, Black\White, this is to quickly set it back to default and who wants to use the color bars to get black and white, right? Now, double click the white larger tile that is under the red tile. Repeat the above mentioned but do this with a color of your choosing, blue, brown, green, whatever.

Now what you should have are red and “choice color” tiles. Now the magic is about to begin!!

Choosing bucket fill again, go back to your black square with ants and fill it with red. That wasn’t so hard, right? Great, now see that bi-directional arrow I mentioned before between the corners of the color tiles? Go ahead and click on it, do this ten times and watch the color switch, now do this faster…faster…now you have an animated Gif, loll, kidding. What this does obviously if you just fell for that, is switch colors which is very useful if you want to have more than one in the immediate window. Now, switch to your custom color that you made and use bucket fill one more time to fill in the rectangle. All right! I think we have some color basics accomplished. Let’s tackle some more basic tools right off.

First of all, let’s unselect the black ants, remember, click rectangle selection tool, click outside of black or whatever color you last put in the selection. Now you should have the solid color rectangle.

Pencil

For all intents and purposes, I will use the Pencil tool to set a standard for most of the below described. These have similar properties and I will group them the best I can. Remember, try these out just doodling, don’t make an actual Gimp art yet, you may end up frustrated instead of satisfied.

Let’s’ go back to the left window and select the little pencil tool. Now more than likely obvious, begin drawing in the rectangle, outside it, on your walls, whatever. This is fairly straightforward. I will get into the setting under the pencil option a bit since it’s not as complicated as Bucket Fill and also break you in to some other things at the same time.

Opacity> this will fade the color into a transparent state for lighter coloring. Go ahead, “using the pencil to color in your square after each setting” slide it all the way to the left, you may not see anything at all, now slide it to the middle and the color will be there but faded.

Mode> This has different effects to it and I suggest doodling around to find out what they do and it just so happens this is the fastest learning method. We won’t get into these as of yet but for basic operation, this should be set to NORMAL.

Brush> this sets the size of the brush you want to use. Go ahead and click on it, you will see a slider with all sorts of sizes and shapes, even some stamping shapes. Hey you, don’t be a wimp, try it out!

Pressure Sensitivity> While we won’t delve into this too much either, you can set some options by clicking the + sign next to it. It gives you Opacity, Size and Color. Which gives you the pressure according to these factors. I suggest doodling with these as well although I personally don’t use these much.

Fade Out> This takes a solid line when you use a tool and say instead of a line going all the way across, it will fade out. You can try this with your pencil and when you choose Fade out, you can also choose the length of which the fading begins. Incremental will be solid, fade, solid, fade, and so on. Use color from gradient, which will use two colors you have chosen and use them in a stroke or fill. I will touch on gradients in just a second.

These are some basic options for pencil but many apply to other tools as well and to go over them is simply redundant. To go over them is simply redundant. To go over them is simply redundant. To ...uh, you get the point.

Paintbrush

Paintbrush> That little paintbrush that sits next to the pencil is basically the same as pencil but has a more “fluffy” edge, yes like a paintbrush, not as defined as pencil.

Bucket fill

Bucket Fill> told you we’d get back to this :)

FG color fill> this is the foreground color, typically the first color on your color tiles above, whichever is on top.

BG color fill> this one is the opposite, the bottom or underneath color tile you see above.

Pattern Fill>Ah yes, pattern fill, choose from a list of pre-made patterns to fill your selection. So if you choose this, say the PINE selection, this is what you get when you fill your object\selection.

Affected areas> this isn’t something I will get into great detail over as of yet. Remember, we want basics and I am trying to do just that. I will simply say that a couple of options speak for themselves on what they do. Later on if I do a slightly more advanced tutorial, then I’ll get into them.

Airbrush

Airbrush> this isn’t all too different from paintbrush or pencil in options; however, it is nice for an airbrush look.

Eraser

Eraser> Once again, redundant options to the pencil but a couple of small differences we will touch on.

Anti erase> yes, this takes away what you erased and brings back the original “whatever” you erased.

Eraser is a very handy tool for cleaning up some rough edges, etc…which if need be, we will get into later.

Blur or Sharpen

Blur or sharpen> this little teardrop tool does exactly what is says, it will blur or sharpen parts of an image you select. You can choose which you would like at the bottom on the radio button option. Once again, There is Fade out, hard edge, rate, but we won’t get into these as basic options are enough to get the point across.

Smudge

Smudge> Another straightforward tool, yep, it smudges. This can be handy as well if you want to, well, smudge. Just put some lipstick on and rub your hand across your face, yes, smudge.

Dodge or burn strokes

Dodge\burn> This tool is a bit beyond what I want to accomplish here. It’s somewhat like a contrast\brightness\ tool only in brush form. Of course it’s much more than that but for now, that’s what we will leave it as. If you would like to see it in action, I suggest trying it.

Draw in ink tool

Draw in ink tool> a very um-interesting tool. Want to become a psychiatrist? Make inkblots? This tool is for you! Seriously, I don’t use this much but has some good points. This is one of those tools I highly suggest fooling with, if you miss your bingo dobber, this is for you.

Paint using patterns…etc…Let’s call it the Clone tool.

Clone tool> this handy little tool is worth a mention. You can use this tool to clone a selection and paint with it. Or you can use it to paint with pattern, gradient, or image. To use it as a clone tool do this; select it, mouse over to the work window hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click on a spot you would like to use as the color or pattern, etc…Then begin painting or stamping with it, it will use this source as the paint color\pattern. The alignment we won’t get into as of yet.

Finally, About Gradients

As promised, I will discuss gradients. Gradients are simply a combination of more than one color or even a solid to fade single color. So with any of the tools that have this option, you can choose from a list of gradients or create your own with the two color tiles we have talked about. Let’s use the Gradient fill to explain and set the standard for other tools that allow a gradient. This way, if you run across them, you will be able to manage them.

The Gradient fill tool is extremely handy for filling an object or a whole screen. What we are going to do is this. Close that messy rectangle we made and don’t save. Or save it as the next Picasso if you would like.

Open a new window same as before, same size, same computer, same house, ummm, ok not THAT far but you get the idea. Now, what I would like you to do is select the Gradient fill tool from the left window. Remember how to choose colors? You can choose your own OR choose from a list of them, which I will touch base on right now except for redundant options like opacity or mode.

Gradient> this little peeper of a window has many choices of gradients. By default, usually the two colors you have in the tiles above. I won’t discuss every gradient in the selection window, click on it and you will see quite a few. Let’s just stick to the basic, default colors you selected for now. Now, in your work window, create another rectangle with moving ants. Mouse over to it, left click and hold your mouse button on the upper left corner of the rectangle, and while holding it, drag diagonally to the lower right hand corner and release. Now you have a blended gradient! I see the wheels turning now, the possibilities are now endless! Ok, a bit exaggerated but still, it begins to make sense right? Gradient filling is very useful. Let’s see what your rectangle should somewhat look like….

If it looks like the below, you are in business. We won’t yet worry about Dithering or Adaptive super sampling. For now, basic gradient fill will work.

I do want to mention one of these options. In the gradient window, open the options for different gradients, in the drop down window, find the FG to transparent. This is great for fading a color to nothingness. So for a faded shadow or glow, whatever it is, this works great.

Offset>this will set which color of the gradient you want to use most of. So if you have red and white, depending on the slider position, will use a little more red or little more white when filling.

Shape> This will do many different types of gradient filling, basically this will blend according to the shape, pretty simple and straight forward but still, try them out.

Now, I want you totest all these along with your rectangular and circular selection tools on your rectangle, go ahead, no one iswatching from the shadows! Well, maybe but in that case call the police.

Now for some other tools

Here we go, on to a few more difficulties of the trade. Let’s begin by starting with a brand new work window, yes the same one we have been working with. I want you to create a square again but this time, dum dum dum dummmmm; we get into using a LAYER! That’s right pal, tremble in fear, the layers, are here. Ok, it’s not so bad, really and they are actually the best things to happen to Gimp or anything that uses a layering system. Why? We’ll soon find out. As well, remember the right window, the one we talked about way above, yes we will get into this well. See, it’s hard to use the other tools without using layers and you will see why in a few moments.

Layers

What are these layers? Well, to keep it simple, they are, LAYERS, just like a piece of paper with another piece of paper and another piece on that one, all with different aspects of a drawing or shading. We can compare this to the method of making cartoons on multiple sheets of paper to get a moving image. We won’t be making cartoons but make no mistake, you can create animation using these layers.

First of all, after you have created your new work window and you have your right window up I want you to go to the layer tab and choose create a new layer. By default the layer will be the same size as your previous. In the options list, choose “transparent” for the layer option. There are reasons for this, which we will tackle when the time is needed but one reason being, when you select a filled layer, you can’t see the bottom layer or work very well with it.

Note: if you don’t have the correct window for layers etc…this may be due to you closing it separately and what you can do is this, go to the left window, select the File tab, preferences, in the left of the window, go down to the window options, click on it and then to the right, reset the options. This will allow all windows to start the next time Gimp is restarted. If you need to do this, close Gimp and restart it so settings take effect

Assuming all went well, your new layer should look like this...

Now that we have a visual, it’s time to go in and get our hands dirty.

Let’s go over the right window just a bit to get familiar with all these monstrous settings. First there is the obvious layer window, which you see in the screenshot. This is probably the most important tab since we work mainly with layers. For the most part, the garbage can is the delete layer, the double paper icon is the copy layer icon, and the anchor is to anchor a layer to another and the single paper is a new layer. Hey, that means we don’t have to go to the layer tab above our work window! Great! However, we already did and already created a layer so we will stick to this for now. In the layer tab window you will see on top and far bottom you will see some familiar options as well.

We won’t get into brush editing yet, that is a totally different matter. There is a little tiny arrow in a box in the upper right of the layer window on the left side of the X, right above the two mini-layer icons. Ok, this can be handy. Really handy but right now, if you are extremely new to this, it may just confuse you but you can always practice anything I haven’t talked about if you feel you should or want to, no harm in that. J In fact, I encourage it but not until you get the basics down.

There are other mentions:

Undo History arrow> Now this is a handy tab. Instead of going into the Edit, undo history from the tab in the work window, we select this and it not only will UNDO things, it will show us each step there is. That way, there is no guessing or constant clicking. We can then choose a point to go back to. You can also choose to clear the history and stay with the current image. I caution this though, once gone, it’s gone.

Channels> this is to view the different color channels, which we will leave alone right now. This is the stack of colored paper icon.

Paths> as with channels, we won’t get into the paths tab yet either. This is the path icon that looks like a squiggly telescope.

On to our Layers!

A note: when we get to the other tools, I won’t be going into modes or other options, just the basics right now J

Ok, now that we have our Background image, which is simply the first layer and is filled with a color, we make sure our new, transparent layer is selected simply by clicking on it. We won’t do a lot of layer switching etc…for the time being but I want to introduce other tools and this is the best way to do so.

Now, with the new layer selected, you will still see the background in your work window. This is normal; after all, the layer is transparent. What we do next is this, select the circle selection tool instead of the rectangle, why, just for a change of pace and it’s easier to type circle J

In the work window, create a circle of ants yet again, remembering the Bucket fill and Gradient fill, we will simply choose Bucket fill for now. Go ahead and fill that circle in, then unselect it as you did with the rectangle.

Now with a filled circle at hand, try doing some Gimp Magic, ready?

See the little EYE con, ha, ha, get it? EYE con? All right, I see my humor isn’t appreciated so I’ll move on.

Click on the icon next to the circle layer and see what happens. Did it disappear? It should have. This is in case you have many layers or even a few, and want to see if what you did on that layer looks better with or without the addition in the new or upper layer. While this is a valid reason for this, it’s not the only one, which we won’t get into that pile of spaghetti right now.

Ok, Copperfield, bring that layer back by re-clicking on the EYE conNow, I want you to do the same to the lower layer, what happens? You should get only a red circle with a transparent layer behind it. Cool! Awesome! Boring! <> For some it may be but believe me, this is needed knowledge when working with layers.

Now we can re-click the icon and bring it back yet again. See, just think, not too long ago you were making a rectangle and now you are working with layers! Ok, now choose the circle layer, the one above the background again and do this, select New Layer again and you should now have w\background, a total of 3 layers. By default, the new layer is chosen or should be. At this point, you should still be able to see your circle on a white background, which it’s not fooling uswe KNOW it is actually 3 separate layers.

So now select the circle tool again and create a circle the same size as the one you can see. While the ants are active, fill in the circle with a different color, I think blue or red, something different from the background yet not the same color as your circle. Stop the ants, “unselect” it and choose ANOTHER circle. I bet you thought I would say LAYER huh? Fooled you!

Now, make the circle smaller and in the middle of this new one, yep right on the same layer, if possible about half the size of your current filled circle but don’t fill it, leave it selected and do thi s, in the work window click on the EDIT tab and select CUT, yep, that’s right and it does pretty much what it says. Now, what do you see? You should see a colored circle wit h a different color in the middle, or should I say, a previous layer color in the middle. At this poin t I’m sure you know it’s the layer underneath but to be sure, click on the icon next to the under layer so it’s not shown. N ow you should have a white circle in the middle as shown below…

Note: the fourth layer is my text I added to describe the picture, please ignore this for now; we’ll get to it later.

See, working with layers isn’t all too bad! I knew you would catch on. So that being the case, we will move on, you expert you.

Ok, now that we have a bull’s-eye sort of, let’s try some other things. First of all, go to the “Undo” arrow right down yonder from the layer tab and select it. In the boxes, find the spot before you cut out or selected the circle and select that box, it should say “select none”. Now look in your work window and you should see the selected layer with no circle of ants and the layer should not be cut. Now, go to the left window and select circle again, in case you caught on, “Select elliptical regions” is what it really says but once again, keep it simple.

Now mouse over to your layer and create just a small circle, about 1\4 the size and leave the circle of ants until the next step. Now, go right in the middle of the selected circle, no more ant descriptions at this point, you should kno w the ants are selected regions, and then put the cross\cursor right in the middle of the selection. Now, left click your mouse, hold and drag just slightly and let off. Then go to the outer area of the selection and you will see the anchor appear on your cursor over a little circle, just give a left click and you have anchored the circle where it sits as shown below…but after clicking, it should be a solid picture without the selection.

That’s all that’s to it. Now, if you have used something as simple as MS Paint, there are some similarities of BASIC tools. However, Gimp exceeds paint by far.

Now, with your anchored picture, go over to the lasso tool. This is a fancy one, you can select hand drawn regions, meaning, you don’t have to have a circle or rectangle. Go ahead and select it and just do a quick design in the circle layer and to close the selection, make sure the ends meet up. Now it’s just like the circle selection but with a touch of your freehand selection. Not too shabby huh?

Make sure it’s no longer selected by clicking out of the region, go back to the right window and select the wand. This tool selects certain areas. Use it on the circle and it will select the outer and inner around the moved cut you did. If you were to select and cut this, you would be left with the second layer image. Now, double click the moo n shape inside the circle, “make sure you select in the middle of the moon”. This will select the moon shape only. Even if you cut this, it won’t matter; it’s the second layer and won’t be affected. Once selected, go to your Bucket fill tool again and fill that selection in. Try using a different color from the background and circle layer colors. Now you have a moon inside a circle, cool huh?

Ok, this is basic and not very “awesome graphic like” but be patient, the more you know the basics, the more you can apply effects. Ok, now that we have the wand down, let’s go over to the finger, no not THAT finger! It’s the pointer finger on a hand that selects regions by color.

So, select that hand\finger and mouse over to your circle\moon, which we have thus far been beating to death. Click on the large section of the circle, not the moon and then right click on the mouse, “yep, we are going to right click for options this time” and select Edit, Cut. Now you should be left with the second layer showing and a mere moon from the third layer. See, pretty basic huh? I knew you’d catch on!

Now, let’s hit the scissors, yep the little scissor icon in the left window. Click on it and go over to the moon shape and let’s beat this poor layer to a pulp. What this does is selects the outer edges of a region, click by click or longer clicks. Give it a go! When you have clicked around the region and completed a path, simply click in the middle of the path and this will select the image.

Two things, if you don’t complete the path correctly or it goes haywire and all you can do is keep making more incomplete selections, simply go to the right side and click on something else then
click back on scissors and retry. This to me is the easiest way to solve it.

Also, to complete the path selection, make sure your last click is on top of the first mark\selection you made.

While this is a sloppier method of selection in some cases, for more complex pics it works where others fail. It really depends on what you are using it for but just for now, once again, we stick to basics. You can adjust the points as well if it goes off the path.

Now, simply select the ellipse tool or rectangle and click on an outer region to deselect the moon. You can also choose the select option on top and choose, select none and works very well too. In this regard, this would be the “proper” way but there are different roads to getting things done and is mainly preference. We will go over these in more detail but this is simply to keep your mind on the windows right now, repetition of use more or less.

Ok, what we are going to do next is this, go over to the color dropper and click on it, remembering to have unselected the moon. Take this dropper and click on the moon. What happened? A color box should have come up showing the selected color, click ok. Now, if you look at the color tiles to the left again, this color should be set as first “foreground” color. Pretty special huh? I know, there are other options but basic is the word here. Also, you typically can’t select a layer under the foreground to choose a color from and would have to click on that layer to get it.

The magnifying glass does pretty much what we expect, it zooms, however, I have used it a total of 0 times. Not because it’s evil or has bad breath, simply because on the bottom of the work window, there is and option to choose the zoom and always found this easier.

Now over to the crop\resize tool, which does what the ellipse and rectangle do but includes a resize tool and cut tool all in one but also, shrinks the layer to image. Huh? What?

Go ahead and click on it, then mouse over to the moon layer. What? It’s still alive and kicking? All right, time to give it another go around. Just like using the rectangle tool, create a selection by clicking and dragging, and try to select around the whole visible circle around the moon, even if it’s the second layer circle, as you will see. A box will pop up when you let off, in this box are settings to no end, or so it seems. For now we will choose Auto Shrink and then Crop. What you should get is the layer shrunk around the edges of the circle as shown here…

See, that’s all there is to it. You will find this useful later on as you advance. Mark my words.

Now onto a tool that is extremely handy the useful create and edit path tool, which is left of the eyedropper and under the rectangle. What we will do is this, select the tool and mouse over to the work window in our newly resized layer. As you click, you’ll notice the paths it’s leaving, a dot, dash, and dot. No not Morse code, this is better, well maybe not, you decide. Either way, this is much like the scissors we tried but you have MUCH more control and flexibility.

Go ahead and click 4 points on the picture to form a square. Now, in the left window, there will be a create selection from path. What this does is creates a closed selection just like the ellipse and rectangle selection but with a more controlled design. What you get is an editable square\rectangle. If you put your cursor on a line, you get a little cross symbol just like the one on the left for moving layers. Click and hold in the middle of a given line “note: the last line you create is not editable as far as curving it, so try and stop right before and create a TINY last selection before closing the region”. That said, again, click, hold and drag that line down, sideways or wherever you like. What you will also see are two squares after you drag a line that enables you to adjust the curve, very nice! Whenever you feel you have it done, click the create selection button again. You can then Bucket fill, gradient, cut, or put your dirty socks in it, it’s up to you!

Above, notice the two, little squares, protruding from each extension of the path, these help adst the curve.

Note, to get rid of the selection, click on the circle selections or rectangle. Select none works but still leaves solid selection showing.

Now we go on to the last row of tools to cover in the left window. First what we are going to do is delete a layer, yep, finally we get to shoot the moon. Going over to your right window, make sure the third layer, with the moon shape, is still selected and hit the little garbage can at the bottom and BAM, it’s gone. By default, the second layer should be selected, if not, do so now. Then we create a new layer so we will then have a third, blank layer to work from and make sure this new layer is selected.

Go over to your circle selection “rectangle select” and create a rectangle that is smaller than the circle from layer two. Make it narrow so it’s like a toolbar and then go to Bucket fill and fill it in with a color other than the second or first layer color. Not that we can’t use the same color but for the sake of confusion, we won’t right now.

What you should have is this…

Now, go to the icon on the left window right above Bucket fill, it looks like a Zippo lighter but is actually a rotate icon. Select it and then proceed over to your rectangle you have created. Click on the rectangle, you should now be shown an option with a slider which is the easiest way to rotate, simply slide it back and forth, and there you go! You have used the rotation tool! What you can do is click cancel, keep rotating for a while or simply keep it that way by clicking ok but for now, let’s click cancel.

Let’s move over to the next tool, which is the resize tool. The scale the layer or selection tool will resize the image, selected region. When you choose this tool, you click on the rectangle and you get a box with height, width, and a few other options. Simply adjust the height and width numbers with the arrows a bit to see what happens. There you go, you have now resized the image! No sweat!

Now, I could go over the last 3 of this type but they are self-explanatory and you should have a good heads up on how they work. The Shear, Perspective and Flip are fairly outright on what they do and not a lot different from the above mentioned. By this point, you should understand how they work but here’s a quick picture description anyway to be on the safe side.

Now with all this information at hand, if you want to add text to anything, you click on the T on the left window and you will get a box for you to type in. I suggest looking at the options in this case as you only get one REAL edit chance and I will explain why.

First let’s take a trial run, click on the T, mouse over to your picture\layer, then click anywhere in the layer but not on tables, chairs, and to mention, you cannot write on bathroom walls with it! L So there are exceptions. Ok, now you have clicked and have the text box where you can see your typing along with your typing on the picture itself. From there type this “Paul is a great guy!” Without the smiley of course, that won’t do.

Now look at the left window and you see options for types of fonts, go ahead and play with that until you find the font you like. You can then set the size chose color and set the spacing etc… I suggest doing most of this NOW as if you resize the text using the tools; it’s not as clear and crisp when using the font tools so at least get it close.

Beware, if you click on close or the move “cross” icon, you will lose the text editing abilities. However, there is hope, if you click on Tools in the work window and select Text and then click on the text, you can get this editing ability back. The text creates it’s own layer so no worries. Phew, good thing I happened to cover layers previously huh? ;)

Saving is a must and should be done OFTEN. Every change you make that you think you MIGHT keep, save immediately as explained at the beginning, Gimp does crash. Now, first you may want to save your project the way it is for later editing which is a GREAT idea. So in the work window, go up to File, save as and choose from a LONG list of extensions>XCF or simply type it in like this, Paulisagreatguy.xcf. Then choose where to save it. This will leave a little gimp icon instead of a typical Windows picture icon. This will be the icon you can click on directly to open IT and Gimp at the same time. This saves all your layers and such so you can re-edit or simply edit at a later date.

If you want to save your picture as a jpeg, bmp, png or something that requires a flat image, simply type the extension in the save as > Paulisagreatguy.bmp and it will alert you that bmp can’t handle layers, etc…so export that puppy and it will save a bmp of your file as flat image. Or you can do this, go to your work window, and select the Image tab above. From the menu, choose flatten image or even merge visible layers, depending. Then your image will be as one. Be warned, if you do this and then want to save as XCF, you will end up with a flat XCF image which won’t be any good for layer editing, so make sure you save as XCF first.

Well, that’s the basics folk and there is a ton of information left to Gimp. I haven’t even began to scratch the surface of what it can do and think I could write a novel on just what I know. The possibilities are limitless for sure. Since I am in a giving mood today, I will leave you with a little hint\practice from me to you, a parting gift if you will.

My hands are falling off from writing all this but I’ll be nice.

First of all, close the circle! Yeah!! It’s finally gone! Save it if you want, or don’t, it’s up to you. Me, I’m going to have nightmares about it.

Onward> open a new project and simply keep it as the standard opening size. If it got resized from mucking with the layers, simple, just open a new project and set the open sizes to 420x300. Also, if the background is other than white, simply use bucket fill to color it.

First things first>create a new layer and use the copy layer icon in the right window until you get 3 transparent layers and one white background.

Note: for this next step, please choose red as primary, FG color and keep white as other. You can choose other colors but just for the sake of this practice, let’s follow suit. Now, in the first transparent layer, right above the background, create a circle and use the gradient fill to fill the circle, keeping track of which way you stroke the circle. Like so…

Now, select the next transparent layer up and create another circle but slightly smaller than the current one and using the gradient fill to once again fill the circle but this time, stroke opposite ofwhat you did in the first one like this…

Ah, do you see what we have going here? Yep, it looks like a button! Wow, now you’re smoking!

Now, repeat this again but in the last layer up and with a smaller circle yet, making sure you stroke the same direction and way as in the very first circle.

Look at that! While I have no idea what this is, it looks good doesn’t it?

Now a couple more steps, first click in the middle using the text tool, the T at the left screen and type in a P for “Paul” or type my name, either way works.

After you get your text set up and finished, delete the background layer, yep, the white one ;)

Then merge visible layers “clip to image button in the options” using the Image tab in the work window. Now go to File, save as Paultest.png and export if need be.

And that’s it! See how illusion makes for a great picture? Sure this is very basic but I think sets off what can be done in a person’s mind. I started off this very same way and even now; forget some of these basics that can still help me in creating a picture.

So on a final note, don’t get frustrated or think your graphics bad, they will improve with time the more you work with and practice! You CAN do it!

To close, I would like to ask that if this tutorial was helpful, please let me know as I want to write another to take Gimp to the next level and take you further into graphics art. I hope everyone who reads this got some enjoyment and knowledge since I no longer have use of my hands.

I would like to thank a few people on this; my wonderful wife for not complaining about me being at the computer all day; Justin for helping me with my blog, allowing me time to accomplish this; and especially Coffee for keeping me awake ;)

Until next tut,

Paul