Basics of Gimp: A short guide to get you started

[Hader]

Basics of Gimp
By Hader

I am here to give you a rundown on the basic functions of the program we know as Gimp. These are just basics to help you get used to it, nothing more, and they were done by me from my own experience, I did not copy off of anything. This also focuses a bit more on using the Gimp for picture editing.

EDIT: Here is the best and as far as i know only link to download the Gimp and plugins.
http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

Intro

Welcome to the wonderful world of Gimp. Here, I will help you kick-start your Gimp learning experience so you can use this program to its fullest.

First off you may want to resize the windows to see everything, like what you see below.



The Tools
Now I will introduce you to some of the easy and more basic tools of Gimp, ones that will help you edit your pics, or do similar tasks.

Rectangular and Elliptical selection
Fairly simple to use, just click on its icon in the toolbar and use it to select any region of the pic.

Once you select a region, you can do a few things.
1) You can Copy the selected area and Paste that area anywhere else on that pic or any other pic.
2) You can Cut that part out if you don’t want it

You can also use the Feather Edges option to get small effects like these.



Hand Drawn Regions selection
This allows you to select an area manually, so you can get around any parts of a pic you may want to cut out and keep others you don’t want gone, like this. See how it is used to “cut out” the shield.



With this you can also cut, copy and paste any selected area.


Color Selection tool
Very simple. Use this tool to select a color from the image that you might like to use for another purpose. Say you got a nice blood color on one guy, and want to use that same color on another guy. Select the color from the first guy and then use one of the airbrushed/paintbrushes to paint with that color. When you select a color this dialog box will appear.



Move Layer or Selection tool
Also very easy. When you have a layer or selection to move, just use this to move it. An example would be a cut/copied piece of material from somewhere else that you want to place and move on this pic, like seen below. (Yeah, I know it is a patch of uneeded snow, but it demonstrates my point)



Text Editor
Also simple. Set what you want your text to look like in the Text tab, then, when you have done that, click anywhere on the image and a dialog box will appear. Type your text in here and move the text throughout the image as desired.




The Pencil, Paintbrush and Airbrush tools
These are the tools you will use for most of your editing tasks. These can do a variety of things, mainly painting effects such as blood or smoke/dust.

Make sure you go through all of the different brush types in the list, they all have different effects and when combined properly, help make great blood, smoke and dirt effects like in the picture shown.



Experiment a bit. Everyone has different tastes, so they like different effects and how they turn out. You will find effects that you like to use, and are your own original.


Blur, Sharpen, and Smudge

The Blur, sharpen and Smudge effects will really bring out the life of your pic more, depending on how you use them. Just so you know what they do, here is a pic of what an image looks like after you add these effects.

Blurred=Red Sharpened=Green Smudged=Blue



When used correctly these tools can really help bring out the life in your pic, so experiment with them to.

_________________________________________________________________________

That is it for now, hope this helped anyone who has troubles getting used to Gimp. I do hope to add a bit more on to this too, Publius is also helping write up part of this. And if you have any suggestions, feel free to ask. Feedback welcome.

[Gaius Baltar]

Where do I get a copy of GIMP?

[Hader]

You need to download it from their site. Here, I will get a link for ya in a few minutes.

EDIT: This might work, still looking though

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

EDIT2: This might work better

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

[Zuwxiv]

GIMP is an awesome tool, it's also available for multiple operating systems. Thanks the the guide - can you say reputation points?

[John I Tzimisces]

Smudge is great for carefully editing out things you don't like. It looks very natural if you do it right. Just a moment...

before:

After:

[Hader]

Hmm, that is very good smudging. It is hard to see, but what it does is very good.

[John I Tzimisces]

Another good example. This is just me, but if these pics were side by side, it'd suck.

(the project this picture was a part of came first in the state of connecticut for classics based computer generated art)

edit: blah give me a moment to fix the link

edit again: fixed

before you guys get any funny ideas, the image here is incomplete

edit again again: yeah my name is on there but if you guys really wanted to know it, you could find it via this site Somehow

edit again again again: looking at Constantines breastplate there, lets see if any of you learned anything with this guide and can make it look less pixelated.

[Hader]

I'd give it a go, but I'll let the newly learned people try it

[John I Tzimisces]

Actually fairly simple. Used the blur "pick" and generic dilation. And grayscale and fooling around with contrast. Looks great, though.

[Hader]

Eh, a bit too blurry for me. But thats just me. :original: I do use the blur, but not much, and I rarely use the grayscale for anything. I usually fool around with the brightness, contrast and colors a lot more often.

[John I Tzimisces]

Well, first I used noise, then I used dilation, not actually a blur

[Hader]

Yeah, but it is still blurred. I dont like using noise, I dont know why, I usually emboss instead.

[Last Roman]

question

I try to save the image as a PNG but it says that png wont let me save the layers, what's the best type of file to save it as

[Hader]

question

I try to save the image as a PNG but it says that png wont let me save the layers, what's the best type of file to save it as

Well if this is just an image that you have edited, I would save it as jpg or tga.

[therussian]

When it says that, just click on "export"

[Hader]

First post updated with the link to the page with all the Gimp downloads.

[Brutius Bollocksus]

How do you open the part on the GIMP toolbar underneath where you select the tools.

[HereticFang]

What is the best tool for unit skinning in mtw2?

I mean recolouring of some parts like strat map generals clothing?

[polarbear297]

umm with what program due you use to open the tgas with?

[Roman Clone]

U can use Paint.net