A GIMP Tutorial, Part 2, Return of the GIMP

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jon-monon

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Prerequisite: Installation of the GIMP on your computer, and a basic understanding of the tools outlined in A GIMP Tutorial now archived in the Academy.

Rather than bore us all to tears describing all the GIMP can do, I will just work with it and describe what I am doing as we go. We'll start by creating a new Avitar. Please feel free to ask any questions as we go.

I begin the new image by starting the GIMP, and selecting "New..." from the File menu. Then enter a size 0f 300 X 300 pixels and make sure the Image type is RGB unless you want black and white.
 

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jon-monon

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You get a nice empty window, with a plain background. We could leave it at that, but let's fill in the background. Select the Fill Tool" (looks like a bucket of paint being poured. If you don't have a "Tool Options" window, open "Files|Dialogs|Tool Options..." (or just do shift+Ctrl+T). In the Tool Options window, Select Pattern Fill.
 

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jon-monon

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Next open the Patterns window: "Files|Dialogs|Patterns..." (or just do shift+Ctrl+T) and select a fine pattern to use as background. I'll choose something woody :)
 

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jon-monon

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Select the pattern of choice by clicking on it, then on your image, click somewhere. It will fill in the selected area with the selected pattern. The whole image is selected by default, and since we haven't changed that with a selection tool, the whole background is filled in and nice and woody.
 

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jon-monon

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Next, I'll take an old photo from the web. If it's over 50 years old there should be no copyright issues. For younger photo's, if you explain what you're doing, most folks are delighted to share.

So I'm taking any old photo, of virtually any size, depicting an item of interest. Then I select the freehand selection tool and trace around the item of interest. In this case, two guys on a big tree. It doesn't have to be perfect. Once it's all traced around, the tree and the two guys are selected, and I right click on it and do edit|copy (or Ctrl+C). Then on the main menu, do File|new... to open a new image window. This time just let it stay the size that it defaults to (it will be the size of hte image you copied).

Then in the new window, right click and do edit|paste (or Ctrl+V), and the cut out section should appear.

Next do a right click, Image|scale image on the new image, and set the larger of the two, eith Height or width, whichever is bigger, to 300. I just highlight it and type it in, but you can use the arrows if you like. Then clcik OK. This resize process takes a while.
 

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jon-monon

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BTW: you can zoom in/out for better clarity or to get it on-screen at any time with the image window active (click on it) and by pressing + or - (unshifted).

Now I am goiing to adjust the brightness and contrast. Right click, Image|Colors|Brightness contrast... You should see this:
 

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jon-monon

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I just slid the sliders around until I got what I wanted, and settled on 104 brightness, and 97 contrast. Oops, I decided I didn't like the result. I washed out the guy on the left
 

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jon-monon

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No worries, just right click on it and select File|Undo (or Ctrl+Z). Then I did the contrast settings again and set it to a more reasonable 60/40.
 

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jon-monon

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Now I wish to add some color to the gloomy old photo, and will do so with the bucket fill tool, as we did for the wooden background. The men in the tree are still selected, so I just have to choose what to fill it with. In the Tools Options, I pick FG color fill, which means it will use your currnet forground color. On the main menu, the tool box, click on the black rectangle as indicated with my sloppy red arrow:
 

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jon-monon

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You should get a color selection window. There seems to be an infinate number of ways to select a color here. Perhaps it's best to take a moment and just play around with it. If you click on the bar on the right, in an area you like, that will get you close. on the left, you can fine tune it. You can slide sliders around and get different results. I've not played much on the other tabs within this window, but the watercolor tab seems to mix a color in when you click on it. Once you have a color you like, click "Close". I picked a nice blood red.
 

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jon-monon

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OK, now I have a purdy color, and I select the bucket fill tool, and selected FG fill, now, I'm going to reduce the Opacity to about 15%, on the top of the tool options (Shift+Ctrl+C). Then I click on the image and it fills in with red. It takes several clicks to get it colored in how I like. Too many clicks can be undone with Ctrl+Z.
 

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jon-monon

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Now we will cut and paste this into the original image we started with. Remember? The one with the wood background. Just right click on the reddened image, select Edit|Copy (or Ctrl+C), then right click on the wood image and do Edit|Paste (or Ctrl+V).
 

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jon-monon

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Now, I want to zoom in (+, +, + until it's just right), and fix the areas between the men and the tree, where there should be a wooden background. Everything that is not man or tree should be filled in with "wood"
 

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jon-monon

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So I select a given area with the Freehand Selection Tool, and use the bucket tool to fill int he pattern. The same pattern should still be seleted, but remember to click on pattern fill and slide the opacity back to 100% on the Tool Options window.
 

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jon-monon

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Now for some text:

I set the forground to white. Any color that contrasts the tree (or other "writing surface" would do.

Click on the Text Tool, then anywhere on the image (we'll move it after it's in place) and you should get a Text Tool window. You can select a font, size and other goodies here. You can type whatever you like into the "preview" box and see what it will look like (except for color).

For large letters, I do one at a time. I did a big "P" in zapf chancery at sixe 72. It will appear on the drawing "selected" and you can just drag it where you like. Once positioned, clicking off the letter somewhere will open the Text Tool window again and paste the "P" in place. I repeated with a K, then a smaller "Lumber Co." all at once.
 

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jon-monon

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Now to crop a little, using the cropping tool, first time I used it. I used to select, cut and paste into a new window.

When using the cropping tool, you get a window that shows the new height and width. For a square avitar, it would be good to keep them almost equal. You just have to play with this one and see how it works. If you take off too muck, just Ctrl+Z it back (undo).

I cropped it in tight, so we will have minimal loss when we resize to 100 X 100 for use on the-gauge.
 

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jon-monon

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Now you need to resize it to 100 X 100 or smaller. Right click on the image and select Image|scale image...

Then where you see "New Width" and "Height" type in 100 in place of the larger of the two, or either if equal. Click OK.

Now you have a gaugable avitar you can upload in the preferences section! (go to user cp, then edit options) :D :D :D
 

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jon-monon

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I used this same technique to create an avitar for Steam Donkey. I think his came out better. In fact, I almost didn't gve it up :D :D :D I often have to try several times before getting one that is satisfactory. Both this one and the one for SD were first offs. If you are not happy with the results, just try again and have fun doing so. Also, there are a 1001 different ways to create an avitar in the GIMP, so be sure to experiment and try other techniques.

Please post any questions, as we will close the thread to move it into the academy soon. Next I will work on enhancing photo's, unless someone has some other area of GIMPing they would like covered.
 
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