1. Gimp Guide
Mr Hall

2. 5 Basic Parts The Main Toolbox Tool Options An Image Window
Layers Dialog
Brushes/Patterns/Gradients

3. What is Gimp? GNU Image Manipulation Program
It is a free program for ;
photo editing
image composition
image authoring

4. When you open up Gimp what does it look like……
To start with we are going to do is create a new file
To do that right click the central area
Then select -file-new

5. Stage 2 –create file Stage 3- Size 420 by 300 Then select -file-new
To create a new image, from the main toolbox select File -> New
The Create a New Image window will open, where you can select the height and width of the image, and resolution.
The units for the height and width can be changed by clicking on the units menu (1)
The resolution of the image can be changed by clicking (2), or selecting Advanced Options (3).
For our purposes, we will use the default resolution of 420 x 300 pixels, 72 dpi, RGB color.
Click OK (4) to open your new image window.
Then select -file-new
Stage 3-
Size 420 by 300

6. Image Window
Each image you open will be displayed in a separate window. 1
1. Image Menu
From this menu you can access almost every action you can perform on an image, including those found in the main toolbox, tool options and other dialogs. 2
2. Ruler
This is useful for creating guides to place components of your image accurately where you want them.
By default, the units displayed are in pixels. This can be changed to inches or other units by clicking the units menu in the lower left corner (3).
4. Zoom
Use this to zoom in and out of your image. 3 4
There are many other more advanced options available through the image window that will not be covered in this basic tutorial. Once you have mastered basic image editing techniques, you can learn more about these features using GIMP’s help key, F1.

7. Stage 5-open an existing image
To open an existing image from file for editing, select File -> Open from the main toolbox.
I am going to choose an image of my cat –Oscar
To do that I need to locate the image I have saved on my desktop- see screenshot to right
When you have found the desired image, click the Open button and it will open in a new image window.
The Open Image will appear. A preview of the image will appear in the preview pane

8. Stage 6-cropping images-the crop tool
Where we had got up to was we had set a size of our area and we had opened an image we had found –in this case my cat
The next stage is to start using some of the tools in this case crop
How to use the crop tool
The crop tool can be used to remove unwanted areas from an image.
Click on the crop tool in the main toolbox.
When you select the crop tool it opens the tools options box

9. Stage 7-cropping images-
Now we have the tool options box open
Original photo
In the image dialog, click and drag out a rectangular region. Release the mouse, and a crop dialog will appear.
You can change the dimensions within the crop dialog, or re-click and drag until you have the portion selected you wish to keep.
Click OK in the crop dialog. The unwanted region is now gone from your image.
Cropped photo
Final photo with crop

10. Stage 8- Select Hand-Drawn Regions Quick How to guide
The final crop image does not really work .so what we are going to do is edit the background of the image taking it out completely .
What are going to do is use the hand drawn tool to trace around the outside of the part of the image we want to keep
Quick How to guide
Click on the hand-drawn tool from the main toolbox.
In your image, click and drag around the portion of the image you wish to modify.
When you release the mouse, your selection has been made.
Right-click the image to bring up a variety of tools and options for modifying your selection. You can perform any number of actions- play around with it and see what you can do! Remember Ctrl-Z will quickly undo any action.
I have cropped this image so that the background is removed by copying and pasting my selection into a new image window.
Original photo
Image with crop trace applied
Final image with crop applied

11. The Main Toolbox 1 2 3 4 Toolbox Menu
Use these menus to open a new image dialog, load an image from file or other source, set preferences for the GIMP layout and performance, open and close dialogs, and access many other more advanced features.
2. Tool Icons
This is where you will find many paint and image manipulation tools. 1
3. Foreground/Background Colors
This displays the current foreground and background colors for the working image. Clicking on either of them will bring up a color palette where you can select a new color. The small symbol in the lower left corner will reset them to black and white.
The double-headed arrow can be clicked to swap the foreground and background colors 2 3 4
4. Brush/Pattern/Gradient
Clicking on any of these areas will bring up a dialog where you can change any of these features.
The top left corner shows the currently selected brush for all paint operations.
The top right corner show the currently selected pattern used to fill in selected areas of the image.
The bottom area is used to set the gradient, when you want to smoothly transition a range of colors.

12. Lets go back-checkout the advanced option
open a new area – go back to gimp –select file – then new What we are going to do now is open up the advanced option
Select ok
You can choose transparent here for your fill with option as it works well with png files
However we are not going to use that
Keep background colour selected
You will as with previous example have a white box
What we are going to do now is add a colour to the background

13. Create a layer and change background colour pt1
what we are going to now is select the bucket fill tool in the tool box
you can then select
background foreground options
you then need to go to your work area
Left click your work area and your colour you selected will be applied
Select your colour from the palette then select ok

14. Now we are going to create a background layer in Gimp
Now we need to add a new layer by clicking the add a new layer button
So far your background looks like this
Now we are going to add text –select
text tool
It is important to make sure you select the layer
Then select text tool then draw out a text box on the layer

15. Add text and change colour of text
the next task is to change the colour of the text so it I different from the background
To do that we make sure that we select the layer – then select the text tool
Then we select the colour pallette
then ok
then type in some text
It will look like this
Next to see the different colour text on the background
select the white area, next to the background layer
This is the third section along

16. Add a shape to your background using layers-step 1
Step one: What we are going to do now is create a new layer To do that we need to go to layer section and click on create new layer

17. Add a shape to your background using layers-step 2
Select the layer in the top right of GIMP- Then select the elipse select tool then over the text you have put on the background now draw a circle over the top of the text So it looks like this
Now we can add a different colour to the background of the elipse by using the bucket fill tool
Click the bucket fill tool The select the foreground and background colours tab and choose a new background colour

18. Add a shape to your background using layers-step 3
so now you have a different colour background to your text
To get rid of the dotted lines around your text , you need to go to
select drop down and then select none

19. Adding effects to text in GIMP

20. How to add blend effect to your background
An effect you can add to your background is the blend effect To do this select the blend button
You need to then draw a line across your background from left to right
Before you do this select the colours you want to blend from one to another
You do this by selecting blend mode on left hand side of screen, then selecting the type of gradient colours you want from list
This then gives you a drop down list of different effects and colour blends
You do this by clicking here

21. Final blended effect
This effect was created by using :

22. Basic photo-editing in GIMP
Create a folder called GIMP work Save two pictures into your documents one of a famous person and one of a background I’m going to choose a beach and Morrissey( a famous singer of the 1980’s band The Smiths with a cat on his head ) Here is Morrissey
Here is cat

23. Merging two photos together using gimp pt 1
open up a new Gimp file File-new Then open the first image of (in my case Morrissey with cat) Then we need to go to Layer drop down – transparency-add alpha channel Now we need to select the erase tool as what we are going to do is take out the background of our picture Alter eraser size to 60 What we are going to do now is erase the background of the image What we need to do now is export this altered image - To do this -go to File-export as –save as morrissey.png

24. Merging two photos together using gimp –pt2
Now we have exported the image
Select file –close all
Go to file –open as layers
Select beach image
Go to file open as layers
Select morrissey image

25. End result of photo merge

26. Tool Options 1 2 3 4 Tool scheme buttons
The tool options dialog shows options for the currently selected tool (be it a paintbrush, pencil, or other).
In this case, the brush selected is a circle, with 100% opacity.
There are many more advanced options available through the Mode drop-down menu
Tool Schemes:
This button is used to save your tool option scheme so it can be loaded and used again at a later time.
When you have one or more tool schemes saved, you can load them using this button.
This will delete a selected tool scheme.
Clicking this button will reset the tool options to the default values. 1 2 3 4
Tool scheme buttons

27. Layers Dialog
Layers of an image act like a stack of transparencies or slides; as you add additional layers, your final image is a composite of all of the layers together.
You can select which layer you want to work on by clicking on its name in (1)
The opacity of the layer can be easily changed using the slide bar or menu at (2)
(3) can be used to open a new layer
The arrow buttons at (4) can be clicked to move up and down the stack of layers
(5) can be clicked to duplicate a layer
(6) is used to delete a layer 2 1 3 4 5 6

28. Brushes/Pattern/Gradients
Just a reminder: any of these dialogs can be opened or closed through the main toolbox dialog, by selecting File -> Dialogs
These dialogs can be used to select brush type, patterns and gradients.
Many of these features can also be accessed through the main toolbox.
The button options at (1), (2) and (3) are similar to those of other dialogs. They can be used to modify, delete, duplicate and/or reset the brushes, patterns and gradients. 1 2 3