If you're new to graphics programs, the Gimp (and photoshop) can be
pretty intimidating. They are pretty similar in the way that they can be
used. There are many ways to get the same results with both programs.
The GIMP is a free, open source program, while photoshop is
made by Adobe and costs as much as $600 dollars. I would guess
that 90% of each operates identically, with the remaining 10% providing
various advantages over the other one.
1. Getting started
First, you have to start GIMP - either from your program menu
or by clicking on a desktop icon or icon in a folder
The first thing you'll see is the start up display.......have a little patience -
this can take a little while. Sometimes it'll seem to hang for 5 - 30 seconds
while it loads fonts or other elements of the program
After that you'll see the actual program window and a tip. You can take your
choice with the tip - look at another one, close it, disable them forever. I usually close it
and let it reappear every time I start in hopes that I'll learn something.
Now it's time to pick a picture to work on.
After you click the open button in the lower right, you'll get this:
Time for a few things to take note of:
1. If you look at the size of the image, you'll notice that it's 1600x1200 pixels.
That was taken with a 2mega pixel canon camera. Most newer cameras
are 5 Mega pixels and up, so the image size will be bigger than 2500 pixels.
Most desktops are 1024 or 1284 pixels wide, so you can't see these images
at full size. I suggest to always use the highest quality setting your camera
is capable of. When you get done modifying your images with Gimp, you
can very easily resize them to fit you needs. You can use them on paper,
on your computer, in email, or on a dvd with narration or music in
the background.
2. When you save your images after working on them, always do a 'save as'
with a different name than the original. If your original is 'IMG100.jpg',
save the modified version as 'IMG100a.jpg'. That way, it'll be easy
to find in a list when you go to email it, print it or use it in a
presentation later.
3. Try to limit the size of your folders when you download images from
your camera's flash memory. If you put 2 Gigabytes of images in
one folder, you'll use a lot of your RAM. Your computer will run
real slow and you'll have to sort through all of those images to
find any one.
Now let's take a look at some of the goodies the gimp has to play with :
Here's what it looks like when you open the 'Curves' option.
You can get similar results by using the 'levels' controls or by
using 'brightness' and 'contrast' adjustments. In order to keep
these changes in the image, just click 'OK' in the lower
right corner of the 'Curves' window.
Here is a small sampling of filter effects -
the possibilities are limitless.
Here are a few examples done with script fu
This tutorial should give you enough information so that you can
start to process some of you digital pictures to your liking. Once in a while,
the raw images come out of the camera good enough to print, but most of
the time they're better with a few touch ups.
One more thing to remember is how you save them when you're done -
jpeg format is probably the most usable and viewable. Here's a
list of all of the file types Gimp will do a save as.
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