Posted by ljmacphee on August 24, 2007 under gimp, graphics | 
The tools in the dotted area are for rotating, scaling, shearing, perspective, and flipping your image.
The first rotates your image. Select the rotate tool. Click on your image and drag it. When you are happy with it click ‘Rotate’ in the box that popped up. This is good for straightening horizons when you weren’t quite holding the camera level.
Scale is easiest to use by selecting the scale tool then changing the width/height or aspect ratio in the box that pops up. After you select your numbers just click ‘Scale’.
Shear is like warping your image with wind. Select ‘Shear’. Put your mouse on your image and drag the mouse. Your image will shear in the direction and amount that you dragged the mouse.
Perspective will foreshorten or lengthen your image. Select Perspective, click in the photo you have open and a dot appears in the middle of your photo. Click again and drag and the image will foreshorten or lengthen in the direction and by the amount of the mouse movement.
Flip does what you’d expect choose vertical or horizontal and click the image. The image will flip from side to side or top to bottom depending on your choice.
Next: Gimp Basics: Text, paint, blend
Posted by ljmacphee on August 20, 2007 under gimp, graphics |
The ‘Crop and Resize’ tool looks like an old fashioned razor tool that was used to cut images.
Select the tool. Double click on a corner of the area you wish to crop. Two lines appear and your image is greyed out. Click again on that corner and drag your mouse to the opposite corner. Your selected area is not greyed out. Click crop and the greyed area of the image vanishes.
If you wish to move the selection click on one of the black corners and drag it. If you wish to expand or shrink the selection click on one of the grey corners and drag it. Click Crop when you are happy with your selection.
You can also use the Origin X/Origin Y/Width/Height and Aspect ratio in the pop up window to move and resize your selection.
You Tube Tutorial Crop a digital photo
Posted by ljmacphee on August 15, 2007 under gimp, graphics |
If you wish to match or identify a color in a photo use the color dropper. It looks just like an old fashioned eye dropper. Open your image in Gimp, select the color dropper and double click on the color you wish to id. The ‘Color Picker’ box will pop up with the color shown in a swatch and your Red/Green/Blue pixel values, %, and Hex code for that color will be shown. It will also change your foreground or background color to the selected color. It changes which ever color you last clicked on to the new color.
The magnifying glass will increase the viewing size of the image. Click the magnifying glass and click on the image to increase the size. You can also easily shrink and grow the view by selecting ‘View’ from the image menu and selecting ‘Zoom’.
The old fashioned compass tool measures distances and angles. Select the tool, click on the spot you wish to begin the measurement. Drag a line to the second spot and click. A ‘Measure’ window appears with distance in pixels and the angle.
Move looks like a 4 way tire iron. You have a cross shape with an arrow on the tip of each end. Select this and you can move the selected area about on your image.
Next: Gimp Basics: Crop and resize
Posted by ljmacphee on August 10, 2007 under gimp, graphics |
There are two tools in Gimp for outlining and selecting things by shape, scissors and the path drawing pen.
If you click on the intelligent scissors and place the mouse over you image the mouse will look like a pair of scissors. Click on the edge of what you wish to cut out from the image. Continue around the edge of the selection making mouse clicks as needed to outline your selection. A dot appears at each click. Continue around until you return to your first dot. You now have several straight lines with dots surrounding your selection. Click inside of your area and the lines and dots will convert to the dotted outline Gimp uses to show a selected area. Now you can cut, copy or otherwise use your selection. If you select the antialiasing and feather images options the edges of your selection will better blend if you are moving a copy of this selection to another image. The scissors are intended to be smart and try to closely follow the outline of your object in better detail than you select. Usually this works well.
Next to your scissors is a tool that looks like an old fashioned ink pen. You can then choose design/edit/move modes. Same as with the scissors click on the edges of the area you wish to select. Dots appear where you click and straight lines connect the dots. When you have your rough outline in place you can move the lines. Put the mouse over any of the dots and drag the dot to move your line.
When you have surrounded the area you wish to select click the ‘Create selection from path’ button that is on the Gimp tool box. This time your selection again changes to a dotted line but the dots where you clicked the mouse remain. Now you can select ‘edit’ mode and click on a dot and drag and a handle appears. Click again on the same dot and a second handle appears. Moving these handles now moves your lines in curves not straight lines. Clicking ‘Create selection from path moves the old line to the new one. You can now move/edit/cut/copy or do anything else you wish to the selected area.
To clear a selected area go to your menu in you image. Click ‘Select’->’None’.
You Tube tutorial, layering with Gimp