Basic tools in GIMP

[Liitha - Club Leader]

Ok going to finish this over the weekend, it will be in several sittings likely. I will also combine it with geting starting on stuff for the halloween auction

 

1. so this first post will be basically how to do the same as what i covered in the powerpoint sig making tutorial

2. the second post i will get into how to use layering to create more effects both layer specific effects and transparancy

3. this post i will get into the logo option for making text and how to make glowing balls yourself by use of filters as its two things you probably will want to know early on for niftyness and since many likely will want to display channeling in sigs

 

ok so i normally start by identifying my background

 

ok so for those who dont have gimp you can find it here https://www.gimp.org/

 

from file you choose new, and then right away you can set the size settings you want as you see i done here

 

 

now i use ctrl + v to paste the picture in, alternately you can go to the edit menu and choose paste

 

once you got it in it will look like this, do note where i circled where you can change menu tabs

the little arrow slightly to the right of my circle will allow you to add more tabs or remove them

the paperstack is layers which we will get more into later, but for now at the botom of this menu is this line with the circled button the one you want to hit next

alternately to avoid this is saving pictures and open them through file and choosing open as layer

 

then you can basically drag it around in there, i draged it so i can see the moon in the corner (just click and drag while you hold the left mousebutton in)

 

 so found a picture in the vector section to use as my character, the same apply here you now actually want to use file open as layer or gimp will posible put on a black background you dont want there, since the whole point of these vectors are transparent backgrounds

 

now i want to resize it in the program and i marked the button for that

you now get this up

now if this chain is open, click it so it close, now you can change the pixel to prosentage but the easiest is just leave it and go just drag the picture smaller like you do in word and other programs and then go back and click scale once you got it to the size you want

 

oh and pay attention to your mouse cursor, if you go over the picture you will see it will change when its on and off, so when you want to click down to resize or move, make sure the symbol changed to indicate your actually over that picture. Also move tool button indicated in the next picture

 

 

now i want to insert some magic there, and i found this

 

 

now i want to look closer at it to do an erasing over the most forward hand so it looks like the lightning comes in between his hands, this you find at the botom line of gimp

 

now we got too choose the eraser, and set the tab too the tool option

and you can see i got a circle with faded edges so it will hard erase in the midle and be more and more transparent towards the edges of the eraser, which will make a more blended look 

 

 

next you probably want a handle on and then you use the text button

 and you can adjust font and size and color in the tab for tool options

 

and you can move it around the sig after making it and adjust as wanted and voila

now when you save a sig you want to save as xcf file as this is the editable version, and export to a png or jpg which is what you can upload here

 

 

Edited October 16 by Liitha

[Liitha - Club Leader]

ok so layers

as said its the "paperstack" tab, the eyes indicates if a layer is visible or not

now say i want to make more effects on the background or mess around with it maybe make it multilayered, what i first want to do so i dont have to deal with accidently grabing the lightning or warlock is just make them invisible

i also can better see whats going on without them and focus on only the part of the picture i work on

 

 

so boom gone 😉

next i add in a new picture in a new layer which we are going to add for hopefull scary effect

now however i do not know how this placement is in regards to the warlock so to check that i want to turn him on again

as you can see i did turn the layer back on but the new picture is in front. so what i need to do is basically just go to the tab for layers, click on the new picture and while holding it just drag it down the list so it is under the warlock

once i let go it will place where i droped it

 

ok so again i use the move tool and i just grab the hand picture somewhere where it pokes out from the warlock and slide it to where i want it

 

ok now this dont blend much i want the layer to fill the whole picture so i can work the edges of it with some other tools to blend it a bit

and here i used the new layer button in the layer tab to create a new layer, my 5th, this one is empty, i place it right over the hand layer, rightclick and merge it down

 

 

now next i choose the smudge/hand tool, and i size it up in the tool setting tabm so it become a larger brush/circle then what i had for my eraser earlier

 

using this you basically click, hold and drag, then stop holding the mousebutton in when done

 

ok back to the layers, i first duplicate it, then make the second one invisible

 

make sure when you want to work with a layer you got that layer active, there is a black strip around it while the rest is more dark grey, and then i set the optimacy to 50% this adjust the transparancy and make it see through

now i activate the duplicate layer next

and i choose the eraser, make it huge and click once from outside the pictureframe only leting the edges touch the picture

i do this from all edges, i want to have that transparent smoky effect in the edges but a more solid midle, but i want it to graduly fade over so this why i do it like this

this however is not how i want it, i like the smokey effect but i want the hand solid

i make the eraser smaller and then i set it to antierase at the botom of the tab menu

and i make the circle smaller to work just on the hand and imidiate area around it maybe

and done

 

so now i turn the other layers back on

 

and you can see how it builds dimension

 

Now back to layer effects, in this one cause i already have so much going i will just show it with text

 

so i already added text as we covered that, picked a font i liked and a color, what i will do work very poorly on all black or white fonts, so you want some color in this, some effects work a  bit if there is shades of grey and all but color is best to get effect

 

so first of i duplicate the text layer twice

i make the top one invisible and work on the second to the top first

 

and the effects are as easily accessable as that in the tab, now i like how that looks on the first half but not second half...so i use my eraser and remove the second half of the line

then i make the topmost layer visible and i also set an effect on this, this time i choose the screen effect

again while the result is something i like for half of it, i did not want it over the first half which looked more omnious without so i use an eraser to get rid of the effect over that print

 

and now you see some of how we can use optimacy/transparancy and layer effects/modes to blend pictures

 

now i found this and want to pumpkinise the moon

so i basicaly download it, go to file open it as layer, resize it, place it over the moon, make it transparent, which means i can see whats behind it and erase the parts that cover any of the bats

 

 

and i think i will leave this post section at that, in the next we will look more at logos which you can use to create handles that stand out and how to make easy channeling balls/globes

Edited October 16 by Liitha

[Liitha - Club Leader]

ok so here is the logo menu

 

you will see it will come up in a own picture and you can play with layers on and off there

 

if you are doing sigs for a tread with freebies or an auction a good tip is use the type of logo and font you are using as the name, because then you dont have to stress about remembering what you did to recreate it with the handle of the person requesting it or winning it

 

 

now i dont want a squre black background on the font as i just want it on top of my sig so the first thing i want to do is make the black background invisible

 

i also feel the stonepattern isnt the best for my sig, in many logos an option could be to remove that layer too and it would look like this

 

now i feel this may be a bit too sharp for my picture as the background is dark blue and not black so i rather would like the look of the front layer, however not the stoney grey look

 

another option then is to either use effects on it

here i set it to mode: dodge in the layers menu...its cool but it didnt turn out all around the edges and still a bit dark to me, so going back to normal mode i will just colorize it instead

 

 and choose an orange tone instead that will match against the lightning in my picture

 

 

then i use edit menu and copy visible

paste it into my other picture and resize and place it after making it a new layer

 

now however it shows that the window it was in wasnt big enough so it was cut in the edges of the shine...so here i make a new layer above it, merge it down and just use the smudge tool to blend

 

__________________

 

ok next we are going to globes

so we add another layer

its posible to add names to your layers by doubleclicking them to keep controll of them if you want, in general though there is good reason to do a layer based sig, if your unhappy later on its so much easier as long as you save the xcf file to go back and remove or alter the sig

 

my tumb of rule is if in doubt its better with one layer too much then one too little, which means if i am midway in some edit and it looks good, i might just make a dual layer and keep editing in that, if i dont become happy with the result i can always go back without having to hit undo many times or risk undoing anyting i done inbetween as i sometimes go back and forth between layers, as one adjustment may mean you see the need for another in another layer

 

now as said you can go advanced and do lighting effect on your own but its a lot of work and layers sometimes, so the easy way is filter which you access here

 

 

now you see where i placed it, you can click in the checkered for where you want the placement and stuff

 

now of course the rainbow dont work with my sig, so now i go play with colorizing and/or layer mode (effect)

 

i did both i colorized in a deeper darker redish color and sat the mode to multiply and this is the result

 

 

that being because i already got enough shiny going on so unlike how i usually use this filter to create an aperance of channeling, here i just wanted to show of the menu and then as i liked how the stripes passed over the moon i wanted to see if i could alter it to be something that fit in the picture rather then remove it

 

now i am not quite happy with the blaring yellow in the font so going to redo that logo before signing it up for the auction

 

 

Edited October 17 by Liitha

[JamesBrown - Member]

Wow, good stuff! I'm overwhelmed.

 

I use GIMP to clean up the photos I take of my paintings, but I'm not thrilled with the results. I use it to straighten the image (square the corners) but I haven't figured out how to eliminate the background. 

[Liitha - Club Leader]

crop tool?

 

 

or of course different type of erasers

 

or you can select by color tool for cutting out things

Edited October 18 by Liitha

[StarRisk - Member]

(1st sig below) WiP 🙂

Edited Friday at 12:39 PM by StarRisk
doubled attachments :)