1. The GIMP Simple features tutorial By Mary A White

2. About this Tutorial This is a simple tutorial designed to give a brief overview of the GIMP image editing software. Please read the GIMP 2.2 Review before proceeding with the tutorial for background and general information on layers and other features: http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~maw64/white_product_review.doc There are many more advanced features that are available for dynamic image creation. These are not covered in this tutorial, but more information can be found on the GIMP website: file:///C:/Program%20Files/GIMP-2.0/share/gimp/2.0/help/en/index.html

3. Downloading GIMP GIMP is a freely distributed piece of image manipulation software available for download at http://www.gimp.org/http://www.gimp.org/ It is available for use on UNIX, Windows and MacOSX operating systems Please note that the help files must be downloaded and installed separately from the main program

4. Getting Help Help files can be accessed at any time during use by pressing the F1 key. Help on specific menu items can be accessed by pressing the F1 key while the mouse focuses on the menu item. You can undo any action simply by pressing Ctrl-Z Mousing over many of the tools and options will display a brief narrative of what action it will perform.

5. Opening GIMP When you start the program you will see one to several separate windows, or dialogs. The main toolbox and tool options is shown at the right.

6. Undocking Dialog Boxes Dialogs can be placed together in one window, or dock, or separately in their own windows. To undock dialogs, click on the ‘drag handle’, and drag and drop to the desired position. Click in this area, the ‘drag handle’, and drag and drop dialogs out of docks to create your personalized program layout.

7. Docking Dialogs To dock dialogs, click the ‘drag handle’, and drag and drop it onto a ‘docking bar’. The only dialog that cannot be docked with other dialogs is the main image window. This is the ‘docking bar’ area. Dialogs can be placed together in one window, or dock, by dragging and dropping them onto ‘docking bars’.

8. 5 Basic Dialogs There are five basic dialogs: 1.The Main Toolbox 2.Tool Options 3.An Image Window 4.Layers Dialog 5.Brushes/Patterns/Gradients

9. The Main Toolbox 1 2 3 1.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. 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 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.

10. Tool Options 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: 1.This button is used to save your tool option scheme so it can be loaded and used again at a later time. 2.When you have one or more tool schemes saved, you can load them using this button. 3.This will delete a selected tool scheme. 4.Clicking this button will reset the tool options to the default values. 1234 Tool scheme buttons

11. 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.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). 2 34 4.Zoom Use this to zoom in and out of your image. 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.

12. 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 1 2 3456

13. 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

14. Creating a New Image 1.To create a new image, from the main toolbox select File -> New 2.The Create a New Image window will open, where you can select the height and width of the image, and resolution. 3.The units for the height and width can be changed by clicking on the units menu (1) 4.The resolution of the image can be changed by clicking (2), or selecting Advanced Options (3). 5.For our purposes, we will use the default resolution of 420 x 300 pixels, 72 dpi, RGB color. 6.Click OK (4) to open your new image window. 1 2 3 4

15. Opening an Existing Image 1.To open an existing image from file for editing, select File -> Open from the main toolbox. 2.The Open Image will appear. Find your image on your computer using the navigation area (1). This is quite similar to the navigation used by many other programs. 3.A preview of the image will appear in the preview pane (2). 4.When you have found the desired image, click the Open button (3) and it will open in a new image window. 1 2 3

16. Cropping Images The crop tool can be used to remove unwanted areas from an image. 1.Click on the crop tool in the main toolbox. 2.In the image dialog, click and drag out a rectangular region. Release the mouse, and a crop dialog will appear. 3.You can change the dimensions within the crop dialog, or re-click and drag until you have the portion selected you wish to keep. 4.Click OK in the crop dialog. The unwanted region is now gone from your image. Crop tool Click and drag to select the area you want to keep. After clicking OK, your image will be cropped.

17. Select Hand-Drawn Regions 1.Click on the hand-drawn tool from the main toolbox. 2.In your image, click and drag around the portion of the image you wish to modify. 3.When you release the mouse, your selection has been made. 4.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. 5.I have cropped this image so that the background is removed by copying and pasting my selection into a new image window. Hand- drawn tool If you wish to perform operations on a specific part of an image, or crop a region of free-form shape the hand-drawn selection tool can be very useful. Click and drag around the object to make a selection. Right-click to brink up option menus for modifying the selection. I have removed the background of this image.

18. Other Main Toolbox Tools Most of these tools are common in all image editing and paint programs The pencil, brush, airbrush and pen can be selected to draw on your image The paint bucket is used to fill an area in with a selected color or pattern The large ‘T’ can be clicked to insert text into an image The eraser is used to erase portions of an image Reminder: You can always mouse over an item for a short text description, or press F1 while the mouse is centered over the item to access online help documentation.

19. Script-Fu & Web Design Script-Fu makes creating uniform components for your website easy. From the main toolbox, select Xnts -> Script-Fu, and select any one of the options for buttons, logos or other items.

20. Script-Fu: Buttons Select the Buttons option in the Script-Fu menu and a dialog will open Here you can specify the text of the button, the font size and type, the color selection and various other options for active and inactive buttons. Click OK to create your button(s). You are now free to save them in the format desired and implement them in your web page!

21. Script-Fu: Logos From the Script-Fu menu select Logos, and choose from one of the many special effects to be applied to your logo. GIMP offers almost 30 effects including Neon, Frost, Comic Book, etc.. A Logo dialog will appear, where you can select the text, font, color and other special effects. Click OK to create your logo. You are now free to save it in the format desired and implement it in your web page!

22. Other Features There are many other features available in the GIMP. Have fun exploring and remember to use the F1 key! Ctrl-Z can always undo what you don’t like!