Gimp trying to use GIMP

[mattrock]

Okay, so I think I\'m a pretty good painter...certainly not up to automaton\'s level or anything, but I\'ve won some comps here and there and I\'m generally happy with the results I\'m able to achieve.

For a long while I\'ve wanted to post some shots here on CMON to see how I would stack up in this community against all the great talent I see here.

Two problems: I suck at photography and it seems to me that you have to have a friggin aeronotics degree to work with GIMP or the like. I\'m not motivated enough to shell out untold amounts of money to get Photoshop and I just want to do basic things, like create montages of different angles and put my minis on a graded background, etc.

Can anyone point a dolt like me to a decent tutorial on editing using GIMP so I can get something posted? Or tell me if I am going about this whole thing the wrong way.

Thanks.

 

[nick232]

google is you friend

 

[War Griffon]

There are various articles on Photography in the articles section here on CMON and there is also a few on Photo Editing but not on GIMP.

I have put together a basic how to using GIMP that I was going to post in the Articles section as a two parter (basic and not so basic) but I need to put the screen shots into Photoshop first so that they go on as photos, give me a few days and I shall have something up in the articles for yourself and anybody else that might be interested.

If you have downloaded GIMP correctly there is some tutorials and help pages but you need to know what you are looking for to be able to make use of it.

 

[mattrock]

Originally posted by War Griffon
There are various articles on Photography in the articles section here on CMON and there is also a few on Photo Editing but not on GIMP.

I have put together a basic how to using GIMP that I was going to post in the Articles section as a two parter (basic and not so basic) but I need to put the screen shots into Photoshop first so that they go on as photos, give me a few days and I shall have something up in the articles for yourself and anybody else that might be interested.

If you have downloaded GIMP correctly there is some tutorials and help pages but you need to know what you are looking for to be able to make use of it.

yeah...I totally don\'t have a clue what I\'m looking for. Even the tuts I saw on the gimp website and the tooltips that come up on mouseover were like in another language as far as I\'m concerned. I look forward to your article.

 

[Friar]

bloody hell I hate when ya write a book and the damn web page times out erasing everything, well here goes try 2

making a montage is fairly simple open gimp, then open a pic, then on the pics window open the other pics you want included using the open as layer command. Use the move tool to psition the pics as you want and using the \"fit canvas to layers\" command under image will make your canvas fit to what your moving around. then simply use the scale and crop tools (make sure to select the layer you are working on in the layers window) once all the pics are scaled and shaped then you can reposition then for the final setting redo the fit canvas to layers command then use \"merge visable layers\" under image to turn all the layers into one pic and your good to go save it and your ready to upload it to photobucket or whatever.

as far as fixing the photos and getting them presentable my main tricks are to use sharpen and unsharpen mask under enhance in the filters menu. but the biggest help I\'ve found is using the \"levels\" function under colors this displays a graph that shows the lighting, colors, and effects depending on what you set it to. I pretty much only use it on the value setting this basically controls light and dark on the pic if the scale flattens out before the end of the graph then I slide the tab at the right hand side of the gradient bar under the graph to the last part of the spike on the graph, it\'ll be the tab for \"white\" this basically adjusts the light of the photo and brightens up the whole deal. This Article is the one that helped my phots out the most in it he describes using the photo shop version of the \"levels\" option he has pics and does a much better job explaining it. the gimp version looks and works the same as the photoshop version just remember it\'s the levels option under the color menu and your set.

well this is probally confusing as hell but hope it helps ya out somewhat. Best thing I can advise is just play around with it Gimp isn\'t all that bad it just takes alot of getting use to.

Good Luck and if you have and questions or what not just pm me I\'ll be happy to help if I can lol

 

[Legacy Account]

\'Acquire\' Photoshop, it aint difficult!

GIMP is garbage - why invest time in learning to use a piece of software that has so many nuances and limitations with such a small user base? There\'s reasons why nobody in the design or photography business don\'t use it!

Photoshop is a proper piece of software that\'s useful for all sorts of other applications that might crop up. Might sound like snobbery, but it aint. It\'s like buying a cheap 6v cordless driver for a fiver from Aldi compared to a top of the range Makita jobbie costing hundreds. It\'s simply better made and better at it\'s job and that\'s why it\'s expensive!!