Handy Tips To Be More Productive Using GIMP

GIMP - also known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program - is well known as an excellent graphics editor. Many people even consider it as useful as Adobe Photoshop for creating images for the web. I have been using GIMP for a long time now and have used it for such tasks as screen capturing, optimizing images, retouching photos, scaling images, special effects and so on. GIMP is available for multiple platforms including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Why, GIMP is even available as a portable application  which allows you to run it directly from a USB pen drive.

The following are a few handy tips which will help you be more productive in GIMP.

Handy Tips for GIMP users

1. Add the PSPI plugin - This plugin will allow you to install and use most Photoshop filters in GIMP.
2. Install the Layer effects plug-in  - This plug-in will club filters such as drop shadow, color overlay, bevel and embross, inner shadow, inner glow and so on into one group thus easing your work.
3. Install the Separate+ plug-in which will bring CMYK color separation in GIMP.
4. Install the Liquid Rescale plug-in.
5. Add additional brushes. GIMP already comes with a default set of brushes but you can download more variety from websites such as blendfu.com.
6. Anchor the windows - There is an always on top option for GIMP dialog windows. Use them to your advantage.
7. Install the GIMP Animation Package (GAP) - Helps you create animated GIFs, surrealistic landscapes and realistic water motion.
8. Enable GEGL in GIMP. This feature is available only in GIMP 2.6 and above.
   

[Source: Smashing Magazine]

GIMP 2.7.0 has been released

GIMP version 2.7.0 has been released. GIMP 2.7 is the first step towards GIMP 2.8 which will be a stable release. GIMP follows the Linux kernel approach to version numbering in that all odd numbered versions are unstable and even numbered versions are considered stable.

Some of the notable features in GIMP 2.7.0 are as follows :

1. Text editing with text tool is done in the canvas like you do in Adobe Photoshop and not in a separate window.
   
2. Tag support for brushes and patterns. And you can even filter these resources based on the tags.
3. You can save your images in only one format namely the native GIMP file format (XCF). If you want to save in a different file format such as PNG or Jpeg, you have to use the "Export" feature.
4. GIMP now supports rotating brushes.
   
5. Additional features of GEGL incorporated.
6. A new plugin for loading Jpeg2000 images.

Complete list of changes can be found at developer.gimp.org.

Please note that GIMP 2.7 is a development release and is considered unstable. However, if you decide to install GIMP 2.7 in Linux, you have to compile it from its source code which can be downloaded at ftp.gimp.org.

GIMP team also rolled out GIMP 2.6.7 which provides lots of bug-fixes, and it contains an important fix for using GIMP with the latest GEGL and babl releases. Read the full release notes for GIMP 2.6.7.

GIMP 2.4 finally released

It has been quite some time (somewhere around 2 or 3 years) since the last release of GIMP which was version 2.2. But the GIMP team has finally made it across the finishing line by releasing yet another stable version of GIMP namely ver 2.4.

But even though GIMP 2.4 has been officially released only now, if you are using the latest version of any of the major Linux distributions, then chances are you already have a release candidate of GIMP 2.4 installed on your machine.

The most visible features in GIMP 2.4 for me are the following :

• Rectangle and Ellipsoidal selections can be resized.
• Foreground selection tool - Select a region containing foreground objects.
• Healing tool - Heal image irregularities.
• Perspective clone tool - Clone from an image source after applying a perspective transformation.
• Alignment tool - Align and arrange objects and layers.
  

Then via the menu, you now have access to a red eye removal plug-in. This is a very useful addition for the simple reason that many photos snapped by amateurs like us often display the red eye phenomenon and now it can be corrected in GIMP with a simple mouse click. Earlier this required several steps.

Fig: GIMP 2.4 toolbox

The screenshot plug-in now features more sophisticated options. Now there is an option to grab a region rather than just the whole screen or a particular window.

These are the new features that I noticed when I used GIMP 2.4 but there are a slew of less visible but equally useful features that are incorporated in the new version which is listed in the release notes at GIMP website.

Overall, I am very pleased with GIMP 2.4 and even though there are a lot of features yet to be added to bring it at par with Adobe Photoshop, this is a big step in the right direction.

Liquid rescale feature now available as a GIMP plugin

One month back I had written about a content aware image rescaling technology. And I hoped that this technology will be incorporated in Gimp in the future. Well we didn't have to wait that long.

A liquid rescale GIMP plugin has already been released and you can download the source as well as binaries for a variety of Linux distributions and for Windows at the following location. The download link of the Windows version of the GIMP plugin does not seem to work so I found an alternate location here.

You can download and install this plugin and take it for a run.

Once you install the plugin, you can access it in GIMP by navigating to layer -> liquid rescale.

Fig: Liquid rescale plugin dialog box in GIMP

Possible uses of the liquid rescale plugin

• Rescaling a 1600 x 1200 px wallpaper image to a smaller diamension (Eg: 800 x 600) without losing its clarity.
• Reducing the size of an image without losing any important parts.
  

Gimp UI brainstorm - Ideas to help make Gimp better

Gimp is one of the finest graphics suites which is released under a GNU license. I dare say, feature wise, Gimp rivals even Adobe's Photoshop in creating and manipulating images targeted for the web. Before you jump the gun, I did say images for the web.

One of Gimp's weakness is its poor support for CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) color profiles which is the dominant profiles used in the printing industry (read offset printing) . So if you are creating images to be published on a glossy magazine or a flier, then you will do better to stick to Photoshop for now. Again another off repeated complaint that most first time users of Gimp have is its seemingly kludgey interface.

Personally, I have no problem with it as I have grown comfortable with the current Gimp GUI but I guess it could be further polished and made more efficient. So there has been a move by the GIMP UI redesign team to highlight the possible ways in which the Gimp UI could be spruced up and made more user efficient. And the result is the Gimp GUI brainstorm blog.

This blog highlights mock ups of GIMP UI interface which is contributed by the general public. If you have an interesting idea, then you can create a mock up and submit it to the blog and it will be published for all to see.

The rules for submission are as follows :

• Explain your idea in an image or two. Only these images will be published, so make sure any needed explanation is inside them. Images must be in jpg, gif, bmp or png format, maximum 8MB each.
• Your images should show your idea in a clear way, but they don’t have to be glossy and polished. Plain vector drawings or even scanned pencil sketches should also work.
• Send your image to gimp [dot] brainstorm [at] gmail [dot] com , with the word ‘GIMP’ in the subject line of your email.
  

Apart from the blog, the GIMP developers have been busy and have published a set of User Scenarios which will be used in the GIMP redesign project.

Here are a sample of the mock ups which have been submitted by Gimp lovers.

Fig: Red Eye tool - Sorry! Gimp already has one. You can find it in the menu.

Fig: I like this idea...

Fig: Cool eyecandy :-)

A step by step tutorial on creating a 3D effect of a photograph using Gimp

Gimp is a versatile image editor. I have been using Gimp exclusively for editing images and photos targeted for the web. Over and above its usefulness, it is also a Free software. But when it comes to finding tutorials in creating special effects of photographs, you find a whole lot of them for Adobe's Photoshop but not that many for Gimp. This could be because there is a whole industry that has been spawned by Photoshop and which depends on it for its survival.

For instance, there are a plethora of books on Photoshop, professional videos, exclusive Photoshop training institutes and even Photoshop magazines. Compared to that, Gimp lacks any of these baring a couple of books which can be counted with your fingers. But one thing which Gimp has as much as Photoshop is a very strong community backing it, a community which understands the true strengths of this Free graphics suite and use it exclusively for creating and editing images targeted for the web.

In recent times, with GNU/Linux and Free software getting increasing exposure among the masses, some of it has also rubbed off Gimp and now you find more tutorials on accomplishing special tasks using Gimp than you found earlier.

Andrew of 'Instructables' fame has written an excellent tutorial which shows how to create a 3D effect from a photo of a car which is really informative. But what is even better is that for a change, he explains how to do it using the Free software Gimp.