Blondie Bear
Zydrate Addict
Okay, by popular demand, I'm putting together a series of tutorials on using GIMP. When we get to actual artwork and such, I'll be using tutorials from the wonderful Lyri, who taught me everything I know, but I'll modify them from the PS tutorial for use in GIMP.
Everybody ready? Here we go.
Lesson 1 - Know Your Tools
Not everybody knows exactly how the program works, and trying to figure out where a button is when you should be making pretty pretty artwork just gets frustrating. So this is a very basic tour of what you can find in GIMP and where.
First, when you open the program, this is what you'll see. You've got two doohickies (that's the scientific term) with tools on them.
The one on the left is your toolbox. These are the selection tools. You can see there's a couple of different ways you can select stuff, and it mostly depends on what effect you're going for.
These are some handy tools that I hardly ever use, except the eyedropper. These let you do fun and crazy stuff to your images.
These are probably the ones you'll use the most. The A is for adding text, the bucket fills a contiguous area with a color, the little gray box is your gradient tool, the pencil and brush are what you'll use to draw stuff. Then there's the eraser. You'll use the eraser A LOT. The rest of them you may not use as much (I don't), except the smudge tool (that's the little finger-looking one).
When you have a drawing tool selected, you can choose a brush, and this is where you'll adjust your brush. You can set the color, the opacity, and even the size of the brush. Every brush has a range of sizes, from .1 to 10, which is very useful, especially since the biggest fuzzy brush (which we'll be using a lot of) isn't nearly big enough on its own.
The other toolbox is where most of the magic happens. It's got three tabs at the bottom, one for patterns (I hardly use this), one for gradients, and one for brushes.
At the top of that same toolbox is where you'll work with your layers. When you have a project open, you'll want to use that little dropdown box to find it so you can see all the layers and work with them.
The "Filters" menu is where all the manipulatey magic happens. If I tell you to add a blur or a drop shadow or something, this is where you're going to get it.
That pretty much does it for the program itself. But you'll also want to know how to add brushes, fonts, etc. to the program. Unfortunately, GIMP can't use PS gradients, but it can use everything else. In order to add stuff, go to My Computer and find your username (you get there different ways depending on the version of Windows you're running, and if you have a Mac, you're on your own, but I'm sure you can find it). In that folder, you'll see a folder that's labeled .gimp2.6 (or whatever version you have), like this.
Open that folder, and you'll see all the folders where you can add stuff. It's pretty much copy/paste or drag-and-drop. Be aware, though, the first time you open the program after you've added something (especially fonts), it will take a little longer to load. Just let it sit and it'll open eventually.
Okay! That pretty much does it for that! Questions? Comments? Cries of outrage?
Everybody ready? Here we go.
Lesson 1 - Know Your Tools
Not everybody knows exactly how the program works, and trying to figure out where a button is when you should be making pretty pretty artwork just gets frustrating. So this is a very basic tour of what you can find in GIMP and where.
First, when you open the program, this is what you'll see. You've got two doohickies (that's the scientific term) with tools on them.
The one on the left is your toolbox. These are the selection tools. You can see there's a couple of different ways you can select stuff, and it mostly depends on what effect you're going for.
These are some handy tools that I hardly ever use, except the eyedropper. These let you do fun and crazy stuff to your images.
These are probably the ones you'll use the most. The A is for adding text, the bucket fills a contiguous area with a color, the little gray box is your gradient tool, the pencil and brush are what you'll use to draw stuff. Then there's the eraser. You'll use the eraser A LOT. The rest of them you may not use as much (I don't), except the smudge tool (that's the little finger-looking one).
When you have a drawing tool selected, you can choose a brush, and this is where you'll adjust your brush. You can set the color, the opacity, and even the size of the brush. Every brush has a range of sizes, from .1 to 10, which is very useful, especially since the biggest fuzzy brush (which we'll be using a lot of) isn't nearly big enough on its own.
The other toolbox is where most of the magic happens. It's got three tabs at the bottom, one for patterns (I hardly use this), one for gradients, and one for brushes.
At the top of that same toolbox is where you'll work with your layers. When you have a project open, you'll want to use that little dropdown box to find it so you can see all the layers and work with them.
The "Filters" menu is where all the manipulatey magic happens. If I tell you to add a blur or a drop shadow or something, this is where you're going to get it.
That pretty much does it for the program itself. But you'll also want to know how to add brushes, fonts, etc. to the program. Unfortunately, GIMP can't use PS gradients, but it can use everything else. In order to add stuff, go to My Computer and find your username (you get there different ways depending on the version of Windows you're running, and if you have a Mac, you're on your own, but I'm sure you can find it). In that folder, you'll see a folder that's labeled .gimp2.6 (or whatever version you have), like this.
Open that folder, and you'll see all the folders where you can add stuff. It's pretty much copy/paste or drag-and-drop. Be aware, though, the first time you open the program after you've added something (especially fonts), it will take a little longer to load. Just let it sit and it'll open eventually.
Okay! That pretty much does it for that! Questions? Comments? Cries of outrage?

sk
Just love how this tutorial is written. Looking forward to more.

MandaMeena
[No message]

PassionBecoming
This makes my life happier.

nightshade
@Willow Tara does this help

Willow Tara
thank you