GIMP – Introduction

GIMP is free and open source image editing software, which offers the

best possible image editing tools at no price (it is freely downloadable

from gimp.org). The full form of GIMP is GNU Image Manipulation

Program. It allows you to retouch photos, create image composition

and image authoring. Other than this, GIMP is used for free-form

drawings, resizing, cropping, photo-montages, converting between

different image formats, and more specialized task, GIMP is available

on variety of platform like Linux, OS X, and windows.

GIMP was originally released as the General Image Manipulation

Program by creators Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis but later its

name was changed to GNU Image Manipulation Program when it was

released as part of GNU project. Development of GIMP began in 1995

as (0.54) was made in January 1996

3.0.2 Starting GIMP

Starting GIMP is similar to the way you start other programs on a

windows computer.

That is, click on GIMP 2 on start menu or if not found there, then click

Start button ->All Programs ->GIMP

2

(see fig. 3.1)

3.0.3 Understanding GIMP Windows

Once you start GIMP, you see following windows (Fig. 3.2 on next

page) on your computer screen, this is known as GIMP windows. Let

us briefly talk about GIMP window

1. The Toolbox sub-windows

The Toolbox offers different tools icons that can be used to

manipulate image or create desired effects. The Toolbox sub-window

has following two components.

Tool Buttons

Tool options

2. Dock able dialogs [Docked multiple dialog windows]

On right side of GIMP window, multiple dialog windows are

docked together with layers dialog shown at the front. The docked

dialog windows has two sections –top and bottom sections where

each section shows a different dialog.

In the beginning the top section shows the Layers dialog and

bottom section shows Brushes dialog. [ see Fig 3.4 (a)]. The top

section has four stacked dialogs.

Layers dialog

Channels dialog

Paths dialogs

Undo history dialog

The bottom section has three stacked dialogs

Brushes dialog

Patterns dialog

Gradients dialog

3.0.4 Creating New File

To create anything, you need to create a new file, a new image file.

To create a new file, you need to follow these steps:

1. Start GIMP as explained earlier.

2. Click File New command or else press shortcut key Ctrl +N

3. It will open create a new image dialog. [see Fig. 3.5(b)]

By default, this dialog shows the default image size by

displaying width as 640 pixels and height 400 pixels. If you

want to create new image file with the same size, simply

click OK.

Otherwise, after the size either manually by typing the new

value of width and height or through the up and down

arrows.

To specify the unit of measurement for image-size, click

the drop-down arrow of Template list-box. A list of per-

defined size will de displayed in the list box. Choose one

item from the list as per your need.[Fig. 3.5(b)]

If you desire to have a pre-defined pictures file size, then

click the drop down arrow of template. A list of pre-defined

sizes will displayed in the list box. Choose one item from

list as per your need.

4. If needed, set up Advanced Option such as color scheme,

resolution etc. To do this, click on the Advanced Option and the

dialog will be enlarged with more options as shown below [see

Fig. 3.5©]

Select Units for

Dimensions

Measurment

Select Orientation of

Image Change Width and

Height here

5. Once you have set the features, click the OK button in the dialog

Create a New Image. And GIMP will show you a blank canvas

where you can draw/create desired effects.[see Fug. 3.5(d)]

3.0.5 Saving File

After you have worked in your image file, you need to save your

image file. To save an open file:

1. Click File Save or press Ctrl +S.[see above Fig.]

2 In the Save Image dialog (that opens) provide the file name and

desired location where the image file is to be saved and click

Save button. [see Fig. 3.7(b)]

3.0.6 Opening An Existing File

To open a file, you need to follow these steps.

1. Click command File Open… or press Ctrl +O

2. Open Image dialog will open up. Browse to the folder where

your file is located: select the file and click Open button. [see

above Fig. ].

3.0.7 Different File Formats

A graphic software allows you to save work in different file

formats which you can choose depending upon you needs. By default

GIMP save your image in XCF format. There are two other supported

file-formats in which you can save your image file.

Let us talk about these file-formats supported by GIMP’s Save Image

dialog.

1. XCY format.

2. Gzip archive(GNU zip)

3. Bzip archive

Other supported file-formats

.AA (ASCII art) , .BMP(Bitmap) , .CEL ( CIMFast Event Language), .FITS(

Flexible Image Transport System), .FLI(Autodesk FLIC Animation) >GIF(

Graphics Interchange Format) , .HRZ(Slow scan Television), .JPEG( Joint

Photographics Expert Group), .MIFF(Magick Image File Format)

3.9.0 GIMP Toolbox

Let us now learn about various tools available on the toolbox.

Before we start applying tools for creating different types of image,

it would be useful to know how a particular tool works.

The Tool Box contains different types of tools such as :

Selection Tools

Brush Tools

Transform Tools

Color Tools

Miscellaneous Tools

3.9.1 Selection Tools

Selection tools are designed to select regions from images. The

selected region is surrounded by a moving dashed line known as

marching ants. Different Selection tools are being explained below:

Pics

Rectangle Selection Tool (R)

This tool create a square selection. When using this, you get the

chance to pull handles to adjust it. Press return (Enter Key) or click

inside it to finalize the selection.

Pics

Elliptical Region Select Tool (E)

This tool create a circular selection. When using this, you get the

chance to pull handles to adjust it. Press return key(Enter Key) for

finalization.

Click Here

If you press SHIFT key along with this tool you get perfect circular

selection.

Freehand Select Tool or Lasso Tool (F)

This is actually a combination of a freehand and polygon select tool.

Free hand selection id done by holding the mouse button and

dragging.

Press Enter key to finalize your selection region.

Fuzzy Select Tool (Magic Wand Tool) (Z)

This tool selects connected areas. Click and drag to include more

areas. (See figure on the left below)

Magic Wand Select

Color Select (Shift + O)

This tool selects areas of similar color. Click and drag to include

a wider range of colors.

Intelligent Scissors (Select Shape from image) (I):

This tool selects along an edge. It can be very useful to select and cut

out parts of an image, the results can be a bit unpredictable though.

With this tool, keep click along the boundary /edge of the region you

want to select and once done, press enter key.

PRESS ENTER KEY

Foreground Select Tool: [ ]

This tool is intended primarily for cutting out items and people from

photos. It requires you to follows these steps before finalizing a

selection.

1. Roughly select the foreground you want to extract. When you

select tool, the mouse pointer goes with the lasso icon. It

actually works like the fuzzy select tool. Select as little as possible

from the background.

The

mo

use

2. As soon as you release mouse button, the non-selected part of

the image is covered with a dark colored mask. The mouse

pointer becomes Paint-brush icon for the next step.

3. With the paint-brush icon, paint the area to be selected. Be

careful not to paint background pixels. But paint the desired

area( to be selected)

4. When you release mouse button, all non-selected areas are in

dark and the painted region is clearly visible.

5. Lastly , you have to press the Enter Key to get the wanted

selection:

Selecting All, None or Inverting Selection:-

Sometimes , you need to select all or unselect all selections or invert

your selection.

The menu option select->All (Ctrl +A) will select all in the

image/canvas.

The menu option Select None ( Shift + Ctrl + A) will unselect

everything, i.e. , now no region on your image is selected.

Sometime, you need to select entire image barring a small

segment. I such case , it is good to first select that small segment

and then invert your section by clicking menu option Select

Invert or by pressing CTRL +I

Labs Practical-1.1

Create a GIMP image as shown here.

1. Start GIMP

2. Create a new file in GIMP by suing command

File New ( Refer the pics shown previously) create

a file of any size. We created file with default settings

3. Now from the Toolbox, click Rectangle Select tool and drag in

the canvas to from the rectangle selection as shown below. Press

Enter key so that it turns to rectangle selection.

4. Now (with rectangular selection visible), click Edit Stroke

Selection command. It will show solid line as line type in Line

width box in Stroke Selection Dialog Box.

Press Enter Key

5. Now press Ctrl + Shift+ A to remove selection marquee and you’ll

get a rectangle with desired outline.

6. Now from the Tool Box , click Elliptical select Tool and drag in

the canvas to form the top elliptical shape selection as shown

below. Press Enter key so that it turns to elliptical selection.

7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 so that, this

elliptical selection also gets an

outline as shown here.

8. Similarly, draw an elliptical selection overlapping the base of the

rectangle, give it stroke using Edit Stroke Selection Command

( Step 4, 5) . Now the image would look like the one shown in the

screenshot.

9. Now save your work with proper file name.

Let us Revise

An Image editing tool is a graphics program that provides a

variety of special features for altering bit-mapped images.

Some image-editing programs are picasa, GIMP, Adobe

Photoshop, Paint etc.

GIMP is free and open source image-editing software.Its full

form is GNU Image manipulation Program.

GIMP Windows contains a Toolbox window, Docked multiple

dialogs and Menubar.

Toolbox contains different types of tools such as: selection tools,

brush tool, transform tools, color tools and other miscellaneous

tools.

To remove any selections, press ctrl + shift + A key combination.

Floating selections are temporary and not part of the image. To

make a floating selection part of the image.