- #GIMP PHOTO EDITOR TUTORIAL CREATING LAYERS PLUS#
- #GIMP PHOTO EDITOR TUTORIAL CREATING LAYERS WINDOWS#
Select a 48x48 pixel image, the standard Gnome icon size. To create a new image file, press Ctrl+N.
#GIMP PHOTO EDITOR TUTORIAL CREATING LAYERS PLUS#
For icon work, you may find it most convenient to use the main window, plus the palette and layers dialogs, and of course the actual image you’re working on.
#GIMP PHOTO EDITOR TUTORIAL CREATING LAYERS WINDOWS#
Select items from the File -> Dialogs menu to choose which dialog windows you’d like to have open and which ones you’d like to have closed. It’s a lot like Photoshop and other similar applications, in that it uses a large number of dialogs. If you haven’t used GIMP before, the default window layout may be a little confusing. When you’re ready to start, run GIMP by selecting Applications -> Graphics -> GIMP Image Editor from your menu panel, or typing gimp at the command line. Having a complex palette with many variations will make it complex and hard to navigate. Later on, you can tweak the value or saturation to create highlights or shadows of that particular color. That is, focus mostly on defining a set of hues you’ll be using. If you prefer to create your own palette, it’s best to just define the most basic colors. You could also use one of the palettes that Tuomas Kuosmanen has included in his public palettes list. Many operating systems like MS Windows or macOS have a system-wide color palette that is used on low color depth screens. You may want to consider using a palette that already exists. However, if you’re going to create more than one icon, having a pre-selected palette can give your icons a more consistent look and feel.
You may think palettes are only necessary in special cases like indexing colors of web images. Nautilus (gnome-vfs) can’t yet handle compressed GIMP native files Choosing a Color Palette ¶ Especially since filemanagers like Nautilus have problems with creating thumbnails for compressed images, it’s best to accompany any. However, since we’re working with very small files, compression simply doesn’t save enough space to justify the effort. GIMP enables you to save compressed files and work with them transparently, using the. Before You Begin ¶Īs with any new task, it will help to have a little background information: Filenames and Structure ¶ In this short tutorial, we’ll show you how GIMP ( GNU Image Manipulation Program) can help you create icons for your desktop. Intention ¶Īlmost every desktop enviroment I’ve seen has a special application for creating icons, usually a very limited drawing application. The next lesson shows how layers can be used on a slightly more complex image.Text and images Copyright (C) 2002 Jakub Steiner and may not be used without permission of the author. The above example uses a very basic image, but just imagine the possibilities. You can see why layers can be a powerful tool in creating image compositions. And the end result, is a more interesting image. For example, on one layer, you could change the transparency level, on another layer, you could paste an image, and on another, you could write text. One of the great things about layers is that you can treat each layer differently.
If we hide both the top and middle layers, we'd get a blank white image (because the background is white). If we hide the middle layer, we get this: Notice the three layers in the dialog box: In this screenshot, I have the layers dialog box open. Here's what the image looks like when editing it in GIMP. This image contains three layers: one for the background, one for the oval shape, and one for the text. If you find that something doesn't work, you can just delete the layer (or hide it) - the rest of the image is still intact. They help you experiment with different effects. Layers enable you to add and remove parts to your image without affecting the rest of the image. If we didn't have layers, our life would be so much more difficult. Therefore, despite having layers on top of others, you are still able to see the other layers beneath them. Therefore, you can have multiple layers of images, stacked on top of each other.īut most importantly, each layer can be transparent or semi-transparent as required. Layers enable you to stack images on top of other images - all within the same image. Layers give you more control and flexibility over your image compositions. Layers provide you with the ability to separate different parts of your image, so that you can manipulate each part separately to the rest of your image. If you're familiar with Adobe Photoshop, you'll know what I mean. Layers are an important part of creating images in GIMP. Layers allow you to stack images on top of each other, while all remain within a single image.