M8.

Introduction to GIMP
Introduction:

• GIMP is an acronym for GNU (pronounced “guh-noo”) Image Manipulation.

The GIMP is a multiplatform tool suitable for a variety of image
manipulation tasks, including photo retouching, image composition and
image construction.
• The first version of the GIMP were written by Peter Mattis and Spencer
Kimball.
• Wilber is the official mascot of the GIMP.
MAIN WINDOWS LAYERS
IMAGE DIALOG
WINDOW
MAIN
TOOLBOX

TOOL
OPTIONS

BRUSHES/PATTERNS/GRADIEN
TS
1. The Main Toolbox: It is the heart of GIMP. This toolbox contains the highest level menu, and a
set of icon buttons that can be used to manipulate image.
2. Tool options: It is located below the main Toolbox and it shows options for the currently
selected tool.
3. An image window: Every image open in GIMP is displayed in a separate windows.
4. Layers Dialog: This dialog window shows the layer structure of the currently active image, and
allows it to be manipulated in a variety of ways. .
5. Brushes/Patterns/Gradients: The layer dialog shows the dialogs for managing brushes, patterns
and gradients.
MAIN TOOLBOX

TOOLBOX MENU

TOOL OPTIONS

FOREGROUND/BACKGRO BRUSH/PATTERN/GRADIENT ACTIVE IMAGE

UND
1. Toolbox Menu: It contains some commands that cannot be
found in the menus that are attached to images. These include
commands for setting preferences, creating certain types of
dialogs, etc.
2. Tool icons: These icons are buttons which activate tools for a
wide variety of purposes: selecting parts of images, painting on
them, transforming them, etc.
3. Foreground/Background colors: The color areas here show you
GIMP's current foreground and background colors, which come
into play in many operations.
4. Brush/Pattern/Gradient: The symbols here show you GIMP's current selections for: the
Paintbrush, used by all tools that allow you to paint on the image; for the Pattern, which is
used in filling selected areas of an image; and for the Gradient, which comes into play
whenever an operation requires a smoothly varying range of colors.
5. Active Image: In GIMP, you can work with many images at once, but at any given moment, one
of them is the “active image”.
IMAGE WINDOWS
TITLE BAR IMAGE WINDOW RESIZE
TOOGLE
IMAGE MENU
MENU BUTTON
RULER
INACTIVE PADDING AREA

IMAGE DISPLAY

QUICK MASK TOGGLE

NAVIGATION CONTROL

POINTER COORDINATES ZOOM BUTTON STATUS AREA

UNITS MENU CANCEL BUTTON
1.Title Bar: This bar show the name of the image and some basic
information about it.

2.Image Menu: Directly below the emphasis bar appears the Image Menu.
This menu gives you access to nearly every operation you can perform on
an image.

3.Menu Button: Clicking on this little button gives you the Image Menu,
except in a column instead of a row.

4.Ruler: In the default layout, rulers are shown above and to the left of the
image, indicating coordinates within the image.
5. QuickMask Toggle: At the lower left corner of the image display is a
small button that toggles on or off the Quick Mask, which is an alternate,
and often extremely useful, way of viewing the selected area within the
image.

6. Pointer Coordinates: In the lower left corner of the window is a

rectangular area used to show the current pointer coordinates, whenever
the pointer is within the image boundaries. The units are the same as for
the rulers.

7. Units menu: By default, the units used for the rulers and several other
purposes are pixels.
8. Zoom button: There are a number of ways to zoom the image in or out,
but this menu is perhaps the simplest.

9. Status Area: The Status Area appears below the image display. Most of
the time, by default, it shows which part of the image is currently using.

10. Cancel Button: This is used to cancel operations (example: complex and
time consuming)

11. Navigation control: This is a small cross-shaped button at the lower right
corner of the image display. Clicking on it, and holding the left mouse
button down, brings up a window showing a miniature view of the image,
with the displayed area outlined.
12.Inactive Padding Area: This padding area separates the active image
display and the inactive padding area, so you're able to distinguish
between them.

13.Image Display: The most important part of the image window. It

occupies the central area of the window, it is surrounded by a yellow
dotted line to show the image boundary, against a neutral gray
background.

14. Image Window Resize Toggle: If this button is pressed, the image itself
will be resized if the image window is resized.
Overview

• Opening GIMP
• Default GIMP Layout
• Layers
• Duplicating Layers
• Adding Color to Layers
• Layer Order
• Opacity
• Selection Tools
• Selection Tools Descriptions
File formats

• GIMP's native XCF format

• Every other format preserves some image properties and loses others
• Other formats
• Tif, jpg, bmp
• Gif (transparent background, animated)
• Psd (Photoshop)
Mode

• RGB
• Three color channel (Red, green blue)
• No color gives black
• Used for monitor display
• Grayscale
• One color and one alpha channel
• Indexed image
• CMYK
• Cyan, magenta, yellow, black
• No color gives white
• Use for press
Channel

• Color channels:
• Red, Green, Blue
• Alpha (transparency value)
• Selection masks
• Channel can be used to save the selection.
Selection

• When you operate on an image, you only want part of it to be

affected
• Selection is represented by marching ants
• Selection is actually a grayscale channel
• By default the mask is shown in red
• Pixel values ranging from 0 (unselected) to 256 (fully selected)
• You can use any of the paint tools, as well as the bucket fill and
gradient fill tools, in this way
Quick mask

• Selection tools have limits

• Quick Mask shows the full structure of selection
• With QM you can paint the selection
Layer

• Layers dialog
• Layer is a page in a book
• Only one layer is active
• Transparency
• You can change the size of the lazer
• Visibility
• Linkage to other layers
Undoing

• Almost anything you do to an image in GIMP can be undone

• More convenient to work with the Undo History dialog
• GIMP allocates a certain amount of memory to each image for undoing
Grids and guides
Opening GIMP

• There should be a GIMP icon on your desktop

• You can also open GIMP through the Start
Menu (Start  All Programs  GIMP 2)
Default GIMP Layout

• When GIMP opens, the default setting

is three different dialogues (windows)
• Toolbox
• Active Image
• Layers
Layers

• Creating Layers
• In the Active Image Dialogue go to File 
New.
• This will open a dialogue box with options
on the size of an image you would like to
create. For this tutorial, enter the width as
200 and the height as 200 and click the
Okay button.
• An untitled dialogue window should open
with the image sized at 200x200.
Duplicating Layers

• If you look at the Layers Dialogue,

you should see that this new image
is called “Background”.
• In the Layers Dialogue, click on the
Duplicate Layer button.
• In the Layers Dialogue you should
see a new layer named “Background
Copy.”
Adding Colors to Layers

• Highlight the Background copy

layer selected (highlighted) in the
Layers Dialogue.
• Go to the GIMP Toolbox and
double click on the Foreground
Color button, which will open the
Change Foreground Color tool.
• In the HTML notation box type in
FF0000 (this is the hexidecimal
code for red) and then click OK.
Adding Colors to Layers (cont.)

• In the Active Image Dialogue go

to Edit  Fill with FG Color.
• This will fill the Background
copy layer with red.
• In the Layers Dialogue click on
the Background layer to select
it.
• Repeat the same steps on the
Background layer, making this
layer blue (hexidecimal code
0000FF).
Layer Order

• When you look at the Layers

Dialogue you can see the red
and blue layers. The red layer is
at the top of the stack, so that
is the one that shows up in the
image.
• With the blue layer selected in
the Layers Dialogue, click the
UP arrow and. You will now see
that the blue layer is at the top
of the stack and the image is
now blue.
• Of course, this works vice-
versa, and you can move the
blue layer down by selecting it
in the Layers Dialogue and then
clicking the DOWN arrow.
Opacity

• What do you get when you

mix red and blue? Purple,
of course!
• Select the top layer from
the Layers Dialogue
(doesn’t matter which
layer is on top).
• Adjust the opacity in the
Layers Dialogue until it is
at 50%.
• The image in your Active
Dialogue should now be
purple.
Selection Tools

• There are several selection tools available in GIMP:

• Rectangle Select Tool
• Ellipse Select Tool
• Free Select Tool
• Fuzzy Select Tool
• Select by Color Tool
• Scissors Select Tool
• Foreground Select Tool
Selection Tools Descriptions

• The Rectangle Selection tool is designed to select rectangular regions of the active layer: it is the most basic of the
selection tools, but very commonly used.
• The Ellipse Selection tool is designed to select circular and elliptical regions from an image, with high-quality anti-
aliasing if you want it.
• The Free Selection tool, or Lasso, lets you create a selection by drawing it free-hand with the pointer, while
holding down the left mouse button (or, for a stylus, pressing it against the tablet). When you release the mouse
button, the selection is closed by connecting the current pointer location to the start location with a straight line.
You can go outside the edge of the image display and come back in if you want to. The Lasso is often a good tool to
use for “roughing in” a selection; it is not so good for precise definition.
• The Fuzzy Select (Magic Wand) tool is designed to select areas of the current layer or image based on color
similarity. When using this tool, it is very important to pick the right starting point. If you select the wrong spot,
you might get something very different from what you want, or even the opposite. The Wand is a good tool for
selecting objects with sharp edges. It is fun to use, so beginners often start out using it a lot. You will probably
find, however, that the more you use it, the more frustrated you become with the difficulty of selecting exactly
what you want, no more, no less.
 Selection Tools Descriptions (cont.)

• The Select by Color tool is designed to select areas of an image based on color similarity. It works
a lot like the Fuzzy Select tool (“Magic Wand”). The main difference between them is that the
Magic Wand selects contiguous regions, with all parts connected to the starting point by paths
containing no large gaps; while the Select by Color tool selects all pixels that are sufficiently
similar in color to the pixel you click on, regardless of where they are located.
• The Intelligent Scissors tool is an interesting piece of equipment: it has some features in common
with the Lasso, some features in common with the Path tool, and some features all its own. It is
useful when you are trying to select a region defined by strong color-changes at the edges. To
use the Scissors, you click to create a set of "control nodes", also referred to as anchors or
control points, at the edges of the region you are trying to select. The tool produces a continuous
curve passing through these control nodes, following any high-contrast edges it can find. If you
are lucky, the path that the tool finds will correspond to the contour you are trying to select.
• This tool lets you extract the foreground from the active layer or from a selection. It is based on
the SIOX method (Simple Interactive Object Extraction).
Transform Tools

• Move Tool
• Crop Tool
• Rotate Tool
• Scale Tool
• Shear Tool
• Perspective Tool
• Flip Tool
Other tools
• Path Tool
• Bucket Fill
• Gradient Tool
• Color Picker Tool
• Magnify Tool
• Measure Tool
• Texttool
Color Tools

• Color Balance Tool

• Hue-Saturation Tool
• Colorize Tool
• Brightness-Contrast tool
• Threshold Tool
• Levels tool
• Curves Tool
• Posterize Tool
 Color Balance Tool
• The color balance tool modifies the color
balance of the active selection or layer.
 Hue-Saturation Tool
• The Hue-Saturation tool is used to adjust
hue, saturation and lightness levels on a
range of color weights for the selected
area or active layer.
 Colorize Tool
• The Colorize tool renders the active layer or selection into a greyscale image seen
through a colored glass.
 Brightness-Contrast tool

• The Brightness-Contrast tool adjusts the brightness and contrast levels

for the active layer or selection. Levels and Curve tools are more
efficient.
GIMP Resources 40
• GIMP documentation:
http://docs.gimp.org/en/
• GIMP Tutorials:
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/