Author Topic: Darky's little GIMP guide  (Read 3344 times)

Offline Dark_heart

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Darky's little GIMP guide
« on: November 07, 2020, 03:52:06 pm »
Darky's little GIMP guide
Basics & useful tips




So hi, hello, and welcome to this little GIMP guide. I hope it will help you with this amazing program, very useful not only in FH or FHU though.

Sorry if there was similar thread already. I'm not stealing anyone's ideas. All screenshots here are taken and edited by me.


What exactly is GIMP?

Short description from official GIMP site:
"GIMP is a cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows and more operating systems. It is free software, you can change its source code and distribute your changes.

Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools to get your job done. You can further enhance your productivity with GIMP thanks to many customization options and 3rd party plugins."

As you see, you can use it to both - drawing and editing photos.

Official GIMP's site:
https://www.gimp.org/

Downloading site:
https://www.gimp.org/downloads/


Basics

So, when you open GIMP you may be confused what to... do. Let me explain below. :>


Tools - here you have available tools, for example smudge, text, crop or selection.
Colors - here you can set base color for your work and brush color.
Tool's settings - place to customize tool - size, angle, smoothness, etc.
Brushes - here you can choose look of your tool - some of them are funny though ^^'
Layers - here are all your layers, also here are their settings.

Let me zoom tools panel-


Move the mouse over the tool button to take info about tool. ;)

If you wanna create new artwork/image - everything below.


If you want to open image from somewhere in GIMP, it's easy:


Just right-click > Open with > GIMP. If you're opening it first time with this app, you probably have to click 'Choose another app'.

And last thing, about saving:


If you save as .xcf file, it will save all your layers, so if you'll need to edit it/work isn't finished, it's better to save it. If it's finished, export it to format what you want.


Tips

Here you have some tips which may help you with FH/FHU creations.

Grayscale mode:

This is very helpful thing when you're making heightmap. With this mode even red is gray.

Layers modes & transparency:

Here you have modes for active layer. Works when layer what have to have mode is above the second one. Example: wanna add texture for preset? First, open texture image. Then create a new layer with Multiply mode. When you draw on added layer, texture layer is coloring, but fur is still visible. For diffrent effects you can experiment with that. :>

When you right-click layer, you can add alpha channel. This is just transparency - now, when you'll erase things, below won't show base color, but gray 'chessboard'. When you'll save it as .png, these parts will be transparent.

Shortcuts

There are some helpful shortcuts, not everyone is a mouse guy, haha.

ctrl+N - creates new image.
ctrl+O - opens file from file explorer
ctrl+alt+O - opens file from file explorer as layer
shift+ctrl+s - save as... (.xcf format)
shift+ctrl+e - export as...
ctrl+z - undo history
ctrl+y - redo history
ctrl+q - exit app
ctrl+x - cut
ctrl+c - copy
ctrl+v - paste
(Three last shortcuts work generally everywhere. With these shortcuts you can copy files from file explorer, for example.)

***
It's all for now. Give me ideas for tips below, I'll possibly add them here! But remember, some of options are still incomprehensible for me, haha.

Hope I helped!
« Last Edit: November 08, 2020, 03:13:55 pm by Dark_heart »
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Re: Darky's little GIMP guide
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2020, 03:56:14 pm »
Personally I find GIMP a little too advance for my taste, so this helps me alot!
Thank you so much :D

SpicyDirt

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Re: Darky's little GIMP guide
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2020, 04:18:47 pm »
Thank you for posting this!

Offline Ame88

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Re: Darky's little GIMP guide
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2020, 08:34:26 pm »
Very nice! I personally dislike the new GIMP and use an older version since it's less confusing, so this helps a bunch when learning the new version. Thank you for making this!

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Offline Dark_heart

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Re: Darky's little GIMP guide
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2020, 03:20:46 pm »
Personally I find GIMP a little too advance for my taste, so this helps me alot!
Thank you so much :D
I'm so happy it could help! And don't worry, you'll learn everything!

Thank you for posting this!
You're welcome ^^

Very nice! I personally dislike the new GIMP and use an older version since it's less confusing, so this helps a bunch when learning the new version. Thank you for making this!
Glad it helps!

I'm really happy that helps! Also let me know about functions what you don't understand or needs to general explain, I'll probably add them here!

+ bump
I forgot to add shortcuts ^^'
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