Not really an Ubuntu question

[m.musashi]

I found some wallpapers from Novel that I thought were pretty nice but they say "Novel" and "suse" all over them. I've got nothing against suse but on my Ubuntu desktop I'd prefer they say nothing at all.

Does anyone know how to go about modifying images like this? Idealy, you would work from the source. I don't know if artwork is usually considered open source or not. What is the general rule here and how would you go about acquiring the source file? Can you easily modify a .jpg file or would you just be "painting" over stuff?

Thanks. Here is one of the images I'm working with in case anyone is interested.

EDIT: all the images can be found here (http://www.novell.com/company/logo/) but they are not source files.

[GStubbs43]

Images are automatically copyrighted by their owner and to edit them, you would need a file like a xcf (GIMP Source File) or PSD (Photoshop source file) It is hard to edit .jpg,.png,.gif etc. and you would just be "painting over them. So, you would need to find a really good GIMP (or Photoshop) User to edit those, or just find a different wallpaper. ;)

[m.musashi]

Thanks. I was hoping art work for open source was also more open. I guess if it's your trademark then you don't want people messing it up. There does seem to be a lot of open source art work on gnome-look and such but the creators usually give the source file and encourage derivations. I wish I was creative enough to make my own wallpapers.

[GStubbs43]

Just play around with GIMP and search sites like Gimptalk.com and make random wallpapers. Trust me I am Not creative, one bit! But I have made a few wallpapers, actually one Ubuntu wallpaper that I am quite proud of too, but really, it's not that hard, for instance, just go to Filters>Render>Clouds>Plasma on a image the size of your desktop and you have a plasma colored wallpaper.

http://ubuntuforums.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=3637&cat=5

[m.musashi]

Cool. Thanks for the tips. I'll play around a bit and see what I can come up with. Nice wallpaper, btw. Do you have one without the words? I kind of prefer wallpaper without text.

[GStubbs43]

I'll see what I can do today. Any specific color or size you want?

[m.musashi]

My monitor is 1280x1024. The brown is nice and I use the brown theme from time to time but lately I've been into orange. I used this (http://www.taimila.com/orange-look.php) theme for a while and then last night changed to the suse wallpaper. I don't think it will last long though since it has "suse" and "novell" scrawled all over it :). If you are feeling creative and want to make an orange one that would be cool.

[GStubbs43]

Here's what I got, I only worked on it for like 10 minutes though, so they aren't great.
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/346/lightcd3.th.png (http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lightcd3.png)
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/2456/orangexr0.th.png (http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=orangexr0.png)

[m.musashi]

Very cool. Where else but an ubuntu forum does one stranger take time (even 10 minutes) to do something for another stranger. You gotta love this place. Attached is a screenshot of my new new desktop. Good bye suse, hello GStubbs43. Thanks. I like this one. I'm sure it will last a great deal longer than that suse one. What does that say about commercial art?

EDIT - The more I look at it, the more I really do like this one. The other one, and I'm not trying to be critical, is a bit bright. I tend to work in a darker room and even turn down the brightness on my monitor so as not to blind myself.

[GStubbs43]

EDIT - The more I look at it, the more I really do like this one. The other one, and I'm not trying to be critical, is a bit bright. I tend to work in a darker room and even turn down the brightness on my monitor so as not to blind myself.

haha, thanks. Yeah, wasn't sure if you were a "bright" or "dark" person. ;)
Here's a "dark version" of it: http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/2607/ldarkhi3.th.png (http://img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ldarkhi3.png)

[DirtDawg]

You can edit pictures just fine. A copyright is in effect only if you redistribute the altered photo. For your own personal desktop, no one cares.

Also, you can alter the photos just fine without the "source" material.

Before you start working on it, make a copy of the pic you would like to alter. Then open it with GIMP, and make sure it's RGB mode. For example, if a picture is a ".gif" file, it will be what's called "indexed". You don't want that. Simply convert it to RGB (unfortunately, I dont have GIMP in front of me at the moment to give you the exact menu path).

You can alter the pic in several ways. One good way is to create a new layer in the layers pallete. You can either paint directly over the words, which will likely have questionable results, but will work, or you can use something like a clone tool. The latter will be more difficult to learn and apply, but will have better results.

When you're finished, you can flatten the layers (again I'm sorry, but I cant remember the exact menu path). This might be called merging or merge down, but it's all the same thing.

Then you can save the image. If you save as a ".jpeg", be aware that everytime you save, the quality will be reduced, but the size will be small. I would save the image as an native GIMP file (".xcf?") until you're done manipulating, then save it as a ".jpeg" when you're finished.

Good luck and have fun.

[m.musashi]

haha, thanks. Yeah, wasn't sure if you were a "bright" or "dark" person. ;)

Cool. Thanks. I guess I'm a dark person but only to a degree. I don't really like the totally black themes. Btw, I linked to your wallpaper from the Oct desktop thread since it's my current wallpaper. I hope that was okay. If not, I'll remove the link.

[m.musashi]

You can edit pictures just fine. A copyright is in effect only if you redistribute the altered photo. For your own personal desktop, no one cares.
Thanks for the info. That's kind of what I thought but wasn't sure - especially with trademarked kind of stuff. Obviously having the source file would be better but I'll play around with it a bit following your suggestions. I've used the clone tool in firefox but I've not played with Gimp much.

[DirtDawg]

Thanks for the info. That's kind of what I thought but wasn't sure - especially with trademarked kind of stuff. Obviously having the source file would be better but I'll play around with it a bit following your suggestions. I've used the clone tool in firefox but I've not played with Gimp much.

Many a fine wallpaper hath been ruined with poor design choices like text(or logos).

[GStubbs43]

You can edit pictures just fine. A copyright is in effect only if you redistribute the altered photo. For your own personal desktop, no one cares.



Well, yeah, no one cares, but I'm just saying, it is technically copyrighted. Also, I know it is possible t
o remove that stuff from th wallpapers, but it is hard to do, or if you paint over it, it (usually) looks bad. ;)

[GStubbs43]

Cool. Thanks. I guess I'm a dark person but only to a degree. I don't really like the totally black themes. Btw, I linked to your wallpaper from the Oct desktop thread since it's my current wallpaper. I hope that was okay. If not, I'll remove the link.

Yeah I didn't mean it as like all black and dark, but that's just the word I thought of. ;) I don't care about the link. :-D