A few tips for GIMP? Also what do you use GIMP for?

[cwblanch]

Hey,

I've never really used GIMP or any serious image editor/photoshop-like program.
My current project is a YouTube banner and video thumbnails, how does GIMP work for something like this?

Also I can Google all day about the pros and cons of various image editors, but I would like to know some personal thoughts on the program and what it is used for in professional and hobbyist circles.

Thanks!

[HermanAB]

Gimp works perfectly fine for anyone willing to read a few tutorials, of which there are many.

It is only the Dedicated Photoshop Die Hards that find it a bit of a bother.

[cwblanch]

Gimp works perfectly fine for anyone willing to read a few tutorials, of which there are many.

It is only the Dedicated Photoshop Die Hards that find it a bit of a bother.


So it doesn't have much of a learning curve for the basic stuff?
Which is probably all I'll be using, I don't see myself becoming a graphic designer anytime soon.

Why do the Photoshop Die Hards find it a bother?
I think Gimp is the only program I've heard described as Photoshop-like.

[coldraven]

Things that I use gimp for:
Resizing and rescaling images
Adjusting the white balance
Use layers to add text
Use layers to create animated gifs
Use plugins for funky effects, this one is good! http://registry.gimp.org/node/13469
More plugins here: http://registry.gimp.org/glossary

I'm sure that Gimp can do a lot more but I will probably never need those functions.

[ajgreeny]

I use gimp for a few things, but generally, if all I need to do is crop or make minor adjustments to the colour or brightness/contrast of a photo or graphic, I will use gthumb; fast, simple but actually incredibly good for most things.

If you want to start adding text of layers to an image then gimp comes into its own, as gthumb can't do that, but I can't say how well or badly it compares with photoshop as I have never used that.

[Copper Bezel]

Every image editing software package or suite indeed has its own strengths and quirks, and Photoshop is not an exception to that. Photoshop is, however, the industry standard, and there are high-end tools like its smart selection tools, automation features like auto-aligning layers or certain restoration filters (dust and scratch removal and so on) that use image-recognition elements to do very intelligent things very quickly, and so on that are not to be found in any other package. It's also very expansive - there are elements designed for vector editing, animation, and various other oddities you wouldn't expect in a raster image editor, simply because it's the go-to tool and makes a very serious attempt at being all things to all users.

GIMP is not Photoshop. However, it does have a very capable set of tools for image editing and manipulation. I do use it for photo cleanup (removing those scratches and dust and artifacts, or compositing elements from multiple exposures for anything from depth of field purposes to "that tree looked better in the other one") or for isolating elements from an image, layering, etc. I depend a lot on masks, the clone stamp tool, levels adjustment, etc.

One real disadvantage of GIMP in these applications is the lack of proper adjustment layers - layers that effectively contain a filter and a mask but not pixel data. They allow you to alter the color, contrast, etc. or even blur an image in selected regions, then go on editing the image underneath and have those effects dynamically applied as the underlying layers change. It's a very necessary tool in photo editing that Photoshop provides and GIMP does not.

What I don't use GIMP for is digital painting and illustration tasks (Krita is the best open-source answer for this) or logo and layout work (which should be done in vector anyway - Inkscape is comparable for these kinds of tasks to Adobe Illustrator and has some workflow advantages.) If you're creating something text-heavy that also includes images, like title cards for a YouTube video or a particularly eye-catching flier for a missing cat, use Inkscape. (Note that you wouldn't use Photoshop in these applications, either - and there are are proprietary packages to substitute for Krita and Inkscape, particularly Corel and Adobe Illustrator, respectively.)

GIMP's main disadvantages outside of advanced features that it can't really be expected to support are matters of design and taste. It's more literal and less automatic than most editors in a lot of ways. For instance, most other applications change the boundaries of a layer automatically and invisibly based on where the user has put pixels. GIMP does not do this; it requires you to resize the layer boundaries manually. (On each layer. Every time.) Similarly, dragging a selected region of an image with the move tool will, in most applications, automatically "float" the region to a temporary layer and allow it to be moved. GIMP requires you to explicitly float the selection first. So it will slow you down in comparison to Photoshop, simply because common actions require extra steps.

Resizing images and cropping or changing formats and that sort of thing can be done in any package - I use gThumb for those little utilities.

[SeijiSensei]

Things that I use gimp for:
Resizing and rescaling images
Use layers to add text
Use layers to create animated gifs

These are my primary uses as well. Most of my use of GIMP is to edit screenshots (http://www.takinganimeseriously.com/images/) or photographs or create animated avatars (http://www.takinganimeseriously.com/images/avatars/). I also use it to add annotations (http://www.politicsbythenumbers.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/rp2012.png) to charts I create in LibreOffice Calc.

[cwblanch]

Every image editing software package or suite indeed has its own strengths and quirks, and Photoshop is not an exception to that. Photoshop is, however, the industry standard, and there are high-end tools like its smart selection tools, automation features like auto-aligning layers or certain restoration filters (dust and scratch removal and so on) that use image-recognition elements to do very intelligent things very quickly, and so on that are not to be found in any other package. It's also very expansive - there are elements designed for vector editing, animation, and various other oddities you wouldn't expect in a raster image editor, simply because it's the go-to tool and makes a very serious attempt at being all things to all users.

GIMP is not Photoshop. However, it does have a very capable set of tools for image editing and manipulation. I do use it for photo cleanup (removing those scratches and dust and artifacts, or compositing elements from multiple exposures for anything from depth of field purposes to "that tree looked better in the other one") or for isolating elements from an image, layering, etc. I depend a lot on masks, the clone stamp tool, levels adjustment, etc.

One real disadvantage of GIMP in these applications is the lack of proper adjustment layers - layers that effectively contain a filter and a mask but not pixel data. They allow you to alter the color, contrast, etc. or even blur an image in selected regions, then go on editing the image underneath and have those effects dynamically applied as the underlying layers change. It's a very necessary tool in photo editing that Photoshop provides and GIMP does not.

What I don't use GIMP for is digital painting and illustration tasks (Krita is the best open-source answer for this) or logo and layout work (which should be done in vector anyway - Inkscape is comparable for these kinds of tasks to Adobe Illustrator and has some workflow advantages.) If you're creating something text-heavy that also includes images, like title cards for a YouTube video or a particularly eye-catching flier for a missing cat, use Inkscape. (Note that you wouldn't use Photoshop in these applications, either - and there are are proprietary packages to substitute for Krita and Inkscape, particularly Corel and Adobe Illustrator, respectively.)

GIMP's main disadvantages outside of advanced features that it can't really be expected to support are matters of design and taste. It's more literal and less automatic than most editors in a lot of ways. For instance, most other applications change the boundaries of a layer automatically and invisibly based on where the user has put pixels. GIMP does not do this; it requires you to resize the layer boundaries manually. (On each layer. Every time.) Similarly, dragging a selected region of an image with the move tool will, in most applications, automatically "float" the region to a temporary layer and allow it to be moved. GIMP requires you to explicitly float the selection first. So it will slow you down in comparison to Photoshop, simply because common actions require extra steps.

Resizing images and cropping or changing formats and that sort of thing can be done in any package - I use gThumb for those little utilities.

So from what I understand GIMP isn't even used for what I wanted to use it for? It's used as an image editor, not so much a creator.

I've heard of Inkscape, but didn't realize it applied to the tasks I want to do. What's the learning curve like on Inkscape?

But I've never heard of Krita before, I looked it up and it seems like a really good digital art package. Is this a program you would use a digital drawing tablet with? A friend of mine has been looking for a program like this.

Thanks for all the help. I didn't even realize I was trying to use the wrong program for what I was wanting to do.

[Copper Bezel]

Well, I overstated, so let me correct that a bit - you're not using the wrong package per se, and any package that gets the job done cleanly and quickly is a right package. If it's something as simple as taking an image, resizing it, adding some borders, and throwing on some text, you can certainly do that in GIMP. At the professional level, for best results, something like a logo or header would normally be created in a vector editor (like Inkscape) and then be output to a raster image. But the thing is, most people are much more used to how raster editors work than vector editors. Most people used MS Paint at some point in their lives; a lot of people have never used a vector editor. So it definitely comes with an extra learning curve. For your purposes, you could totally get away with using GIMP. Things like the path tool, brushes, fills, filters, gradients, text - you can get all of that in there.

Inkscape is a vector editor, and a damn good one. I'd recommend trying it out just to get a feel for what vector editing is like and whether or not it's useful to you. It's very good for laying out text and page elements, integrating images, and creating vector - that is, infinitely rescaleable - shapes, gradients, and so on. I'm worried that I'm leading you astray, though - it might be a heavier tool than you need, and you might be able to do what you want to do in GIMP with less fuss. (I mean, GIMP is fussy, but the principles are somewhat simpler.)

Krita is quite nice, and yes, it's built around use with a drawing tablet, so let your friend know. = ] (For instance, pressure changes dynamically change the shape of the cursor on the screen when a brush links that shape to pressure, and the page can be rotated as you work just as you would turn a drawing on paper to match your natural stroke angles, which are things that only make sense in respect to drawing tablets.) There's a lot of pretty work out there done with Krita - I'm not going to self-promote with a link to my MLP fanart, though. = o

[cwblanch]

I see what you mean. I don't see anything wrong with trying to use both to get a feel for them.
I guess I just didn't want to write one or the other off trying to stretch it too thin and not give it enough time.

Do you think Inkscape would be better to put more time into as I move forward rather than GIMP?
I'm going to try them both of course, but maybe Inkscape would be a focus because of its scaleability (may have mis-spelled that)

And that is awesome. Thank you. I'll let my friend know, he'll love that.
I fear I'm not nearly good enough of an artist to use a program like that, I also don't have a digital drawing tablet. :P

[Linuxratty]

I use it like the others,but I also sometimes have done cartoons and art for my personal amusement in it. What i don't like about it is lettering/fonts. It's more convoluted that I like.

[Copper Bezel]

I'd just play with both a bit first, I think. I mean, I think that despite its quirks, GIMP might still get you to results faster in the short term. I think that looking at your example of the YouTube banner and thumbnails, I'd personally use GIMP for laying in any short text snippets and things in the thumbnails (there's not a lot of text, there's not going to be a lot of tweaking of the layout along the way, and I know the final resolution that's going to be used, so raster makes sense here) but want to use Inkscape to create a scaleable, flexible vector for the banner, even if it was just for the advantages of being able to make edits and revisions more cleanly as I worked it over. At the same time, learning to work in vector might be more investment than it's worth. So focus on GIMP for now, but try a couple of tutorials for Inkscape and see what you think.

[Diandra]

Since I'm not designer or love using photo editor, until today I'm only using GIMP for resizing images. It same goes when I'm using Paint in Windows

[SeijiSensei]

I'll just mention that Gwenview, the graphics viewer that is part of KDE, also lets you resize and crop images easily. You can install it on flavors other than Kubuntu though it will bring in a bunch of dependencies. If you use Gwenview, I recommend installing the kipi-plugins package as well.

[cwblanch]

I'd just play with both a bit first, I think. I mean, I think that despite its quirks, GIMP might still get you to results faster in the short term. I think that looking at your example of the YouTube banner and thumbnails, I'd personally use GIMP for laying in any short text snippets and things in the thumbnails (there's not a lot of text, there's not going to be a lot of tweaking of the layout along the way, and I know the final resolution that's going to be used, so raster makes sense here) but want to use Inkscape to create a scaleable, flexible vector for the banner, even if it was just for the advantages of being able to make edits and revisions more cleanly as I worked it over. At the same time, learning to work in vector might be more investment than it's worth. So focus on GIMP for now, but try a couple of tutorials for Inkscape and see what you think.

Alright, I'll focus on working with GIMP for now and just work through some tutorials with Inkscape to get a feel for it.
Thanks for the help!

[Gustaf_Alhll]

I use GIMP:

When I've been working with vector graphics. I usually rasterize it with GIMP since it has support for rasterization of SVG-formatted images.
When I'm working with development to create textures (Combined with Inkscape, usually).

I don't use GIMP:

For finalizing my drawings (I use Inkscape for that).
To draw images (Terrible drawing program, better for image editing). Instead, I do that traditionally.

And there you have an overview of what I'm using GIMP for.

[pretty_whistle]

What I use GIMP for:

Cropping images. Making images smaller. Changing the file extension on images.

That's it.

[Copper Bezel]

If that really is it, look into gThumb (Gwenview has an almost identical featureset, but it's K.)

[Matthew_Harrop]

I use it for Image resizing, banner creation, icon creation ect. Its a really useful tool, If a little clunky on the mac.
Beats paying through the nose for Adobe though...