A GIMP Thread

Hi. There seems to be some interest in and at least a few users here who use Gimp, so I've taken the liberty of starting a thread about it. This will mainly be for the artists or anyone who needs something to let them do simple image manipulation without forking out the money for Photoshop.

Gimp is a free image manipulation program available for free from http://gimp.org/ . It's open source and available on Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, and others. (There's even a version out there made to run on my handheld game system.)

Its features are comparable to those of Photoshop, though not quite as comprehensive. It has all of the basic functionality that is common across high-end image editing software, but lacks some of the more advanced features.

I use it for all of my art ( http://expiredpopsicle.deviantart.com ) and I hope others might be willing to give it a try.

So, other Gimp users, please speak up! And if anyone is curious, please ask questions and I'll be more than happy to help anyone learn how to use this amazing piece of free software.

I use photoshop. But this sounds interesting.

Rythmear wrote:

I use photoshop. But this sounds interesting.

It is indeed! I've been using the software for quite some time. It used to be pretty terrible in the 1.x versions, but it's improved quite a bit. (And the best part is, I've never had to pay for upgrades. Never had to pirate anything, either.) I would consider it to be worth a try, even for Photoshop users.

Splendid.

I installed it and maybe it's just me, but it must hate tablet pens. 'Cause I couldn't get it to work to save my life. ^^;

Sean W wrote:

I installed it and maybe it's just me, but it must hate tablet pens. 'Cause I couldn't get it to work to save my life. ^^;

Ah. It does require some initial setup to use tablets. I don't know if this is the same on Windows, but here's what you have to do in Linux:

Go to File -> Preferences. It'll bring up the preferences window, and under that go down to "Input Devices". Then click "Configure Extended Input Devices". Set everything (or whatever you'll be using) to "screen" mode instead of "disabled" (or whatever it is now - it's been a while since I've done this). When you're drawing, in the tool configuration dialog there will be options for how specifically your tablet's pressure sensitivity affects the drawing. For example, with the painbrush tool, it can affect the width of the brush, the opacity, and the hardness all at once or just one or more of them.

I hope this helps!

Gimp might just suck with tablets under Windows, though. XD

I might need to be using Gimp sometime soon.

Okay, I got another question. The tablet's working fine, but now the cursors aren't syncing up. Like my normal cursor and the cursor for the tool aren't acting as the same when I'm making something. Is that something I can fix or am I just gonna have to adapt?

Uhh, let me know if a screenshot would help. I don't think I was that clear on my explination. >>

Sean W wrote:

Okay, I got another question. The tablet's working fine, but now the cursors aren't syncing up. Like my normal cursor and the cursor for the tool aren't acting as the same when I'm making something. Is that something I can fix or am I just gonna have to adapt?

Uhh, let me know if a screenshot would help. I don't think I was that clear on my explination. >>

Yeah. I am a bit confused by this. Right away, though, it seems like what happens when you select "window" mode for the device instead of "screen" mode in the extended input devices dialog.

I've had the same problem.

Hmm... it doesn't seem to like me... I'll try it in the morning with Internet explorer...

INTERNET EXPLORER??? Use firefox!

I just remembered that, long ago, I had Gimp working on my tablet PC under Windows. I've since replaced the harddrive and gone Linux-only with it, but I'll try to dig out my old config files off of my backup of the drive and see if there's anything that immediately jumps out at me.

Argh! All these inferior operating systems >.<

Hmmm.... I might just use this "Gimp" program, should I ever go into serious art.

If ExpiredPopsicle uses it, it must be good. ( I like his art alot. I have a soft spot for the nekos)

^^ Yes the Gimp is great. It was the first program like it I could just start using with little to no learning curve problems... (I like the interface) but I do understand some don't find it that way... so I started making some basics tutorials.

hope they help some one^^

http://wowandwas.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-merging-images-57696456

http://wowandwas.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-Flame-Fractals-71776077

I use the GIMP for my "art" (if colored boxes and an eye or two can be considered such).

I've done some digital color work for my deviantArt gallery in GIMP... it works nicely, except that my laptop doesn't have much memory. If it did, I'd probably be in pretty good shape. ^^;

I use GIMP for most of my major Freehand works and digital coloring/shading. It's a real nifty lil program, that it is.

Rythmear wrote:

INTERNET EXPLORER??? Use firefox!

That's what I was trying that one night... anyhow, I have it now thanks to Mozilla Firefox. *shameless plug #1*

Oh, would anyone happen to know how I could calibrate my tablet to work with GIMP would you? It seems to always freeze up when I pass the pen over the tablet.

Spykeofkonoha wrote:

Rythmear wrote:

INTERNET EXPLORER??? Use firefox!

That's what I was trying that one night... anyhow, I have it now thanks to Mozilla Firefox. *shameless plug #1*

Oh, would anyone happen to know how I could calibrate my tablet to work with GIMP would you? It seems to always freeze up when I pass the pen over the tablet.

Good man!