Recent Entries

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Comic tutorials and animated images

I'm looking for good comic art tutorials, preferably for GIMP or Inkscape. I also want to try my hands on an animated mood theme, but I don't really know how to do this in GIMP. If anyone could recommend some good tutorials or websites with useful tips, that would be awesome. Beginner, intermediate or advanced level, I take everything :)

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check this out!

Application recommendation: MyPaint

So, maybe instead of wrestling with GIMP for painting (because it's designed as a photo editor more than a painting program), you're looking for a nice open source program to play with your tablet.

I just found out there's one called MyPaint--open source, available for multiple platforms! I'm not experienced enough in anything like this to know if it's actually good or not, but so far I've had fun playing with it. It's pretty simple, with a wide variety of brush types, and you can pretty much be up and running right away.

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Brushes

As an aspiring icon and wallpaper-maker, and GIMP-user, I staretd searching for brushes for GIMP today. While textures are usually provided as .jpg s, brushes are a different beast. As I am searching for more, I will continue to update this post with resources.

How to add brushes to GIMP:
http://hawksmont.com/blog/gimp-how-to-add-brushes/
http://misguided0death.deviantart.com/art/Adding-new-brushes-GIMP-Tut-89594901
http://www.katspace.org/graphics/digitart/brushes/

Brushes:

http://www.techzilo.com/gimp-brushes/ Collection of links to Deviantart - among others: grunge brushes, filmstrips, butterfly, water, blood, sparkles, and trees

http://kward1979uk.deviantart.com/gallery/#/demfko hearts

http://project-gimpbc.deviantart.com/gallery/ lots of brushes, including flowers, sparkles, snow, tribals, runes, stars,...

http://visionwidget.com/resources/vectors/492-free-gimp-brushes.html High-resolution brushes - links go to DeviantArt

http://pstogimpbrushes.deviantart.com/gallery/ Lots and lots of brushes again :)

EDIT: Okay, appearantly from version 2.4 on you can also use Photoshop brushes on GIMP? I never knew, even though I have 2.6. Huh.

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Admin Post: Follow-up on the last poll

Thanks everyone who participated in the poll I'd posted a few weeks ago. I'll leave the poll open so that new members and subscribers can participate as well if they want to, and those of you who have participated can always go back and change your vote. I'd like the poll to exist as a community resource, as a reflection of the community's 'mind & skill state' so to speak...

I'd also like to encourage everyone to post your questions here, no matter how trivial or banal they might appear. This isn't supposed to be a community where only fancy tutorials or other advanced topics are 'worthy' of posting. You're a beginner and don't know where to start? Ask! You've seen this beautiful header but have no idea how to achieve a similar effect? Ask! Really, there are no 'stupid' questions, and snarky, rude or sarcastic comments will not be tolerated here. Just saying :)

Current Mood: curious

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Admin Post: It's poll time

I think it's high time to get to know each other a little bit, that is, how you use GIMP and/or Inkscape, how much you know about these tools etc. This makes it also easier for everyone involved to know what you would like to see here. For instance, making a tutorial is always a bit of a shot in the dark if you don't know anything about the people who watch this community. So, don't be shy and talk to us :)

( Poll this way )

Current Location: Home, of course.

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Question: grain on a print scan.

Question time!

I have a picture, which I downloaded from a long gone site, that had taken a scan of a photo, which has a really grainy nature. Is there any filter/combo/whathaveyou I can apply to the image to alleviate the grain?

Current Mood: curious

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Admin Post: Updated community rules

Inkscape, an open source vector graphics editor application, similar to Adobe Illustrator, has been added to the community's domain of interest since users (including myself) have expressed interest in the application (read updated community rules). Of course, we could simply create a community for Inkscape users, but GIMP and Inkscape are very similar in function and performance, and sometimes used complementary. I also agree with

foxfirefey -- it's better to contribute to an active community than create a brand new community that wouldn't have as many people.

One thing remains the same, though: users of all levels and experience are welcome here. I'll also create tags for GIMP and Inkscape so that's easier for you to subscribe to specific topics (in case you're not interested in Inkscape related posts).

But what about the community name? Should we stick with

gimp_gate, or should we change it to

gimpscape (as soon as rename tokens are available)? The latter is, as you probably can see, a combination of GIMP and Inkscape whereas the community's current name only highlights GIMP. What do you think?

Poll #3282 Community name

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 33

Should we change the community name?

No, gimp_gate works just fine.
5 (15.2%)

Yes, gimpscape is a much better name.
23 (69.7%)

I have no opinion.
5 (15.2%)

Other (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

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inkscape,
tutorials

Inkscape tutorials -- vector art

I don't know how people feel about me posting a link to Inkscape tutorials here, but I figure that since Inkscape is an open source vector image editor, it's pretty similar in spirit--the GIMP just isn't the right tool for vector art. Not to mention that gimp_gate has Inkscape listed in its interests! Here it is:

Very Simple Design -- Inkscape Tutorials

Current Mood: tired

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[Basic tutorial] How to blank out areas from a picture

kake has asked for a basic tutorial explaining how you can blank out areas from a picture (e.g., with rectangle select and bucket fill). Let me know if anything's unclear in this tutorial, or in case I missed something. Click on images for full size.

I had huge trouble uploading the images earlier, but luckily

t_fischer has helped me out...

( Read more... )

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Advice on scrapbooking effects

Does anybody know of good GIMP tutorials (or have good advice they want to post) for scrap-book like effects, like "raised stickers", "paper cut outs", and "fun paper textures"?

Current Mood: accomplished

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Cheat sheet with keyboard shortcuts for The GIMP

When I saw this cheat sheet for Photoshop keyboard shortcuts a few weeks ago, I thought it would be neat if we'd have something similar for The GIMP. The closest thing is probably the hotkey list over at gimpusers.com, but it's just that - a list (one that came in very handy when I made this cheat sheet, I might add ^^)

The cheat sheet is vector-based so that you can re-size it without any quality loss. This means no GIMP was used for the GIMP cheat sheet ;) Or any other (vector) graphic software. I used LaTeX and TikZ to create it.

Large preview (317 KB, 1600 x 1131 pixels)

Download cheat sheet as PDF (75.2 KB)

Download source file (7.4 KB)

( Good to know )

I hope you find it useful, and all feedback - even what doesn't work for you - is very much appreciated!

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Typing in pinyin in the GIMP text tool

Hello! I want to make myself an icon along the lines of the pretty-coloured text ones that

blnchflr did a tutorial for, but I've run across a small problem.

I'm using GIMP 2.6.7 on OS X 10.6.2, and I cannot get the text tool to let me type in pinyin, nor can I get it to admit that I have Chinese fonts installed. Has anyone here got any experience in making this work?

Edited to add: Sorted thanks to

ewx and

dragonwolf (see comments).

Current Mood: curious

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Admin Post: A question for all you GIMP users

I'm sure most of you have already heard about the DW anniversary party that's organized by

three_weeks_for_dw and that starts Monday, April 26. My question is what awesome things we could or should do here at

gimp_gate to join the festivities. Any ideas or suggestions? What would you like to see here during the fest?

I'm aware that lots of communities would love if you'd create content for the fest and I can see how the whole thing might get overwhelming fast... So, no pressure here. Also, you're more than welcome to post here even if you don't want your content to be "DW only".

Entry tags:

gimp,
tutorials

Possible Newbie Tutorials

I'm a complete newbie to this community as well as to GIMP, but it inspires me to look further into the whole... thing.
There are two tutorials I've stumbled upon after wanting to add some brushes someone here pimped (and that do not seem to have come up here or are at least not tagged "tutorials").
The first one has helped me already and seems pretty official: The GIMP Documentation. Cool thing is, you have several languages available - I struggled somehow since I didn't find the place to switch languages and was using the English guide for the French version first... and where names of features differ, it is annoying. there seems to be a huge range of problems and features covered, from starting out with GIMP (yay!) to more complex procedures.
The other tutorial is Katspace's Digital Art Notes which looks nifty and has a section dedicated to icon-making. I haven't really yet looked into it, to be honest, but before I loose a possibly helpful link I prefer to share it.

Current Mood: okay
Current Location: Home, of course.

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Font search.

So much to do, so little interest. I actually am looking for some nice (free) icon fonts, so I can use some of the stock imagery I have saved! Does anybody have any recs?

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How to: Make your own LOLcat macros

Today, it's fairly easy to make LOLcat macros with online tools such as roflbot or the ICHC LolBuilder, but they both leave a somewhat unsightly looking watermark to the picture advertising how it was made.

Fortunately, it's easy to recreate the effect in the GIMP! Today I'll be showing you how to make this image:

A cat macro created in the GIMP showing a cat's tail naturally lying in a spiral. Text in the lower-right corner reads 'DREAMWIDTH'.

A cat macro created in the GIMP showing a cat's tail naturally lying in a spiral. Text in the lower-right corner reads 'DREAMWIDTH'.

This howto is aimed at beginners to the GIMP, so a lot of steps will be explained that may not otherwise be.

(I apologise in advance that the PNG images in this tutorial have JPEG artifacts; that's due to the way I'm using the GIMP, not due to any lack of knowledge of how to take clean shots on my part.)

( How to: Make your own LOLcat macros )

Hopefully this helps somebody :D Take care!

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How-to: Simple text shadow in GIMP

This tutorial creates this effect: Shadowed text

as opposed to merely this: Unshadowed text

( How-to: Simple text shadow in GIMP )

Current Mood: productive

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Paper Wilber!

Don't know what to do at the moment? Lacking any inspiration? Then try your hand at making your very own Paper Wilber! You can dowload the template here. Cats seem to like Wilber too, so if you're not sure what to do with Paper Wilber, maybe your cat does... :)

flickr.com/photos/rore

In other news:

An upcoming feature in Photoshop is the "Content-Aware Fill", but GIMP users can already do this with the Resynthesizer plugin by Paul Harrison, which is explained more here with a few examples. The plugin allows you, among other things, to remove objects from images.

I've created a new community -

iconfinder - for people who like me could need some help in finding specific (themed) icons. Relevance for

gimp_gate? Um, people's search requests can be a great source of inspiration for all you icon makers/gimp users out there when you have no idea what your next batch of icons should feature... ;)

Current Mood: accomplished

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Admin Post: Affiliates Post

gimp_gate didn't have an affiliate post, as someone kindly pointed out for me, so here it is. Leave a comment here if you want to be affiliated with us.

( Affiliates this way )

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Photo to oilpainting tutorial

I've just posted this tutorial on my DW account http://alex-beecroft.dreamwidth.org/120558.html
It assumes a sort of intermediate level of knowledge with the Gimp already, but I thought I would share it here in case anyone found it interesting.

I'm very glad to have been directed here by

darkemeralds and am off to check out the other tutorials straight away. Thanks!