Design party: GIMP basics

Hi! Today I'm going over the very-most basics of GIMP. We're going to start with a few of the tabs on the menu bar then finish off by pointing out some of the most commonly-used features in the toolbox and layers window. This is just skimming the surface of each feature, so please play around in GIMP to really get to know all of the tools at hand.

1// Edit Menu. You're going to undo and redo a lot of things as you're experimenting and playing around. As a matter of fact, this is the biggest reason why I love graphic design! It's so much easier to experiment knowing that a paint stroke or crop doesn't have to be permanent. You're also going to be copying, cutting and pasting a good amount of the time. The difference between copying and cutting is that with copying you aren't removing your selection from the image, just duplicating it. When cutting you're taking what you have selected out of the image then pasting it somewhere else in the image. *Take note of the keyboard shortcuts beside each command too. I rarely go to the menu to use each of these tools. I just hit the command key  (CTRL key for PC users) + the letter assigned to it. This will become second nature eventually!

2// Select Menu. You'll use this a lot before you cut, copy and paste. From this menu you can select all, deselect or inverse your selection. There are tools that will help you select specific items, but I'll talk about that towards the bottom of this post. Once you have something selected you can also press sharpen to kind of tighten up the selection and make it less pixelated, and you can shrink and grow the selection as well.

3// Image Menu. This is where you manipulate the file as a whole. Mode lets you view the image in RGB and grayscale. Transform flips your image in all sorts of ways (and even lets you do a free-transform with its guillotine function). Canvas size is one of my favorites! It lets you change the size of the canvas without scaling your images up or down. I use it when I've done a lot of graphic work but realize my file needs to be a bit bigger. I use scale image when I want to scale my entire image, graphics included. I use this a lot, mostly when I'm scaling things to the width I use for all of my post images. Because we're all using consistent image widths for all of our post images, right?! I tend to use merge visible layers and flatten image about the same amount. You see, when you're working in photo editing software, you work in layers. If I edit an image with a bunch of layers but then want to copy and paste it into another image, I'll have to flatten the whole thing, or else I'd be stuck copy and pasting each layer, one by one.

4// Windows Menu. This lets you control what windows and docks are open. I like to keep my layers box, toolbox and tool options window open at all times. If you press something randomly and a window you were using disappears, this is where you'd go to find it again.

5// Toolbox. This is a window that sees a lot of action! You can look at the image above to see some of the tools I use the most. You can use the rectangle tool so select things in a square or rectangular form, the circle tool for circle forms, the lasso tool for irregular forms and the magic wand to make a selection by colors within a layer. I think everything else is self-explanatory except for the dodge/burn tool. I mostly use that when I'm touching up photos and want to make something slightly darker or brighter (aka you can use it to make your teeth look all blingy). 

6// Layers Window. So in the image above you can see how many layers I used to create the design party graphic at the top of this post. You'll probably also notice that most of the layers are renamed to help me keep up with what's in what layer. DO THIS. It will help you a million.

Within each layer you can control its mode. I'd go into great detail here, but it's already been done in this post by Katrina at Pugly Pixel. She talks about the blending modes in Photoshop, but they serve the same purpose in GIMP. One thing I use a lot  when editing photos is the soft light blending mode. I duplicate my background image (found at the bottom of the layers window), move that layer to the very top of the layers, then set its mode to soft light. You can then play with the opacity until you get the effect you want (there's a bunch of other things I'll do when editing photos, but that'll be covered in a future post).

So there you have it, the basics of GIMP stripped down for ya. I know it's not as fun as the others but we've got it out of the way now and can keep moving forward! I'll be back at the end of the week for our next session!

And as always, let me know if you have any questions or need more clarification on any steps/explanations. And of course if you have anything specific you'd like to see in the design tutorial series!