Design party: creating an arrow brush for your photos

Today we're learning how to create an arrow brush in GIMP! But hold up, if you want to know how to do it in Photoshop, there's a tutorial on it right here! And actually you'll need to go to the same place to download the arrow file. So go do that and come back when you're ready!

What other kind of things do you like to see doodled on photos? Come back next week to learn some cool and useful coding stuff for your Blogger blog!

You can check out other design parties too!

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!

Design party: adding numbers + text to your collage in GIMP

So here's the second half of the design tutorial for creating and customizing a collage in GIMP*. Yesterday we made the actual collage and today we'll be adding numbers and text to it to add a little bit of organization and personality.

In the picture above I've added numbers to my collage. The circled numbers are actually a font that you can download called Fyra, and they're suuuper handy and useful. In this image I typed in the numbers then added a white circle behind each one to make them stand out a little better against the background. To learn how to add text, read on below!

1 // After you've created your collage you'll need to create a new layer. Then you'll select the rectangle tool and draw a shape on your collage (click, hold down your cursor and drag out til you've got your shape). Use the paint bucket fill tool to add color.

2// I always adjust opacity on my shapes when they're over a photo. That's a personal choice because I like how it looks, but I've seen stuff like this done on photos where the opacity was left at 100% and it looked great too! Just experiment to find what you like!

3// Click the "duplicate layer" icon to copy this shape into another layer. Drag to the next image on your collage and keep doing this until you've got boxes on all of your images.

4// Now it's time to add your text! For this collage my goal is to list some of my favorite past DIYs, so I'm going to give a title to each image so readers will know what each one is for. Just select your font tool, drag the box where you want it to be then type in what you want it to say (in the box that pops up).

5// Next we need to customize the font. Go to the Tool Options box and select which font you want to use, as well as the size and what color you want it to be.

6// Repeat steps 4+5 until you're done!

These are some different options of how you could customize it. Play around and experiment with your software and have fun with it!

*GIMP is a free photo editing program and can be used as an alternative to Photoshop. This design party series will cover tutorials in both programs, but I've opted to (re)start the series with a focus on GIMP. I feel the basic kind of information I wanted to start the tutorials off with will benefit those who may feel that designing graphics and images isn't necessarily their forté, and who may have thought they would never be able to learn the basics otherwise.

You can click here to read how to download the software for yourself.

I've got a lot of stuff planned for this series, but this stuff is for you guys. If you have an idea for a tutorial please leave it in a comment or email me directly. Check back next week to read about the basic functions in GIMP, and how you can use them to create the graphics you want!

Design party: let's get this party started!

Around this time last year I did a couple of design tutorials for Photoshop and Gimp (Gimp is a free photo-editing software). I'm picking up where I left off with this because I really think it could benefit a lot of you who feel you can't do your own design stuff (because YOU CAN!).

I'll be re-starting this series with a couple of simple tutorials to get you comfortable with Gimp. First we'll go through how to set up a basic photo/graphic collage using squares and circles along with how to add numbers for each image used (check these out for examples: a square layout with numbers and a circle layout). Then we'll work on creating a looser collage (like I do in my color party posts). This will require a little more time and concentration, but gets easier the more you practice it. After that we'll explore adding text to your photo layouts then creating a signature watermark, which is a great way to brand your blog and keep your source attached to any images you create that start floating around the internet (like I do with Jenny's hair tutorials).

I wanted to start this series off again with very manageable and extremely easy-to-master tutorials so that we have a good basic knowledge under our belts before advancing on to more involved things. I'll post a new session each week and after the first few Gimp tutorials we'll start dividing them up between both Photoshop and Gimp.

As the series goes on we'll talk about photo-editing, simple coding, blog layout, etc. If you've got an idea for a tutorial please leave a comment below, or you can leave your email address for me if you'd like to be invited to my private board for design tutorials on Pinterest.  Anything dealing with design is fair game. Can't wait to hear from you guys!

Design party: grab buttons (for GIMP)

Today  I'm going to show you how to make ad/sponsor buttons on free software that does basically the same thing as Photoshop. Its called GIMP and you can download it here if you're a PC user or here if you use a Mac. Go download and come back when its installed! (You can go to this tutorial if you have Photoshop or if you want to learn how to code buttons for a text box or your sidebar).

I want to start this tutorial off by saying that Photoshop is much more intuitive and user-friendly, but GIMP still gets the job done. Using GIMP is a little more complicated so the directions might seem wordy or lengthy. Please re-read the directions as you're using the tutorial and if you're stumped with something shoot me an email [mybilliedesigns@gmail.com] and maybe I can clarify it for you!

Step 1//Open up the image you want to make into a button.

Step 2//Save the file (and make sure you save it as an .xcf, which indicates that its a GIMP file). Naming the file with the size and who it's for has been really helpful for me. So if I was making the button for myself the file name would look like this: 300x150_formybillie.xcf.

Step 3//Crop your image. The "crop" button is on the left-hand side and looks like an x-acto knife. After you click it look at the "tool options" box below it. Click the little box next to "fixed" then enter in your dimensions, keeping them separated by a colon (:). The first number is your width and the second number is your height.

Step 4//Scale your image (Image>Scale Image). Make sure the chain icons are linked together (if not click the icon). This keeps the image dimensions accurate as you scale the image. Enter in whatever your ad dimensions need to be then click "scale".

Step 5//Enter in your text. Click the big black "A" in the toolbox on the left-hand side. A little box will pop up, which is where you enter in your text. You can edit the font, size, color, alignment, etc in the "tool options" box below the toolbox.

Step 6//We're looking at the "layers" box now (on the right-hand side). Right click your text layer then click "text to selection". This should put a selection on just your text.

Step 7//Now we want to "grow" our selection. Click Select>Grow. Enter in whatever number you want, but the skinnier the font, the less you need to grow. Mine is a really skinny font so I only grew my selection by 2 pixels.
Step 8//Make a new layer (click the little paper icon at the bottom of the "layers" box). Select transparent and okay.

Step 9//Now we want to fill in our selection that we just "grew". To pick your color, look towards the bottom of the "toolbox" (left-hand side of the screen) and double click the top of the two larger rectangles (there is probably a black and white one on your screen). Click on the full spectrum rectangle (tall and skinny) to find a color you like, then click around in the bigger square box to its left to get the right hue and shade. Click "ok" once you've got it picked out.

Step 10//Click Edit>Fill with FG Color. This should fill in the selection with whatever color you selected.
Step 11//In the "layers" box, move your text layer to the top (hold down your mouse key while moving the layer box up).

Step 12//You should have three layers now: the text layer, a "new layer" with your filled in text selection, and a background layer. We want merge the text and color selection layers now. Do this by right-clicking the text layer and clicking "merge down".

Step 13//Your text may be a little too big now that we've added a border color to the text, so we'll scale it down next. Make sure the top layer is selected in the "layers" box, then click the "scale" button in the "toolbox". On the actual image you can play with the proportions until you like the results (just make sure the chains are linked on the "scale" box that pops up). Press "scale" when you're finished scaling.

Step 14//After you "scale" the text, its going to save it in a new layer. Double click the layer and name it whatever you want (I usually name it "a", "b", "c", etc). Move the text layer around until you're happy with the positioning.

Step 15//Save your image as a .jpeg and we're done (File>Save As)!

Have fun creating new buttons! : )