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Post subject: gimp....usage...(New Question 6/30) Posted: March 25th, 2008, 12:38 am |
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Joined: 28 June 2005 Posts: 4132
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Can any GIMP user give me a easy-to-follow- version of how to make a banner? The tools most commonly used, where to find them, etc.? I know there a tutorials out there, and i've been reading the "manual" the GIMP site has online, but I'm having a rough time following it. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
_________________ Bob Seger 11/19;Celtic Thunder 9/29 Gettysburg 150th!!!
Last edited by DamsonRhee on June 30th, 2008, 2:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post subject: Re: gimp....usage... Posted: March 26th, 2008, 3:25 pm |
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Joined: 09 June 2006 Posts: 544 Location: Born country,and this countrys what I love.:D
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Sure thing!!!!!
Heres how to make a 2 picture simple blend banner.
This is the easiest best way I've come across,but theres about 4 ways to blend in gimp.A friend taught me this one from a photoshop tutorial.
1.Start by opening a new white image in gimp.(Top left hand side,click File>New>change the size to whatever you want>OK
2.Open the first image for your banner as a new layer.Above the white image,click File>Open as layer>click the image you want>OK.
3.Drag it to where you want,by using the crosshairs in the middle top of gimp's screen and holding down on the picture,and dragging your mouse.You have to decide EXACTLY where you want it,becuase after you add your next layer,and blend,it will get messy if you move it.
4.Open a new layer the same way as the first,and drag it to where you want it.It must be excatly where you want it too.To see it better do this:Open File>Dialogs>Layers.Now move the abr down so it fades your top layer,and you can see whats under it.Move it back up to 100% before blending.
5.Click on the top layer(the second one you put down) and click Layer>Mask>Add Layer Mask>Black Full Transparency>OK.
The second picture should disapear.
6.Pick a round,fuzzy-looking brush.You can do this by clicking the little picture that looks like a paintbrush at the right hand side of the top of gimp's screen.
7.They'res 2 colors at the top of gimp.Change them to white by clicking on them,and selecting white.
8.Gently "paint" on the place where your picture was.It will start to come through.Paint untill all the pciture you want to see is visible.If you make a mistake,change the top colors to black,and paint on the part you no longer want.
9.Its best to blend to a hard line.In other words,if you're blending 2 people,blend all of one image,and only the person's face and body into the other.That puts them side by side,and looks better.
Save as a jpg....File>Save As>whatever.jpg>Save>Export>Quality 100%>OK.
Thats the basics.
For details to decorate it...well,you can add brushes,patterns,textures,gradients,text,borders,basically anything.Tell me whatever of these you want to know..and I'll post back here.
Hope this helps!
_________________
^thanks Aliana
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Post subject: Posted: March 26th, 2008, 5:33 pm |
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Joined: 27 September 2005 Posts: 2895 Location: Germany
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Ah yes! Gimp is amazing, I used to use it.
There are a few different ways to blend in Gimp and CowboySunset already mentioned one. But I used two other ones.
~ On your canvas have to images open on two seperate layers. Now select the lasso tool and set it to feather 20 (or whatever: the higher the number, the more feathery) and then select a part out of the top layer and then cut (Ctrl + x)/delete. Yay! It should look all feathery now and blended.
~ The other way is the same, but instead of using the lasso tool select the Eraser and choose a big (or small) fuzzy round brush and erase the parts you want to blend. This is more handy for when you want to blend exactly.
The most important thing is just to have fun and experiment. Also adding a new layer with a texture or gradient (you can add a gradient by going to the bucket tool and selecting gradient instead and then dragging it across the canvas) and trying out the different blending modes (i.e. Soft Light, Overlay, Burn, Light etc.) gives you loads of different effects.
I haven't used Gimp for a while so I hope I haven't said anything wrong. I think I wrote a tutorial a while ago when I was still using Gimp, so if I find it I'll post it here.
Have you tried DeviantArt as well? It's a wonderful site that has loads of resources and tutorials.
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Post subject: Posted: March 28th, 2008, 6:42 pm |
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Joined: 28 June 2005 Posts: 4132
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Thanks so much for doing this you guys! It makes so much more sense now! One question: How do I resize an image?
_________________ Bob Seger 11/19;Celtic Thunder 9/29 Gettysburg 150th!!!
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Post subject: Posted: March 29th, 2008, 10:08 am |
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Joined: 27 September 2005 Posts: 2895 Location: Germany
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You're welcome!
If I remember rightly you go to Image >> Scale Image.
Then you can just change the numbers, and the kind of lock thing prevents it from stretching an image.
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Post subject: Posted: March 29th, 2008, 10:11 am |
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Joined: 27 September 2005 Posts: 2895 Location: Germany
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You're welcome!
If I remember rightly you go to Image >> Scale Image.
Then you can just change the numbers, and the kind of lock thing prevents it from stretching an image.
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Post subject: Posted: March 29th, 2008, 10:46 pm |
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Joined: 28 June 2005 Posts: 4132
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It's not working. All I want to do is stretch the picture, but it changes the size of the banner as well....
_________________ Bob Seger 11/19;Celtic Thunder 9/29 Gettysburg 150th!!!
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Post subject: Posted: March 30th, 2008, 4:42 am |
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Joined: 27 September 2005 Posts: 2895 Location: Germany
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Oh, that's because I said Image >> Scale Image. That effects the whole canvas. Sorry.
To scale just the layer(picture) just go Layer>>Scale layer instead.
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Post subject: Posted: March 30th, 2008, 3:36 pm |
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Joined: 28 June 2005 Posts: 4132
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Well, for some reason it wasn't working using the Scale layer before either. But now it is. Thanks!
_________________ Bob Seger 11/19;Celtic Thunder 9/29 Gettysburg 150th!!!
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Post subject: Posted: March 30th, 2008, 5:12 pm |
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Joined: 04 February 2006 Posts: 9445 Location: Southeast of the Northern part of West Hyglemr Country:
Gender: Female
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Ah, I see you've gotten a few different ideas already. Incredible how many different ways to do something there are, isn't it? If you want, I'll go ahead and go through a step by step to make a banner too. (You don't have to read any more if you don't feel like it -- it may be lengthy. )
[x]Okay, first off, I'm going to use these two images:
http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=caspiacc8.jpg
http://img337.imageshack.us/my.php?image=caspzc0.jpg
I realize they're rather large, but that's okay. I like large pictures.
[x]Now, I like to open all my pictures at once. So I first go to File>Open and get those two pictures. I then go to File>New and pick my image as 700x150.
[x]I'd like THIS image to be my background, so I'm going to start with it. This isn't necessary, as you can easily change things around in your Layers dialog box. Speaking of which, if you don't have one up, we're going to fix that. Go to File>Dialogs>Layers. Pretty important box for me. So, I take the image, copy (ctrl + c) and pase into my 700x150 banner (ctrl + v). I think you need to have the move tool on for that one. (The crosshair thing.)
[x]Big, eh? No problem. First, we're going to make it its own layer. In the Layer dialog box, click on the far left bottom icon (create a new layer). This puts it in a new layer so that we can move it and such without too much trouble. Now do Layer>Scale Layer and set width to 700.
[x]Arg, the image disappeared! Tis okay. You should still be on the move tool, right? If not, click on it. You should have a dialog box with tool options. Click on the "move the active layer". Now go back to your image, and just start clicking and dragging in an upward, slightly leftward direction. Your picture will show up soon. If it doesn't, go to the "100%" down at the bottom and change it to "13%". You will see your image.
[x]So, place the picture how you want it. I have it so that Caspian's head is slightly left of center, and you can see a small bit of the horse's head.
[x]Now we go to the other picture. Copy and paste as before, and put it in a new layer. (Again, click on the "new layer" button in the Layer dialog.) This one doesn't need scaled down, since all we really want is Caspian's head. I'm putting it slightly right of center. It's okay if you don't position it perfectly though, we can do that after erasing thanks to layers.
[x]Erasing. This is the one area where it all seems to be personal preference. Click on the eraser tool. You probably have a hard circle [circle (11)] up right now. It is perfectly okay to use that one for erasing. You just have to tweak slightly. See the opacity? Set that at about 12ish. Then scale the brush to somewhere around 6 or 7. This is all relative to our graphic as well. For some things you may want 100% opacity and a size .2 brush.
[x]Mmkay. You have those set. Now, while still on the image you just pasted, start erasing. It may not seem like it's doing anything at first, but that's just because of low opacity. Erase carefully near Caspian's face. If you keep it to a few strokes, it will come out looking very natural.
[x]Now, once you have that pretty well done, take a look. I think Caspian on a horse is a bit too far to the right, though. Click on the move tool. then click on "Pasted Layer #1" in the dialog box. Move that picture over...oh, so that it's to the left and about 1/3 of the picture.
........casp on horse.................casp head........
You get the idea, right?
[x]If you think it looks pretty well blended, awesome! If not, you can always work on it a bit more. You can shift things slightly, erase, undo, or even repaste the picture in if you messed up more than you want to undo.
[x]If you are ready to move on, right click on the image. Go to Image>Flatten Image. Only do this when you have everything where you want it to be. Also, don't do this if you have any hidden layers.
[x]Now, we could be done, but I like to have a bit more fun. If you want to be done now, congrats on making a banner! Loverly Prince Caspian. If not, I'm going to keep going!
[x]I'm going to make a new layer. Just do the same to get a new layer as before, except you aren't pasting any pictures. Put "Layer Fill Type" on Transparency.
[x]I'm going to fill this new layer with a peachy color. I click on the top box and choose my color. (You know, where the black & white boxes are at.) The color I'm using has the html code of facd9c if you care to use the same one. (Just paste that code where it says "html notation"). And click ok.
Click and drag on that color box. Drag it over to your image. MAKE SURE you have the "new layer" active, or else it will cover your picture. If it does, just do undo.
[x]So, the new layer is now peachy. Go to layers mode>screen. Kinda hard to see your image still, eh? It's alright. Activate the "background" layer. (Aka, the picture part.) Still in the layer dialog box, click the third to the right icon. This duplicates the current layer. Now click the up arrow. Ta da! Your picture is back! Set this to layer mode>grain merge.
--------This point is usually where I experiment. I usually just go down the line of mode choices until I decide to work with one.
[x]Now, it's on grain merge. I want to do a bit more. Go to Colors>Color Balance. I also experiment here, but to make it quick, I'm going to give you numbers.
---------Midtones: Cyan/Red: 30 Magenta/Green: 14 Yellow/Blue: -12
---------Shadows: Cyan/Red: -19 Magenta/Green: -18 Yellow/Blue: 54
---------Highlights: Cyan/Red: -57 Magenta/Green: 36 Yellow/Blue: 18
[x]I'd still like to do more. Create a new layer. This time, we're going to use a pattern. You should have a Pattern dialog box up. If not, go to File>Dialogs>Patterns. Click on the "3D Green" pattern. It's on the top row. Drag it over to your new layer.
[x]Set this layer on overlay. I don't quite like the coloring, so here we go! More experimenting. Go to
Colors>Hue-Saturation. Experimentation, but I'm going to give numbers again.
---------Hue: -165
---------Lightness: 50
Remember, with any of these you can change them. I'm just doing what I like, if you want something else go right ahead.
[x]After playing around a bit with the order of the layers (go ahead and try out different combinations!) I've decided to keep it how it is. I'm ready to add text. I like to add text last, so that I know where I can position it and what colors are good. You don't have to be done. You can add more layers, colors, brushes, patterns, gradients, etc.
[x]Text. Click on the text tool. I'm putting the text right in the middle. Click where you want it to start. I used Verdana Italic size 13 for "prince" and The King and Queen Font size 30 for "caspian". My color was 9c3c0a. Then I merged the two together so that I could move them together. (Right click either in the Layer dialog box or on the text in the image and go to Layer>Merge Down.)
[x]I moved the text layer down two so that it was between "new layer" (peach) and "background copy". I also added a new layer and put a small brush in it.
[x]To add a brush, you click on the brush tool, choose whatever one you want to use, and put it wherever you want. Just make sure you have a new layer.
[x]Tada! You're done! Now you just need to save it. Go to File>Save As. Choose where you want to save it to, then MAKE SURE you put either ".jpg" or ".png" after you name it. JPEGs are smaller sizes than PNGs, so I use those. Save it, then you'll have to say "export" and put the quality at 100.
Here's what it should look like:
Here's what it looks like with the added brushes:
Whoo! That was rather detailed. I wanted to make sure I covered everything...hope I did! I was rather vague on text and brushes, but really, that's all a matter of personal tastes. If you want any help on fonts, text effects, or brushes, I'd be more than happy to give some. And if you had any questions on that essay, just ask!
_________________ going on a journey through my old claims
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Post subject: Posted: March 30th, 2008, 5:38 pm |
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Joined: 04 February 2006 Posts: 9445 Location: Southeast of the Northern part of West Hyglemr Country:
Gender: Female
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Ah, I see you've gotten a few different ideas already. Incredible how many different ways to do something there are, isn't it? If you want, I'll go ahead and go through a step by step to make a banner too. (You don't have to read any more if you don't feel like it -- it may be lengthy. )
[x]Okay, first off, I'm going to use these two images:
http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=caspiacc8.jpg
http://img337.imageshack.us/my.php?image=caspzc0.jpg
I realize they're rather large, but that's okay. I like large pictures.
[x]Now, I like to open all my pictures at once. So I first go to File>Open and get those two pictures. I then go to File>New and pick my image as 700x150.
[x]I'd like THIS image to be my background, so I'm going to start with it. This isn't necessary, as you can easily change things around in your Layers dialog box. Speaking of which, if you don't have one up, we're going to fix that. Go to File>Dialogs>Layers. Pretty important box for me. So, I take the image, copy (ctrl + c) and pase into my 700x150 banner (ctrl + v). I think you need to have the move tool on for that one. (The crosshair thing.)
[x]Big, eh? No problem. First, we're going to make it its own layer. In the Layer dialog box, click on the far left bottom icon (create a new layer). This puts it in a new layer so that we can move it and such without too much trouble. Now do Layer>Scale Layer and set width to 700.
[x]Arg, the image disappeared! Tis okay. You should still be on the move tool, right? If not, click on it. You should have a dialog box with tool options. Click on the "move the active layer". Now go back to your image, and just start clicking and dragging in an upward, slightly leftward direction. Your picture will show up soon. If it doesn't, go to the "100%" down at the bottom and change it to "13%". You will see your image.
[x]So, place the picture how you want it. I have it so that Caspian's head is slightly left of center, and you can see a small bit of the horse's head.
[x]Now we go to the other picture. Copy and paste as before, and put it in a new layer. (Again, click on the "new layer" button in the Layer dialog.) This one doesn't need scaled down, since all we really want is Caspian's head. I'm putting it slightly right of center. It's okay if you don't position it perfectly though, we can do that after erasing thanks to layers.
[x]Erasing. This is the one area where it all seems to be personal preference. Click on the eraser tool. You probably have a hard circle [circle (11)] up right now. It is perfectly okay to use that one for erasing. You just have to tweak slightly. See the opacity? Set that at about 12ish. Then scale the brush to somewhere around 6 or 7. This is all relative to our graphic as well. For some things you may want 100% opacity and a size .2 brush.
[x]Mmkay. You have those set. Now, while still on the image you just pasted, start erasing. It may not seem like it's doing anything at first, but that's just because of low opacity. Erase carefully near Caspian's face. If you keep it to a few strokes, it will come out looking very natural.
[x]Now, once you have that pretty well done, take a look. I think Caspian on a horse is a bit too far to the right, though. Click on the move tool. then click on "Pasted Layer #1" in the dialog box. Move that picture over...oh, so that it's to the left and about 1/3 of the picture.
........casp on horse.................casp head........
You get the idea, right?
[x]If you think it looks pretty well blended, awesome! If not, you can always work on it a bit more. You can shift things slightly, erase, undo, or even repaste the picture in if you messed up more than you want to undo.
[x]If you are ready to move on, right click on the image. Go to Image>Flatten Image. Only do this when you have everything where you want it to be. Also, don't do this if you have any hidden layers.
[x]Now, we could be done, but I like to have a bit more fun. If you want to be done now, congrats on making a banner! Loverly Prince Caspian. If not, I'm going to keep going!
[x]I'm going to make a new layer. Just do the same to get a new layer as before, except you aren't pasting any pictures. Put "Layer Fill Type" on Transparency.
[x]I'm going to fill this new layer with a peachy color. I click on the top box and choose my color. (You know, where the black & white boxes are at.) The color I'm using has the html code of facd9c if you care to use the same one. (Just paste that code where it says "html notation"). And click ok.
Click and drag on that color box. Drag it over to your image. MAKE SURE you have the "new layer" active, or else it will cover your picture. If it does, just do undo.
[x]So, the new layer is now peachy. Go to layers mode>screen. Kinda hard to see your image still, eh? It's alright. Activate the "background" layer. (Aka, the picture part.) Still in the layer dialog box, click the third to the right icon. This duplicates the current layer. Now click the up arrow. Ta da! Your picture is back! Set this to layer mode>grain merge.
--------This point is usually where I experiment. I usually just go down the line of mode choices until I decide to work with one.
[x]Now, it's on grain merge. I want to do a bit more. Go to Colors>Color Balance. I also experiment here, but to make it quick, I'm going to give you numbers.
---------Midtones: Cyan/Red: 30 Magenta/Green: 14 Yellow/Blue: -12
---------Shadows: Cyan/Red: -19 Magenta/Green: -18 Yellow/Blue: 54
---------Highlights: Cyan/Red: -57 Magenta/Green: 36 Yellow/Blue: 18
[x]I'd still like to do more. Create a new layer. This time, we're going to use a pattern. You should have a Pattern dialog box up. If not, go to File>Dialogs>Patterns. Click on the "3D Green" pattern. It's on the top row. Drag it over to your new layer.
[x]Set this layer on overlay. I don't quite like the coloring, so here we go! More experimenting. Go to
Colors>Hue-Saturation. Experimentation, but I'm going to give numbers again.
---------Hue: -165
---------Lightness: 50
Remember, with any of these you can change them. I'm just doing what I like, if you want something else go right ahead.
[x]After playing around a bit with the order of the layers (go ahead and try out different combinations!) I've decided to keep it how it is. I'm ready to add text. I like to add text last, so that I know where I can position it and what colors are good. You don't have to be done. You can add more layers, colors, brushes, patterns, gradients, etc.
[x]Text. Click on the text tool. I'm putting the text right in the middle. Click where you want it to start. I used Verdana Italic size 13 for "prince" and The King and Queen Font size 30 for "caspian". My color was 9c3c0a. Then I merged the two together so that I could move them together. (Right click either in the Layer dialog box or on the text in the image and go to Layer>Merge Down.)
[x]I moved the text layer down two so that it was between "new layer" (peach) and "background copy". I also added a new layer and put a small brush in it.
[x]To add a brush, you click on the brush tool, choose whatever one you want to use, and put it wherever you want. Just make sure you have a new layer.
[x]Tada! You're done! Now you just need to save it. Go to File>Save As. Choose where you want to save it to, then MAKE SURE you put either ".jpg" or ".png" after you name it. JPEGs are smaller sizes than PNGs, so I use those. Save it, then you'll have to say "export" and put the quality at 100.
Here's what it should look like:
Here's what it looks like with the added brushes:
Whoo! That was rather detailed. I wanted to make sure I covered everything...hope I did! I was rather vague on text and brushes, but really, that's all a matter of personal tastes. If you want any help on fonts, text effects, or brushes, I'd be more than happy to give some. And if you had any questions on that essay, just ask!
_________________ going on a journey through my old claims
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Post subject: Posted: March 31st, 2008, 12:29 pm |
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Joined: 28 June 2005 Posts: 4132
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Nurr, that was amazing! And at this point I welcome anything you have to teach me! I feel so accomplished! Thank you all so much!
What do you think?
_________________ Bob Seger 11/19;Celtic Thunder 9/29 Gettysburg 150th!!!
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Post subject: Posted: March 31st, 2008, 9:23 pm |
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Joined: 04 February 2006 Posts: 9445 Location: Southeast of the Northern part of West Hyglemr Country:
Gender: Female
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That's awesome! I see you found the fun of experimenting.
I just want to say a few things about brushes now. Mainly in the downloading and installing bit, since I had a bit of trouble figuring that out. If you've got them down, don't even bother reading.
gimp-tutorials.net
^go there. That site has so many wonderful free brush downloads. So you go there, and click on "brushes" up at the top. Say you want to download "abstract brushes". Click on the title (abstract brushes). Then click on download. Save it to your computer. Then, on your computer, go to My Computer>C Drive>Program Files>GIMP (it may be GIMP 2.0 or something)>share>gimp>2.0>brushes.
The brush pack was probably saved in a zip file. Just double click on it. Highlight everything in them, then click Extract. Go through all that my computer>>>>stuff in the pop up window so that the brushes will be in the same folder. Then just okay it! When you're in the GIMP brush dialog box, click the far right icon --it looks like a recycle symbol. It will refresh your brushes and get all your new ones in.
_________________ going on a journey through my old claims
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Post subject: Posted: March 31st, 2008, 9:24 pm |
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Joined: 04 February 2006 Posts: 9445 Location: Southeast of the Northern part of West Hyglemr Country:
Gender: Female
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That's awesome! I see you found the fun of experimenting.
I just want to say a few things about brushes now. Mainly in the downloading and installing bit, since I had a bit of trouble figuring that out. If you've got them down, don't even bother reading.
gimp-tutorials.net
^go there. That site has so many wonderful free brush downloads. So you go there, and click on "brushes" up at the top. Say you want to download "abstract brushes". Click on the title (abstract brushes). Then click on download. Save it to your computer. Then, on your computer, go to My Computer>C Drive>Program Files>GIMP (it may be GIMP 2.0 or something)>share>gimp>2.0>brushes.
The brush pack was probably saved in a zip file. Just double click on it. Highlight everything in them, then click Extract. Go through all that my computer>>>>stuff in the pop up window so that the brushes will be in the same folder. Then just okay it! When you're in the GIMP brush dialog box, click the far right icon --it looks like a recycle symbol. It will refresh your brushes and get all your new ones in.
_________________ going on a journey through my old claims
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Post subject: Posted: April 7th, 2008, 11:56 pm |
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Joined: 28 June 2005 Posts: 4132
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That's not working. They appear in the fold but not when I open gimp.
_________________ Bob Seger 11/19;Celtic Thunder 9/29 Gettysburg 150th!!!
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Post subject: Posted: April 8th, 2008, 2:10 pm |
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Joined: 09 June 2006 Posts: 544 Location: Born country,and this countrys what I love.:D
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If this helps,heres how I install brushes.
I go to DeviantArt.com
search for "gimp brushes".They must be .gbr brushes,or they won't show up in gimp.
Choose a package I like,and download to my desktop.
Extract files (I use 7-zip.7-Zip>Extract Files).
A icon that looks like a file folder should appear on the desktop.
Double click it,and chose a brush.Click on it,Click "copy".
Find your gimp brushes folder.The brush must go here,or it won't work.(For me its located in Start>My Computer>Program Files>Gimp 2.2.>Share>Gimp>2.0>Brushes.)
Find a blank space and click.Click "Paste".The brush should now appear.
Open gimp,and click your brushes.The new one should be there.
Does this help?:)
_________________
^thanks Aliana
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