I got a Nikon D3000. It’s my first DSLR camera. I think it will be awesome once I learn how to use it well. Here are a few examples of my first attempts. It’s obvious I need more practice. I also messed around with the pictures in Gimp. I think I probably messed around with them too much. But it’s OK.
Here’s another panorama from Artist Point, this time with some nice clouds:
And here is a railroad tunnel in Winslow. I added a sepia tint and Gimped in a few scratches to make the photo look old.
This post is about using the Pandora plugin with Gimp to make panoramas, but there is another, more robust tool that you can use called Hugin. Read about it here.
Making panoramic images with Gimp is easy. Here’s an example. I took these three photos:
And I turned them into this panorama (click on it to see the full-size version):
And here is how I did it:
You’ll need the Pandora plugin for Gimp. You can download it from shallowsky.com.
My brother was out on a hike on a foggy day recently, and came across some deer. Here is one of the pictures he took:
Before
I thought that was awesome, but I was wondering if there was any way to see the deer better through all that fog. So I opened up Gimp and found a really quick and easy way to reduce the haziness of the fog. Just click on Color -> Brightness and Contrast. On this photo, I turned the brightness down to -25 and I turned the contrast up to 55. Here is the end result:
After
So that’s rather simple, yeah? It’s not a huge difference, but it definitely helps bring the color of the deer (and the whole picture) out of that fog somewhat.
Wow, we’re already to the third and final installment of our Super Groovy Wallpaper project. Let’s dive right into the video, shall we?
Well, that was fun! What have we learned?
Gradients are a way to fill an area with a nice blend from one color to another. You can even put several colors into the same gradient, and blend them all together.
We’ve already learned one way to put a drop shadow under text. Here we used a different method to make one. An important lesson to take from this is that there’s almost always more than one way to get what you’re after. You might find multiple ways to do the same effect. Don’t be afraid to experiment. It’s fun.
We duplicated layers, we applied layer masks, and we locked the alpha channel on a layer. The alpha channel is just a fancy way to say “transparency.” When you lock the alpha channel, the transparent areas of that layer won’t be affected by whatever editing you do to that layer. It’s a very handy feature and it was mighty useful when we made that drop shadow.
Thanks for checking out this tutorial. Like always, I’d love to hear from you.
“Beware the Ides of March.” – The Seer in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Did you remember to set your clock forward?
Alright, here we go with part 2! If you need to catch up, check out part 1 here. There’s lots of fun, new stuff to learn today. A big part of today’s lesson is about:
Adding a layer mask is a great way to control the opacity of portions of a layer. We have all that plasma cloud on one layer, but we only want the colors from that to show up on our letters. So we use a layer mask to make the parts around the letters disappear. The online Gimp documentation explains a little bit more about layer masks:
A transparency mask can be added to each layer, it’s called Layer mask. A layer mask has the same size and same pixel number as the layer to which it is attached. Every pixel of the mask can then be coupled with a pixel at the same location in the layer. The mask is a set of pixels in gray-tone on a value scale from 0 to 255. The pixels with a value 0 are black and give a full transparency to the coupled pixel in the layer. The pixels with a value 255 are white and give a full opacity to the coupled pixel in the layer.
So, here’s the video of what we did:
Another important lesson I learned today is that I still have a lot to learn. I sure do appreciate you stopping by to see what I’m doing. If you have a minute, please leave a comment and say hello.
Finally, my voice has come back enough to talk for a few minutes without hacking up a lung. So we’re going to work on our Super Groovy Wallpaper. This is a really fun project and I really like the way it looks when it’s finished. In this video, we learn a little bit about some of the features in Gimp, including Layers and a couple of filters: “Gaussian Blur” and “Plasma.” And we touch a little bit on file formats.
If you Google “define:gaussian” the first definition that appears is:
of or relating to Karl Gauss or his mathematical theories of magnetics or electricity or astronomy or probability; “Gaussian distribution”
On to the video (listen for when I say “photio”):
Any questions? I love getting comments, so please feel free to say hi.
I tried to make a video tutorial for this, but my voice kept giving out, so for now all I can do is show you what I made today. I learned this right from the tutorials section of gimp.org. Tomorrow I’ll try again to make a video showing how I did it, and hopefully my voice will hang in there with me. We’ll learn about layers, gradients and a couple of fun filters. Until then, enjoy this:
I’d love to hear from you, so please leave a comment.
Today’s lesson is about using the paths tool. There are a couple of different uses for the paths tool, but today we’re going to use it to make a selection. What’s great about this tool is that you can make very precise adjustments to select just the parts of an image that you need. The process does take a little time, but the end result is worth it.
Download the files used in the video tutorial if you want to follow along:
campfire2.jpg (950k)
cousins.jpg (75k)
You can choose the paths tool by pressing “B” in Gimp. Zoom in to an area of the image that you want to select. Start by clicking once on the edge of the area you want to select. Move around whatever it is you want to select, making a “connect the dots” kind of pattern. You don’t have to get really detailed at this time. Just place dots at points where the shape changes direction significantly. Once you get back around to the first dot you made to start the path, hold down the Control key and click on that first dot. This will connect the last dot to the first, giving you a closed shape.
Now you can make adjustments to the selection to get in those little nooks and crannies. Each dot (often called an “anchor point”) around the selection has handlebars on it, and those handlebars are used to adjust the lines between the dots. But the handlebars don’t show up automatically. To make the handlebars show up, click on one of the dots. Then hold down the Control key and click-and-drag on the dot. A handlebar should follow your mouse. Now you can move the handlebar to make the lines go where you want them. There are two handlebars on each dot. Hold down the Control key and click-and-drag on the dot again to get the other handlebar.
If you have drawn a selection and wish you had an extra dot between two others, you can add one by holding down the Control key and clicking on a line between two dots. When you add the new dot, handlebars should automatically show up on the new anchor point.
Once you have made all the adjustments and you’re happy with the shape, you still need to convert the “path” to a selection. Do this by clicking on the Select menu, and choose “From Path.” The quick key to do this is Shift+V. Or you can click “Selection from path” in the toolbox.
Now if you use a filter or adjust colors or brightness or contrast, those adjustments will affect only the area inside your selection. You can also cut, copy and paste with this selection. The power is in your hands!
I love getting comments, so please leave some for me. If you have any ideas for a tutorial you’d like to see, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to make one for you.
Christopher asked how to make a shadow effect on text to give it a 3D look. It’s a good way to make your text stand out, and with Gimp, it’s really easy. There is an effect in the Filters menu under “Light and Shadow” called “Drop Shadow.” Here’s how to use it:
A quick side note: The current version of Gimp, as of this writing, is 2.6. There are plans for the next version to remove the dialogue box when typing text on your image, and you will be able to edit the text right there on your canvas. So if you’re watching this tutorial after version 2.8 comes out, now you know.
Have a question about how to do something in Gimp? Leave a comment below and I’ll try to make a tutorial for you.
Digital cameras take pictures at pretty high resolutions nowadays. This is great for printing, because the higher the resolution, the higher quality the print will be. But with the higher resolution you get bigger file sizes. Say you have an aunt in Milwaukee with a dial-up connection. You want to email a picture to her, but she doesn’t want to spend a day and a half downloading it. One solution is to resize the image. There are other reasons why you might want to resize an image. Perhaps you’re building a website and you want a picture to display a certain size. Who knows? Well, this video shows you how to set the size of your image to anything you want.
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below. Thanks.
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