GNU Image Manipulation Program

User Manual

Legal Notice

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.


Table of Contents

Preface
1. GIMP User Manual Authors and Contributors
1. Introduction
1. Welcome to The GIMP
1.1. Known platforms
1.2. The GIMP-Help system
1.3. Language
1.4. Features and Capabilities
1.5. Authors
2. What's New in The GIMP?
2.1. New in GIMP 2.2
2.2. New in GIMP 2.0
3. Gimp History
4. Reporting Bugs and Requesting Enhancements
4.1. Making sure it's a Bug
4.2. Reporting the Bug
4.3. What Happens to a Bug Report after you Submit it
2. Gimp Concepts
1. Starting Gimp the first time
2. Running Gimp
3. Basic Gimp Usage
3.1. Introduction
3.2. The Main Toolbox
3.3. Image Window
3.4. Dialogs and Docking
3.5. Basic Gimp Concepts
4. Working with Images
4.1. Image types
4.2. QuickMask
4.3. Layers
4.4. The Selection
4.5. Undoing
4.6. Grids and Guides
4.7. Paths
4.8. Brushes
4.9. Gradients
4.10. Patterns
4.11. Palettes
4.12. Text and Fonts
4.13. Stroking a Selection or Path
5. Plugins
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Using Plugins
5.3. Installing New Plugins
5.4. Writing Plugins
6. Using Script-Fu Scripts
3. Using Gimp
1. How to Set Your Tile Cache
2. Drawing Simple Objects
2.1. Drawing a straight line
2.2. Creating a Basic Shape
3. Dialogs and Docking
3.1. Creating Dialogs
3.2. Removing Tabs
4. Using the Quickmask
5. Creating New Layers
6. Paths
6.1. Stroking a Path
6.2. Transforming Paths
7. Adding New Brushes
8. Text
8.1. Embellishing Text
8.2. Adding Fonts
8.3. Font Problems
9. Rendering a Grid
10. Files
10.1. Creating new Files
10.2. Opening Files
10.3. Saving Files
11. Getting Unstuck
11.1. Stuck!
11.2. Common causes of GIMP non-responsiveness
12. Working with Digital Camera Photos
12.1. Introduction
12.2. Improving Composition
12.3. Improving Colors
12.4. Adjusting Sharpness
12.5. Removing Unwanted Objects from an Image
12.6. Saving Your Results
13. Preparing your Images for the web
13.1. Images with an optimal Size/Quality Ratio
13.2. Squeezing Filesize a bit more
13.3. Saving images with transparency
14. A Script-Fu Tutorial
14.1. Getting Acquainted With Scheme
14.2. Variables And Functions
14.3. Lists, Lists And More Lists
14.4. Your First Script-Fu Script
14.5. Giving Our Script Some Guts
14.6. Extending The Text Box Script
4. Toolbox
1. The Toolbox
1.1. Tool Options
2. Selection Tools
2.1. Common Features
2.2. Rectangle Selection Tool
2.3. Ellipse Selection Tool
2.4. Free Selection Tool (Lasso)
2.5. Fuzzy Selection Tool (Magic Wand)
2.6. Select By Color Tool
2.7. Scissors Tool
3. Brush Tools
3.1. Common Features
3.2. Bucket Fill
3.3. Gradient Tool
3.4. Painting Tools (Pencil, Paintbrush, Airbrush)
3.5. Pencil
3.6. Paintbrush Tool
3.7. Eraser
3.8. Airbrush Tool
3.9. Ink Tool
3.10. Clone Tool
3.11. Convolve (Blur/Sharpen)
3.12. Dodge or Burn
3.13. Smudge Tool
4. Transform Tools
4.1. Move Tool
4.2. Crop Tool
4.3. Rotate Tool
4.4. Scale Tool
4.5. Shear Tool
4.6. Perspective Tool
4.7. Flip Tool
5. Color Tools
5.1. Color Balance Tool
5.2. Hue-Saturation Tool
5.3. Colorize Tool
5.4. Brightness-Contrast tool
5.5. Threshold Tool
5.6. Levels tool
5.7. Curves Tool
5.8. Posterize Tool
6. Other
6.1. Path Tool
6.2. Color Picker Tool
6.3. Magnify Tool
6.4. Measure Tool
6.5. Texttool
7. Color and Indicator Area
5. Dialogs
1. Dialog introduction
2. Layers dialog
2.1. Activate Dialog
2.2. Using the Layerdialog
2.3. Layer masks
3. Channels dialog
3.1. Calling the Dialog
3.2. Using the Channeldialog
3.3. Channels Menu
3.4. Selection masks
3.5. Quick Mask
4. Path dialog
4.1. Dialog call
4.2. Using the Paths dialog
4.3. Buttons
4.4. Paths Menu
5. Colormap dialog
6. Histogram dialog
7. Navigation Dialog
8. Undo History dialog
9. Colors dialog
10. Brushes dialog
11. Patterns dialog
12. Gradients dialog
12.1. Grid/List modes
12.2. Using the Gradients dialog
12.3. Gradient Editor
13. Palettes
13.1. Dialog
13.2. Palettes Menu
13.3. Palette Editor
13.4. Palette Editor Menu
14. Fonts dialog
15. Buffers dialog
16. Images dialog
17. Document History dialog
18. Templates
19. Edit Template
20. Tools dialog
21. Preferences
21.1. Introduction
21.2. New Image Preferences
21.3. Default Image Grid
21.4. Interface
21.5. Theme
21.6. Help System
21.7. Tool Options
21.8. Toolbox
21.9. Image Windows
21.10. Image Window Appearance
21.11. Image Window Title and Statusbar
21.12. Display
21.13. Window Managment
21.14. Environment
21.15. Folders
21.16. Data Folders
6. Menus
1. Toolbox Menu
2. File
2.1. New
2.2. Open
2.3. Open Recent
2.4. Open as Layer
2.5. Save
2.6. Save as
2.7. Save a Copy
2.8. Save as Template
2.9. Revert
2.10. Page Setup
2.11. Print
2.12. Close
2.13. Quit
3. Edit
3.1. Undo
3.2. Redo
3.3. Undo History
3.4. Cut
3.5. Copy
3.6. Copy Visible
3.7. Paste
3.8. Paste Into
3.9. Paste as New
3.10. Buffers
3.11. Clear
3.12. Fill with
3.13. Fill with FG Color
3.14. Fill with BG Color
3.15. Fill with Pattern
3.16. Stroke Selection
3.17. Stroke Path
4. Select
4.1. Select All
4.2. None
4.3. Invert
4.4. From Path
4.5. Float
4.6. By Color
4.7. Selection Editor
4.8. Feather
4.9. Sharpen
4.10. Shrink
4.11. Grow
4.12. Border
4.13. Rounded Rectangle
4.14. Toggle QuickMask
4.15. Save to Channel
4.16. To Path
5. View
5.1. New View
5.2. Dot for Dot
5.3. Zoom
5.4. Shrink Wrap
5.5. Full Screen
5.6. Info Window
5.7. Navigation Window
5.8. Show Selection
5.9. Show Layer Boundary
5.10. Show Guides
5.11. Snap to Guides
5.12. Show Grid
5.13. Snap to Grid
5.14. Padding Color
5.15. Show Menubar
5.16. Show Rulers
5.17. Show Scrollbars
5.18. Show Statusbar
6. Image
6.1. Duplicate
6.2. Mode
6.3. Transform
6.4. Canvas Size
6.5. Print Size
6.6. Fit Canvas to Layers
6.7. Scale Image
6.8. Crop Image
6.9. Autocrop Image
6.10. Zealous Crop
6.11. Merge Visible Layers
6.12. Flatten Image
6.13. Guides
6.14. Configure Grid
7. Layers
7.1. Main Menu
7.2. Stack
7.3. Colors
7.4. Mask
7.5. Transparency
7.6. Transform
7.7. Crop Layer
7.8. Autocrop Layer
7.9. Align Visible Layers
8. Tools
8.1. Tools
9. Filters
7. Filters
1. Filter introduction
2. Blur filters
2.1. Blur filters introduction
2.2. Blur
2.3. Gaussian Blur
2.4. Selective Gaussian Blur
2.5. Motion Blur
2.6. Pixelise
2.7. Tileable Blur
3. Color filters
3.1. Color filters introduction
3.2. Adjust FG-BG
3.3. Alien Map
3.4. Alien Map 2
3.5. Two Colors Exchange
3.6. Colormap Rotation
3.7. Map Color Range
3.8. Sample Colorize
3.9. Gradient Map
3.10. Border Average
3.11. Channel Mixer
3.12. Color Cube Analysis
3.13. Colorify
3.14. Color to Alpha
3.15. Compose
3.16. Decompose
3.17. Filter Pack
3.18. Hot
3.19. Max RGB
3.20. Semi-Flatten
3.21. Smooth Palette
3.22. Value invert
4. Noise filters
4.1. Noise filters introduction
4.2. Hurl
4.3. Scatter RGB
4.4. Pick
4.5. Scatter HSV
4.6. Slur
4.7. Spread
5. Edge-detect filters
5.1. Edge-detect introduction
5.2. Edge
5.3. Difference of Gaussians
5.4. Laplace
5.5. Sobel
6. Enhance filters
6.1. Enhance filters introduction
6.2. Deinterlace
6.3. Despeckle
6.4. Destripe
6.5. NL Filter
6.6. Sharpen
6.7. Unsharp Mask
7. Generic filters
7.1. Generic filters introduction
7.2. Convolution matrix
7.3. Dilate
7.4. Erode
8. Glass Effects filters
8.1. Glass Effects filters introduction
8.2. Apply Lens
8.3. Glass Tile
9. Light Effects filters
9.1. Light Effects filters introduction
9.2. FlareFX
9.3. Gflare
9.4. Lighting Effects
9.5. Sparkle
9.6. SuperNova
10. Distort filters
10.1. Distort filters introduction
10.2. Blinds
10.3. Curve Bend
10.4. Emboss
10.5. IWarp
10.6. Mosaic
10.7. Page Curl
10.8. Polar Coords
10.9. Ripple
10.10. Shift
10.11. Newsprint
10.12. Video
10.13. Value Propagate
10.14. Waves
10.15. Whirl and Pinch
10.16. Wind
11. Artistic filters
11.1. Artistic filters introduction
11.2. Apply Canvas
11.3. Cartoon
11.4. Cubism
11.5. GIMPressionist
11.6. GIMPressionist- Orientation Map Editor
11.7. GIMPressionist- Size Map Editor
11.8. Oilify
12. Rendering filters
12.1. Render filters introduction
12.2. Plasma
12.3. Solid Noise
12.4. Flame
12.5. IFS Compose
12.6. Diffraction Patterns
12.7. Grid
12.8. Jigsaw
12.9. Maze
12.10. QBist
12.11. Sinus
13. Combine filters
13.1. Combine filters introduction
13.2. Depth Merge
13.3. Film
Glossary
Bibliography
A. GNU Free Documentation License
B. Eeek! a help is missing
Index

List of Figures

2.1. The dialog to describe the animated brush.
3.1. The dialog shows a new image, filled with a white background.
3.2. The dialog shows a new image, with the first dot indicating the start of the straight line. The dot has a black foreground color.
3.3. The screenshot shows the helpline, which indicates how the finished line will look like.
3.4. The created line appears in the image window after drawing the second point (or end point), while still having the Shift key pressed.
3.5. The screenshot shows how a rectangular selection is created. Move the mouse in the direction of the red arrow by holding the left mouse button pressed.
3.6. The screenshot shows how a rectangular selection fill with the foreground color.
3.7. The four paths from the top illustration, each stroked in a different way.
3.8. The Stroke Path dialog.
3.9. The dialog to describe the animated brush.
3.10. The "File Open" dialog.
3.11. The "Open Location" dialog.
3.12. Example of an Export dialog

List of Tables

4.1. Illustration of the effects of the three gradient-repeat options, for the "Abstract 2" gradient.
7.1. Two examples of diffraction patterns.
7.2. Three more or less random examples of qbist renderings.