GIMP DISCUSSIONS

[Kiya]

Horus....your right it is the white bits I meant.

Here is my first attempt at the 3 pics x 2 pagecurls, I have to admit I didn't find it easy working with all that Layers & I didn't know what you really meant at NO 5 in your tutorial " merge each of the layers down " anyways I carried on doing this & that till I saw my 3 pics , I did a bit of moving, rotating & cloning.

I know this first attempt is not good & I've learned I have to be more choosie what 3 pics I have to work on before I start......................it doesn't look good seeing the different skies & slopes of the woodlands

Will print out the Round Corners tutorial & get back to it after a much needed coffee

[Horus]

All I can say is that you have made smashing job and it looks pretty good to me.

Just to explain a little better by what I meant by Merging your Layers Down. Very often when editing a picture you finish up with a lot of Layers that make up your image, so you may have some layers that together make up another effect, such as when you added the Page Curls. If you look at your layers pallet you would have seen that as well as your picture it had added another Layer all by itself. The same thing happens when you add Text into your image, so if I were to type out three separate titles to explain my tutorial, for example “Click Here” “Select Object” & “Move to here”, I would have to type out the first title, then click somewhere else and type my second title and so on. Each time I did so a new layer would appear that contained each title and I could move each layer around, the same applies to your Curl Layer. However some times to avoid a lot of clutter we can put all these separate layers together, but we don’t always want to flatten everything into just a single layer. So if say the text was on Layers 4,5 & 6 then we could sit on the top layer (highlight it) and choose the option:

LAYER > MERGE DOWN, we would now only have left layers 5 & 6 because layer 4 would have ‘Merged Down’ with layer 5. If we then chose LAYER > MERGE DOWN again, then layer 5 would also ‘Merge Down’ with layer 6 and we would be left with just one layer (layer 6) containing ALL the text instead of there being three. So it is possible to ‘Merge’ layers ‘Down’ in order to get rid of some unwanted layers or because we don’t need them to be separate anymore.

[Kiya]

Horus thanks for the explanation

I was just a tad worried that I would lose my work but I tried it & it seemed ok. I did look the Edit to see if it would reverse if I was wrong.............thinking again is it when you Flatten an image it cannot be undone

Now I have to find some suitable photos to try again & with the Rounded Corners.

I like how you finished off your Rounded Corners with other flowers

[Horus]

Thanks Kiya and you can do something similar by following my explanation above, just a matter of choosing some suitable images. You are correct about not flatttening the image until you are happy with the final results, whereas 'merging down' just helps to tidy up the layers, or if you need the different bits putting together onto a single layer so that you can do something else with it such as adding a page curl or maybe adjusting a setting such as brightness & contrast.

[Kiya]

I found 3 pics that were all the same size, all the same photo but done in B/W, Sepia & Original colour.
The Sepia I used for the Peep through, The Cerise original colour used for the Main pic then added the B/W
After adding the Pagecurls & doing some moving about up/down & some cloning I did of the Cerise colour under the Bottom left curl, it needs some improving there I'm sure plus not sure if it looks right or should have left it B/W ?
I then went to add the Rounded corners....................I couldn't find the Bucket Fill to try different colours in each corner so instead I went for another image to add, if I made my corners bigger I would have seen more of the image.
More practice is needed me thinks

[Horus]

That is a very worthy effort Kiya and shows that you are getting to grips very nicely with the whole concept of how it all works and what the layers are doing. I can’t understand why you don’t have a BUCKET FILL icon in your TOOLS PALLET, it looks quite simply like a paint tin being emptied out. If you hover your mouse over each of the icons in your TOOLS PALLET it should display the tool name, so go over each one until you find it. The other way is to go to your ‘Main Menu’ at the top and select TOOLS > then PAINT TOOLS > then BUCKET FILL which should be the top icon in the list.
Bucket Fill always uses the top colour in your Colour Pallet.

[Kiya]

Another brighter one this time with adding a cloud photo for the corners, I already had this one done before I read your post above.

I cant find the Bucket Fill anywhere in the Tools Pallet, I've hovered over the lot & it aint there but I can see it on the Main Menu........strange!!

[Horus]

Kiya, to put the BUCKET FILL icon back into the TOOLBOX please do the following:

1. Go to your Main Menu and select EDIT > then PREFERENCES
2. At the drop down menu select the option TOOLBOX (magenta box)
3. In the window on the right (green box) you will see the TOOLS CONFIGURATION list.
4. Scroll through the list until you see the BUCKET FILL tool (blue box) and click on it so that an ‘Eye’ icon appears alongside it.
5. Click OK to save your changes.



The EDIT > then PREFERENCES option is the way to alter many preferences and the best way to add or remove tools from the TOOLBOX. I would suggest that for now you only add the missing BUCKET FILL tool so as not to get out of kilter with everyone else, once the tutorials are finished or you understand things clearer then change them to suit yourself.

[Kiya]

Ok got that sorted now..........Thanks

[Kiya]

Here is my " Poping " for today.

The Rose............I couldn't help myself when I added a touch of green in one of the leaf's, then I thought I'd try the coloured corners now I got my Bucket Fill back.



Then I added the coloured corners to yesterdays PageCurl photo but keeping to the same colours as flowers.

[Horus]

Very good Kiya I am glad to see how keen you are and all the practicing you have done, now pop over and take a look at a new tutorial I have just posted that will help you even better with colour popping or erasing, plus it is another good 'use of layers' exercise for you.

[Kiya]

Ooooooo goody good another one!!

I'm hoping with all this layer tutorials I can get my head around it & get back & try my ghostly monk.

BTW where is Grandad I haven't seen him for a few days, hope he's ok

[Grandad]

Oh I'm still around Kiya.....but my printer is running red hot trying to keep up with all these lessons. Certainly not had time to practice the recent ones, yet.

Have been a little bit busy this week but will get back to it over the weekend.......F1 permitting. But there is the whole of the winter coming up so plenty of time to spend on The Gimp. Looking forward to it though because our Dear Professor H has shown us SO many new tricks.......

[Horus]

Yes that's the general idea Kiya, I am determined that you will understand how layers work and soon your monk will be looking especially ghostly.
I was beginning to wonder where Grandad was myself Kiya, but now we know it was only the F1 keeping him glued to the TV set.

[Kiya]

Glad to hear your OK! Grandad.................I was beginning to think you were coming up with a " out of this world creation " with all em filters we've been shown then when Roy came home from work , always an hour earlier on a Fri he took over my remote & put the F1 on........ah !! I thought Grandad will be watching this......how right I was
You ought to see the model of Hamilton's car Roy is building, he's nearly finished it & will look fab! I'll get a pic when its finished.................it ought to be good really the price he has paid for it.........shocking!!!!!

Horus I'm not sure I'm getting there yet with the layers , I seem to be ok as long as I have step by step instructions but I will get ghostly monk done yet whatever time it takes

[Grandad]

I was beginning to think you were coming up with a " out of this world creation " with all em filters we've been shown

I have played around a little Kiya but I had a concept in mind and so far it has not quite worked out. I have been doing something that uses most of the tricks and tweaks that we have learnt so it got very compicated but I like a challenge.

I spent a lot of time yesterday on my computer because the hard drive was getting near full and the machine was running slow. I bought an external HD and transferred ALL the contents of MY DOCUMENTS to it to free up about half the disc. I then went to bed and left it doing a full defrag on what was left so I now have a very clean HDD with all my programs and OS on so hopefully it will no longer be running on gas.

Off to a Mall this morning then qualifying this pm so not much time for The Gimp today but 'Watch this space'

[Kiya]

Grandad looking forward to what you'll come up with.

So you did get your HD on " Black Friday "............glad to hear the computer is running better for you

[Kiya]

My attempts using the LAYER MASK ......my first 1 with flowers, when zoomed in I can see all the mistakes



The 2nd attempt the grass cutter, I zoomed in a lot more to do the " masking " it was a little easier as I was using the pixels as a guide to give more straight lines where needed, a few colours I added.

[Horus]

That's the idea Kiya just remember that using a Mask layer is just a good way to correct any slip ups you make, it is still up to you to get it right
I like the use of the Blue colour on the Pansies although IMO the effect looks better done on just the one flower.

[Kiya]

Mmmmmmm them blue pansies are actually purple when I looked back on the original photo

I get what you mean about 1 flower, ok back to the drawing board