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Making a circle in GIMP

March 27, 2010 By: Dexter Category: GIMP, Tutorial

When you start using GIMP first question comes to your mind is how do i create a circle, ellipse etc in GIMP.

There is no default tool to do the same, but we can achive the same using the stroke path option.

Follow the steps and have fun.

1. Select the “Ellipse Select Tool” from the tool box and create a selection ellipse or circle, (using shift and control you can get different effects)

Circle Selection

Circle Selection
2. From “Edit” menu select “Stroke Selection“. Next form the dialouge box select “Stroke With Paint Brush” and click on Stroke.

Stroke Type Selection

Stroke Type Selection
3. Your Circle is ready.

Stroked Selection

Stroked Selection

You can have different looking circles if you decide to use different Brush

Circle Stroked with calligraphy brush

Circle Stroked with calligraphy brush

Circle stroked with X brush

Circle stroked with X brush

Cricle stroked with Square Brush

Cricle stroked with Square Brush

Enjoy!!!!!

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Rubber Stamp Effect Using GIMP

August 13, 2009 By: Dexter Category: GIMP, Tutorial, Web Graphics

It has been a long time since I have posted a GIMP tutorial. So here is one more Which provide a Old rubber stamp effect in some very simple steps. So here we go.

Start with a blank canvas with white background. Write some text which you want to work as your ’stamp’ Use some font which is bold. Also select the text color which will act as your ink color.

Stamp Text

Stamp Text
Add a transparency layer above the text layer. Press Ctrl+L to invoke the layer dialog box, and add a layer using transparency option.
Draw a selection around the text you have just written.

rectangular selection on the transparent layer

rectangular selection on the transparent layer
Goto edit stroke selection — use a line thickness around 5 to 6 px.

stamp text with rectangular boundary

stamp text with rectangular boundary
Working on the same layer use the contiguous selection tool and click the rectangle to select that area only.

Selected outer border

Selected outer border
Goto Filter — noise — pick. In its dialog box increase the randomize to around 25% and repeat to around 40.

outer boundry has be distorted
Now switch to the layer the stamp text (press ctrl+l and then click on the text layer), select the text using contiguous selection (with shift selected) click on all the alphabets of you stamp text. Alternatively you can use select by color tool also.

text selected
repeat the pick filter as above, but decrease the randomize to 10% and repeat to only 20.
merge the layers if required.

finaly Old stamp

finally Old stamp
Rotate the image if required. I have kept a white background, if you want to use this image to be superimposed on other pages etc.. make sure you work on two transparency layers for text and box, and then remove the the white background layer.

Final old stamp.. Stamped

Final old stamp.. Stamped
Adding Vinay’s suggestion here, idea is to show that the stamp was pressed unevenly.
To do that same, take the final image, select Gradient Fill tool, set the options: Opacity to around 50%, Mode to color erase, Gradient Foreground to Transparent, Shape to Linear.
Then just click and drag the effect from one of the corners to other end (diagonally). This will cover the image with some white, giving some side of the ink to be faded. The effect looks like the ink is unevenly placed.

Stamp with uneven ink effect

Stamp with uneven ink effect
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Jigsaw Sphere With Text

April 13, 2009 By: Dexter Category: GIMP, Tutorial, Web Graphics

Here is a very simple way to have a sphere made out of jigsaw pieces with text on it using GIMP

1) Start with a square canvas, I have taken 256×256 pixels size. Go to filters — Render — Jigsaw. select the curved style from jigsaw options and increase number of vertical and horizontal pieces to 9, or whatever you like. You should get something similar to IMAGE 1

Jigsaw Pattern

IMAGE 1 Jigsaw Pattern
2) Add required text in few of the pieces, Since you have to place text in different pieces you will have to put each character one at a time. You should have something similar to IMAGE 2

IMAGE 2 - Jigsaw with text in it

IMAGE 2 - Jigsaw with text in it
3) Finally on this image run filters — Map — Map Objects - Select Sphere as the object to be mapped to. Play around with the orientation tab to move the sphere in x y or z axis etc. Once you are satisfied with the settings click ok. You should get you sphere ready. See IMAGE 3

IMAGE 3 - mapped to sphere

IMAGE 3 - mapped to sphere
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Little Shiny Blue Button

April 09, 2009 By: Dexter Category: GIMP, Tutorial, Web Graphics

For last few day had been doing some designing. Had to make some buttons, so here is a tutorial for making a rounded cornered shiny button. And of course using GIMP Blue Button
  • Start with a canvas of comfortable size, say around 400×600. Even though our button is going to be small, its some times easier to work on a bigger canvas and then to crop to the actual size.
  • Now we will make a square selection, from the tool box, select rectangular selection tool. Set the following in its setting, Anti-aliasing, Rounded Corners: Radius 20 and Fixed size: 150×150px.
  • Now do a selection in center of the canvas, you should get a selection of 150×150px automatically with rounded corners. ( See Image 1 )

IMAGE 01

IMAGE 01
  • Select some dark blue (I used #0000E2) as you foreground color, the select the gradient fill tool. In the settings choose, Mode: Multiply, Gradient: foreground to background RGB. Offset: 20, Shape: linear, Check Dithering and Adaptive supersampling.
  • Now using the gradient fill tool click at the bottom of the selected square selection and drag till the upper part of the selection. You should see an image similar to IMAGE 2
  • Run the previous step again but this time start from a bit out side the upper part of the square selection and drag just almost till the blue start to appear and leave the mouse button. You should get some thing similar to IMAGE 3.
  • Now just cut and paste the selected area againl (^c and ^v). Press ^L to invoke the layer dialouge box, you will see a floating layer, click on the lower left icon/button (create new layer) of the dialog box, this will make the floating layer as a new seperate layer. Name this layer as (button-gradient)
  • Next select the button-gradient layer to work on from layer dialog box, press ^a and ^c, this will select that layer and paste a copy of the layer again.
  • Now select a even darker blue (#000080) as foreground color, go to edit menu and click on “Fill with foreground color”. Your image should be filled with the new blue color, Go to the layer dialog box and paste this as a new layer. Lets call it as the dark-border layer.
  • Next select your latest layer to work on, use “fuzzy select tool” to select all, it should select the outside of the box. Next from “select” menu choose, “shrink”. Use shrink value of 5px. You should get an image similar to IMAGE 4.
  • Hit the delete key, and you will be able to see the gradient layer!!!!.
    IMAGE 5
  • Now the button is ready. But it looks a bit flat. So lets add some shadow to the button. Select the dark-border layer to work upon. Go to filters, select “light and shadow” => “Drop Shadow”, set parameter to x and y offset to 0 (zero), and hit ok.
  • And your button is ready. Enjoy.
    IMAGE 6
  • For actual usage, its better to delete the background (White) layer, and then re-size the image to the Shadow layer.

IMAGE 2

IMAGE 2

IMAGE 3

IMAGE 3

IMAGE 4

IMAGE 4

IMAGE 5

IMAGE 5

IMAGE 6

IMAGE 6
There is a easy way to create more buttons of similar type in different colors, merging the layers of the image and then using the “Hue-Saturation” from “color” menu. Play around with it and enjoy.

Here are some sample buttons in different colors and gradients.

Blue Button

Blue Button

Red Button

Red Button

Green Button

Green Button

Brown Button

Brown Button

[end]

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