GIMP – Introduction GIMP is free and open source image editing , which offers the best possible image editing tools at no price (it is freely downloadable from .org). The full form of GIMP is GNU Image Manipulation Program. It allows you to retouch photos, create image composition and image authoring. Other than this, GIMP is used for free-form drawings, resizing, cropping, photo-montages, converting between different image formats, and more specialized task, GIMP is available on variety of platform like , OS X, and windows. GIMP was originally released as the General Image Manipulation Program by creators Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis but later its name was changed to GNU Image Manipulation Program when it was released as part of GNU project. Development of GIMP began in 1995 as (0.54) was made in January 1996 3.0.2 Starting GIMP Starting GIMP is similar to the way you start other programs on a windows computer. That is, click on GIMP 2 on start menu or if not found there, then click Start button ->All Programs ->GIMP

2 (see fig. 3.1)

3.0.3 Understanding GIMP Windows Once you start GIMP, you see following windows (Fig. 3.2 on next page) on your computer screen, this is known as GIMP windows. Let us briefly talk about GIMP window 1. The Toolbox sub-windows The Toolbox offers different tools icons that can be used to manipulate image or create desired effects. The Toolbox sub-window has following two components.  Tool Buttons  Tool options

2. Dock able dialogs [Docked multiple dialog windows] On right side of GIMP window, multiple dialog windows are docked together with layers dialog shown at the front. The docked dialog windows has two sections –top and bottom sections where each section shows a different dialog. In the beginning the top section shows the Layers dialog and bottom section shows Brushes dialog. [ see Fig 3.4 (a)]. The top section has four stacked dialogs.  Layers dialog

 Channels dialog  Paths dialogs  Undo history dialog The bottom section has three stacked dialogs  Brushes dialog  Patterns dialog  Gradients dialog 

3.0.4 Creating New File To create anything, you need to create a new file, a new image file. To create a new file, you need to follow these steps: 1. Start GIMP as explained earlier. 2. Click File New command or else press shortcut key Ctrl +N

3. It will open create a new image dialog. [see Fig. 3.5(b)]  By default, this dialog shows the default image size by displaying width as 640 pixels and height 400 pixels. If you want to create new image file with the same size, simply click OK.  Otherwise, after the size either manually by typing the new value of width and height or through the up and down arrows.  To specify the unit of measurement for image-size, click the drop-down arrow of Template list-box. A list of per-

defined size will de displayed in the list box. Choose one item from the list as per your need.[Fig. 3.5(b)]  If you desire to have a pre-defined pictures file size, then click the drop down arrow of template. A list of pre-defined sizes will displayed in the list box. Choose one item from list as per your need.

Select Units for Dimensions Measurment

Change Width and Select Orientation of Height here Image

4. If needed, set up Advanced Option such as color scheme, resolution etc. To do this, click on the Advanced Option and the dialog will be enlarged with more options as shown below [see Fig. 3.5©]

5. Once you have set the features, click the OK button in the dialog Create a New Image. And GIMP will show you a blank canvas where you can draw/create desired effects.[see Fug. 3.5(d)]

3.0.5 Saving File

After you have worked in your image file, you need to save your image file. To save an open file: 1. Click File Save or press Ctrl +S.[see above Fig.] 2 In the Save Image dialog (that opens) provide the file name and desired location where the image file is to be saved and click Save button. [see Fig. 3.7(b)]

3.0.6 Opening An Existing File To open a file, you need to follow these steps. 1. Click command File Open… or press Ctrl +O

2. Open Image dialog will open up. Browse to the folder where your file is located: select the file and click Open button. [see above Fig. ].

3.0.7 Different File Formats A graphic software allows you to save work in different file formats which you can choose depending upon you needs. By default GIMP save your image in XCF format. There are two other supported file-formats in which you can save your image file.

Let us talk about these file-formats supported by GIMP’s Save Image dialog. 1. XCY format.

2. archive(GNU zip) 3. Bzip archive Other supported file-formats .AA (ASCII art) , .BMP(Bitmap) , .CEL ( CIMFast Event Language), .FITS( Flexible Image Transport System), .FLI(Autodesk FLIC Animation) >GIF( Graphics Interchange Format) , .HRZ(Slow scan Television), .JPEG( Joint Photographics Expert Group), .MIFF(Magick Image File Format) 3.9.0 GIMP Toolbox Let us now learn about various tools available on the toolbox. Before we start applying tools for creating different types of image, it would be useful to know how a particular tool works. The Tool Box contains different types of tools such as : Selection Tools Brush Tools Transform Tools Color Tools Miscellaneous Tools

3.9.1 Selection Tools Selection tools are designed to select regions from images. The selected region is surrounded by a moving dashed line known as marching ants. Different Selection tools are being explained below: Pics

Rectangle Selection Tool ()

This tool create a square selection. When using this, you get the chance to pull handles to adjust it. Press return (Enter Key) or click inside it to finalize the selection. Pics Click Here

Elliptical Region Select Tool (E)

This tool create a circular selection. When using this, you get the chance to pull handles to adjust it. Press return key(Enter Key) for finalization.

If you press SHIFT key along with this tool you get perfect circular selection. Freehand Select Tool or Lasso Tool (F)

This is actually a combination of a freehand and polygon select tool. Free hand selection id done by holding the mouse button and dragging. Press Enter key to finalize your selection region. Fuzzy Select Tool (Magic Wand Tool) (Z) This tool selects connected areas. Click and drag to include more areas. (See figure on the left below)

Magic Wand Select

Color Select (Shift + O) This tool selects areas of similar color. Click and drag to include a wider range of colors.

Intelligent Scissors (Select Shape from image) (I): This tool selects along an edge. It can be very useful to select and cut out parts of an image, the results can be a bit unpredictable though. With this tool, keep click along the boundary /edge of the region you want to select and once done, press enter key.

PRESS ENTER KEY

Foreground Select Tool: [ ] This tool is intended primarily for cutting out items and people from photos. It requires you to follows these steps before finalizing a selection. 1. Roughly select the foreground you want to extract. When you select tool, the mouse pointer goes with the lasso icon. It actually works like the fuzzy select tool. Select as little as possible from the background.

The mo use

2. As soon as you release mouse button, the non-selected part of the image is covered with a dark colored mask. The mouse pointer becomes Paint-brush icon for the next step.

3. With the paint-brush icon, paint the area to be selected. Be careful not to paint background pixels. But paint the desired area( to be selected) 4. When you release mouse button, all non-selected areas are in dark and the painted region is clearly visible. 5. Lastly , you have to press the Enter Key to get the wanted selection:

Selecting All, None or Inverting Selection:- Sometimes , you need to select all or unselect all selections or invert your selection.  The menu option select->All (Ctrl +A) will select all in the image/canvas.  The menu option Select None ( Shift + Ctrl + A) will unselect everything, i.e. , now no region on your image is selected.  Sometime, you need to select entire image barring a small segment. I such case , it is good to first select that small segment and then invert your section by clicking menu option Select Invert or by pressing CTRL +I

Labs Practical-1.1 Create a GIMP image as shown here. 1. Start GIMP 2. Create a new file in GIMP by suing command File New ( Refer the pics shown previously) create a file of any size. We created file with default settings 3. Now from the Toolbox, click Rectangle Select tool and drag in the canvas to from the rectangle selection as shown below. Press Enter key so that it turns to rectangle selection.

Press Enter Key

4. Now (with rectangular selection visible), click Edit Stroke Selection command. It will show solid line as line type in Line width box in Stroke Selection Dialog Box.

5. Now press Ctrl + Shift+ A to remove selection marquee and you’ll get a rectangle with desired outline. 6. Now from the Tool Box , click Elliptical select Tool and drag in the canvas to form the top elliptical shape selection as shown below. Press Enter key so that it turns to elliptical selection.

7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 so that, this elliptical selection also gets an outline as shown here. 8. Similarly, draw an elliptical selection overlapping the base of the rectangle, give it stroke using Edit Stroke Selection Command ( Step 4, 5) . Now the image would look like the one shown in the screenshot. 9. Now save your work with proper file name.

Let us Revise  An Image editing tool is a graphics program that provides a variety of special features for altering bit-mapped images.  Some image-editing programs are picasa, GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, Paint etc.  GIMP is free and open source image-editing software.Its full form is GNU Image manipulation Program.  GIMP Windows contains a Toolbox window, Docked multiple dialogs and Menubar.

 Toolbox contains different types of tools such as: selection tools, brush tool, transform tools, color tools and other miscellaneous tools.  To remove any selections, press ctrl + shift + A key combination.  Floating selections are temporary and not part of the image. To a floating selection part of the image.