Responding to Comments

Some of you have posted comments in which you have asked questions about the tutorials. I have not responded to these because I had not been aware of them. Though I have very little time to devote to this blog, I plan to try to do a better job with this.

I have made some changes to the commenting and comment notification procedures that I hope will help in this. Please bear with me.

I appreciate those of you who visit here whether regularly or just occasionally. I'd love to do more tutorials. Good tutorials take a lot of time, and I just can't fit them in very often. I have many notes on tutorials for the future. Ahh, maybe someday.

Just Too Big!

Some things, like the Eiffel Tower, are just too big to fit in the borders of a single picture! In this fairly easy exercise, you'll learn how to make it appear as though the tower was photographed in three separate images which have then been laid out on a table.

Among the skills used in this lesson …

• Using guides
• Pasting as a new layer
• Stroking a selection
• Rotating and moving layers

Download this picture of the Eiffel Tower by Tom Leadbeetter which I got at Stock.Xchng, or use a picture of your own.

Use Image > Image Properties to find the dimensions of your picture.

Create a new image 10% larger than the the original picture with a black (FG color) background.

Return to the original picture and drag guides down from the top to divide the image roughly into thirds.

See how to do this in a short video.

Use the Rectangle Select Tool to select and copy most of the bottom third of the original picture. Switch to the new image and paste this into it as new layer named "bottom", Edit > Paste as > New Layer.

Select the Move Tool and drag this to the bottom of the new image.

IMPORTANT: Swap the default color swatches.

Select the "bottom" layer, Select > All. Now stroke the selection to paint a white border around the "bottom" layer, Edit > Stroke Selection… Set the line width to 40 pixels.

Deselect everything, Select > None

Next choose the Rotation Tool, click anywhere on the "bottom" layer, move the center of rotation to the bottom left corner and rotate a bit counterclockwise, click the Rotate button to accept the change.

See how to do this in a short video.

Return to the original picture and select the middle portion of the tower (but not the full width of the picture). Copy this and paste it into your new image as a new layer named "middle", drag it to the middle of the new image.

Create a white border for the "middle" layer in the same way as you did for the  "bottom" layer.

Use the Rotation Tool to spin this layer slightly clockwise (place the center of rotation in the bottom right corner).

With the Move Tool position the "middle" layer slightly overlapping the "bottom" layer.

From the original picture select the top portion of the tower, copy it, paste it into the new image as a new layer, "top".

Once again, paint a border around this layer, tilt it a little counterclockwise, and move it to overlap the "middle" layer.

To complete the project, with the Crop Tool cut away some of the excess black background, then flatten the image, Image > Flatten image.
Now you can save it as a .png, .jpg, or whatever format you like, File > Save as…

Note: I exaggerated the rotations and overlapping a bit to accentuate the effect. You may not want to apply as much change in your own project.

A new feature has been added to this lesson, very short video clips to demonstrate some of the steps in the tutorial. Hope you like them.

I hope you find this, as well as my other tutorials, instructive and useful. I try very hard to create lessons that will be beneficial to both GIMP beginners and more advanced users. My aim is to make my tutorials complete, correct, and easy to follow.

If you have found these lessons to be helpful and worthwhile, a small donation via PayPal (Please use the button on the left) would be very much appreciated.

Create an Attractive Star Field

In this tutorial, as in most of my lessons, the emphasis is not on the product you will end up with, but on the tools, techniques, and skills you will use in completing the activity. You should feel free to experiment. Deviate from the "recipe" and see what happens if you make some changes.

Among the things you will do in this tutorial:

• Use the Blend, Bucket Fill and Elliptical Selection Tools
• Feather and Move a selection
• Manipulate the Layer Mode and Opacity
• Use special brushes and modify Brush Dynamics
• Create new layer and a Layer Mask
• Use the Blur Filter

Some or all of these techniques may already be familiar to you, but hopefully, you'll learn something new. So, here we go ...

The Background Layer

1) Create a new image using the default settings (640 x 400, white fill).

2) Set the FG color swatch to a rich shade of medium dark blue. I used 1f4d64 (the HTML color code).

3) Use the Bucket Fill Tool to paint this as the background color of the image.

4) Reset the FG and BG color swatches to the default black and white.

The Gradient Layer

1) Create a new layer named "Gradient".

2) Select the Blend Tool and set the Gradient to FG to Transparent. Drag down from the top of the image about 3/4 of the distance to the bottom.

The Bottom Glow Layer

1) Create a new layer named "Bottom glow".

2) Use the Elliptical Selection Tool to create a short oval the entire width of the image.

3) Select the Move Tool and apply it to the selection. Drag the oval to the bottom of the image so that only half of it is within the image boundary.

4) Feather the selection by 25 pixels. (Selection -> Feather...)

5) Set the FG color to a light medium blue. My choice is adc3dc. Fill the selection.

6) Set the Layer Mode to Burn, Opacity to 50%.

The Stars Layer

1) Create a new layer named "Stars".

2) Reset the color swatches to the defaults and swap them so the FG is white, the BG is black.

3) Select the Brush Tool: Shape Star 06, Spacing 180, Scale: 0.4

4) Expand the Brush Dynamics settings: Pressure: Opacity, Random: Opacity and Size

5) Check Apply Jitter, set the Amount to 5.00.

6) Paint stars on the upper 3/4 of the image.

7) Apply a Motion Blur to the layer: Filters -> Blur -> Motion Blur..., set the Angle to 90 and the Length to 2.

8) Highlight the "Stars" layer in the Layers palette and select Layers - Mask - Add Layer Mask..., set to White (Full Opacity).

9) Swap the color swatches back to the defaults.

10) Use the Blend Tool (FG to Transparent) to apply a gradient to the layer mask from just below the lowest star to the top.

The Blue Stars Layer

1) Create a new layer called "Stars Blue".

2) Select the Brush Tool (which should still be showing the settings used earlier) and choose a light blue for the FG color. Something like c0d9f4.

3) Paint some blue stars in the upper third of the image.

4) Apply the same Motion Blur to this layer.

If you followed the directions fairly closely, your image should look something like this:

If you want to look for more interesting star brushes go to BlendFu.com