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Monday, March 1, 2010

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.



3 comments:

Unknown said...

Very nice! Great tutorial. I love your results.

Unknown said...

Well done,
if 5% of all gimp tutorials showed as much intelligence as yours do, and less show off "how good I am" there will be a lot , a lot more Gimp users
salute

Thomas Boito said...

Thanks, elie! I try to be a teacher.