How to work in Photoshop gimp 2. Graphic editor GIMP: algorithm for performing basic tasks

Several programs are popular today. Each of them has different functionality and is available for users with different levels preparation. There are beginner, advanced and professional level editors. Depending on the purpose, graphic editors can be either completely free or cost several hundred dollars.

Overview and capabilities of the Gimp graphic editor.

The most popular product among graphic editors is Photoshop developed by Adobe. It is designed for professionals and has enormous functionality, which is often not used even by a third. Naturally, the cost of the program is very high and rarely can anyone afford to officially purchase it. Not everyone knows that there is a completely free advanced graphics editor Gimp. Since it is distributed as an application with open source and is developed by a community of programmers, you can use it completely freely and without any restrictions.

In this article we will tell you in more detail what the Gimp editor is and how it came into being. You will be able to learn about the main functionality of the program, learn how to install it and get basic information on how to work with it correctly.

Graphics editor Gimp was born in 1995. The project has no official company, responsible for releasing new versions and supporting old ones. These functions are performed by a developer community consisting of a group of volunteers. In the first 10 years of its existence, the project did not have a common idea of what it should be like for the end user. Only in 2005 was it developed single standard and principles were drawn up that developers try to follow to this day. The program is completely free and is distributed with open license. This means that if you want, you can become part of the developer community and release your own modifications without violating copyrights.

Many people will see Gimp as a full-fledged replacement for Photoshop, and it’s completely free. And really, why pay a ton of money for Photoshop when you have Gimp for free. Yes, many functions are the same as the competitor, and there is also support for its original PSD format, however, somewhat limited. Name of functions and available tools also largely coincide. But even the Gimp developers themselves do not position their product as a full-fledged alternative to Photoshop. It is rather an independent product with similar functionality and its own audience. Nevertheless, it is preferred by amateurs and small organizations who can't afford to pay a monthly subscription or buy a full Photoshop license.

Gimp Editor Features

The Gimp graphic editor allows you to perform a wide range of operations with various images. He supports a large number of formats, has many pre-installed filters, brushes and templates. If you are not satisfied with the initial functionality, it can be expanded by additional modules. So, what can the program do?

Program installation

There are several popular sites on the Internet where you can download the Gimp graphic editor. However, not all of them are official resources. We recommend using one of two sites: the official project website https://www.gimp.org/ and the official Russian-language resource http://gimp.ru/. In the first case, you will need to click on the Download link, and in the second - “Download”, and then select Gimp from the pop-up menu.

After you download installation file and save it on your hard drive, install the program.

In the installer window that opens, first select the language that is convenient for you. There are 9 of them in total, and if your computer has a Russian-language menu, Russian will be selected by default.
To control which components will be installed and select the ones you need, click the “Configure” button in the lower left corner of the installer window.
Will pop out immediately Terms of use, which must be agreed with. It is written in English and, if you do not speak English, just click the confirm button, there is nothing terrible written there. Even if you speak English and have read the entire user agreement, if you disagree with something, you have no choice but to agree, otherwise the installation will be aborted.
In the next window - “Selecting components” - check the box for the elements that you want to use in your work. If you don't want to spend too much time figuring out which component does what, select " Full installation" If you think that something can be neglected, uncheck that item. In addition, in the pop-up menu you can select several installation packages: full, weighing almost 300 megabytes, or compact - 128 MB. Once selected, click the “Next” button.
In the next window - “Select file associations" - select the files that you would like to open with the Gimp editor by default. The utility automatically marks several formats native to the program. If you want to use the editor for other files, check the boxes next to them, and then also click the “Next” button.
In the next window you will be asked to display a shortcut for quick launch to the desktop and quick launch panel. If you don't need them, uncheck them. To move to the next step, click “Next”.
In the last window, select the folder where you want to install Gimp. Click the “Install” button and wait until the procedure is completed.
Launch the program and wait a while until everything is loaded necessary components programs.

Once the Gimp graphic editor is installed on your computer, you can start working with it. In the next paragraph we will review the program menu. If you are looking for a how-to guide specific tasks, on our website you can find a series of articles dedicated to this.

Working with the program

The program's interface is somewhat unusual and can be difficult for beginners. By default, it consists of three separate windows: a main window with a work area in which you can process an image or create new drawings, as well as two windows in which you can select the tools you need for your work.

It is this arrangement that causes the most discomfort. To switch to a more familiar single-window mode, especially if you've worked at least a little in Photoshop before, in the main program window, go to the "Windows" menu, and then activate the "Single Window Mode" function.

After this, the two windows with tools that were located on the sides of the screen will join the main window and become its elements.

Now let's look at the structure of the Gimp editor's work screen.

To edit finished image, click “File” - “Open”.

To create a new one, press Ctrl + N or “File” - “Create”.

After completing the changes, save the file in the desired format.

Conclusion

Now you have an idea of what kind of beast this is, the Gimp graphic editor. This is quite an advanced program, and of all analogues of Photoshop is the closest to it in terms of functionality.

Despite the fact that the audience of products is completely different and free Gimp is unlikely to ever be able to compete with it on equal terms, but for certain situations, especially if you are not going to engage professionally graphic design, you can easily get by with the capabilities of Gimp. If you still have questions about working with the program, ask them in the comments.

Editor's choice for photos and images can become challenging task. You want free program, or do you need something more powerful and functional? Graphic GIMP editor(GNU Image Manipulation Program) combines both. It's powerful enough to match many professional editors, and is completely free because it is open source.

Working with any program at the level of Photoshop will always be potentially difficult. In addition, GIMP has an unusual interface. But once you get used to it, you won't have any problems editing images. In this article we will look at how to use gimp 2. Let's look at the features of the program and the intricacies of working with it.

1. Install GIMP

First you need to install the program on your computer. The program is cross-platform and can work not only on Linux, but also on Windows and MacOS. You can find installation packages on the official website or install gimp from the repositories on Linux. To install on Ubuntu, just run the command:

sudo apt install gimp

After installing the program, you can launch it from the main menu of your system.

2. Customize the window layout

When you launch the program for the first time, you will notice that it is a little different from most other programs. By default, the interface consists of three windows: toolbar, working window and the layers panel. You can move them and position them the way you need. To get a more familiar view you can open the menu Window and select item Single-horse mode:

3. Color correction

The GIMP editor can be used to create digital images from scratch, and it has a wide range of tools for drawing original works. But most likely, you will want to use a photo editing program. You can tweak the colors and optimize them.

Open the image and then use the Colors menu. There are no automated tools like in less powerful editors. Instead, you have access to a huge range of options, such as adjusting color, saturation, contrast, balancing, and so on:

4. Correction of deficiencies

The GIMP healing brush can be very useful for photographers, since editing in Gimp is one of the important aspects of the work. It looks like a piece of Band-Aid on the toolbar and can be used to remove various unwanted objects from the image, such as stains, blemishes on faces, pieces of leaves, and anything else that needs to be removed.

You can set the scale to select the size of the area to be corrected. Select the tool, then hold Ctrl and select the area of the image with which you are going to paint. Then left-click on the elements that need to be deleted, they will disappear.

5. Applying filters

One of the fastest and simple ways improve appearance images is to use the many filters that are built into GIMP. On the menu Filters you'll find everything you need, from adding a flash or lens effect, to various blurs and corrections.

You can experiment, if something doesn’t work out, you can always use cancel. It should also be noted that effects can be applied to multiple images.

6. Cancel setting

If you do a lot of experimentation with your image, you may notice that you don't have enough undo memory. To solve this problem, you can configure the amount of memory that will be used for undoing actions.

Open menu Edit, then Options, here in the Environment section set the necessary values for the items Minimum number of cancellation levels And Maximum memory to cancel. Here you can change other program settings. Set up the program so that editing gimp photos was the most convenient:

7. Image Transformation

Another very powerful feature of GIMP is image transformation. You will find all possible conversions in the menu Tools -> Transform, and some of them will be available in the left panel. You can change the perspective, rotate images different sides, rotate it, bend it and much more.

8. Layers in GIMP

If you have already used other complex editors, then you have probably already encountered layers. This is one of the most important things in GIMP. This is very important point in the question of how to use Gimp 2. Work with the image is performed only on a specific layer. There can be several such layers and each of them contains its own part of the picture, and when combined together they create the whole image.

To change a specific layer, you must first make it active; if the layer is not active, you will not be able to change anything on it. You can switch active layers in the right layer panel or using the buttons PageUP And PageDown. The layer can be made invisible or deleted. For example, you can add new photo elements on new layers, so that you can easily remove them later if you change your mind.

9. Export images

When you're done with an image, you need to save the result. GIMP stores data in its xcf format, all information about the layers is saved here, but you cannot open them in other programs.

But using the menu File -> Export you can save the image in a more common format, such as JPG and PNG.

GIMP is software package who can do a lot of what he does Adobe Photoshop, but at the same time much cheaper than it - it's free!

Steps

Installing GIMP

Launching GIMP

Cropping an image

Open the image you want to crop. Right-click on the image and select Tools, then Transform Tools, and then Crop and Resize. Your mouse pointer icon will take the shape of a cropping cursor, which looks like a knife. You can also select a cropping tool from the Toolbox.

Determine the rectangular area of the image that you want to leave. The initial definition of this area does not have to be exact, as you will have the ability to manually change the boundaries of this area. Click on the squares on the corners or sides of this rectangular area to move the corresponding point.

Adjust the area boundaries pixel by pixel. To use fine adjustment, use the Tool Options item at the bottom of the Toolbar. You can change the position of the area boundaries in the image by changing the numbers in the Position field. You can precisely set the size of the image area you need by changing the values of the Size field.

Crop the image. If you are done with all the adjustments, crop the image by clicking in the center of the area you selected. All parts of the image outside the boundaries of the selected area will be deleted, leaving only what is inside these boundaries.

If you are not satisfied with the result of the crop, you can undo it by pressing Ctrl+Z.

Flip and rotate an image

Mastering other basics

Resize the image. Right click on the image. From the menu, select Image, then select Image Zoom. The image scale window will open where you can change its size. Enter a new width and height and the image will change accordingly.
- GIMP will automatically maintain the aspect ratio by linking the width and height values. This means that if one of these values changes, the other will automatically change as well, preventing the image from stretching or shrinking. You can disable this feature by clicking on the corresponding icon between the two squares.
- If you are done with the settings, click on Zoom to resize the image.
Draw a straight line. Choose a drawing tool, such as a Pencil or Airbrush. Click on the image to set the starting point for your line. Hold Shift key and hover your mouse over where you want to place the end point. You will see a line appear connecting the start and end points. Click to draw a line. Continue holding Shift to add lines, each starting where the previous one ended.

The GIMP program is fraught with amazing capabilities for working with digital images. All you have to do is figure out how to use them and computer graphics submit to your fantasy.

To make it easier to get acquainted with the editor and make your first steps more confident, we have collected the best GIMP lessons in video format that clearly demonstrates the capabilities of this program. After watching these materials, you will learn how to process photographs, create animation, work with text, filters and other tools. If you want to work in GIMP like a pro, then such a start will significantly bring you closer to your desired goal.

An example of creating a moving image in the GIMP editor using the “Interactive Distortion” function.

Add real glitter to the photo using a light filter.

Demonstration of the process of inserting an image into another image, so that the overall picture ends up appearing as a single whole.

How to put people from one photo on another background and pass it off as a real photo. Find out in this video tutorial.

We superimpose the images on top of each other, getting a wonderful effect.

How to give any photo an amazing style. We watch and repeat.

Interesting creation method unique photography with 3D effect. Really cool!

A simple way to transform any image into an oil painting.

Giving text a burning effect using standard editor tools.

We add volume to any text using the “motion blur” filter.

Learn to add fur effect to any object in GIMP

Basic course for beginners

If you have never used a graphics editor and have no idea how to use the tools, we recommend that you watch the GIMP tutorials for beginners. IN this course describes the program's functions in detail. After watching all the videos, you will learn how to set up and use the tools in practice and become a confident user of the GIMP editor.

Lesson 1. Installing and launching the program
Lesson 2. Program overview
Lesson 3. Creating a new project
Lesson 4. Selecting and filling
Lesson 5. Layers
Lesson 6. Layering
Lesson 7. Brush, pencil and eraser
Lesson 8. Adding a brush
Lesson 9. Gradient
Lesson 10. Pipette
Lesson 11. Magnifier and meter
Lesson 12. Airbrush and pen
Lesson 13. Free selection (lasso).
Lesson 14. Selecting adjacent areas.
Lesson 15. Selecting by color.
Lesson 16. Smart scissors.
Lesson 17. Selecting the foreground.
Lesson 18. Contours.
Lesson 19. Framing.
Lesson 20. Rotation
Lesson 21. Scale
Lesson 22
Lesson 23. Perspective
Lesson 24. Reflection
Lesson 25. Text tool
Lesson 26. Stamp tool
Lesson 27. Healing brush
Lesson 28. Perspective stamp
Lesson 29. Blur-sharpen
Lesson 30. Smudging
Lesson 31
Lesson 32. Selecting using a quick mask
Lesson 33. Creating a reflection of an object
Lesson 34. Creating a button in web 2.0 style
Lesson 35. Recoloring objects
Lesson 36. Creating a box cover
Lesson 37. Creating a disc design
Lesson 38. Creating a box for a Gimp video course
Lesson 39. Color correction tools
Lesson 40. Coloring a black and white photo
Lesson 41. Creating a shadow
Lesson 42. Blur filters
Lesson 43. Enhancement filters. Part 1
Lesson 44. Enhancement filters. Part 2
Lesson 45. Distortion filters. Part 1
Lesson 46. Distortion filters. Part 2
Lesson 47. Distortion filters. Part 3.
Lesson 48. Light and shadow filters. Part 1.
Lesson 49. Light and shadow filters. Part 2.
Lesson 50. Creating a linuxtv logo.
Lesson 51. Creating a banner for the linuxtv page.
Lesson 52. Creating a background for a YouTube channel.
Lesson 53. Creating a design for the top part of a Linux site for dummies.
Lesson 54. Noise filters.
Lesson 55. Edge selection filters.
Lesson 56. Filters for creating animation.
Lesson 57. Saving created images.
Lesson 58. Summing up.

We often think in stereotypes, and the market software- not an exception. In addition to Windows, there are many interesting operating systems; documents do not have to be typed in MS Word, and photographs can be processed not only in Adobe Photoshop.

Treatment raster graphics at the professional level - the lot of expensive, powerful software. However digital processing Today, not only professionals and amateur photographers, but also a wide range of users who are far from this “labor” segment are engaged in images.

What does the average user need? Everyone wants to have a simple, easy-to-learn program that works stably and allows you to perform all the necessary operations. Devil with a brush in his mouth

The word "GIMP" stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Graphic editor distributed by free license, has a funny logo with a devil, which did not appear by chance, because the product name contains the anagram “imp”. GIMP works in all popular operating systems: Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. GIMP is included in almost everything popular distributions Linux, so separate installation does not require. If the program is not in the start menu working environment(KDE, GNOME, etc.), which means you just need to install it from the distribution disks regular means(for example, in SuSE, YaST2 is responsible for installing the software). Installing the editor on Windows requires the GTK+ library. You can download the library (3.7MB) and editor (7.8MB) from the page. The library and editor have international modules and do not require additional loading Russification. GIMP has quite modest system requirements compared to other graphic editors, running successfully even on outdated computers with 128MB random access memory. Minimum Requirements to the processor make the older generation hit a distant memory: Pentium MMX. But even taking into account the fact that real software system requirements are always much higher than the officially stated minimum, GIMP will feel confident on all workstations built in the current millennium. Interface

The first start of GIMP happens quite quickly, but the program window that opens can confuse a beginner.

The editor's interface seems unusual, to put it mildly. Instead of the usual program window with an extensive main menu and a line of tools, we have a miniature concentration of buttons. But as soon as you open an image, the situation becomes more or less clear - documents open in independent windows, in which the main menu is already present. The start window acts as a kind of panel quick access, which contains all the most frequently used functions. The remaining tools can be called in several ways. The first, most guessed method is to navigate through the main menu of the document's working window. The second - with the help right button mice. Instead of the usual call to the properties of the current object, you will be prompted full list editor functions, duplicated by the main menu. If you click left button mouse near the top edge of the menu that opens, it will turn into an independent window, which can also be used as a panel for quick call tools.

And finally, the third method is hot keys. Call up the program settings from the main window and go to the "Interface" tab. Enable the options "Use shortcut keys" and "Save shortcut keys when exiting". This will allow you to assign hot keys directly while the editor is running. The most frequently used functions can be called using hot keys initially. But if your priorities differ from the author's intention of the developers, then why not add to the list with your own combinations? In addition, you can reassign existing hotkeys. In order to assign/reassign a key combination, you need to go to the desired menu item, but do not select it. Stop the mouse cursor on it and click any key combination. A pointer appears to the right of the item name. , indicating that this combination is now tied to the current instrument.

Dialog boxes for opening and saving files are made in the standard traditions of GTK+ applications, which is familiar to Linux users, but may seem inconvenient for Windows fans. Brief overview of features

GIMP can be used as a drawing editor (thanks to its support graphics tablets) and as a tool for photo processing (including batch processing).

Type of operations	Implementation in GIMP
Extensibility	Present. The GIMP distribution includes more than 200 extensions. In addition, you can connect external modules, of which there are more than 100 on the Internet.
Drawing	Brush, pencil, airbrush, stamp. All drawing tools are flexibly customizable (line thickness, shape, transparency, etc.).
Layers	Present. In addition, editing of individual channels is possible. There is alpha channel support.
Text	You can work with text using standard tool, and also draw artistic emblems using special scripts.
Animation	Present. You can work with animation frames as separate image layers.
Selection	Rectangle, ellipse, free, diffuse and smart selection, Bezier curves.
Conversion	Rotate, scale, tilt and flip.
Working with exposure	Curves, histogram and traditional controls. There are automatic modes that allow you to “improve” images with one click.
Rollback	Unlimited number of times.
RAW conversion	Implemented using extensions.
Working with a scanner and tablet	Through drivers. Standard.
Filters	Present. In addition, GIMP supports the Script-Fu language, which allows you to create new tools based on a group of filters. The distribution includes many ready-made scripts.
Batch Processing	Present. Implemented through custom scripts.

Of course, a reasonable question arises: what better than Adobe Photoshop? Let's look at the main advantages of a paid product.

Feature present in Adobe Photoshop	The situation in GIMP
Color profile support	Will appear in the next stable branch 2.4. Unstable versions 2.3.x already have support for color profiles
CMYK color space	Implemented using an extension
Red-eye removal tool	Absent. Must be corrected manually by highlighting oval area and lowering the brightness of the red channel in it. However, there is a special extension that works, however, in an extremely primitive way.
The Magnetic Lasso tool allows you to make smart selections WITHOUT pressing the mouse keys.	There is no analogue. You can use the Shape Selection tool, placing points between which the program finds the optimal path for selection.
Healing Brush tool for removing minor blemishes (such as acne on the face)	There is no analogue. You have to be content with the Stamp tool.
Powerful plugins developed by famous photo brands (Kodak, Phase One, etc.)	Power is a “subjective” parameter, but it’s worth noting that developing extensions for GIMP large companies they don't do it.

Image processing: from RAW to final result

A graphics editor is most often a tool for processing images to improve their quality. Let's look at GIMP as a tool for performing a wide range of image processing tasks. Most often, processing begins with converting RAW to JPEG or TIFF. During the conversion process, you can adjust your images by adjusting exposure, white balance, and other settings. The GIMP distribution does not have a built-in tool for RAW processing, so you should download a special extension. For example, . If you are working on Windows, you can immediately download the installable package. For Linux users, there is a set of packages compiled for various distributions. If your distribution is not in the list, download the extensions and compile it yourself using standard commands:
./configure
make
make install
By default, the assembly does not include support for EXIF display, but you can manually enable it by specifying it during configuration additional key --with-libexif

After installing the extension, when opening files, raw image appears in the list of available types. Now we can open RAW from almost any modern camera.

The extension supports displaying two histograms: RAW (internal) and Live (real). Using the Exposure control, you can change the overall illumination level of the image (there is auto mode). Image adjustments are made using tools located in four tabs.

W.B. Adjusting white balance. There is an automatic mode.
Base. Adjust exposure using curves.
Color. Adjusting brightness and contrast, setting color profiles.
Сorrections. Adjusting color saturation.

After completing all the manipulations, you can open the image in the editor. If the shooting was done in JPEG, then all the operations described above will have to be performed in the editor itself.

Exposure and color balance are adjusted using Curves.

GIMP. Working with "Curves".

By controlling three channels simultaneously (Brightness), we adjust the exposure, and by transferring control to individual channels, we can control the white balance. In addition, color balance can be adjusted using the tool of the same name.

You can adjust the balance in three segments separately dynamic range: shadows, midtones and highlights.

Noise reduction is carried out using the Selective Gaussian Blur filter. In the filter settings, you should specify the blur radius, as well as maximum difference between adjacent pixels that the filter will pay attention to.

Sharpen images using the Unsharp Mask filter. You specify the sharpening radius, the degree of influence of the filter, and the minimum threshold for its application.

Red-eye removal in GIMP is a very labor-intensive process. Using the Elliptical Marquee Selection, select the red pupil. Then open the Channels dialog and leave only the red channel visible. Go to "Curves" and lower the channel intensity graph. Turn on the remaining channels again and observe the result.

You can also download a special extension for removing red eyes -. Windows users Just download the ZIP archive, which is a packed exe file. Linux users should be downloaded original text extensions and install with the command:
gimptool-2.0 --install redeye.c

After installing the extension, the following appears in the filters: a new group Misc, and in it are the items Red Eye Remover and Auto Red Eye Remover. Next, you simply select a rectangular area around the pupil and apply a filter.

When processing images, you often have to resort to layers. Let's look at how layers work using the example of emulating a soft focus effect. The layer list window is called up using the Ctrl+L keyboard shortcut. Let's create new layer, as a copy of the current one. On a new layer, apply a Gaussian Blur filter with a radius of 15 pixels. After this, set the layer transparency to around 30-50%. The image looks as if a special filter or lens was used when shooting.

Photographers are not snipers. Very often the model being photographed is not in the center of the frame, and there are also unnecessary details. Moreover, don't DSLR cameras have matrices with 4:3 aspect ratios, while printing requires an aspect ratio of 3:2. IN similar cases It is customary to crop the image, that is, cut off the edges. GIMP allows you to crop using the mouse by moving and scaling the frame boundaries. In addition, in the working window of the tool, you can manually set the coordinates of the frame boundaries, and also, which is very important, indicate the proportions of the future image.

After all the transformations are completed, you can safely save the file to your hard drive. Free: “cheese” or real benefit?

Of course, the article examined only a small part of all the possibilities that GIMP contains. In GIMP you can draw well, take screenshots, make beautiful logos, perform a variety of photo stylizations, and much more. It is not the absolute number of functions that is important, but the quality of their implementation and the ease of working with the editor. Of course, GIMP is inferior to Adobe Photoshop in the field of professional use. But if we consider exclusively the amateur level, then completely free of charge we get a high-quality, stable product with rich capabilities. Instead of an afterword

Latest stable GIMP version at the time of writing article 2.2.10. Development is underway in parallel new version editor. Not long ago, the site published a story about what to expect in the new version of the editor 2.4.

On the Russian-language product support site, you can read several educational articles designed for both beginners and experienced users.