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Review:The Artists' Guide to the GIMP
User Manual
The GIMP has been hailed as an open source alternative to such commercial image manipulation "killer apps" as Adobe Photoshop. However, there are obvious areas where the GIMP falls short. For example, it does not come with a commercial quality printed user manual.
Now GIMP aficionados have an option: Michael Hammel has written what amounts to a user manual for the GIMP. It is "meant to be a reference guide for non-technical users -- people who want to use the GIMP to do real work."
Topic Coverage
The book covers release 1.0 of the GNU Image Manipulation Program. The first half covers GIMP features and functionality. The second half contains many examples of filters and script-fu effects applied to images.
The book does not cover GIMP development, particularly plug-ins and scripting. However, the author does mention that these are potential topics for revised editions.
The introductory chapters cover such basics as graphics formats, colour models, resolution, and so forth. The author also briefly covers SANE, Ghostscript, the GFig plug-in, the gimprc file, and fonts.
Explanatory Style
The author adopts a relatively informal explanatory style which I found easy and enjoyable to read, while not detracting from the topic at hand. It is clear that the author understands what he is writing about, and also how to communicate with the casual reader.
He offers tips throughout the text, from effective settings for specific dialogs to how to scan three-dimensional objects. He's also at ease enough to criticize aspects of the application where deserved, such as inconsistent dialogs or awkward interfaces. This honesty reassures the reader that he's on her side.
The author points out where GIMP and Photoshop are alike and differ, which will be a boon to readers with experience with the latter.
Tutorial Approach
Many of the chapters conclude with a tutorial summarizing the material covered: 16 pages in all. They are easy enough to follow and serve to reinforce the concepts learned.
Frequently the author employs a "how-to" approach when describing a feature. For example, he uses an image of a skyline to demonstrate how guides can help select buildings. He enumerates the steps you might take to correct a scanned image.
Book and CD-ROM
The book is printed on glossy paper in full colour. This is important, as many of the images illustrate subtle graphic effects. For example, an image may be a slightly brightened or blurred version of another.
I'm not sure how well the book would stand up to everyday use. My copy developed a cracked spine, so it's possible to lose a page or two if the reader is not careful.
The CD-ROM contains the software, although I'm sure most will acquire later versions from the net. It also includes the book's tutorials, images, and more images from the author's collection, as well as documentation, resources, and links.
There are plenty of tables of shortcuts and modifiers, but strangely no quick reference card (an obvious added value).
Drawbacks
The book as one or two minor drawbacks. Generally, there are a couple of places where the text could have been improved.
Some extended explanations (e.g., crop tool) are very confusing. The reader is hard put to make progress without the application running in front of her. Admittedly, part of the blame for this lies with the application itself.
The author references some Linux Journal covers, yet does not provide their images for illustration.
Summary
I've seen industry award-winning commercial user manuals, and this book is in that league. If you're looking for a simple user manual for the GIMP, this is it.
If you're looking for a more advanced manual or reference, you might be a little bit disappointed. There are still stones left un-turned.
If you're looking for an art book, again you might be disappointed. It isn't a text on graphic design, although there are tips throughout.
It's a user manual for the GIMP.
You can pick it up at Amazon.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
1. Introduction
2. GIMP Basics
3. GIMP Windows
4. The Toolbox
5. Selections
6. Layers and Channels
7. Colors and Text
8. Drawing and Painting
9. Using Transforms
10. Gradients
11. Scanning, Printing, and Print Media
Part 2: Filters and Script-Fu Effects
12. Artistic
13. Blur
14. Colors
15. Distorts
16. Edge-Detect and Combine
17. Enhance
18. Glass Effects
19. Light Effects
20. Map and Miscellaneous
21. Noise
22. Render
23. Script-Fu
Glossary
Appendix A: The gimprc File
Appendix B: Keyboard Shortcuts
Appendix C: Adding Fonts to Your System
Index
About the CD-ROM
Filters > Render > GFig.
To draw a straight line, click a point, hold down shift, click the destination point.
See tutorials for some new ideas.
Use a scalable font. This is in the GIMP User FAQ. Not that I expect your typical Slashdot reader to read a FAQ before bitching, but still...
Hmm.. are you really complaining about the anti-aliasing, or are you getting blocky text? If the text is blocky, it's because you don't have scalable fonts installed for your X server.
/etc/X11/XF86Config, and set up the FontPath to include scalable fonts _first_.
If you are using XFree86 (which I presume), edit the file
(try man XF86Config)
mine looks like:
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
The GIMP for Windows is actually a very nice program; I would recommend it to Windows users over Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop (it's free!). But it's also certainly not as good, stable, or fast as the Gimp on native Unix.
:)
Same goes for ghostscript, gcc, etc... don't make me laugh.
Write back when your OS knows how to fork()
what's the point of a stable os if you can't run any apps on it tho...
Is there any sort of object oriented draw program for Linux?
It's rather simple, but handles most tasks for me.
the x,y coordinates are in the development version. i don't think there is an option for it in 1.0.
People still use that?
I bought an Epson Stylus Color 800. At the time, it offered the best photo quality output of any of the 3 color ink jets. The newer 5 color ink jets do an even better job. Under Windows at least, the Epson printers do a much better job at photo quality output than the competition. However, there are a few downsides. First, Epson's quality is worse on plain paper than the others due to ink bleed. Second, the Epson print heads clog frequently (like all ink jets) and are hard to unclog. Epson really needs some sort of "prime" function like HP implements to clear the heads. Third, the Ghostscript drivers (stcolor, st800, uniprint) produce really shoddy quality on graphics (text is fine) compared to the Windows drivers. I'd be interested in about how the GS drivers for the other ink jets (particularly HP) compare to their Windows counterparts. I'm happy with my Epson, but I always reboot to Windows if I have to print photos.
See the eyes!
get with the program. quit fuckin off with 3rd rate trash like gimp, just buy ur software and ur OS. get win98 and run it with photoshop and frontpage if ya need to make webpages. fuck all that linux stuff its a waste of time.
It would have been nice if the book had been passed through an editor and if SSC didn't skimp on using professional materials. But, as long as SSC is run by Phil Hughes, it looks like there won't be much of anything professional coming out of SSC. For Phil Hughes' own book, he published through IDG, not SSC. Since IDG isn't run by a womanizer who under-cuts employee salery and waits to be bought out by Ziff Davis, Phil's own book doesn't stink of second rate editing and publishing materials. Hopefully, at some point, the Linux community will figure out that working with/buying from SSC is just continuing the myth that Linux is an unprofessional OS that is largely associated with unprofessional companies. Michel Hammel definately shows alot of potental through this book (considering who/what he had to work with). I hope to see more from him via professional publishing houses.
I finally purchased an HP 720C, which had great output. Very nice photo, not quite as nice as say the Epson photo or HP photo, but great black text - laser sharp on plain. Unfortunately, I assumed that since it was an HP, it would at least do basic output under linux, but I now think it is a windows only printer (yick). I'm thinking of using vmware to boot 95 or NT under linux for printing...
Epson Color Stylus 640. All the way. SLASHDOT WON'T LET ME GET A USERNAME, TWELVE IN A ROW REJECTED. I DON'T THINK SO....
How meaningful is it when a publisher of a magazine rights a "review" of the same publisher's book? Most professional orginizations would call this an advertizement, not a "review."
Well, you should not read the HTML version read the pdf one availible at ftp://manual.gimp.org/pub/manual. (The HTML version is a ugly translation form FrameMaker). The GUM is more compleate and covers all angels of GIMP and Gimp usage. The AGG doen't for example cover any of the plugins more than with a screen shot and one exampel image.
This is a perfectly valid critque of some problems with gimp. Stuff like this should be encouraged not shoot down. Its called a bug report (though not nesacarily in the best forum). Linux is by absolutly no means perfect (the ease w/ which I installed a backorrifce detector and winzip to unzip the file it came in a few minutes ago on a friends machine showed this... installing apps on linux SUUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKS!)
.
Or at least questionable in my opinion. I have no idea why a free software developer would even consider porting to Windows.
I am glad to see I am not the only one to think so :) For drawing it is my favorite app.
Well I don't know for sure, don't quote me, but you know I think I caught him looking at my crotch. I feel like a pair of eyes are watching me... an I look up... an could swear he looks away that very instant. I'd be careful. That type --you never know what they're thinkin'
I bought this book because it was the first one out on gimp at the time. But it wasn't very deep. It pretty much just describes obvious functionality with no real insight. In particular, I was hoping for some artistic insight into how to use the tools, but there was very little. It's not a terrible book and it might be useful to people with no knowledge at all, but I'd suggest reading the on-line Gimp User's Guide for detailed information. pat@pat.net
> Oh, and the information on using X and
> installing fonts seemed out of place. Either
> you're relatively unix clueful, and can manage
> them, or you're not and you have a sysadmin who
> does it for you.
Or you're only mildly clueful home user who doesn't have a sysadmin, and doesn't get a chance to learn about how X handles fonts until he/she comes across a problem that requires him/her to find out. That's probably why that section on fonts that you described is in that Artist's Guide to the Gimp.
Since when do we change the English language?
1. I'm a guy. If this book applies only to girls, where's the book for the guys?
2. In English, the standard has been to use "him".
3. For the non-gender-specific individuals, "one" and "one's self" are appropriate in English.
4. Let's stop trying to alter the accepted rules for grammar and writing.
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
does shift+click work in gimp versions = 1.0?
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
zoom down to the closest-in resolution...make sure you got the grid on...go to some starting place on the grid (100*100 works nice in a 600*400 image), then select an area as many pixels tall as you want your line to be thick, and stretch the area to some final destination (say 101*500)...fill the line in with your color/texture...now rotate/stretch the region to the proper angle...
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
get xfstt and install it, you can symlink your windows fonts into the standard ttf dir for Linux...if you run RH you may have to edit your init scripts to start xfstt on boot...then sync xfstt with the X fontserver and enjoy...
:)
it isn't a perfect solution (Arial on my box looks like crap, but Helvetica looks pretty good), but it's better than rebooting and it allows you the use of all those 'doze fonts
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
User Maunual DOES suck...I don't know how the book compares....(just try using User Manual to make a cut-out effect...argh!)
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
OK, so please explain for all of us who still haven't figured it out :)
How do I create a decent (flat) bevel instead of the script-fu rounded bevel?
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
Fine...if ya like some windows software, use it...but don't advertise where it doesn't matter...
by the way, front page is the worst program ever to come out of megasloth...the idea behind it was good, but the implementation sucks...any program that inserts useless comments and code into my web page, re-arranges the structure of my site, creates directories beginning with "_", and creates non-standard html, (e.g., front page) deserves to die a horrid death without users
Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?
What is your Slash Rating?
Really? Check the developer version for the features you want. It just recently surpassed photoshop for MY purposes.
If there are still things missing for you, you should suggest them as improvements.
The UI is different so sometimes you have to relearn how to do things, but there's a lot of stuff hidden in there. It's probably more tuned to a new user than to one who is expecting all of photoshops ideosynchrocies.
But the developers need to know what is still missing to make the gimp even cooler.
(fsck spelling)
The next stable release of the gimp should be one bad-ass application if this developer version is any indication!
Time to play! :)
I'm surprised O'Reilly hasn't put out a GIMP book... Seems like something they would do...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
In the future, please PLEASE don't use moving gif's :(
Specificy what features would you like to see added to gimp. Or what things in Photoshop can't you do or do easily in Gimp?
I know there are things I just want to know which things people are interested in.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
This is intended as only a bullet point list, mail me if you are interested in a solid critique of the GIMP, it's something I'm insterested in.
No order of importance..
1. Bad UI. There are two file menus. The nesting is wrong, and too deep for common ops. Few (less than half?) functions can be reached with hotkeys.
2. Confusing selection metaphor, and use of two kinds of 'crawling ants' marque utterly confusing.
3. Dialogues, esp layer dialogues far too big - this maybe a shortcoming of GTK.
4. Antialiasing _very_ poor compared with Pshop.
5. Slow (esp selection dragging) compared with Pshop.
6. Font handling quite appalling, but this is really an X/unix problem - alas no adobe type manager for Linux (AFAIK)
7. Paths are very implemented in a clumsy manner.
8. Wasted and/or inconsistent use of right mouse button throughout.
GIMP has a great feature set implemented in a decidedly disjointed way. It is a case of not having the basics right - all the filters and scripts count for nothing unless you get these three things 100% right on:
1. Selection management
2. Layer management
3. Colour management
4. User interface
-----
"Write back when your OS knows how to fork() :)"
:)
:->
Write back when your OS kernel is 100% thread safe
Let's not throw stones in glass houses
-----
There is a way for HP 720C, 820C, and 1000C winprinters to work under linux.
PPA for the masses
It does not have color support but will print black text and graphics just fine.
Always convert your images to RGB first before you start modifying them.
Actually I noticed that too. I think it's the gloss paper. It's probably vegetable-based ink as well. :-)
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
I haven't looked at the online user manual.
But I have worked on projects in a company where our own tech writing and graphics department created our own user manuals. They won industry awards for their work.
This book is equivalent to a commercial quality user manual. I'm not sure it would win an industry award (or even qualify) but it isn't just cobbled together.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
(For people who are curious, Chapter 13 of Foley & van Dam talks about color spaces.)
How diffrent is this book from the HTML user manual that's downloadable from the gimp site? My wife is trying to learn GIMP, and she thinks the User Manual sucks... (I learned to use it by just messing with it for over a year now, haven't read a single thing from either).
Gimp/2 requires XFree86 for OS/2.
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Try looking here!
Sorry, it only gets down to about 35 bucks.
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
is there a way to make a friggin line in GIMP? you know like the line tool in photoshop???? ive been messing with it for weeks and cant find it. does the book address this!?
Global warming is good for you!
Shift-click.
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
I'm personally most interested in alternate colorspaces and in effects layers. Tool plug-ins would be real nice, too.
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
The Artist's Guide to the Gimp (AGG) is a good start. However, it is a step below what I was looking for. If you're familiar with Photoshop, you'll find the book a really light, fluffy intro. On the down side, you won't learn the equivalents of all of your favorite Photoshoppy goodness (and almost everything has equivalents these days), but on the up side, you'll quickly chew through the book and be productive in the Gimp (as opposed to guessing what the buttons do. :-)
The biggest problem is that the book is seriously out of date. I've found the latest builds of the development tree relatively stable, and the huge number of new features makes it hard to consider going back to the practically ancient 1.0x series the book describes. Still, it's nice to have large portions of the software's basic use described, making the newer shinier portions easier to get a handle on. Oh, and the information on using X and installing fonts seemed out of place. Either you're relatively unix clueful, and can manage them, or you're not and you have a sysadmin who does it for you. Either way it's not real valuable in my eyes.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Literally. I am currently working my way through the book and think it is a great book. It is easy to read and is a great aid for a someone who has no experience with this type of software.
But my book smells funny. It might be the glue or maybe the ink/paper combination. I don't know what it is, but it smells funny.
Somehow related: what printer has both good photo quality capability and good linux driver to use the printer's capabilities?
Any real live experience?
I'm very fond of the GIMP, but Photoshop is still the king in my opinion. (Although I'm also quite fond of CorelXARA 2).
Lack of professionalism is an SSC hallmark! I cringe at some of the things that I see in LJ. They've become slicker, (IE, they don't look as much like a user group newsletter as they used to) also somewhat more professional over the years, but still are lacking.
The last issue printed a snapshot of the OS Sucks/rules O'meter! Sure thats a cool net think, but looks appallingly tacky in print..
They printed a review of the GIMP book even though they published it, and the book author is a major LJ contributor, thankfully he didn't write the review himself.
They tend to fill the whole magazine with articles of narrow interest. IE, a "Linux in Manufacturing" issue, or what-not. Sure an article here and there on the subject is good, but don't fill the whole issue with them.
I notice that there is now another Linux magazine on the market (forget the name, saw it at Barnes and Noble. Maybe I'll switch when my sub. runs out.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
For some reason, my mouse hand gets sore using it. I never get so sore using xpaint.
I know this is semi-off topic, but I find the anti-aliasing to be kind of shoddy. Is there any way to improve it? Is there 'configuration' that has to go into what quality anti-aliasing you want? I made an image in Photoshop first semester (yay, college!) for an engineering website. Second semester, the prof. changed, so I had to update the image. I was not in the mood for a reboot (who ever is?) so I just used the GIMP. It worked, but the quality of the text was horrid in comparison. Does anyone know anything about this? How can it be improved? Would it help for me to get TrueType fonts going? Can the GIMP use TTFonts? Thanks. Is there a mailing list for this kind of thing? reds.
Whoops, sorry. Got greedy with the 'Submit'
I know this is semi-off topic, but I find the anti-aliasing to be kind of shoddy. Is there any way to improve it? Is there 'configuration' that has to go into what quality anti-aliasing you want?
I made an image in Photoshop first semester (yay, college!) for an engineering website. Second semester, the prof. changed, so I had to update the image. I was not in the mood for a reboot (who ever is?) so I just used the GIMP. It worked, but the quality of the text was horrid in comparison.
Does anyone know anything about this?
How can it be improved?
Would it help for me to get TrueType fonts going?
Can the GIMP use TTFonts?
Thanks.
Is there a mailing list for this kind of thing?
reds.
Thanks to everyone for their info.
I appreciate it.
I'll give it a whirl when I finally get my box back together. (made a new one, and turned the old one into an OpenBSD server)
reds.
One thing that I find particularly clumsy is having to manually tell The Gimp where the alpha border is on layers. Photoshop automatically does this and doesn't allocate the full pixel dimension of the layer to memory. With Gimp you can be lazy and just leave everything full size but then you eat up memory fast.
If it was too difficult to automatically do this, even something like allowing the user to resize the yellow border in the window instead of having to rely on guesswork in the layer's pallete would help a ton.
V
Well that depends on your distribution. With debian Apt all you need to do is type:
apt-get install gnome
and it will automatically upgrade/install/download everything you need. that is in my opinion far easier than anything i've seen for windows.
V
Sounds simple... I could never figure it out though. Drove me up the wall
I'm often sitting there in gimp with a picture zoomed way in, editing something, and I want to scroll real quick, so I pounce on the arrow keys. No such luck, the arrow keys, page up, page down, home, and end don't move the picture. If not a default, it would make a great option. I'm sure it would be elementary to implement for someone familiar with the gimp codebase.
If it comes from man, it will fail.
If it comes from god, It will succeed.
Detachment 3 Media
Exposed, Exploited, Exploded
I hope no one gets mad because I stole this one from them - - with software you can make what I like to call "ports." Unless it's from Microcrap which is closed source an won't let you use any apps, that is... With hardware I like to use a magical piece of software called a "device driver." I can only hope this was some sort of pathectic joke...
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
I don't think we need a book about The GIMP, we just need a larger feature library. The ability to create shapes is almost a necessity sometimes, and that guy up there was right, drawing a straight line does become nearly impossible. The way *I* draw a straight line, for lack of a tool to do so (or circles for that matter) is create text filled with underscores about 25 point (depending on the thickness you want) and then place or transform it as you see fit.
I think the guys doing the GIMP should think about building from the basics up rather than competing with the kickass tools first. Who the hell really needs to do a fractal trace?
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
See, I'll tell you why you're an idiot. It's not the apps that lock us into Linux, it's the STABILITY among other things. Windows is a great OS if you're content to point and drool all day.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
Guess they got /.'ed. :)
what would really save some time would be a select tool similar to the magnetic lasso of photoshop. I've always saved alot of time using it, but in the Gimp nothing works as well (intelligent scissors dont do it for me)
Look and feel lawsuits have not always won in the past, but I wouldn't put it past Adobe to try and protect their intellectual property if Gimp got more Photoshop-like. I don't really see how or why, but I'm not a lawyer.
A quick glance [mind you a very quick one] at the UI and I can't tell the difference.
That lupinoid is staring at me . . .
The party's over
FNOOGFNOOGFNOOG. OOk OOk.
I just started using GIMP and I was looking for references. This is perfect!
Although I see that I may need more books for advance work, but I'm looking for something that is for the beginner.
If this book is a good startup book then please let me know!
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
The book is currently on back order....did Amazon get slashdotted?? Do they keep more detailed information about sales online, like how many copies were sold per day/week? I couldn't find anything like that.
I didn't find that out either untill it apeared
in the "Hints" window one day. I now *always*
read the hints.
Cool! I'd been trying to figure that out too. Thanks.
Best I could find it at was $31.96 from borders.
You should try www2.addall.com. It searches 20+ online book sellers and gives the price from each.
I don't have any affliation with the site, just think it's cool.
I said, "Cool!" and followed the link but amazon.com says the book is now on backorder, and what's more, they don't know when to expect a reprint! As in, "You're SOL."
The gimp is great, but it still doesn't replace photoshop for me.
-awc
Keep trying! I got mine a few months
ago for $30.00 flat at www.cheapbytes.com
Shipping is only $6.00 for priority mail and
I got it in 2 days I believe!
I will probably buy this book, as it sounds pretty good. I use to think gimp was under developed, but it was just that I was use to using plugins in photoshop, that were not available in GIMP. Recently I was SKEWELD in the finer arts of photoshoping with out plugins, and once you know how you can easily figure it out in GIMP. Like using difference on a 6 pixel offset to create bevels. It's all simple stuff but you have to either wait for a script-fu that will do it(lamer), or learn how to do it by hand. Now with Gimp, and Maya soon to be on the linux box, you no-longer need windows for anything, we have quake2, Q3Arena, HopkinsFBI, and a slew of other games. It's time to rm -fr /mnt/windows!
One day you'll grow up.
---- sonoffreak
Gimp does do a good job. I'm not a graphics guy, but Gimp does do a good job. From my experience with Photoshop, I'd say that I prefer Gimp. It loads faster, it free, and best of all it runs on my favorite OS. Sure, they still have some work to do on it, but it's definitely a worthy opponent for Photoshop.
Um, this is my sig.
Language is not static dear fellow
Doest thou write english after the manner of antiquity. Why doest thou and the multitude not write after this fashion? Ist Thou using bad grammar because the way of antiquity hath been surpassed by modern English?
Really, the way the English language is used today by academia is nothing like the language that was espoused by academia at the turn of the century.
Like other forms of evolution, the acceptance of the word "her" will either survive or die off. There is nothing to be upset about, or really to champion either. It may indeed be quaint and outmoded with time, like "daddy-o", "Square", and "Like you know like fer sure". How many women now demand to be called "Mizzzz" instead of Misses or Miss, what percentage of girls do you know really insist on spelling women as "womyn".
Man the ramparts if you want to entertain self important delusions your culture will be subverted by a feminist, liberal, intellectual conspiracy if it gives you a sense of postmoderist identity. But in the end both you and the feminists are probably equally as ineffectual and great entertainment for each other as you take positions of hero and villian.
...see the August issue of LINUX Journal.
Just this morning I was thinking to myself "I should get back to making stuff with Gimp". Too bad this book is $40 (on amazon). That's too much money for me to spend on something that I may put aside in favor of learning by playing around... which is how I learned to do most stuff in Gimp.
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org