What is GIMP? A Complete GIMP Tutorial

The importance of photos and its quality has grown to a very large extent in the recent years.

People began to be more cautious towards their photos with the arrival of the leading social networking app, that is, Instagram. This was due to the photo transforming features introduced by Instagram.

The photo editing industry has grown enormously and has now, opened up many career prospects for the students having their internet in this field.

The most famous photo editing software, without any doubt, is Adobe Photoshop. It is used by professionals worldwide and comes with complete photo transformation features.

But Photoshop is not free and costs a decent amount of money every month. So, as an alternative to it, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) can be used.

This is one of the best alternatives to Adobe Photoshop because most of the techniques (or features) in GIMP are similar to other paid or free photo editing software. Therefore, it is a good software to learn professional photo editing and that too for free.

What is GIMP?

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a free photo editing software that offers a ton of professional editing features.

Most of the terms you learn in GIMP (such as layers) remains the same as other photo editing software and work in the same manner. Therefore, learning how GIMP works can enable you to become a professional photo editor who can employ any software for producing professional work.

So without wasting any more time, let's get started with the tutorial.

Important terms relating to GIMP

1. Toolbox: This part contains some of the most essential tools and features which help you to edit an image or create a new one, in GIMP.
2. Advanced options for the selected tool: This panel contains the advanced settings for the tool you have currently selected from the toolbox. For example, when you select the text box tool, you get the advanced settings such as the style of the font you want to use in your text box.
3. Layers: Layers in GIMP or any other photo editing software have the same meaning. For each component you add to your image, a new layer is created. This enables you to edit each component separately.
4. Extra tools: This box contains some of the extra features of GIMP which you can employ during your editing process, such as the background image for your creation.
5. Effects and main features: The main effects and features of GIMP lie in the taskbar of its main screen.

Step 1: Installing GIMP on your PC

Installing GIMP on your PC is very easy. For this you just need to visit this page Download GIMP. After that it will automatically recognize your Operating System and recommend the suitable version of GIMP to download on your System.

On this page select the download directly option and wait for the software to get downloaded on your system.

Step 2: Installing GIMP on your PC

Once the software is downloaded on your PC, you then need to install it. For this, locate where the software got downloaded on your PC, it will be named in a format such as gimp-2.10.22-setup.

Once you find it, double click on it. The file will now ask for some permissions. Allow these permissions to the software and then the installation process should automatically start.

Once the installation is complete click on the finish button.

Step 3: Creating your first design

In this article, we will be discussing the process involved in creating a very simple design. Following is the image which we will create using GIMP, in this article.

So to make this pic using GIMP just follow the below steps-

1. Launch GIMP on your PC

   
   After you have successfully installed the software on your computer, you should find a GIMP shortcut as soon as you click on the windows button or option in the taskbar. If you do not find it there, just type GIMP in the text box provided.
   
   

2. Choose a background for the design

   
   After opening the software on your screen, you need to choose a background for your image to get started. For this click on the File tab located on the top left corner of your screen.
   
   After that you'll see a drop-down menu, from here select the New option. After you select the option, a small window will open on the top-left corner of your screen.
   
   Here you need to select the resolution of the image which you want to create. It is by default 1920 x 1080, which is perfect in most cases but if you want to create an image of any other resolution then you can alter the values over here.
   
   After you are done, click OK. Now you will be provided with a black background for your image which we need to change.
   
   You can use any image as a background but in this article we will use a pattern as a background for our image. You can find the Patterns tab in the top right corner.
   
   
   
   Now drag the above pattern from the patterns tab on to the main editing area.
   
   

3. Adding GIMP logo to your image

   Now select the Brushes tab from the top right corner. After that you will get the logo of GIMP as you scroll down the window.
   
   
   
   Now drag the logo and drop it on to the main editing window. Now place it on the somewhat left side of the screen as you see above.
   
   

4. Adding the text to your image

   To add text to your image, just select the Text Tool from the tool box located at the left of your screen. After selecting the tool draw a rectangular box on the right side of the image and then leave it.
   
   
   
   After that copy this text A complete Photo Editing tutorial in GIMP and paste it in the reactangular box that you have just drawn. Now select the text that you have just pasted and make the text size nearly 144 pixels from the floating control box just above your text.

5. Adding the drop-shadow effect to your text

   
   The colour of our text is white and our background is also of a light colour. This can make our text hard to read, so to avoid such a situation we will use the drop-shadow effect on our text. For this keep the text select you text and clik on the filters tab from the taskbar. From the drop-down menu click on the Light and Shadow and then select Drop Shadow(legacy).
   
   Now a new small window will appear with the specifications of the shadow. Now make the values of Offset X and Y equal 6, and the Blur radius equal to 30.
   
   After making the changes, click on the OK button and the shadow effect will get applied to your text. This will make our text stand out from our image background.
   
   Now all the editng process to our image gets completed here.
   
   

6. Adding the border

   To add the border around your image click on the Filters tab located in the taskbar, on top of your screen. Now head over to the Decor option and select the border option from there.
   
   
   
   After that, a new border window will appear on your screen. Here make the value of Border X and Y size equal 12. Set the Border color to somewhat dark blue and the Delta value on color equal to 25.
   
   Now click on the OK button and the border will get applied to your image.

7. Saving our work as an image

   Simply saving our image in GIMP saves our image in the GIMP format (with the extension .xcf). This format holds all the editing information of the image so that when we open the image again we can edit the image as we were editing it before.
   
   So to use our image we need to convert it some other format such as .jpg or .png. For this click on the File tab from the taskbar and select the Export option from there.
   
   This will open the saving window on your screen. Here select the Select File Type (By Extension) and from the drop-down menu select the .jpg format. After that clkick on the Export button.
   
   Congo! You have successfully created your first image in GIMP software.

Conclusion

GIMP is an amazing software for editing or creating high-quality images. You just need to understand its features correctly to get the most out of them.

This software, if used correctly, can help you to achieve any goal in the photo editing field.

If you face any issue or get stuck at any step, you can always reach out to me through the comment section. I'll be happy to help :)