GIMP Toolbox is a collection of icons that represent different tools. Left-click on any icon to activate or use a keyboard shortcut. Get familiar with each icon in the GIMP toolbox and unlock the magic of these settings. Using the ‘Selection Tools’, select an area from the active layer of images you wish to work on without affecting the unselected areas. When areas have been selected, the selection takes place with the current layer. With Layers, the image is broken in separate parts stacked one on another. Each tool has options and features. The dialogue ‘Transform Toolbox’ helps to modify the presentation of the image, its elements, selection, layer, or path. The ‘Brush Tools’ contains tools for painting including copying, erasing, smudging, lightening, or darkening options. ‘Miscellaneous’ includes tools not found in any of the above types. They are Paths, Zoom, Color Picker, Text, Measure, Levels, & Curves.
Go through the basics by clicking on GIMP Introduction.
GIMP Toolbox 2.8
The icons in the GIMP Toolbox 2.8 comprises of four types of tools. They are the Selection Tools, Transform Tools, Brush Tools, and Others.
Selection Tools
From left to right the icons in the seven ‘Selection Tools’ [with Mac keyboard shortcuts] fig1 represent Rectangle [R], Ellipse [E], Free (Lasso) [F], Fuzzy (Magic Wand) [U], Selection By Color [⇧+O], Scissors [I], and Foreground.
Transform Tools
From left to right the nine icons in ‘Transform Tools’ [with Mac keyboard shortcuts] fig2 represent Move [M], Align [Q], Crop [⇧+C], Rotate [⇧+R], Scale [⇧+T], Shear [⇧+S], Perspective [⇧+P], Flip [⇧+F], and Cage.
Brush Tools
From left to right the thirteen icons in ‘Brush Tools’ [with Mac keyboard shortcuts] fig3 represent Bucket Fill [⇧+B], Blend (Gradient) [L], Pencil [N], Paintbrush [P], Eraser[⇧+E], Airbrush [A], Ink [K], Clone [C], Heal [H], Perspective Clone, Convolve (Blur/ Sharpen) [⇧+U], Smudge [S], and Dodge/ Burn [⇧+D].
Miscellaneous Tools
The ‘Miscellaneous Tools’ [with Mac keyboard shortcuts] as shown in fig4 are Path [B], Color Picker [O], Magnify (Zoom), Text [T], Measure [⇧+M], Levels, and Curves.
Mac Symbols
( ^ ) Caret [control key].
( ⇧ ) Single arrow up [shift key].
( ⇪ ) Arrow up with the line under it [caps lock key].
( ⌘ ) Command key [symbol is displayed on the keyboard].
The keyboard shortcut can be found to the right for different operations from the dropdown in the GIMP menu bar as shown in fig5.
Using some tools from GIMP Toolbox 2.8
Open image in GIMP fig6. Next, select your ‘Scissor Tool‘ fig4. The Scissors Selection Tool can automatically draw a selection by looking for the boundary of elements within an image that is supported by marker points that the operator places.
GIMP Toolbox – Magnify
Resize the image with the Magnify (Zoom) Tool or choose from dropdown fig6 to 100% or more. The ‘Zoom Tool‘ fig7 provides options to zoom in and out of the working image.
GIMP Toolbox – Scissor Select
Find the three options fig4 in the Scissors tool displayed below the Toolbox – Tool Options. They are Antialiasing, Feather edges, and Interactive boundary.
With Antialiasing smooth the edges of your images. While the Feather edges blur the edges to give a softer edge. The Interactive boundary will display the path line when the control node (point) is moved. In this case, we will keep the Interactive boundary option checked.
Click the first point on the outline to start. Next, click and hold the second point to see if the selection is proper on the image. If not you may have to pick another point in between. If the second selection is fine then you can proceed with other control points fig8 in this manner.
The line between points (marching ants) is the path of the selection. The more points you add the greater the accuracy of the scissor tool. Continue making points until you have reached the point where you started. Click on the first node (point) and close the selection. This indicates that the selection can be linked together. If you hover over it you will see the cursor change from + sign to two circles. Move the control point, up, down, or sideways, to improve your selection. Click in the center of the image to find a circular icon that changes the path to a selection fig9.
Choose to Edit/Cut (Command+X) to cut the Image Selection fig10.
Photo of the bridge fig11 in which the cut image has to be pasted.
Scale & Move Tool
Paste (Command+V) your cut out image onto the bridge photo. Use the ‘Scale Tool‘ to scale the image by dragging the selection area to a new size. The Scale box fig12 has a width and height tab where you can change values by scrolling the pointers either up or down.
Alternatively, you can drag the side boxes in the selected image but the image can have a flat affect in the horizontal or vertical direction. To sort out this issue hit the reset tab which takes the image back to its original state. Next, click the chain link next to the pointer arrows to fix it. Note the image has been dragged and stays in proportion to the width and height. Drag the circle in the center to move the image. When satisfied with the size of the image, click the scale tab.
Alternatively, you can use the ‘Move Tool‘ fig13. Drag your rescaled image to the location of your choice inside the photo of the bridge fig14.
The Scissors tool allows you to cut and paste a selection from the image. Using the Scale tool the cutout selection image is scaled to a new size. The Move tool then helps to drag this cutout scaled selection image to the new location of your choice inside another image fig14.
Color Tools
The color tools fig15 allow the manipulation of image colors in many ways:
Color Balance: Modify the color balance
Hue Saturation: Adjust hue, saturation and lightness levels
Colorize: Render into a greyscale image
Brightness-Contrast: Adjust brightness and contrast levels
Threshold: Transform into a black and white image depending on a pixel value
Levels: Change the intensity range in a channel
Curves: Advanced change of color, brightness, contrast or transparency.
Foreground & Background Color
To add a foreground [background] color to an image click on the foreground [background] color in the color area fig4. to open the color palette box.
Choose any color from the color picker. Click any color from the color selector which has fills of reds fade to black and white. To change this fill of reds fade to black and white in the color selector, click the color strip to the right eg: green.
The Color selector now automatically changes to fills of green fade to black and white fig18. The tabs atop the large square represent different modes of color selection used for changing colors. The printer icon – CMYK, the triangle – color selection by hue, the brush icon – watercolor selection. The new color (green) selected will appear in the foreground color inside the toolbox. After you have the selected color (green) for applying it to your image, activate the ‘Paint Bucket Tool‘. Click on the area of your image where you want to apply this selected (green) color.
To set your foreground to an existing color eg: brown on your image, activate the ‘Colorpicker Tool‘. Click the required color on your image eg: brown. The foreground color as shown fig19 then changes to the brown color. Use the ‘Paint Bucket Tool’ to apply this brown color on the existing layer of the green on the image.
GIMP Toolbox: Patterns
Open the Image-Sketch of eggPlant in GIMP to add Pattern effects.
Select the region outside the sketch of the eggPlant where you want the pattern to display.
Click on the ‘Bucket Fill Tool‘ and from the below options click on Pattern Fill. The ‘Bucket Fill Tool‘ is used for fill regions, – FG color fill, BG color fill & Pattern fill. Click the Pattern icon and from the dropdown, pick any one of the patterns eg: Pine to apply to the image.
Add custom patterns to GIMP
Add custom pattern files you want to add to GIMP by going to Preference ->Folders -> Patterns fig 22 & 23.
Find the pattern search path for the system pat files and your personal files. In the personal folder path fig23, the custom patterns you created for GIMP is to be placed.