I did this a while ago (beginning of May) for another site and thought i should post it here - to see what you all think. This is my first ever tutorial/guide and is mainly for newcomers to the world of GIMP. It isn't really a tutorial but it does cover many aspects of GIMP. This is for people who want to make signatures (or sigs) but can be adapted to other things.
When you first open GIMP you will see the toolbox. Go to file>new and select the size for your canvas. For a sig you want it between 300 - 400 pixels (witdth) and 100 - 150 pixels for the height. This is too avoid too much empty space. Then go to dialogues>Create new dock>Layers,Channels and Paths. This is a very helpful dialog box and should be open everytime you are making things in GIMP.
Background
The most important part of sigs are the background. But they can be quite difficult to get right. For a successful background you need to choose the right type of brushes to compliment the render. To get these right you ned to know what type of sig you want to make. There are many different types ranging from tech to grunge, abstract and vector plus many others.
Once you decideed what style you are going for you need to get some brushes. The best site is
Deviant Art and search for GIMP brushes. But if you are too lazy to do that then here is a big list of them.
GIMP Talk Brushes
When you found a set you like you download them too yor desktop. Then extract them too the brushes folder. Mine is found
C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\brushes
but depending on where you downloaded GIMP to it could be different.
Next thing to do is press shift+ctrl+B and this brings up the brushes dialog. If you had GIMP open when put the brushes into the folder then you need to press refresh on the brushes dialog.
Now you need to start brushing on your canvas. Only brush in black and white. Make sure yo udo a mixture of both. Make sure you don't go over the top when brushing as it can look messy.
Here is what i got - make sure you use different brushes or even different sets. You can brush random when you are a begginner but when you get better you can do it much better and organsied.
When you have done this you now go to Layer>Colours>Colour Balance. Now alter the three slides to something of your liking and press ok. Do this for another two or three layers.
To get a new layer go to Layer>New Layer and press ok.
Also, to add depth to each layer, go to Layer>Colours>Curves. Move the line up for lighter colours and down for darker colours. Just play around and you will find something good. Also if you make your bottom layetr darker and as you go up to the top layer make them slightly lighter. This aids depth a lot.
Layers
Layers in GIMP are very helpful. If you press ctrl+L the layers dialog box will open. It should look like this (if the layers panel doesn't appear go to Dialogues>Layers)
The labelled areas are what you need to get used to as well as the mode. Just play around the mode fo each layer along with opacity. This will give you depth and for you to see all the layers. The mode you will be working with the most is Overlay and Normal.
You might need to merge some layers - to do this put the layer you want to merge above the second layer and click on the top and select merge down.
Blurs
To give your sig movement you could add a blur to the render. Also by adding a blur you aid in blending.
Motion Blur - for this go to Filters>Blur>Motion Blur. I use motion blur mainly for the background. I do some simple brushing in black, do the motion blur with the settings 256 length and 0 degrees and 180 degrees. Then i do the same for a white brushed layer. Then i merge them and add a colouur balance. Then I build up more layers but with brushing in black, then in white and do colour balance on both of them.
Also add a motion blur to your render. This gives it movement and helps blending. For this select you render layer, go to Filters>Blur>Motion Blur and choose either 0 or 180 degrees and have between 50 and 150 on length. But beofre you do this duplicate the layer so you still can see your render but you could lower the opacity to give some blending.
Without motion blur
With motion blur
Another important blur is Gaussian Blur. This helps in blending your render too. Go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur
Make sure the link isn't broken so both settings work together (just saves time). The best setting for blending would be between 30 and 50. Make sure you duplicate the render layer again and put it above your blurred layer.
So without blur
With Gaussian Blur
Lighting
An important aspect of sigs is lighting. Every sig needs to have a source of lighting to make it look decent. Without a source the sig looks flat and plain. A good way to do this is first duplicate your render layer. And on one of them go to Filters>Light Effects>Lighting Effects. On the Options part of the dialog move the small blue dot around until you get a good place with light. Make sure this lighted layer goes above your normal render layer but put the layer mode to Overlay.
Without light
With light
Another good way to put lighting onto a sig is gradient. The symbol is the one circled
Just play around with this until you understadn how it works because it is quite difficult to explain. Pull it from left to right so the black is at the left and it gets lighter to the right. And vice versa. Make sure the transition part (the bit in middle of black and white) is over the render. If the light is coming from the right make sure the black is on the left and if the light is coming from the left make sure the black is on the right.
So here is mine without gradient
With gradient
For best results use both lighting effects and gradient
With both
So you have read about how to add lighting to your sigs. Now i will show you how to add a FlareFX and a GFlare.
FlareFX - adds a nice little red light. Although this isn't too important, in some sigs it can make a nice finishing touch or you can do this as well as the other lighting effects. Go to Filters>Light Effects>FlareFX
GFlare - This gives a nice effect if ou are making landscapes and other scnes oin GIMP. It allows you to add a source of light which looks like a sun, or a planet, or different coloured stars. To get it go to Filters>Light Effects>GFlare. I have used it for a various things and here is an example of one.
With some brushes of clouds i made a few layers, a light blue background and put a sun from GFlare in between the cloud layers.
Renders
Renders are images that go on sigs. They are usually characters or objects. These are the main focus of sigs and the colours of other things like the background, text etc should match the colours of the render you have chosen.
Some good render sites:
http://www.gamerenders.com/
http://render-world.com/
http://www.clantemplates.com/renders/gallery/
When you have chosen a render you need to open it in GIMP. To add the render to your sig make sure you make a new layer on your sig and select that layer. Then go to your render and press ctrl+A, ctrl+C and then go to your new layer on your sig and press ctrl+V. If your render was saved in the .png format then most likely it won't have a background to it - maybe just a signature of the person who cut it out. If it does have a background then you will need to get rid of it. For this skip down to the colour regions section.
Borders
Borders give your sigs a nice finish to them. Without them it doesn't look completed and so it won't look as good as it could be.
The easiest way to get a border on GIMP is to go to Script Fu>Decor>Add Border. In the dialog box that opens make sure the size is 1 or 2 pixels and the colour compliments the rest of the sig. Although it is the easiest way to add a border it isn't the best. Just like photoshop you can stroke a layer with a new border. By adding a stroke you can add move your render layer above it so it is in front of the border but since everything else is behind it then it gives a better finish and more depth. To stroke, make a new layer and have it selected and click ctrl+A and then go to Edit>Stroke Selection. Now change the colour and thickness of the brush tool to 1 pixel and the required colour. Now click on "Stroke with a paint tool" and choose Paintbrush.
Paths
I aren't even good at paths so this ection will pretty straight forward and simple. First select the Path tool (the one circled)
and click on your canvas to put down the first point. Now clkc again somewhere else to make a second point and this in turn makes a line. Now you have a few options: you can curve the line, make another point or stroke the line. I am going to make a few more points to make a shape.
Here is what i made:
Now I am going to curve bits of it to make it look a bit more appealing. To do this click on one of the lines and just drag it to anywhere you like - until you get a curve you are happy with. Do this for your other lines until you get something which looks decent.
I ended up with this:
Now i am going to stroke the line. This means either making it thicker or a different colour. You need to do this to every path you make so it becomes a layer on its own so you can edit it (eg. change the opacity). First select your path, and like with border you need to have the colour and thickens of what you want as a brush. Now select "Stroke Path" and in the dialog click "Stroke with a paint tool" and select paintbrush. I ended up with this:
To get trid of the annoying line, go to Dialogs>Create New Dock>Layers,Channels and Paths. It should look like this:
Select paths (third from left) and click on the eye (the one circled).
I ended up with this:
Now to this, you can add all sorts of things - like a motion blur -
(this is 71 length and 45 degrees [angle])
And with just playing around (meaning I inverted colours, added a render, duplicated some layers and deleted part of it) I came up with this -
The paths tool adds flow and can give nice little finishing touches to it.
Colour Regions/Zoom
Well if you got a render but there is an annoying background to it then all you have to do is select colour regions (circled), select the colour (usually white or black) and just erase it.
However, because the world is so annoying, there is usually some remainder colour left right next to the render so this has to be gotten rid of. To do this you will need to zoom in. The one cicled - put it at 400% and just go around your render with the erase tool. It shouldn't take long if your sig isn't too big. Also you may need to zoom out to 1005 now and then to see if you missed anything.
Sharpening
Sharpening an image or a background makes it clearer to what it is and shows up the detail. But you have to be careful to not to over sharpen it. To sharpen a image, select the layer and go to Filters>Enhance>Sharpen.
Put the slider too about 50 but if this seems a bit too sharpened then change it. If you seem to have oversharpened it then uno or you could just blur it - Filters>Blur>Blur then try sand sharpen it again.
Too blury:
Too sharpened:
About right:
Links
Here are a few links that will prove helpful:
[Game Renders
Brushes at GIMP Talk
GIMP Download
(Note: you need to download GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment first and then GIMP)
Well if you read it then thankyou, if this as helped you then great - that is why i made it and please can you leave comments on how to improve it and anything you want adding. Remember this doesn't include everything. Things like smudging and many of the other wonderful filters there is. The best thing to do is just get an image and just use filters on it to see what each does.
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