After installation of The GIMP 2, when you start it for the very first time, you will see something as shown below:



Now, what you have to do first, is make the environment too suitable and comfortable for designing, so that the usual tools and tasks can be accessed quickly and easily. For that you will have to do some initial work once.

Follow the steps:

1. First of all, there is a window showing the 'TIP OF THE DAY', I think when it should appear when you launch the gimp. But if you wish to turn it off, just uncheck the checkbox labeled Show tip next time GIMP stats and close the window.

2. Now, close the window on right of the screen, a new window will appear displaying you some message, you simply click button Close all Tabs.

3. Go through menus
File > Dialogs > Create New Dock > and click Layer, Channels & Paths

A new window will appear, in this new window note the layer tab, in layers tab, in front of label Layers you can see a small button the left arraw, just click it and go through menus Add Tab and you will be shown a list of tool tabs, you only select Brushes, Patterns, Gradients, Tools, Tool Options.

Then click the Undo History Tab and click the button [X] to close it, becuase it is not that necessary at this level.

TIP : You can change the arrangement of tabs simply by dragging their icon over other tab to bring in before the drop target. Now, if a tab has come out of the window and became separate window while dragging, you simply drag it from its inner label and drop it on suitable place, as shown here:



Now, go into Tab Tools, and turn all the tools ON by clicking the (EYE) icon on left of each tool icon + name, so that all tools are available in the main gimp window (which is on left side of screen), see image below, where I turned all tools ON:



Finally,

[*] Go through menus File > Preferences to save the windows' postion. In Preferences window simply click Window Management in the list provided on left side, adn click button Save Window Positions Now.

[*] Then click the Environment from left list, and follow alter enteries of right side fields as shown here, if you have RAM greater or equal to 128 MB, and click button OK in the bottom-right corner of the window:



REMEMBER : If you close the tabbed window on rightside, you will have to repeat the last 3 steps again, to avoid that, always close gimp from its main window shown on left side.

Now after restarting, gimp must look like this (on your desktop, regardless the windows' postions):



YOU ARE DONE UPTO HERE.

Now few more tips on working with usual tools (CORE TIPS) :

[*] To quickly give NAME / Rename the layer, simply double click the laye in Layers tab and enter the desired name.

[*] To emerge two layers quickly, bring the layers just over/below eachother, then click the upper layer, rightclick it and press W.

[*] Mostaly when you emerge all layers, the layers' attributes are discarded and it becomes nromal layer after merge. So better is to delete any flat filled background layer first and then rightclick anywhere in layers tab and press F which will Flatten the Image.


[*] When you have clicked the Brush tool make sure you have selected the appropriate brush form the Brushes tab by clicking the desired brush.

[*] After working with eraser, brush, convolve, area select tool, best is you select the Move layers & selections Tool.

[*] To know what the selected tool does, keep your mouse over it and it will disply you a tooltip text.

[*] If you have opened more than one images, the layers tab will display the layers of only the image window in focus / on top.

[*] To insert quick new layer, rightclick within the layers tab and press N.

[*] To quickly delete a layer, rightclick the desired layer within the layers tab and press D.

[*] To copy a layer to take to other image, simply select it from layers tab and press Ctrl+C, then go to the image where you want to insert it, and press Ctrl+V. New layer will become a Floating Selection, to make it normal layer simply rightclick it and press N from keyboard.

[*] If you have created a path using Path creation and editting tool, and then you switch to other tool the paths will be lost. To prevent this problem, immediately after completing the path, go through menus Slect > Save to Channel, or make it selection using the path through Slect > Select from path which automatically saves the path. Saved paths may be reused by double-clicking them from Paths tab.

[*] Making new brush is too easy in gimp. Select the area from your image which you wish to use as brush, then go through menus within the image window Script-Fu > Selection > To Brush. GIMP will automatically save the selection as a new brush of gimp itself, and select it immediately for use.
The same way, you can make custom fill patterns, by selecting desired area and going through menus Script-Fu > Selection > To Pattern.

that's all for now, read further tutorials for specific type of designing. :w:

Thank you for this Ali! This will be very useful especially to those who are using GIMP for the first time (like me :h:). Very handy tips and great way of explaining it. Can't wait for the other tutorials.

::Cheers!::

Fred

Yuppy that is what i have been looking for :
tashakur ali :l:

thumbs up :m:

thanks for the hard and great work Ali... this is indeed a quick start a beginner wants.... gr8 stuff..

Thank you Ali! :h:

Reg

Many thanks my friend.. great and informative tute!

Aaron

i don't understand the bottom half.....are those just tips?

Welcome to GIMPTalk faze,
yes those are tips.

Thank you... this is a very well documentation for beginners like me....
:h:

I don't know how you guys got that BG image for the gimp when . I am very new to the Gimp and need help I followed the tut but still dont understand where you got the bg image from.

Ronney Ross

wow that helped alot cause when i have the "the gimp" window, my new document ( sig window ), my render window, and the dialog>layers window open it gets lil low on space, now i dont need dialog>layers window or the gimp window up, ( still running though )

long time ago this post is made, still new things for me (never used the window manager before)

ur pro

Thank you for writing and sharing your tutorial. As a new Gimp user, I find there's so much documentation available that it's confusing to know where to start. :h:

Nice helped me alot!!! thx!

Somehow the status bar of my Gimp seems to have stop working. Usually the layer that I'm working on shows. Now nothing shows. I have searched this site and found nothing. I'm sure its here I may have just overlooked it. And help would be greatly appreciated.

I've been needing this! Thanks!

That was VEEERy useful i love this tut now I'm going to work

very nice tut

I like to also have document history open in the dialogue dock

also it helps A LOT (in my opinion) if you move tool options into "The GIMP' window with all the tools on it, so when you click on a tool you can see all the options for it

WOOT WOOT first post on this forum

EDIT: I am no longer a GIMP nub

woah, i have to learn where all the tools are first.

i used to use photofilter but then i discovered gimp, but i don't like the fact that you have to open more than 1 page, its complicated, but its still an awsome program.... and it only takes 5 mins to download!

Wow i thought it was a great tut..im a new user in gimp2:a: sooOoOO it helped me ALOT!!!! :l:

can anyone tell me what type of html i have to use to show my sig? do i use the sharable one or.....?

thanx a lot - this helped me much to sort my gimp ..... I`m new to Gimp (used Photoshop before) so all is strange and new lol - but now its much more better to "handle"

greetZ lama :h:

Oh yea ans thanks Ali for puting all that in one tut....keep up the work :w:

i can't find the move layer or selection tool, what does it look like?

thats good for the noobs here 2 thumbs up :w: