[punksnowboarder]

by Punksnowboarder

Ok class, today we will be learning to create cartoon pictures in GIMP by creating custom palettes for photographs. If you have no idea what a palette is, then this tutorial is not for you.

We will start by taking a photograph:


Apply a Gaussian blur (Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur), anywhere between 2 and 15 pixels (don't lose too much detail)

I used an 8-pixel blur for this picture:


Now we are going to create a custom color palette for this picture.
Open your palette dialog (Ctrl + P), and choose the second button along the bottom, "New Palette".

You will come to another menu that will have a place to name your palette, and some buttons along the bottom, but, other than that, it is pretty much empty.

Take the Eyedropper tool (Push "O" for a keyboard shortcut), and select one color from a major part of your photo, and click "New Color from FG" (4th from the left on the New Palette menu). Example: I chose a red from one of the stripes on the frog to add to the palette.

Continue the above step as many times as needed, until you have taken a color from each part of the picture. Remember:The more colors you have, the more detailed your cartoon will be.

Once you have all of your colors and you have named your palette, save it by pressing the first button along the bottom of the New Palette menu, "Save". The button will seem like it does nothing, because you don't get a save screen, but it automatically saves the palette in the correct file type in the Palettes folder.

Now, if I haven't stumped you yet, get ready...

Go to Image > Mode > Indexed, and you will get a new screen that should look like this:

Use the settings I used above (with your palette, not mine). Don't forget to set Color Dithering to None.

Press OK.

Your picture hopefully looks something like mine. If not, then it is better than mine. I got a little lazy when it came to getting colors from everywhere.


Ok, class, let's see how you did!

Anything I should change on this? Any Questions? Comments? Concerns?

[Big Gimpin9]

How's this?

[punksnowboarder]

That's excellent! Did you get confused on any parts of the tutorial?

[Big Gimpin9]

Nope, it was quite easy to follow.

[LordVader]

Here is my example. I was kind of lazy getting all of the colors too, but nice result. I am a noob to the GIMP and this was extremely easy to follow. This is the only "photo" that I have at work, which is where I do most of the tutorials.

[boudey]

its nice but too be honest, it doesnt really look like a cartoon

[DJ]

That baby one kind of freaks me out, just the eyes though :0.

[CrownedClown]

ya doesn't really look like a cartoon, still its nice, id say more of an inkblot kind of thingy

[ccbarr]

Hmmm, I wonder how this would look applied to say a short video converted to an animated gif. Might be an interesting effect. Something for me to possibly try out. Thanks for sharing this punksnowboarder. :h:

[omgitzkane]

my result

[Lowfire]

that looks pretty coowl kane

[+-HaWk-+]

sweet tut this helps alot!

[omgitzkane]

thanks lowfire
:h:

here's another i did using this tut
i like adding the scan lines to them for some reason

[denegibson]

Quote

i like adding the scan lines to them for some reason

I think it kills them IMO .... other then that you got some nice results

BTW thanks for sharing punksnowboarder, it's an interesting technique I might be able to use.

[kitz-the-kitsune]

Cool effect! Really nice results kane.

My result:

[omgitzkane]

thanks kitz, i like yours too

[Master of oils]

Great tutorial Punk, I have been experimenting with GIMP gap and have been able to combine your tutorial with Vector Your Renders! A Tutorial By Curly. and have come up with great results. Just one thing to add to was that I got better results using the Indexed mode and selecting the Generate optimum palette with just 8 colours (even less colours if you want more cartoonish type results) which seems to produce great cartoon results. This would save those who dont want to spend time on creating a specific palette themselves. Try it with 8 and see what you think. Make sure not to dither.

I want to incorporate this into GAP though and be able to create animations similar to the film "a scanner darkly" but am unable to perform the index function on multiple files. Anyone know how to index multiple files at once so I can do this??.