Posted to youtube: This tutorial is VERY helpful. One suggestion: Where you mention ALPHA TO SELECTION it sounds like you are saying some exotic French word like “marchinent.” It took me an hour in Google to find a GIMP glossary which explained that you are actually saying “MARCHING ANTS” … so if you put a little pop-up in the video, then that confusion will be removed. But I watched your FAQ so I know you are overwhelmed with things to do.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GIMPtricks#p/u/18/gVxOdLMfcsU
NOTE: I have one other question. In the middle of the tutorial, you hover over one of the layer icons at the right and IT SUDDENLY ENLARGES. How do you make it enlarge briefly so that it is more readible?
ANSWER: I found my answer to the above question. If I left click on one of the right-most LAYER icons and HOLD down on the mouse button it enlarges.
I have a Twitter account called ReadGreatBooks which I never follow. It is automatically fed by my PLURK posts.
But now I have started following:
GIMPtricks
Miss Tricks | The Netherlands
because she is the author of a wonderful beginners tutorial on GIMP.
I am blogging this to say “Thanks” and also to relate my amusing experience (below.) I will create a tiny url of this blog post and post it in her Twitter: GIMPtricks
GIMP is a free open source image editing program which can do everything that Photoshop (proprietary $800) can do.
Here is her tutorial in Youtube:
Her English is excellent but there was one mystifying phrase which sounded like “marchients.”
Here is what I posted in Facebook:
Cant make out what she is saying.. around 4 minutes 53 seconds into the video..”I am going to be making a SELECTION around the text … clicking ALPHA TO SELECTION” … “its called a MAR-TI-ENS [this M word is what I cannot quite make out].” So if anyone plays this tutorial and can recognize this mysterious word and write it out as a comment, I would be much obliged. I the course of futile searching I did discover that a search on “ALPHA TO SELECTION” yields a number of other GIMP tutorial pages.
I searched and searched in Google, mostly on “ALPHA TO SELECTION” (which by the way yields many other useful tutorials).
I decided to search for GIMP GLOSSARY in hopes of discovering this mystifying term.
Here is the Glossary which unlocked the secret of the “MARCHING ANTS” -
http://www.nd.edu/~hpcc/solaris8_usr_local/src/gnu01/share/gimp/1.2/help/C/glossary.html
Marching Ants -
The name for the dotted line which delineates a selection.
P.S. to Giri Alam on Facebook:
As I remember you are a big Ubuntu (GNU/Linux) fan. In the USA the job ads ask for experience in proprietary software such as Photoshop, Adobe In Design, Illustrator, etc. But as I will never be able to afford the $800 I decided I should just plunge in with the open source GIMP (and Scribus publishing software). It sounds like GIMP remains several releases behind Photoshop, but that just means I am using the Photoshop of several years ago. Switzerland and other countries have standardized on Linux for their school systems. I imagine that countries like India and Indonesia as well as African nations will make the Open Source choice for various practical as well as aesthetic reasons. I have even found links on how to make GIMP look and feel like Photoshop (to WEAN people away!) The fact that Gimp can be automated and customized with 3rd party plugins and Perl scripts seems like a big plus.
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5:22pm GMT-5
I have watched the tutorial about 20 times, and have redone the project 6 times in an effort to really understand and remember what must be done in the exercise.
Here are the cheat notes that I need to jog my memory:
Background
GIMPTRICKS
text border
right click
alpha selection
select
grow (by 2 pixels)
click on text border layer
change foreground color to white
click on BUCKET FILL icon
click on text image GIMPTRICKS
select NONE (to see results)
to add drop shadow
Filters
Light & Shadow
Drop Shadow (untick resizing box)
create a new layer called BORDER
select all
select SHRINK (20 pixels)
delete
I will continue to repeat this exercise until I do not have to look at any notes.
BIG CONCEPTUAL QUESTION:
What is actually happening when I click on the TEXT layer and click ALPHA SELECT (and then click on the text border layer…) I suppose I am PASTING what has been selected into the text border layer, but I am not certain.
