Introduction to GIMP - Get To Know this Powerful Open-Source Image Editing Program

Do you wish you could afford a high-end image editor? Do you want to be able to touch up photos before you post them online? This free program is your answer.

Need a high-end image editor but don't want to pay big bucks? Try GIMP. It's powerful, easy to use, and best of all, it's free.The letters of the name stand for GNU Image Manipulation Program. GNU itself is an open-source computer operating system. It is also an ambitious project and a deeply felt cause, created by a community of software designers who believe that open-source software is the truest way to realize the original promise of the internet. To learn more about their ongoing creation, and all the GNU programs, you can visit the Wikipedia entry on GNU.  

What Can GIMP Do?

GIMP can do nearly all that Adobe Photoshop can do. You won’t notice the differences between these two programs unless you are a graphics professional, and in that case you likely have access to Photoshop anyway.GIMP can do almost anything you can imagine to a photograph: Its most exciting capabilities for the non-professional user lie in how it can select complex areas of an image and then edit them. You can take a photo of the car you’re trying to sell, and remove the distracting background. You can rescue over- and under-exposed snapshots. You can sharpen small photos before you post them online, and you can choose one single part of a photo and put it against a transparent background. In fact, this program can do so very much that it can be daunting to a novice user. But you can get comfortable with it surprisingly quickly.

Why Isn’t GIMP Famous?

Open-source software, of course, does not have an advertising budget. It relies on word of mouth. The early versions of GIMP were not easy to download or to use, and its devotees had to be way more computer-savvy than the average user. However, GIMP’s creators are continuously simplifying and updating it, and the program is now easily accessible to anyone who is familiar with the basics of how to move files around in their computer.

One Trick for Success with GIMP

Do not be intimidated by the parts you don’t understand. You can gain a working knowledge of a few basic tools and enjoy great success with GIMP, just by using about 5 percent of its capacity.

How Do I Download GIMP?

When you go to the GIMP website, it gives you a couple of downloading options. As mentioned above, do not be put off when you encounter peculiar computer geek-speak such as “tarballs” and “mirrors”. Just follow the link they recommend to the page where you can download a working version of the newest stable release. Click on the word "download" in the lower left corner of the grey blue box at the top of the page, which is entitled "GIMP for Windows, version 2.8.22"

Is This a Safe Download?

Yes, it is entirely free of adware and malware. Gimp is not supported by any type of advertising. It is purely a cooperative effort at engineering software which can be used entirely free. 

After downloading GIMP, what's the first step? 

GIMP is able to search for saved photos on a computer, and open them in its own editing window -- at any zoom level specified. Using GIMP, it's even possible to edit an image at the level of individual pixels.

Opening GIMP

• Click on the GIMP shortcut which is now probably on the computer's desktop. This brings up GIMP's main toolbox. (It takes a minute.) A separate little window containing a random tip on using GIMP will also open up. It's fine to close the tip window without trying to make sense of it.
• The GIMP main toolbox is now sitting by itself on the desktop. On the top line of the toolbox, under the title GIMP, there are three words: File, Xtns, and Help.

Bringing Up an Image to Edit in GIMP

• Click on File, and then on Open, on the dropdown menu.

This will bring up a browsing window, which lists files and folders on the computer. Browsing windows are used by many programs to locate something (in this case, an image), which is already stored on the computer. GIMP makes this process less confusing than many of the online sites, because it lists all the different layers of a computer's storage areas in separate little rectangular bubbles at the top of the browsing window. Clicking on any of these little rectangular bubbles will bring up a list of what's inside it.Highlighting one of the images on the list will bring up a little preview of the image on the right.

• Highlight the photo that will be edited. Beginners will feel more peace of mind if they choose a photo which is not important to them.
• Click Open at the bottom of the browser window.

Now the picture opens on the desktop, and the browser window goes away.

Getting Comfortable with the Image Window

The toolbox and the image windows can be moved around so they don't overlap on each other, and they can also be made larger or smaller just as with any windows. They are moveable by dragging the top margin of them, and they are made bigger or smaller by dragging at the very edge of the window. This action does not affect the actual dimensions of the stored image.At the bottom of the image's window, toward the left-hand side, there is a little white field with a percent in it. This shows the size that GIMP decided was most helpful to show the image. A big photo will often open at 50% of its true size. "Clicking on the arrow next to that percent field on the right enables the user to choose a different percent number from the drop-down box. Clicking on "other" allows any percent figure of zoom to be entered.

Close out an Image without Saving

The image window can be closed without saving any editing changes by clicking the "X" up in the right hand corner. If the image has been changed, accidentally or on purpose, GIMP will inform the user that those changes are not going to be saved. The picture is safely kept the way in its original condition. 

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Project 

http://www.gimp.org/