Lesson 3: Introduction to Layers and Text In this lesson, we'll begin working with layers, and in the process, we'll make a simple greeting card. With Valentine's Day coming up, I'll make a Valentine's card as my example, using a photo and some text. Of course you're free to make anything you want -- a friendship card, a flier for a project, or perhaps just a picture with a funny caption to put on the web or post on your wall. I'm posting this lesson a day early in case there's anyone who wants extra time to make a card before Monday. THE LAYERS DIALOG I know layers sound intimidating. I avoided using them for a long time myself. But once I finally took the plunge, I realized they were really a lot simpler than I'd thought -- I wished I'd taken the plunge much earlier! To work with layers, you'll want to make sure the Layers dialog is showing. Once you learn how to work with layers, you'll probably want this dialog visible all the time. GIMP turns it on by default, but in case you closed it at some point, it's easy to get it back: use the Toolbox window, File->Dialogs->Layers. In gimp 1.2, it's called "Layers, Channels, and Paths" but it's still in File->Dialogs. We'll talk about channels and paths in later lessons; for now, you'll only need the leftmost tab in the dialog, "Layers". THE BASE LAYER The first step is to choose the perfect image for your card. I found just the thing in a batch I took at the SF Zoo a few years ago: http://shallowsky.com/images/gimpcourse/lesson3/penguin-orig.jpg If you're going to be printing your image out, use as large an image as possible (a 2 megapixel camera image is plenty for a half-page card, a 1.3 megapixel image is probably fine if the recipient isn't super picky). If it's for the web, you're probably best off using the size you're going to use in the final web image, because text often doesn't look as good when it's resized. Open your image in gimp, and crop/resize as needed. Leave some space for text, though. (I'll post my examples resized for the web, though I'm actually working on a full-sized image since I'll be printing mine.) SET THE TEXT COLOR Before we actually create the text, we need to choose what color it will be. In the toolbox, right under the rows of tools, are two squares (one on top of the other) showing two colors: probably black in front, and white behind it. These are the current foreground and background colors. Change the foreground color by clicking on the foreground color (the black square). Gimp's color picker window will pop up. In-depth use of the color picker is a topic for later, but for now, either use the sliders next to R, G, and B (for Red, Green, and Blue) to choose a color; or drag up and down in the rainbow column to change the hue, then drag up and to the right in the big shaded box to make the color brighter; or (in gimp 2) click on one of the predefined colors. The color you pick will show up under Current, and also back in the toolbox window in place of the black square. I'm picking yellow. MAKE SOME TEXT Select the Text tool: click on the T in the toolbox. Then click somewhere in the image. I click generally near where I want the text to end up, but it's not critical; we'll position the text later. The text dialog pops up. This is very different depending on version. Gimp 2: the dialog itself just has a textarea where you can type in your text. Type your desired text here (multiple lines are okay). All the other options are back in the tool options dialog: this might be visible as a separate dialog, or it might be "docked" in the toolbox window underneath the fg/bg color swatches. If all else fails and you can't find the text options, try, in the Toolbox, File->Dialogs->Tool Options and see if it pops up. Once you've found the Text Options, you can use the menus there to change font face and size, and other details like color and spacing. Happily, gimp shows a live preview in the image window, so you can fiddle with things and see what happens. Gimp 1: The dialog is much bigger and has the font and size pickers right there, as well as the preview. But there's a confusing gotcha: the preview in the dialog shows the font as it will look when the image is at 100%. If the image is zoomed smaller, then once you click OK in the dialog, the font will show up that much smaller. You may find that you have to try it, then Undo, then try it again with a different size, several times before you get it the size you want. In both gimp 2 (during the preview phase) and gimp 1 (after you click ok), the text is surrounded by dotted lines and it's hard to tell exactly what it looks like. Right now, just get it the right size, and click OK or Close. My image with some text added: http://shallowsky.com/images/gimpcourse/lesson3/penguin-text.jpg WORKING WITH LAYERS Look at the Layers dialog. Notice that while there was only one entry there before, now there are two: one for the base image, and one for the text. You're working with layers now! In gimp 1.2, the text layer will be labelled as "Floating Selection". (Gimp 2 users can skip this paragraph.) That means i's a sort of a fake temporary layer. We'll be working with real layers here, so you need to convert it. To do that, go to the button at the bottom left of the Layers dialog, with a "new document" icon (like a piece of paper with one corner folded over) -- if you hover over it, the tooltip says "New Layer". Click this, and the layer's name should change to "Text Layer". Why a layer? Gimp could have just painted your text right on the image. But because it's in a layer of its own, you can move the text around, change it, or delete it, without risking any damage to the original photo below. The first thing we're going to do with the text layer is move it. Go back to the toolbox, and find the Move tool. It's a pair of crossed arrows, one vertical, one horizontal; it's probably right above the T of the text tool, and its tooltip says "Move Layers & Selections". Click it. Now move your mouse back into the image, move the mouse slowly toward the text, and watch the cursor carefully. In most of the image, the cursor should look like a pointing hand, but as you move over the new text, the cursor should change to the crossed arrows of the Move tool. It's good to get in the habit of watching the mouse cursor as you move in the image: a lot of gimp's tools will change the cursor like this to give you clues about what you can do. Once you're over the image, and seeing a Move cursor, hold the left button down and drag the text layer to exactly where you want it in the image. The beauty of layers is that if you change your mind, you will be able to move the layer again at any time. Tip: When you want to move a specific layer, first make sure that layer is selected in the Layers dialog. That way, you can watch the mouse cursor to make sure you're moving the right layer. You *can* click on another layer, and gimp will switch to that layer and start moving it instead, but when you have several layers built up, that can get confusing. If you do move the wrong layer, though, "Undo" works to undo a layer move. At this point you have a fairly nice card! You can add more text, in different colors or fonts. Adding the person's name is a nice touch, so they know you made it for them personally. Make a separate layer for each new piece of text. If you want to go back and move one of the earlier layers, you can click on that layer in the Layers dialog to make it the active layer. SAVE AS XCF If you want GIMP to remember details such as layers, you have to use GIMP's native format: XCF. So, the first time you save, use an image name that ends in .xcf. Now you can read the image back in at any time and not lose any details. XCF is big. You don't want to put an XCF on the web, unless you're collaborating with another gimp user. Web browsers can't view it anyway. But it's the only format to use when you're working on an image with lots of edits. When you have your image finished, if you want to put it on the web or mail it to someone, you'll want to make a copy in some more common format, such as .jpg. In gimp 2, you can "Save a Copy" (in the file menu) to filename.jpg. But gimp 1 doesn't have "Save a Copy", so you have to use "Save as" to filename.jpg, which changes the image's current name, so if you make more changes and want to save to xcf again after that, you have to use "Save As" again. Finally: when you save to another format, like jpg, gimp will warn you that jpg can't handle layers, can't handle transparency, etc. Just click Export and let gimp handle the conversion. LAYER VISIBILITY Notice, in the Layers dialog, how each layer has an eyeball icon to the left of it? This controls visibility of the layer. Click on the eye, and the layer becomes invisible. Click again where the eye used to be, and it becomes visible again. When you save to a format other than XCF, gimp will save the image as it looks to you. So if you have a layer that's invisible, that layer won't show up when you save a jpg or png. You can use this to make a card with several alternate sets of text. For example, you could make one text layer that says "To Fred", and another text layer that says "To Joe", and use the eyeballs to turn on only one at a time, and save to fred.jpg and joe.jpg. Just hope Fred and Joe never get together to show each other the cool Valentine's cards they got from you! :-) DROP SHADOW One final note. In my penguin card, http://shallowsky.com/images/gimpcourse/lesson3/penguin-text.jpg the area around the text is very busy, which makes it hard to read the text. An easy trick to make the text look prettier, and make it easier to read against a mixed background, is to use a "drop shadow". In a later lesson we'll see how drop shadows are made, but you don't need to know that now. In the Image window, Script-Fu->Shadow->Drop Shadow will make a dandy one for you as long as you have the text layer selected. Notice that when you make the drop shadow, it shows up as a separate layer. So you can toggle it on and off with the eyeball icon, and compare the effects. You can even make several different drop shadows, changing the parameters in the Drop Shadow dialog, and toggle them on and off to see which one you like best. You can also move the drop shadow layer separately from the text layer, to move the shadow closer to or farther from the text. Here's my card with a drop shadow added: http://shallowsky.com/images/gimpcourse/lesson3/penguin-val.jpg and the XCF of it is http://shallowsky.com/images/gimpcourse/lesson3/penguin-val.xcf HOMEWORK: Show off your card, cartoon, or whatever you made. Next lesson: I'll post a mini-lesson on printing in a day or two, in case you want to make a physical card, including suggestions for people who don't have their own color printer.