Sources for GIMP tutorials and challenges This week, you get a week off from lessons. Instead of a formal lesson with homework, I'll tell you about some good sources for GIMP related information, tutorials, and fun. WILBER AND THE WILBER CONSTRUCTION KIT If you've been to any GIMP web sites at all, you've probably wondered about the little animal GIMP uses as a mascot. If you haven't, his face is at the top of the front page at gimp.org. His name is Wilber. You're not supposed to ask what kind of animal he is, or if he has a body, because those are secrets. (I thought I knew the answers to these questions, but it turns out there's some disagreement and I got scolded, so I won't risk saying what I thought the answers were.) Wilber has his own Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilber The Wikipedia page mentions the Wilber Construction Kit, available as docs/Wilber_Construction_Kit.xcf.gz inside the gimp source directory. (If you google for that filename, you can probably find it online somewhere without needing the whole source tree.) The WCK is a wonderful little toy which shows how useful layers are in GIMP: it's full of layers of hats, glasses, expressions and other accessories to use to explore the many facets of Wilber's character. There are a few other Wilber images around, including a large vectorized one you can use if you need to make GIMPish logos ("Created with GIMP" or anything like that) at a larger size than the WCK allows. GROKKING THE GIMP I owe most of my GIMP knowledge to an excellent book called "Grokking the GIMP, by Carey Bunks. The whole book is online at http://gimp-savvy.com/ I visited the gimp-savvy site a couple times when I was just starting out with GIMP, and read specific chapters online for my particular projects. The third time I did that and got my questions successfully answered, I decided I really ought to buy the book. I expected I'd use the paper book the same way, but to my surprise I started reading at the beginning ... and before I knew it I had read the book cover to cover, and had become a complete GIMP addict, making multi-layered images and spending way too much time browsing gimp related web sites. The book is written for GIMP 1.2, so it's somewhat out of date with respect to where specific items are in the menus, and on some features which have been improved, like the text tool. But most of the concepts remain unchanged, and I expect the book would still be very useful for anyone interested in getting further into the GIMP. RTFM There's also quite a bit of documentation on Gimp's website, gimp.org. Just click on "Documentation": there's a whole GIMP manual there, full of useful information which is fairly up to date, plus shorter howtos, lots of developer documentation and other goodies. The GIMP developers work hard to write documentation and keep it up to date, especially compared with most free/open source project: there's a lot of good in-depth information available at gimp.org if you look for it. Don't make the mistake of assuming that since it's free software, it isn't worth looking for docs. TUTORIAL SITES There are some great tutorial collections on creating specific effects in GIMP. Start with the ones on gimp.org: http://gimp.org/tutorials/ There are also some other tutorial collections hanging off gimp.org, like Carol's: http://carol.gimp.org/ and Tigert's: http://www.tigert.com/gimp/tutorials/ (I think there are others, but they seem to move around a bit). There's also the "Gimp User's Group", or GUG: http://gug.sunsite.dk/ There are lots of tutorials here, and also a huge assortment of sample art, if you want inspiration or just want to browse a lot of pretty art. I've found the GUG site to be somewhat inconsistent: if it seems to be down, try again later. There's also a GUG mailing list, but it doesn't get very much traffic. WinGIMP.org also has quite a collection: http://www.wingimp.org/tutorial/ Another good collection of GIMP tutorials: http://empyrean.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/~nem/gimp/tuts/ I have some links to fun individual tutorials I've found (like "Turning a person into an alien") in the Tutorials section of http://shallowsky.com/linux/limaging.html But don't stop just with GIMP tutorials! It turns out that most Photoshop tutorials give you most of what you need to do the same effect in GIMP, so if you're trying for a particular effect, it's worth googling for "photoshop" and "tutorial" if you strike out looking for a GIMP-specific one. I've learned quite a few tricks from reading Photoshop tutorials and then applying the techniques in GIMP. "PHOTOSHOP CONTESTS" What if you feel like GIMPing something, but you don't have any specific ideas, or need inspiration? Or what if you're just bored with all your video games and TV and want a time waster that's a bit more interesting and humorous? Photoshop Contests are for you! Quite a few web sites have formal or informal contests where they announce a theme, and then people create images (usually funny or outrageous) following the theme. Usually you can vote on the winner; sometimes there are even prizes. It's fun to browse and laugh at the images other people have created; it's just as fun to enter (sometimes there are even beginner categories). Sometimes they provide a sample image, and you modify it somehow; other times, it's just a general topic, like "Experimental Aircraft" or "Genetically Modified Animals", and it's up to the entrants to find appropriate images to modify. Don't be put off by the "Photoshop" in the name; it's being used as a generic term for "image manipulation", and it's perfectly kosher to enter an image created with GIMP or any other program. Go check out some of these sites: I guarantee you'll get some laughs, whether or not you're motivated to enter any images yourself. http://www.worth1000.com/ http://www.somethingawful.com/photoshop/ http://photoshopcontest.com/ ART AND PHOTO COLLECTIONS AND TIPS There are also more serious sites for posting (or viewing) digital art, like GUG, http://gug.sunsite.dk/ (which I already mentioned for their tutorials) and http://www.dpchallenge.com/ Another good source of inspiration is the contest the gimp developers had recently for the 2.2 splash screen. Some of the images there are really stunning. http://www.gimp.org/about/splash/contest/ There are also lots of collections of amazing (and funny) digital creations by individual artists. A good one I stumbled upon recently: http://unix.rulez.org/~calver/pictures/uglyzoo/ And of course, there are some great sites if you just want to learn more about photography techniques, or share your photos with others and get feedback on them. I'm partial to http://photo.net/ and http://www.luminous-landscape.com/ YOUR SITES? There are lots more sites besides the ones I mentioned here! Anyone have any favorites to share? NEXT LESSON: REQUESTS? I don't have a topic for a next lesson yet. I'd like to hear from the students in the course! What do you want to hear about? Are the lessons so far enough to keep you busy for a while, and maybe it's time for a break? Or is there anything in particular you'd like to learn how to do? Any techniques you've tried, but they aren't working out as well as you'd like? Any tips you've discovered, or insights you've had, while working on gimp projects, that you could share?