1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
|
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>3. Basic Gimp Usage</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="gimp-help-plain.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="gimp-help-screen.css" type="text/css" />
<meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.66.1" />
<link rel="start" href="index.html" title=" " />
<link rel="up" href="ch02.html" title="Chapter 2. Using Gimp" />
<link rel="prev" href="ch02s02.html" title="2. Running Gimp" />
<link rel="next" href="ch02s03s02.html" title="3.2. The Main Toolbox" />
</head>
<body>
<div xmlns="" class="navheader">
<table width="100%" summary="Navigation header">
<tr>
<th colspan="3" align="center" id="chaptername">3. Basic Gimp Usage</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch02s02.html">Prev</a> </td>
<th width="60%" align="center" id="sectionname">3. Basic Gimp Usage</th>
<td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch02s03s02.html">Next</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr />
</div>
<div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<div class="titlepage">
<div>
<div>
<h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="gimp-using-basic"></a>3. Basic Gimp Usage</h2>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<div class="titlepage">
<div>
<div>
<h3 class="title"><a id="id3305623"></a>3.1. Introduction</h3>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mediaobjectco">
<table border="0" summary="manufactured viewport for HTML img" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="703">
<tr>
<td>
<img src="../images/using/standard-setup.png" width="703" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>
The screenshot above shows the most basic arrangement of Gimp
windows that can be used effectively. Three windows
are shown:
</p>
<div class="calloutlist">
<table border="0" summary="Callout list">
<tr>
<td width="5%" valign="top" align="left">
<img src="../images/callouts/1.png" alt="1" border="0" />
</td>
<td valign="top" align="left">
<p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>The Main Toolbox:</em></span>
This is the heart of the Gimp. It contains the highest
level menu, plus a set of icon buttons that can be used to
select tool, and more.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="5%" valign="top" align="left">
<img src="../images/callouts/2.png" alt="2" border="0" />
</td>
<td valign="top" align="left">
<p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>Tool options:</em></span>
Docked below the main Toolbox is a Tool Options dialog,
showing options for the currently selected tool (in this
case, the Rectangle Select tool).
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="5%" valign="top" align="left">
<img src="../images/callouts/3.png" alt="3" border="0" />
</td>
<td valign="top" align="left">
<p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>An image window:</em></span>
Each image open in Gimp is displayed in a separate window.
Many images can be open at the same time: the limit is set
only by the amount of system resources. It is possible to
run Gimp without having any images open, but there are not
very many useful things to do then.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="5%" valign="top" align="left">
<img src="../images/callouts/4.png" alt="4" border="0" />
</td>
<td valign="top" align="left">
<p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>Layers Dialog:</em></span>
This dialog window shows the layer structure of the
currently active image, and allows it to be manipulated
in a variety of ways. It is possible to do a few very
basic things without using the Layers dialog, but even
moderately sophisticated Gimp users find it
indispensible to have the Layers dialog available at all
times.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="5%" valign="top" align="left">
<img src="../images/callouts/5.png" alt="5" border="0" />
</td>
<td valign="top" align="left">
<p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>Brushs/Patterns/Gradients:</em></span>
The docked dialog below the layer dialog shows the dialogs
for managing brushes, patterns and gradients.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>
This is a minimal setup. There are over a dozen other types of
dialogs used by Gimp for various purposes, but users typically
create them when they are needed and close them when they are
not. Knowledgeable users generally keep the Toolbox (with Tool
Options) and Layers dialog around at all times. The Toolbox is
essential to many Gimp operations; in fact, if you close it,
Gimp will exit. (You are asked to confirm that you want to do
this, though.) The Tool Options are actually a separate dialog,
shown docked to the Main Toolbox in the screenshot.
Knowledgeable users almost always have them set up this way: it
is very difficult to use tools effectively without being able to
see how their options are set. The Layers dialog comes into
play whenever you work with an image that has multiple layers:
once you advance beyond the very most basic stages of Gimp
expertise, this means <span class="emphasis"><em>almost always</em></span>. And
finally, of course, the necessity of having images displayed in
order to work with them is perhaps obvious.
</p>
<div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;">
<table border="0" summary="Note">
<tr>
<td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25">
<img alt="[Note]" src="../images/note.png" />
</td>
<th align="left">Note</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" align="left" valign="top">
<p>
If your Gimp layout gets trashed, fortunately the arrangement
shown in the screenshot is pretty easy to recover. In the
<span class="guimenu">File</span> menu from the Main Toolbox, selecting
<span class="guimenu">File</span>-><span class="guisubmenu">Dialogs</span>-><span class="guisubmenu">Create New Dock</span>-><span class="guimenuitem">Layers, Channels, and Paths</span>
will give you a Layers dialog just like the one shown. In the
same menu, selecting
<span class="guimenu">File</span>-><span class="guisubmenu">Dialogs</span>-><span class="guimenuitem">Tool Options</span>
gives you a new Tool Options dialog, which you can then dock
below the Main Toolbox. (The section on <a href="ch02s03s04.html" title="3.4. Dialogs and Docking">Dialogs and Docking</a> explains how to
dock dialogs.) There is no need to be able to create a new Main
Toolbox, because you cannot get rid of the one you have without
causing Gimp to exit.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>
Unlike some other programs, Gimp does not give you the options
of putting everything—controls and image displays—all into a
single comprehensive window. The Gimp developers have always
felt that this is a poor way of working, because it forces the
program to perform a wide range of functions that are much
better done by a dedicated window manager. Not only would this
waste a lot of programmer time, it is almost impossible to do in
a way that works correctly across all of the operating systems
Gimp is intended to run on.
</p>
<p>
Earlier versions of the Gimp (up to Gimp 1.2.5) were very
profligate with dialogs: advanced users often had half a dozen
or more dialogs open at once, scattered all over the screen and
very difficult to keep track of. Gimp 2.0 is much better in
this respect, because it allows dialogs to be docked together in
a flexible way. (The Layers dialog in the screenshot actually
contains four dialogs, represented by tabs: Layers, Channels,
Paths, and Undo.) The system takes a little while to learn, but
once you learn it, we hope that you will like it.
</p>
<p>
The following sections will walk you through the components of
each of the windows shown in the screenshot, explaining what
they are and how they work. Once you have read them, plus the
section describing the basic structure of Gimp images, you
should have learned enough to use Gimp for a wide variety of
basic image manipulations. You can then look through the rest
of the manual at your leisure (or just experiment) to learn the
almost limitless number of more subtle and specialized things
that are possible. Have fun!
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="navfooter">
<hr />
<table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer">
<tr>
<td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch02s02.html">Prev</a> </td>
<td width="20%" align="center">
<a accesskey="u" href="ch02.html">Up</a>
</td>
<td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch02s03s02.html">Next</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">2. Running Gimp </td>
<td width="20%" align="center">
<a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a>
</td>
<td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 3.2. The Main Toolbox</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>
|
