GIMP 2.10.20

  Hello and in today's tutorial I'll be going over GIMP in 10 minutes what beginners want to know. if you're looking for a more in-depth look at GIMP I recommend watching my two hour GIMP 2.10 basics video which is on our channel, and of course I'll link that in the description, but let's get started. So GIMP, which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a powerful raster based open-source software that is developed by a small community of developers. This software, which is primarily used for photo editing, but is also used for graphic design, is available completely for free at gimp.org. Despite having a relatively small team of part-time developers behind it, GIMP is actually a very powerful program and it rivals and is most similar to Photoshop - which is another raster based progra. The main difference, of course, between GIMP and Photoshop is that Photoshop can cost between $10 and $60 dollars a month ifyou have the subscription program, whereas GIMP of course is absolutely free.

         So GIMP rivaling Photoshop has become even more true over the past yearbecause it recently updated GIMP with its first major update in over six yearsand that was GIMP version 2.10. At the time of this tutorial GIMP 2.10.6 isthe most up-to-date version of GIMP and the GIMP team says that GIMP 3.0, whichmay completely change the game and possibly break the Internet, is supposedto come out either later this year or in early 2019. So let's get a little bitinto how to use GIMP, and, as I mentioned earlier in this tutorial, I do have afull two-hour length video that shows a little bit more in-depth look at theGIMP basics. But of course before we get into all that I want to direct you guysover to my website at DaviesMediaDesign.com as always we have tons ofGIMP video and text tutorials on here as well as Project Translate. You can watchone of our GIMP playlists, support us on Patreon, or view our Poll of the Weekresults - so definitely check those items out. You can enroll in our GIMP PhotoEditing Course: From Beginner to Pro Photo Retoucher on Udemy, and you cansupport our channel and help us grow by becoming a Patron on Patreon - and you'llget some really awesome rewards in return. I'll include a link to this aswell as all the relevant links from this tutorial in the description of the video.

        Once you've installed GIMP on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer, open it upand go to File>New to create a new composition. Here you can set your newimage dimensions or expand your options to set things like the resolution,precision, or background color of your image. Click OK to create the new image.The GIMP layout looks complex at first but can be understood as five mainsections. The "Toolbox" contains all your tools, the "Tool Options" contains thesettings for the tool you have selected, the "Canvas" will display your image orcomposition, the "Layers, Channels, Paths, Undo" panel will display the itemsmentioned in its name - displaying the layers panel first by default - and the"Brushes, Patterns, and Gradient" panel will display those items mentioned in itsname. Starting with the Toolbox - GIMP's tools are broken up into four maingroups - Selection Tools, Paint Tools, Transform Tools, and Other Tools.Selection Tools allow you to select an area of your image using various methods,and you can then make edits to those isolated items that are in the selectionarea you specified. Paint Tools allow you to freely draw or paint on your image orcomposition, and you can use colors, patterns, or transparency to paint orerase with these tools. Transform Tools allow you to transforman active layer, selection area, or path - for example you can scale something upor down, or change its perspective, among other transformations.

         The Other Toolsallow you to perform various functions such as zooming in and out of your image,selecting your foreground and background colors, drawing curves, and adding text.Above the five main areas of GIMP is your main menu. This menu allows you toaccess everything within GIMP. However, if you want to look for something a littlebit more quickly, simply hit the forward slash ("/")  key on your keyboard to bring upthe search feature and type what you're looking for. You can then click on the item to jumpto it if it's a file or use it on your composition - for example, if it's aneffect. Going back to our main menu, I'll highlight the two most important menuitems, in my opinion. These are the "Colors" menu and the "Filters" menu. The Colorsmenu allows you to access important image adjustment tools. These tools aregreat for photo editing and include common image adjustment tools such ascolor balance, hue/saturation, shadows- highlights, brightness-contrast, levels,and curves - to name just a few. I use these image adjustment tools oftenthroughout my tutorials and in my GIMP Photo Editing Course. Unfortunately,unlike Photoshop, GIMP currently does not contain adjustment layers, which meansyour image adjustments are typically made directly on your image layer.However, the GIMP team says they have made steps towards making this featureavailable in the near future. 

        Lower in the Colors menu are some autoadjustments and adjustment filters that aim to speed up your photo editing -though I do not typically recommend using these except in specific cases. Thefilters menu contains many important filters that you can use throughout yourcompositions. Some of them will apply to the entire image, while others will onlyapply to a selected layer or are overlaid on top of your compositions asa separate layer. The most popular filters in my experience include Blur>Gaussian Blur; Enhance >Sharpen (Unsharp Mask), Light and Shadow - and there's a fewpopular filters in here - including, Drop Shadow, Long Shadow, and Vignette; Map>Little Planet; and Animation>Playback when working withanimated GIFs. So these are just a few of many useful filters found in thisprogram. Heading back to the layers panel, note that everything you do in GIMP willbe on a layer. When creating a new composition. like we did earlier, you'regoing to start with a background layer. You could then add or remove layers asyou work with layers containing things like text, transparency, graphics, orimages. You can also change the modes of layers, which allow the layers to blendand interact with other layers in the Layers panel. I have an entire tutorial dedicated tolayers, which I recommend you watch to learn more about the layers concept. Youcan open new images into GIMP by going to File>Open, which will open images intotheir own new composition. Simply navigate to the folder where your fileis located and click on the file to select that file. Click the Open buttonto open the file into GIMP. You can also go to File>Open as Layersto open your file into your current composition as a layer. You can also go to File>Open Recent toopen an image file you recently opened into GIMP.You can save your work at any time by going to File>Save or File>Save As usingthe native .XCF file format in GIMP. I'll rename my file, then select the location where I want tosave it. Saving your file as a .XCF willpreserve the layers in your composition, allowing you to come back and work onyour project at a later time.

         You can also export files to other common fileformats by going to File>Export As. Here, you can click the Select File Type (byextension) drop down and choose from file types such as GIF, JPEG,PSD or PDF. I'll select JPEG as my file type since this is the most common filetype to export images to. You'll see the file extension after the name of my filewill automatically update to ".jpg" once I click this. I'll then click "Export"to export my file, select the quality of my JPEG, and will click "Export" again. I'lldelete my active layer that contains the image we opened as a layer into thecomposition by clicking the "Delete this Layer icon. So that's it for thistutorial - hopefully you guys liked it. If you did, please subscribe to our YouTubechannel at YouTube.com/DaviesMediaDesign On there you can check outour to our GIMP 2.10 Basics video. You can also visit our website at DaviesMediaDesign.com. You can enroll in our GIMP Photo Editing Course: From Beginnerto Pro Photo Retoucher on Udemy, and you can support our channel and help us growby becoming a Patron on Patreon - and I'll include a link to those items as well asall the relevant links from this tutorial in the description of the video.So thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time!!!