Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
2
introduction to gimP
In this chapter, we'll take a look at the basics of
using GIMP: what GIMP is, where to get it, and
how to navigate its user interface. Then, I'll cover
the basics of actually using GIMP to create and
edit images, as well as how to use GIMP's array of
brushes and filters, so that we'll be ready to move on
to more advanced GIMP features in later chapters.
for painting; manipulating colors; and working with
selections, layers, paths, and channels. It also offers
a wide variety of filters and plug-ins and supports
numerous image formats.
GIMP is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Official builds for Linux and Mac OS X can be
found at
http://www.gimp.org/
. You'll find Windows
builds at
http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/
and unoffi-
cial Mac OS X builds (with some useful extra plug-
ins and filters) at
http://gimp.lisanet.de/
.
About GIMP
GIMP is a powerful, free, open source image-editing
package, with a wealth of tools for manipulating and
painting graphics. GIMP first appeared in 1996 as
the project of Spencer Kimball and Peter Matthis,
students at the University of California, Berkeley.
Originally, the acronym GIMP stood for
General
Image Manipulation Program
. Later, this was redefined
to stand for
GNU Image Manipulation Program
when,
in 1997, GIMP became part of the GNU Project.
Since then, GIMP has undergone significant (if
sporadic) development, and its current feature set
is comparable to that of commercial image-editing
packages, like Adobe Photoshop. GIMP has tools
why GIMP?
You might be wondering why I've chosen to cover
GIMP in a topic that is primarily about creating 3D
art with Blender. The reason is that while Blender
is a powerful 3D graphics application, we'll need to
do some 2D image editing throughout the topic.
For example, we'll need to prepare reference
images, create textures for models and alphas for
sculpting brushes, and add some final tweaks to
our final renders. Though Blender does have 2D
painting tools within the UV Image editor, we
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