Introduction to GIMP - Blender Master Class: A Hands-on Guide to Modeling, Sculpting, Materials, and Rendering - page 14

really need something more capable and geared
toward editing images.
GIMP is just such a tool, and it makes for an
excellent companion application to Blender when
creating 3D digital art. In Chapter 3, we will prepare
(or even paint) our reference images in GIMP, using
guides to align orthographic references and layers
to create collages out of multiple images for quick
reference. In Chapter 11, we will do some of our
texture painting in GIMP, using layers to combine
baked images with other elements, such as photos,
and we'll use GIMP's painting tools to refine and
add to textures we paint in Blender. Finally, in
Chapter 14, we will do some touching up of our
final renders in GIMP.

Toolbox, and other dialogs are split into separate
windows. This is easy enough to get used to, but for
a tidier layout, switch to the non-blocking, single-
window layout by enabling Single-Window mode
in the Windows menu (see Figure 2-1). Most of the
screenshots in this topic use this layout, with extra
dialogs added as needed.

The Toolbox
GIMP's main tools are housed in the Toolbox (see
Figure 2-1). Click the icon for each tool type to
switch to that tool so that you can use it on the cur-
rent layer on the canvas. GIMP offers the follow-
ing tools (listed left to right, top to bottom in the
Toolbox).

Selection These tools let you make selections in
order to restrict the areas of the current layer
that you can paint, apply filters to, or copy and
paste from (see “Selections” on page 17). The
Rectangle and Ellipse Select tools let you make

The GIMP user Interface
Like that of Blender, GIMP's user interface is known
for being a little unorthodox. Primarily, this is due
to its default multi-window layout, where the canvas,

Layers

Channels

Dialogs
in tabs

Toolbox

Paths

Foreground/
background
color

Undo

Tool Options dialog

Canvas

Brushes
dialog

Figure 2-1: Single-Window mode in GIMP arranges all of GIMP's tools and dialogs in a single window. The default single-
window layout in GIMP should look something like this.