Introduction to GIMP - Blender Master Class: A Hands-on Guide to Modeling, Sculpting, Materials, and Rendering - page 15

selections using particular shapes. Lasso Select
lets you draw freehand selections. Magic Select
automatically selects areas that are similar to the
areas you click on the canvas, and Select by Color
selects similar colors. Scissors Select lets you draw
a rough outline around a selection by clicking to
place a series of points; then GIMP tries to gen-
erate the best selection by detecting edges in the
image. Foreground Select lets you define a rough
foreground area by painting on it, and then it
tries to generate a selection using the painted
area as a guide.

Clone, Heal, and Perspective Clone These let
you “clone” image data from one part of the
canvas (the clone source) to another (wherever
you paint) and are therefore useful for creat-
ing textures and filling in areas. The Heal tool
is particularly useful, as it automatically blends
together the boundaries of the newly cloned pix-
els with the original surroundings. ctrl -clicking
on the canvas sets the clone source, after which
you can stroke normally to clone pixels from the
source to another area on the canvas.

Blur and Smudge These let you blur or smudge

Paths This lets you draw paths using Bézier curves.
The paths you create can be managed from the
Paths dialog, and they can be used to gener-
ate selections or be “stroked” to create precise
brushstrokes and different effects.

pixels.

Dodge/Burn This lets you selectively brighten
( dodge ) or darken ( burn ) areas of your image,
which can be useful for modifying shadows and
highlights on an image. Use these effects spar-
ingly because it's easy to be heavy-handed with
this tool.

Color Picker This lets you choose colors from the
canvas by clicking them.

Zoom Use this to zoom in and out of the canvas. Cage Deform This lets you draw a cage around

part of an image and then freely transform it
by adjusting the shape of the cage.

Move This lets you move layers. By default, it
moves the topmost visible layer under your cur-
sor, but you can use the Tool Options dialog to
set it to move the active layer instead (regardless
of where you click).

The two color swatches at the bottom of the
Toolbox (see Figure 2-1) denote the current fore-
ground and background colors. By default, most
brushes paint with the foreground color, with the
background color acting as an alternate color that
you can quickly switch to by pressing X . (Some tools,
such as the Gradient tool, use both foreground and
background colors at the same time.) The two small
icons at the upper right and bottom left of the color
swatches allow you to switch between them and reset
them to black and white, respectively.

Align This offers several features for aligning lay-
ers and selections.

Crop Use this to crop an image. You can also crop
the image to a selection from the Image menu.

Transformation These tools (including Rotate ,
Scale , Shear , Perspective , and Flip ) will transform
the current layer or selection.

Text Create text on the canvas as a new layer. Text
layers remain editable as strings of text (meaning
you can edit an existing text layer with the Text
tool) until you paint on or apply filters to them,
at which point they are converted to pixels.

The Canvas
The canvas is where GIMP displays currently open
images. You can paint, make selections, and use all
of GIMP's other tools by clicking the canvas. Rulers
down the left and top edges of the canvas show
the position of the cursor with small arrows as you
move around. Clicking and dragging out from these
rulers creates vertical and horizontal guides that
your cursor and selections will snap to by default.
This snapping action can come in handy when lin-
ing up images for use as reference (as you'll learn
in Chapter 3). Along the bottom of the canvas are
options for controlling the rulers' units of measure-
ment and the zoom level of the canvas.

Bucket and Blend Fill the canvas with solid colors

or gradients.

Pencil, Paintbrush, Eraser, Airbrush, and Ink

These standard painting tools behave like
their real-world equivalents. The Pencil makes
sharp, pixelated marks on the canvas, while the
Paintbrush makes smoother strokes. The Eraser
erases, the Airbrush gradually adds color as you
hold down the mouse, and the Ink tool makes
flowing, calligraphic lines.