Note:

• Click on the image above, to see catalog entry.

Recommendation

A very good book.

If you know your way around Gimp somewhat, I think you'll find this book serves you well as a compact reference to Gimp. It's certainly done the job for me. The main weakness of the book as a reference, that I've encountered, is its sparse Table of Contents and non-existent (literally) index. But there are effective ways around these lacks.

If you are in the process of learning GIMP and you are willing to do some experimenting, this book could be most helpful. I used it successfully in this way.

Gimp itself is an excellent tool. It really is worth a bit of effort to learn to use Gimp effectively.

George's View of the Contents

Introduction (1 page) p1

The Toolbox (6 pages) p2

• File p2
• Xtns p5
• Help p7

Tools (20 pages) p8

• Selection Tools p8
• Transform Tools p12
• Paint Tools p18
• Color Selection p27
• Brush Pattern & Gradient Display p28

The Image Window (56 pages) p28

• File p31
• Edit (including Undo, ...) p33
• Select p35
• View p37
• Image p39
• Layers p47
• Tools p47
• Dialogs p47 (including Tool Options,
  Layers, Channels, Paths, ...)
• Filters p61
• Guides p77
• Video p77
• Script-Fu p80

Appendixes p84

• Preferences (6 pages) p84
• The rc-Files (1 page) p90
• Creating and Editing Keyboard Shortcuts (1 page) p91
• Color Models (1 page) p92
• Drawing and Layer Modes (2 pages) p93
• File Formats (3 pages) p95

Notes:

• The above is the table of contents I would have liked the book to have.
• The actual contents has only 9 entries.
• The approximate number of pages for each section is given in parentheses for items that are in the book's table of contents.
• The starting page number of the section is given just after and is preceded by a p. E.g. p28.

Menu Options Notation

This book uses a particular notation for indicating which menu option is being referred to. The following is an example:

• <Image>Edit->Undo

This says in the Image Window Context Menu, select the menu Edit and then within that menu select Undo.

Another example would be:

• <Toolbox>Help

This says on Gimp's main window, i.e. the Toolbox, select Help.

Some Terms

• Channels: Help UM ch. 6
• Layers: Help UM ch. 5
• Paths: Help UM ch. 7
• QuickMask: tutorial

Notes:

• Above are some terms that I wanted a better explanation of and a reference to where I found the explanation.
• Help UM ch. x is chapter x of the User Manual accessed through Gimp Help. Or use the UM Contents or Index.
• I found the QuickMask tutorial by doing the search site:gimp.org QuickMask on Google.

Three Editions

This book was originally published in German in March 1999. The title of the book in German was "Gimp kurz & gut". A second German edition was published in August 2000.

The English translation reviewed here was published in September 2000.

[top]

Contents

• What's GIMP?
• What's a pocket reference?
• About the Reviewer
• Some things I learned
• Looking Things Up in the Book

Note:

• Published by O'Reilly.
• Click on the image above, to see catalog entry.

What's Gimp?

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program.

The GNU Project was started in 1984. It's purpose is to provide a full operating system which is free software. (GNU/Linux fulfills this purpose.) For more detail, including an explanation of what the initials GNU stand for, see the GNU Project.

Two very common examples of image formats are gif and jpeg.

Manipulation here is referring to cropping an image, lightning an image, scaling an image, etc.

[top]

What's a pocket reference?

Well, this book doesn't fit in my shirt pocket. But it is small: 7 inches by 4 1/2 inches and around 100 pages. Very compact.

I think of pocket references as memory joggers. I don't expect completeness and all the detail. But I do expect enough there to jog my memory about a feature. I found the book quite useful in that regard as we'll see later in "Looking Things Up in the Book".

But the book provides much more context than I expect from a pocket reference. Perhaps, this is not surprising. The title of the book before it was translated was "gimp, kurz & gut", that is, "gimp, short and good". From reading about the book, I felt working through it would greatly increase my knowledge of GIMP. I was not disappointed as we'll see later in "Some Things I Learned".

[top]

About the Reviewer

I am the webmaster of a number of sites (personal, for clubs, etc.). Most of the sites are not image intensive, though, from time to time, I do find myself doing simple things like:

• cropping
• scaling
• changing the color balance
• lightning

I used to do all my website development on a MAC, including these simple manipulations. But now I do my website development on a PC running Linux, and I use GIMP for these simple image manipulations. Until I got the Gimp Pocket Reference, I struggled each time I used Gimp even for these simple things.

GIMP, of course, can do much much more. I got hold of the Pocket Reference to help me learn some of that much much more.

As I began to learn more about Gimp, I became interested in the Pocket Reference as a reference tool to remind me of some of the things I had learned.

[top]

Some Things I Learned

from the toolbar: In Gimp, you can make can select an area to focus on and then use various tools and functions to change the selected area. Some of the selection tools I learned to use were

• Ellipse Select
• Free Select which allows you to trace the outlines of the area you wish to select
• Fuzzy Select (sometimes called Magic Wand) which selects an indicated pixel and neighboring pixels of a similar color
• Intelligent Sissors which allows you to select an area using points to delineate it and to move the points around until the area selected is just what you wish

I also learned to combine selections in various ways.

A couple of the transform tools I now feel comfortable using are

• the Magnify Tool which allows one to zoom in and zoom out so one can see things and work on things at a favorable magnification level
• the Color Picker which allows you to pick a particular color with an eye dropper (and then you can use that color to draw, etc.)

A couple of paint tools I now use are

• Erase which enables one to erase stuff (i.e. make it transparent)
• Pencil which enables one to draw fine (or not so fine) lines

from the image window context menu: OK, now just a couple of examples of things I now use from the Image Window Context Menu.

Can you believe it. I didn't know there was an Undo capability until I worked through this book. But there is Undo in the Edit Menu, or, using the notation in the book, <Image>Edit->Undo. I also learned how to set how many levels of Undo are going to be allowed for via Preferences. When I looked at preferences, it was set up for 5 levels of undo. The most I've needed so far was 2. It sure is nice to be able to undo.

I also didn't know how to bring up the options dialog for the tool I was working with. One way is using the Tool Options on the Dialogs Menu. That is, use <Image>Dialogs->Tool Options.

final thoughts: That's a few of the things I learned from the Pocket Reference. Likely, you come to this book with a different background and interests and will learn different things.

[top]

Looking Things Up in the Book

Eventually I learned enough to use the book as a reference. It's really quite good.

Some of the good things about the Pocket Reference as a reference are:

• logical organization
• images of the Toolbar and the Image Window with functional labels
• explanations of the various menus and menu items
• explanations of a really large number of Gimp tools and functions to aid one in manipulating images

However, as mentioned earlier, the Table of Contents is sparse and there is no index. Nor is there a Safari index tool on the O'Reilly catalog page for the book, as there usually is. To correct this lack, I recommend supplementing the Pocket Reference with:

• a fuller table of contents such as George's view of the Contents or something like it tailored to your needs.

When you don't find what you want or need further information two sources I found helpful were

• the Help capability available through Gimp starting with the Contents and the Index.
• Google searches such as site:gimp.org QuickMask.

I also recommend taking a little time up front to familiarize yourself with how the Pocket Reference is organized. Gimp and the Gimp Pocket Reference are worth it.

[top]

Note:

• Click on the image above, to see catalog entry.