The amount of make it one of the favorite operating systems of many types of graphic artists, since it has very interesting tools for editing images.
Among these tools we can mention the gimp editoran imaging program that offers a wide variety of tools and options to modify the composition of your files for your visual projects.
In this article, We will explain in detail what you need to know to master this powerful and versatile photo editor to give the perfect touch to your visual projects.
What is GIMP and what is this program for graphic designers on computers with Linux OS?
It is a program image editing by and available under the LGPL license as part of the GNU project. It works by converting digital images, be they drawings or photographs, in bitmaps.
It is available on many operating systems and its interface is translated into several languages. It has all the tools required for image editing, from filters to image scaling and cropping tools. Besides that, includes image creation tools by means of free drawingso it is also a useful digital sketching tool for graphic artists, although it does not have many sections in the drawing area.
What are the main functions and features of GIMP that make it a unique image editing software?
The appeal of a tool like GIMP is that, in addition to supporting multiple visual file formats, has a large number of design tools.
Among its most outstanding characteristics we can mention:
- supports formats JPG, GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, BMP and PIXamong others.
- It’s compatible with files psd (Photoshop format) and has its own file storage format, the XCF.
- multiple tools of selection.
- Tool of smart cropping.
- Manager of text.
- manipulation of shapes, colors and textures by layers.
- Meter of lengths and symmetries.
- Filter focus, handling of exposure and degradation of colors.
In addition to these features, GIMP supports the automation of task sequences by means of commands. For this it has the language Scheme, although it also supports the use of Python, Ruby, Perl Y tcl, and can also save these commands for future use. GIMP also includes a wide catalog of plugins, of variable complexity, some of which may require the introduction of usage parameters. Through these extensions, it is possible to expand the base functions of the image editor.
GIMP vs Photoshop Which one is better for editing and retouching images of all kinds on the computer?
photoshop is considered by many the best photo editor currently available, and it is certainly the most popular of all, being seen as a benchmark in terms of editing tools. Nevertheless, GIMP, Despite its considerably lower popularity, has many of the features available in Photoshopso a deeper comparison is necessary to reach a verdict.
Taking the price as the first category to discuss, GIMP is the clear winner, since only you should go to their website gimp.org/downloads, to get it, while Photoshop requires a payment of approximately 12 euro to acquire their functions. In the section of ease of use, we can consider a tie, since although some tools are not difficult to use the first times, it takes several hours to master both options.
Nevertheless, photoshop has a certain advantage, since it has more tutorials available than GIMP. At the interface level they are equally equal, since GIMP inspires its interface in that of Photoshop. However, it suffers certain disadvantages by spreading its functions in multiple windows, instead of integrating everything in a single one, as is the case with Photoshopalthough it is a problem that has been solved in its latest versions.
As far as functionalities and available tools are concerned, again both softwares are very even, since they have very similar tools and functions, and you will not see much difference in this aspect unless you are a professional photographer with high demands. In this case, Photoshop is more complete, beating GIMP for small details such as the number of brushes available. While Photoshop has three brushes, GIMP only offers one.
In addition, the content-aware fill function (used to remove unwanted elements from the background of photos) it is not available in GIMP, unless it is installed via a plugin. In conclusion, the best option is Photoshop, since its features are more complete than those of GIMP. Despite this, Photoshop is paidso unless you are going to use all the fusions, GIMP is the most recommended option, since it offers very similar features and without cost.
Learn step by step how to use GIMP to edit any image quickly and easily
For the image editing it is necessary to know certain basic aspectssince the image modification tools can be difficult to handle for those just starting out. For this reason, we will explain the easiest methods to perform some basic functions in GIMP.
Go for it:
remove background
For remove the background of an image in GIMPyou just have to crop the section you want to keep, suppress the background and save the image as PNG file.
The steps for this process are as follows:
- open the image that you want to modify.
- Choose the tool “Layer” on the top tab.
- click about the option “Transparency”.
- press on “Add alpha channel”which will put a transparent background on the image
- In the upper leftselect the icon “Free selection tool” and carefully outline the outline of the image.
- As soon as the image is cropped, click on “Select” in the top bar, and press the option “Invest”.
- Click on the background that you want to delete and select the option “Del”.
- For Finalize, click on “File, Archive”, Choose “Export As” and click on “PNG”.
apply an effect
Visual effects in GIMP will allow you to add a layer of colors to the image you want to edit. In addition to this, you can find a large number of effects and filters to edit your photos.
All you have to do is guide you through the following steps:
- Select the image to edit.
- If you don’t want to apply the effect to the whole imageselect the part you want to modify.
- On the top tab select “Image”.
- Click on the option “Mode” and select “RGB”.
- Once this is done, in the upper tab you will see the option “Filters”.
- Select the desired effect and click “To accept”.
improve an image
GIMP has very interesting tools that will serve to greatly improve the quality and resolution of your photos, and to give them a more professional touch:
- open the image to improve.
- From the upper tab follow the route “Filters > Enhance > Blur Mask”.
- Center the values on Radius: 0.9, Amount: 0.40 Y Threshold: 1.
- open the option “Colors”, Choose “Brightness and Contrast” and adjust the values in Brightness: 0 Y Contrast: 10.
- follow the route “Colors > Hue and Saturation”. Set the value of Saturation: 5
- open the option “Colors” and enters “Levels”. For most cases, the option “Auto” it will be ideal, although you can always adjust the values according to your requirements.
- Add a touch of depth to the photo using the path “Filters > Blur (Blur) > Gaussian Blur”.
If you followed the steps correctly, the result will be an image improved to a much more professional quality that you can use both for your advertising projects and to publish on your social networks.
These are the best GIMP alternative image editing software you can use on Linux
Regardless of GIMP’s versatility, there are many perfectly functional alternatives to replace it if necessary. All these software fulfill the function of image editor and offer a large number of very complete editing features.
Let’s see:
krita.org
It is an image drawing and editing software with a large number of tools. It is included in the Calligra Suite office suite, and is geared towards creating images from scratchmore than editing, for which he has very few instruments. It was originally intended as a Photoshop clone., and was released under the name of Kimage Shop. It is based on the KDE libraries, and includes among its tools a large number of brushes, gradients and filters, among other functions.
vectr.com
It is a vector image editing project, which is designed to work on very low-resource computers. It has a fast learning curve as its controls and tools are simple and to the point. It has a graphical interface created in electro that displays in a single window all the necessary tools to load the desired image and edit it according to your needs.
MyPaint.org
It is a free software application designed for illustration and digital drawing by means of Tablet. Its simple interface offers all drawing and editing tools within the user’s reach through a previously assigned keyboard shortcut. It has the function of hide the graphical interface to focus all attention on the image being worked onwithout the distraction of buttons or toolbars.
digikam.org
It is software written in C++ that, more than in the edition, focuses on modifying tags and arranging images. It uses the KDE desktop environment libraries and is available for most Linux distributions. Its compatibility range covers the most popular image formats, as well as more than 800 raw image formats. You can organize images by dynamic albums based on date, timeline, tags, or other specific user-defined parameters.
DarkTable.org
Unlike raster photo studios, such as GIMP, or Photoshop, DarkTable has tools focused on processing photography in raw format (digital negative). Its applications focus on non-destructive post-production work and the processing of large amounts of images through a database, allowing the user to review, improve and store them locally or remotely.
Facebook Comments
Disqus