Life Behind A Lens

A little earlier, I posted some info about adding a script to GIMP for adding a watermark/copyright text string without the need for messing about working with layers and so on manually. (Available Here)

However, one of the tricky things involved with this is actually getting the script in the right place for it to work with GIMP, especially if you aren’t familiar with scripts or what they do. So, here’s a little more in depth info on scripts and how to get them to work for you.

What Is A Script?
A script is basically a small section of program code that ONLY works within GIMP to perform a task. It might automate a set of tasks (as in the watermarking example above) or do something a little more complex. They don’t work as seperate programs on their own so downloading and double clicking will only confuse your computer. :))

Where Do I Find Scripts?
If you have something in mind that you want to do with GIMP, it might be worth checking the GIMP Plugin Registry and search for a keyword of what you want to do. In the watermarking example above, I searched the registry for, can you guess??? Yup, Watermark. Outstanding huh? :)))

It’s also possible to search Google for them, but most often a Google Search will find items in the registry above anyway.

How Do I Download it?
Basically, you need to download the script file (.scm) by rightclicking and using save target as in Internet Explorer or left clicking it and choosing save as in Firefox. Then you need to save it in the Gimp Script folder on your hardrive.

Where The Hell Is My Gimp Script Folder?
Okey! Okey! I’m getting to it! :))

In your User Area (for Vista) or your ‘My Documents’ area (for XP) you’ll see a folder similar to the one highlighted above (depending on the version of GIMP that you have).

Go into that and you will see:

There’s a number of folders within your GIMP folder and some of them you may never touch.

The one that we’re after is towards the end of the folders:

Your downloaded script needs to placed in that highlighted Scripts folder.

How Do I Use The Script Now That I’ve Installed It?
To use the script that you have just installed, you need to open GIMP (or close and reopen if you did the above with GIMP running) and then look at the menu areas of the main image window. You’re looking for the Script-Fu Menu as below:

If you click on that, a submenu will open containing various scripts that you have installed on GIMP. Any that you’ve installed using the above method will appear in MyScripts

That’s it. Your script is now installed and ready to use in GIMP :))

I was asked about an easy way of adding a watermark/copyright signature to images processed in GIMP by the lovely Kimangeline a couple of days ago and so I thought I’d add it as a ‘How To’.

The end result of which will give us something like below:

In order to make this fairly easy, we’re going to need a script to automate some of the process for us. I won’t go too much into scripts here for now but here’s what we need to do:

• Close GIMP down if you have it open.
• Go to This Webpage
• Download the watermark.scm file from the webpage (it’s near the top) and save it to the scripts folder in the GIMP area and within your ‘My Documents’ on your PC. Here’s the exact file path as it appears on my PC running Vista Ross/.gimp-2.6/scripts

Note:The file does not need to be unzipped, converted or changed in any way. It is a script file and simply needs to be copied and pasted from the internet to the correct folder on your PC

• Now start up GIMP and you should see a new menu selection on the main image window called Script-Fu. It should be residing between Filters and Windows.
• If all is well, when you click on Script-Fu it should drop down with My Scripts and in there should be watermark.

Using the script itself is pretty simple and self explanatory. You simply enter the text that you’d like to add, select your font, it’s size, it’s location and it’s opacity before clicking OK.

If everything has gone to plan, you should now have a watermarked image. Well done you! :))

This is follow on from my other tutorial Creating A Fog or Mist Effect in Gimp and will show you how to add a gradient to the effect in order to provide a look of ground mist for landscapes and other images.

Note: At the end of part one, we left the image with a mist effect over it completely by adding a second layer to the image.. To continue this part, we need to have our image in that state with two layers, the upper one being your semi-transparent mist layer.

• Right click on your mist layer (the top one) in the Layers, Channels, Paths tool window (on the right of your image window by default) and select Add Layer Mask
• When the dialogue window opens, we need to set the mask to White (Full Opacity)
• Now, we need to select the Blend Fill Tool from the Toolbox window (on the left of your image window by default). It’s the icon immediately to the right of your Bucket Fill Tool icon.
• The default settings should be exactly as you want them. Normal mode, gradient fill, 100% opacity, and linear shape. Offset should be zero and there should be no repeat.
• Now go to your image window and draw a line from the top to the bottom of the image, right in the centre.
• You should now have a gradient fill of your fog effect that covers the entire image. Very faint at the top and thick at the bottom, but covering the whole thing.
• That’s it, at least in principle.. Read on below for further information about how to change the depth, direction and density of the gradient fog.

Changing The Fog Gradient
By changing the length, placement and direction of the line that you drew from the top to the bottom of the image, you can change how the gradient of the fog looks.
For example:

• If you draw from left to right, the fog will be thin on the left and become thicker on the right.
• If you draw at 45 degrees to vertical, it will give you an angled fog effect (as in the image above)
• If you draw a long line, over the entire image, there’s a gradual change in the thickness of the fog and, conversely, drawing a short line will give you a very rapid change.

My best advice here is to pick an image, add a fog layer and play with the tool until you get to grips with how it works. Try different lengths of lines and different directions to see how it changes the effect until you find one that you like. You don’t have to undo the step each time if you don’t want to as each time you draw a new line, the tool redraws the gradient and deletes the old one.

Have fun with those gradient fogs!

Note: You can also use the layer mask to de-fog certain parts of the image by using the paintbrush tool and painting areas as you would for Selective Coloring with the Circle Fuzzy brush.

An example of this technique is my image Dead Boys Poem

The aim of this tutorial is to show you how to produce a mist or fog effect on an image like this:

(Image used with Little-Red’s permission)

Here goes then :)

• Open your image in GIMP and carry out any other work that you’re planning on it (sharpening, softening, adjusting contrast etc etc)
• Duplicate your background layer and make sure that your ‘copy’ (the top layer) is selected.
• Go to Filters->Render->Clouds->Plasma in your main image window.

Note: Once the Plasma dialogue window is open, you can cycle through different ‘seeds’ to generate different effects.

• You will now have a visible multicoloured layer and your actual image hidden underneath. Don’t Panic!! It’s supposed to be like this :)
• Next step is to turn your cloud layer into greyscale (Colours->Desaturate)
• Now, all you need to do is adjust the opacity by moving the slider above the layers section of the layers, channels, paths etc tool window. Do this until you get the level of fog cover just how you want it. (Around 30% is normally a pretty nice place to start, but it does depend on how thick you want the effect).

That’s it, job’s a goodun.. Have fun making your crispy clear images all misty :))

This is another Selective Coloring Tutorial for Gimp (Although I suspect that it’s probably all but identical to the technique used in Photoshop). A very simple method of carrying out SC work on solid objects (buildings, cars, balls, bricks etc etc).

Here’s how it works…

• Open up your image in Gimp.
• Zoom in 200-400% so you can get a nice smooth selection of the area that you want to colour.
• Use the lasso (free select) tool to trace around the edges of what you want colored (Third icon in on the top row of the toolbox window or Tools->Selection Tools->Free Select in your main image window)
• Make sure to pick your starting point at the end (or obvious point of your object) so you can easily close the selection once you have traced the outline of it all.

Note: To add other areas of the image to your original selection, hold down shift as you click your additional lasso starting points.

• Then hit CTRL+I to invert the selection (which chooses everything outside of your colored region)
• Then just Colours->Desaturate or choose whichever method you normally use to convert to B&W

That’s it. very simple..

This is with special thanks to JGetsinger for posting the original information on this method in the Selective Coloring Group Tutorial & Help Forums and permitting me to duplicate it like this.

Have fun with that coloring! :))

Embedding a youtube video into Redbubble is actually pretty easy..

To do it, simply type:

youtube:///

and then add the latter part of the youtube web address (shown in bold type)
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI" for your chosen video. Like this:

youtube:///watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

Lastly, if you want the video to play automatically when someone visits the page containing your video, add the following code to the end of the above...

&autoplay=1

Like this: youtube:///watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI&autoplay=1

That's it.. Job done..

Easy huh? :)

*Note: The video must have embedding enabled for it to work within RB!*

For anyone that's curious, here's the video that the code above belongs to:

Okey, so this tutorial is here to give you a basic overview of the coding used in Redbubble to format text, add text links, embed pictures and link from your embedded pictures..

Formatting Text

Two basic formatting styles for use on Redbubble are Bold and Italics.. To produce bold text, simply add an asterisk at each end of the text that you want to enhance..

So, *I like Redbubble* will give you I like Redbubble
Italics is pretty much the same only you need to use an underscore..

So, _I like Redbubble_ will give you I like Redbubble

Text Links

Text links are useful for pointing people from one part of your Redbubble area to another. If you have an image and piece of writing that are related, for example. To do this, you need to put quotation marks at the start and end of the text that you want to link, follow it with a colon and then add the web address that you want to link to. Like this:

"Ross's Redbubble Profile":http://www.redbubble.com/people/Psychosis

The result of which will be Ross's Redbubble Profile

Embedding Images

Embedding an image into an area of RB is just as easy as highlighting text in bold or italics..

Simply add an exclamation mark at each end of the images html address.. So;

!http://images-0.redbubble.net/img/art/border:blackwithdetail/product:laminated-print/size:small/view:preview/3709388-5-black-string.jpg!

Will give you:






















(Ignore the link on this image, it's blogger asking if you want to see a bigger version, not part of the code!)

Linking From An Embedded Image

Basically, this is a combination of the code for embedding an image and linking from text, like this:

!http://images-0.redbubble.net/img/art/border:blackwithdetail/product:laminated-print/size:small/view:preview/3709388-5-black-string.jpg!:http://www.redbubble.com/people/psychosis/art/3709388-5-black-string

Which will give you this:






















To be really clever, you can also place a small text bubble within the code so that when someone hovers over the image a small text popup appears.. To do this, just add the relevant text, in brackets, after the image address and before the second exclamation mark, like this:

!http://images-0.redbubble.net/img/art/border:blackwithdetail/product:laminated-print/size:small/view:preview/3709388-5-black-string.jpg(Black String)!:http://www.redbubble.com/people/psychosis/art/3709388-5-black-string

I hope that helps out a bit.. :)

This Gimp tutorial will show you how to create outlined text like in the example below the tutorial:

This is a fairly simple procedure and one that I’ve used on a number of my t-shirt designs.

So, here we go (I’m going to assume that you know how to use the text tool to write text on your image and how to move it around to where you want it):

Preliminary steps

• Make sure that you have your text written using the text tool, placed where you want it and coloured in the colour that you like.
• Ensure that you have the colour(s) that you’d like to use for your outline(s) selected as the foreground and background colours (in the toolbox panel)

Outlining your text

• Once you have your text placed where you want it, Right Click the layer in the layers, channels, paths tool panel (default is to the right of your image window) and click duplicate layer (normally 5th down from the top)
• Name your new layer Outline 1
• Right Click on your new layer and select Alpha to Selection (third up from bottom) You should now see your text marked as a selection.
• Go to your image window and choose select->Grow A new dialogue box will appear.
• In the dialogue box, choose the size of the increase that you’d like to grow your text by (It’s normally best to leave the unit of measurement as pixels).

Note: This will depend on how large the text is to start with and the effect that you want to generate. Experiment a little until you get it the way you like it by simply using Gimps fantastic undo tool. Edit->Undo

• Once you have selected a growth size, you should see the selection mask has got bigger around your text.
• Now, go to Edit->Fill with FG colour or Edit->Fill with BG colour (depending on which colour you want directly behind the text).
• You should now have larger text filled with the colour that you have just selected.
• Now we need to make your original text visible again. To do this, simply move your Outline 1 layer underneath your original text layer (Simply drag & drop) in the layers, channels, paths tool panel.
• You should now have your original text outlined.

Adding a second outline colour

• This is exactly the same as the steps above except this time you need to start with your Outline 1 layer.and make that one grow.

Note: Name this latest layer Outline 2 _to make them easier to identify.

You can repeat this effect as many times as you like.. Well, until you fill your image up with layered text, anyway!

Important!!! You need to ensure that your original text box in the image is large enough to cater for the growth of the text. If it isn’t, when you duplicate the text layer and grow it, you will end up with parts of the outline missing

That’s about it for this How To Have fun with your text!!

Example of Outlined Text

One of the things that I've noticed on my travels of Redbubble is the difficulty that some folk have formatting their t-shirt designs to the right size and make the background transparent. So I thought I'd write the simple method that I've used down to see if that helps..

So, here’s a quick tutorial on how to create a transparent template and how to save it as a PNG file (including dealing with compression) in GIMP.

Here goes then…

Creating a t-shirt template for working on

• To do this, open GIMP and go to File->New.
• In the options window that appears, set the image size to 2400×3200.
• Expand the advanced options and in the Fill With option select Transparency.
• Click OK.
• That’s it, you now have your t-shirt working space ready for your design.

Top Tip: It’s worth saving this empty image as Template.xcf and then you have a blank template for any future t-shirts that you might want to make!

Now you should be busy adding text and images to produce your groundbreaking and magnificent design. So I’m off for a cup of coffee and a smoke while you do that.

I’ll be back when you’re done to explain how to save it so that it looks right when you upload it as a t-shirt. Good luck with the design!

Okey.. I’m back.. How’s that design going? All done? Jolly good..

Saving your design so that it displays correctly

• First things first.. Save your design as an xcf file, in case you want to edit anything later on.. It may well be unnecessary, but better safe than sorry.

Top Tip: Remember to rename it something other than Template.xcf so that you don’t overwrite your blank working image!!

• Next, you want to save it as a PNG file.. So, goto File->Save As
• At the bottom of the dialogue box, expand the Select File Type (By Extension) option and choose PNG Image.
• Name your new image (if you haven’t already)
• Click Save.
• Assuming that you’ve been using layers in your design, you should now get a message window that says PNG Plug-in can’t handle layers
• Check the Merge Visible Layers radio button and click Export.
• Now you’ll have another dialogue box with some more options. The three that should be checked are: Save Background Colour, Save Resolution and Save Colour Values From Transparent Pixels. All the other are best left unchecked, just to keep it simple.
• Now we need to choose the compression level.. I always set my compression level to one. It doesn’t lose any detail that I can see at all and the image size is something like 2% of the same image set to a compression level of zero.

Note: For example, in my t-shirt design A Rampants’ Day Off a compression level of zero left me with a file size of 29.3Mb, but a compression level of one gave me a file size of 404kb

That’s it, all done. You are now ready to upload your groundbreaking and magnificent design to Redbubble!

This How To is for the GIMP image manipulation software (Version 2.6 used) and shows how to quickly and effectively colour parts of an image to produce an effect like:

• Open your desired image in GIMP.
• Press Ctrl+D to duplicate the image. GIMP will name this ‘untitled’
• In the drop down box at the top of the layers, channels, paths toolbox (to the right of your image window by default), make sure that you have your original image selected.
• Right click the background layer and select New Layer. A new selection window will appear.
• Name the layer B&W and ensure that the fill type is selected as Transparent. Click OK
• Select your duplicated image and convert it to greyscale, using whatever methods and techniques that you normally would.
• Press Ctrl+A (select all) and then Ctrl+C (copy).
• Return to your original image and press Ctrl+V (paste) Note: You can close the ‘untitled’ image now as you have finished with it.
• You will see that your original image has now become greyscale and that in the layers, channels, paths box there is now a Floating selection (pasted layer).
• Right click on the floating selection layer and choose Anchor Layer
• Right click on your B&W layer and choose Add Layer Mask
• Select the paintbrush tool from the Toolbox area (to the left of the image window by default).
• Ensure that black is the foreground colour above the tool options area.
• Paint over the areas of the image that you want to be coloured. Make use of the different brush sizes and zoom in on the image as you desire to ensure that you accurately get close to the edges of the area you want to be in colour.
• You can paint the image back to greyscale by making white the foreground colour (or you can use GIMP’s excellent undo history facility (Edit->Undo History).

Have fun with that colouring! :-D

After becoming somewhat disillusioned with the website that I have been working with over the last few months (years even, now that I think of it), I decided that it was time for a change.

So, this evening I discovered Redbubble. I already like the look of the site and I've decided to start this blog alongside my newfound experiments in photographic art with this new website.