Life Behind A Lens

Introduction
Once you’ve finished the image that you’re working on, you’ll want to save your image somehow. When you open the Save As dialogue, you’re met with a vast range of different formats and the choices can be somewhat daunting if you aren’t sure what they all are. Sop, this guide aims to address some of those issues and to provide you with suggestions as to the file formats that you are more likely to use as a photographic/digital artist, uploading art to Redbubble.

The List of Formats
When you open the Save As dialogue box, at the bottom there’s a small ‘expand’ square with the words Select File Type (By Extension) next to it. If you click on the little square, a list of some 36 file formats opens up in the window. Here it is;

• GIMP XCF image – The standard GIMP file format.
• Alias Pix image – An image file format that isn’t commonly used (as far as I can tell)
• AutoDesk FLIC Animation – A 2D & 3D Computer Aided Design File Format
• bzip archive – A compressed file format, like a windows zip file
• C source code – A basic programming language..
• C source code header – As above.
• Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine image – A format used in Radiology
• Encapsulated PostScript Image – click here for more info
• Flexible Image Transport System – A file format mainly used to transmit scientific data
• GIF Image – A compressed file format, used a lot on webpages
• GIMP brush – Used for painting in GIMP
• GIMP brush (animated) – As above
• GIMP pattern – A small image used in GIMP to create effects
• gzip archive – An archive file format
• HTML table – HTML coded image format
• JPEG image – Possibly the most commonly used file format
• KISS CEL – Another pallete image file format (similar to a bitmap)
• Microsoft Windows icon – A small file, used on computer desktops etc
• MNG animation – Very similar to a PNG file, but can cater for animations
• PBM image – A ‘lowest common denominator monochrome file format’
• Photoshop image – A PSD file that can be opened in Adobe Photoshop
• PNG image – A lossless compression file format (Good for Redbubble t-shirts!)
• PNM image – A portable bitmap image type
• PostScript document – A basis of PDF files
• PPM image – A portable bitmap image type
• RAW image data – Minimally compressed image format (most digital SLR’s will shoot in this format)
• Silicon Graphics IRIS image – A 3d Graphics system
• SUN Rasterfile image – The native bitmap format of the Sun UNIX platforms
• TarGA image – A Raster Graphics file format
• TIFF image – A reasonably common file format under the control of Adobe
• TIFF image – As above (This appears twice in my list.. Not sure why…)
• Windows BMP image – An image format used in MS Windows
• X BitMap image – A Bitmap image format that contains ‘C’ source code
• X PixMap image – Very similar to an X BitMap
• X window dump – The file format used when you take a screenshot on your computer
• ZSoft PCX image – An old DOS imaging standard

Arrrrrgggghhh! Which ones do I want??!
Panic not, although I’ve listed information about each of the file formats above, we are likely to need only a few of them under normal circumstances for use on Redbubble (or other art sites of a similar nature). Here they are;

• GIMP xcf image
• GIF image
• JPEG image
• PNG image

XCF Files
While you’re working, it’s always a good idea to save your image as an xcf file every 10 to 15 minutes or so (or when you make a major change). There’s nothing worse than spending an hour or two doing something and then having a power outage before you get around to saving it. I generally keep a copy of a finished image as an xcf file for a few weeks as well, just in case I decide that there’s something I want to change.

GIF Files
Gif files are fairly good for banners or other graphics containing text that you’d like to upload to Redbubble. The file size is reasonably small, and any text on your image doesn’t go all fuzzy when you shrink it. (PNG files can also be used for this and look just as good)

JPEG Files
A lot of people use the jpeg file format to upload photographs or other similar art to Redbubble. The file size is reasonable and there isn’t a great deal of information loss. When you are saving as a jpeg file, it’s always worth setting the quality of the image to 100%. I’ve never set it anything below that.

PNG Files
The png format is the only format that can be used to upload as a t-shirt design on Redbubble. It has a lossless compression (which means it looks awesome no matter how much you compress it) and it supports transparency (which is great for t-shirts so that you don’t get a square of colour, as well as your design, on your t-shirts). Many people also upload artwork to RB in the PNG file format, so feel free to experiement and decide what works for you.

The compression settings on PNG files do make a massive difference to the file size. Once finished, I will normally save a png formatted image with a compression level of 1. Setting it to zero just makes the image size huge and it takes me forever to upload it. Setting it to 9 will make the file size really small, but although it has ‘lossless’ compression, it must affect it in some way.

Saving an image
Once you have finished you image (and have been saving it every 10-15 like a good artist in the xcf format), you’ll want to save it in a format that you can use on RB.

To do this, goto File->Save As and a dialogue box will open. You can then select your file type (jpeg or png, for the most part), name your file, and save away.

Saving as either of the above file types will give you an options dialogue (especially if you’ve been using layers). You’ll need to flatten or export the image and then set the compression level. The reason for the export/flattening is that neither jpeg or png files understand what layers are, or how to use them.

So, there you go.. You’re now an expert on the file formats in GIMP. Have fun with your art & design! :))

This is the second part to my other layers guide and is designed to give an overview of manipulating layers in GIMP.

In order to get the most from this guide, it’s worthwhile downloading this layers.xcf image from my website as it the image I’ve used to show the effects.
Once you have downloaded and opened the image in GIMP, you should see something like this:

The image contains 5, easy to spot, layers. Background (which is black) and then 4 layers with coloured rectangles in. Red, Blue, Yellow & Green. I’ve named each of these layers to their corresponding colour, to keep it easy to see what’s happening.

Now it’s time to play with them! :))

I’ve split this guide down into individual tasks and, while you can follow it through from start to finish, it’s not neccessary. If there’s a part that you already know, just skip it and move on. :))

1. Moving Layers Up & Down
In this part, I’ve decided that I want to reverse the order of the coloured layers so that instead of them being ordered Green->Yellow->Blue->Red they end up being Red->Blue->Yellow->Green

• Click on the Red Layer so that it’s highlighted.
• At the bottom of the layers window, click on the up arrow (as mentioned in Part 1 of this guide) until it is placed on top of all the other layers.
• The Red Layer Should now be hiding parts of all the other layers.
• Now, click on and select the Blue Layer.
• Click the up arrow twice, so that it ends up between the Red Layer & Green Layer.
• Select the Yellow Layer and click on the up arrow once, so that it finishes between the Blue Layer & the Green Layer
• If all has gone to plan, your image should look like this;

Now, we need to put them back again to their original order. (From top to bottom) Green->Yellow->Blue->Red.

2. Playing With Opacity & Modes
In this part, we’re going to look at what happens when we play with the opacity settings of a layer. So, first of all, bring the Background Layer to the top, as we did in section 1 of this guide, so that our image looks like this:

• Go to the Opacity Slider towards the top of the Layers Window and move it from 100%, down until you get to around 50%. Anywhere between 45 and 55% will do for this.
• What we’ve done is to make our Background Layer half see through. In this case, the effect has been to darken the colours of the four rectangles in our image.

Note: Incidentally, we have just carried out the most basic method of applying a texture to an image. Which is to place a layer over the top of our image and then adjust the opacity to taste. Well done you! :))

• Now onto the modes. If you keep your Background Layer selected and open up the modes dialogue box you’ll see that there are a range of different things that you can do. Because we are using solid colours, the effects of some will look very similar but we can play with them and see what happens.
• Spend a little while now, changing the modes of the Background Layer and seeing what the different settings do to the colours underneath. If you fancy being clever, try adjusting the opacity and modes of the Green, Yellow, Blue & Red Layers as well.
• When you’re done playing, return all the modes to normal, set all of the opacity levels to 100% and place the Background Layer back to the bottom of the pile of layers.

Note: You may have noticed that when you moved the Background Layer to the top of the pile and reduced the opacity, that a series of grey squares appeared anywhere that there wasn’t a coloured rectangle. This area would appear transparent in a finished PNG (useful for t-shirt designs) or GIF image. It will appear as white in a JPG file.

3. Duplicating & Deleting a layer
After playing with our layer modes and opacity we should now have returned our image to it’s original state, as it was downloaded. If you’ve experimented so much that you can’t do that, simply close and re-open the *layers.xcf (provided you haven’t saved it, of course lol)

• Now we’re going to duplicate the Background Layer, move it to the top of the pile of layers, play with it’s opacity and then delete it again.
• Select the Background Layer
• Go to the 4th icon in at the bottom of the layers window and click that. (That’s the Duplicate Layer icon)
• You should now have another layer, called Background Copy. Like this;

• Select the Background Copy Layer and move it to the top of the image as in section 1.
• Adjust the Opacity of the Background Copy Layer to about 50% again and you should now have an image, similar to the one in Section 2, but with the whole image in solid colour. Like this;

• Now, we’ve decided that we don’t want that Background Copy Layer after all. Select it and then click on the right hand icon at the bottom of the layers window.
• Our Background Copy Layer is now gone.

Hope that some of you find this information useful. The next step with what you’ve read here is to experiment with some of your own images that have more variation than just 4 solid colours to it. Something that might be worth looking at as a next step from here is using layers to produce a Selective Colour effect to an image. A tutorial for which can be found on this blog. That tutorial also includes using a layer mask to generate an effect.

Have fun with your layers!

I had a request, the other day, for an easy-to-follow tutorial on using layers in GIMP as most tutorials on the web tend to be specific to a purpose and can be a little confusing.

So, the aim of this Guide is to give a basic overview of layers in a non-specific way. This part covers what layers actually do and the window that’s used to control them. Part two contains a basic overview of creating and manipulating layered images.

Theory Of Layers
Before we can work with layers effectively in GIMP (Or Photoshop, for that matter) we need to understand what they are.

I tend to think of Layers as transparent acetate sheets, like those used on the old style overhead projectors, that can be placed over the top of each other to provide different effects. By ‘colouring in’ different parts of an acetate sheet, we can hide, change or obscure the layer(s) underneath it.

Indeed, I had teachers when I was at school (especially in science) who would use the principle to label, say, the parts of a heart after us students had all tried to name the ventricles, aortas and other bits and pieces. The principle in GIMP is exactly the same.

However, because we are using digital ‘sheets’, we can do much more with them and produce many more varied effects. Things like selective colouring (where we cut out sections of our top ‘sheet’ to make parts of the ‘sheet’ underneath visible) to applying textures (where our top ‘sheet’ is half see though so that we can partially see the ‘sheet’ underneath).

Of course, there are times when we might use multiple sheets (selective colour with a texture applied and some motion blur, perhaps) and this can, in the end, become quite complex, especially if layers are a somewhat unfamiliar concept.

The Layer Window
Here is our Layers window. Practically everything that we might want to do to a layer, as a whole, can be done in here and it’s the key to working with them.

Going from the top we have:
Mode – This makes it possible to change an entire layer to do a great variety of things. One of the common ones that you may come across is the Overlay mode. This is used with textures quite a lot.
Opacity – Makes your layer more see through, or less. (0% is completely transparent, 100% is completely solid)
Lock – Locks the layer so that it can’t be moved or changed.

Under those settings is the layers window itself, that holds all of the layers in your image.

The eye symbol makes the layer visible or invisible, essentially allowing you to turn the layer ‘on or off’. Then you have a small ‘preview’ of that layer and then there is the layer label. The one visible above is called ‘background’. The GIMP default for the first or ‘base’ layer. It’s a good idea to rename layers as you work, so that you know what each of them does.

At the bottom of that window, there are some small icons. From left to right:
New Layer – Creates a layer at the top of your pile
Move Layer Up – Uhuh, no prizes for that one
Move Layer Down – Or that one
Duplicate Layer – Will make an exact copy of the selected layer and put it on top of the pile. I use this in Selective Colouring. I duplicate the original image layer and then convert it to B&W, before cutting holes in it with a paintbrush.
Anchor Layer – If you copy and image and paste it into an image you’re working on (such as applying a texture on top of an image), it will initially appear as a floating layer. By clicking the anchor, it will ‘stick’ it to the layer directly underneath it
Delete Layer – Don’t like it? Bin it! :-)) This will delete the selected layer.

Note: All of these tasks (and many more) can be carried out by right clicking on a layer

Part 2 of this guide will include information on basic manipulation of layers within GIMP

Thought one or two folks might be interested in this little setup that I put together earlier this evening when I shot Perfect Love

I needed to find a way of setting up some limited lighting onto my subject, a tulip resting on a mirror and so had the idea to begin hunting around the house to see what I had that might be useful.. I didn’t get too far though when my eyes fell upon this lot below:

• A Velbon CX Mini Tripod, available from Amazon for a poultry £12-£13 or so (I paid £12.50 plus postage).
• A small LED torch that I think was about £3-£4
• A roll of electrical tape (Approx £2 for a pack of 3 from the local market).

And voila! A nice mini lighting setup that enabled me to take the shot above for less than about £20..

In addition, with care, the Velbon is pretty reasonable for use with an SLR if you’re looking to take any shots low down to the ground. I wouldn’t recommend it outside in anything above a slight wind, but indoors it works a charm!

The only other equipment I used was a double black sheet and a mirror.. Both of which I had lying around the house. :))

I recieved an enquiry about making banners for use on Redbubble a couple of days ago, and so I thought I’d see what I could do about writing a short guide to making them, for those that are new to the idea.

So, he goes :)

Part 1 – Setting your image size

• Initially, it doesn’t matter too much what size your image is, we’re going to alter it later on to make the image a suitable size for posting as a comment on RB. So you really have two options.
• Option 1 If you are going to use one of your images that you already have, then simply open it in GIMP. Option 2 If you are starting from scratch, then create a new image with a width size of 1024 pixels. The height really depends on what you want it too look like. But in this case we’re going to go for a landscape layout, so I’m going to say a height of 768 pixels. (Note: This is in no way cast in stone, it’s just a set of guide dimensions)
• Now we should have our base image open in GIMP

Part 2 – Creating your banner

• This part is really all about getting your creative juices flowing and adding the text/other aspects that you want to include. So it’s over to you here. :))
• Something that might be useful is this tutorial that shows you how to create layered text.
• Also Dafont.com is a good resource for loads of cool fonts that can be used in GIMP.
• Okey, so I’m going to leave you to it for the time being while you work your magic and I’ll be back in a while with the next bit…. Have fun :))

Ross whistles a jaunty tune, makes some coffee and has a smoke while he waits for you to finish playing

Okey, got your text onto your image then? Good stuff..

Part 3 – Adding the finishing touches

• Okey, so you have your image with it’s text on I’d strongly suggest saving it at this point, before we add these last parts.. Save the image as an xcf file for the moment in case you want to edit anything later.
• The next part that you might want to do is add a border/frame to your banner. So, go to Filters->Decor->Add Border
• Now you should have a dialogue window open with the border size and colour options in it. I normally set the border size to between 15 & 20 on both the x & y axis and I normally leave the delta value to 25. Again, though, it’s really down to personal preference. :)) Don’t forget to choose your colour either!!
• Okey, so if you’re happy that you have your banner finished, you’ll probably find that it has multiple layers of text and the border (It might be worth saving it here as well, but it isn’t 100% neccessary) and we’re going to need to flatten it now.
• To do this, go to Image->Flatten Image
• Lastly, we need to size out image to work as a comment on RB. To fit nicely on RB, the width of your image should be no more than 350 pixels. To change the size, go to Image->Scale Image and simply set the width to 350 pixels.. The height should automatically adjust to match the width, as long as you have the small chain icon connected (it normally is by default).

That’s it.. You banner is now ready to upload to Redbubble! Well done! :)))

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! :))

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