GIMP Tutorial

Even though I'm a newbie, I thought I'd give this a shot. Let me know what you think.


Jak Sig
GIMP Tutorial
By EbeneezerAl

Finished Product:

Stock: http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l249/EbeneezerAl/jak3_front.jpg


This tutorial is written for those of use who use GIMP. Thus all menu options, tools, filters, effects, etc. I mention will be those found in GIMP. However, if you have Photoshop, and can do the equivalent operations, feel free to follow this as well. I’d love to see your results too. Especially since there are more of you.

This tutorial is also written with the newbie GFX’er in mind. In my opinion, assuming that you know how to use the program, or even why you’re doing things, when using this tutorial is a mistake. I had trouble finding tutorials I could understand when I was starting simply because I didn’t know how to do what I was being asked to do. I will tell you in each step how to perform the actions in that step (if it hasn’t already been explained above). I will also explain why you are doing things. This way, you’re actually learning something from my tutorial rather than just rotely following steps, without fully understanding why.

For those of you who are more experienced, this means the tutorial may be a bit wordy and over explanatory. For your benefit, I’ve bolded the actual “step by step” parts of the tutorial so you can easily move over the explanations you don’t really need and just follow the steps to make the sig. But for those who are not experienced, I think this will make the tutorial much more useful to them.

Some GIMP Basics

To make your life easier, I’ll explain some things in advance so that when I tell you how do something, you know where to look. If you are using the same version of GIMP I have (GIMP 2), the program should automatically open with two windows.

The first I will refer to as a tool window. It should have a selection of various tools in the top half, and options for the currently selected tool in the bottom half. This window also has some menus, most importantly a File menu. It is from this window that you will open your project. After that all menu selections will be found in the same window as your work in progress. Alternately, right clicking in this window, will bring up the same mist of menus if you prefer.

The second I will call the project window. The title bar should say Layers, Channels, Paths…etc. This simple lists out all the things that window has in it. The top half should have 4 tabs. From left to right they are: Layers (which should be open by default), Channels, Paths, and Undo History. I will only make reference to the Layers tab here, though you may use the Undo History if you have need of it. The Layers tab will display all the layers in your project from top to bottom.

The bottom half of the project window has 4 tabs as well. From left to right they are: FG/BG Color, Brushes, Patterns, and Gradients. The FG/BG Colors tab also has sub-tabs. This basically changes the interface for choosing a color. Pick whatever works best for you.


Making the Sig

1. Open a new project. Dimensions 370 x 140 (File > New)

2. Open the Cover stock as a new layer (File > Open as Layer > choose file).



3. Duplicate this layer (Layer > Duplicate this layer OR click the duplicate button in the Layer tab of the Project window). Duplicate layers should appear on top of the original layer by default. Rename the original layer City and rename the duplicate layer Jak (right click the layer in the Layer Tab of the Project window and select Edit Layer Attributes).

4. Select the Jak layer (click it in the Layers tab of the Project Window). Scale the layer down so that you can see most of Jak’s head and upper body (Layer > Scale Layer). You can scale the layer to your liking, but I chose 276 x 400. In the pop up window that appears when you scale your layer, make sure your dimensions are linked (A chain link appears next to the Height and Width fields. If the chain is broken, click it to link them). This way, when you change one dimension, the other is changed to preserve the image. While scaling the image, use the move tool (Tools > Transform Tools > Move OR select from the Tool Window) to position the image so that the appropriate part of the image is visible within the project canvas.



5. Use the Free Select tool (Tools > Selection Tools > Free Select OR select from the Tool Window) to select Jak and Daxter. Do this by clicking and holding the mouse button and using the cursor to trace around Jak’s outline. You can go outside the canvas if necessary (and in this case you will need to). When you go outside the canvas, there is no need to worry about keeping to the edge. The selection between where you left the canvas and where you reenter the canvas will snap to the canvas edge. Then invert the selection (Select > Invert). Delete the selection (Edit > Clear OR hit the Delete key). Clear your selection (Select > None). This last part is done simply to make it your life easier. GIMP will keep the area selected unless you clear the selection or select something else. In some cases, you may wish to keep the selection for future use.



6. Crop this layer to your project size (Layer > Layer to Image Size). This is done because only what was visible within your canvas was cleared from the background. If you moved the image far enough so that anything that was outside the canvas ended up inside the canvas, you’d be able to see it. All we want in this layer is Jak and Daxter, so you’d then have to delete that part of the image as well. By doing this, you make it so that the layer only contains what is currently inside your canvas, thus you can reposition the layer however you like, and will still only see Jak and Daxter. It saves you time and steps later.

7. Select the City layer. Move this layer so that you have can see the majority of the city in the background, scaling the layer as desired if necessary (I ended up scaling to 550 x 798). You will still be able to see part if Jak in the background. We will fix that in the next couple of steps.



8. Select the Jak layer. Move it so that the Right edge of the layer touches the right edge of your canvas, covering up most of the visible parts of Jak in the City layer.



9. Duplicate the City layer (select it and duplicate as described in step 3).

10. Move this layer to the right so that the sky in the duplicate covers up the remaining visible image of Jak in the original City layer.



11. Use the Rectangle Select tool (Tools > Selection Tools > Rectangle Select OR choose it in the tools window) to select everything in this layer to the left of Jak. Delete the selection.



12. Merge this layer with the City layer (Layer > Merge Down). Crop it to the canvas size (as described in step 6). This is for a similar, but different reason. Some of the effects you will use later affect the entire image, including what can’t be seen. Thus those unseen elements will affect what can be seen, and in this case you don’t want them to. In other situations, you may, but we’ll get into that later on.

13. Now that we have a basic image, it’s time to get creative. Make a Duplicate of the Jak layer. Keep the default name of Jak Copy. Set the opacity of the copy to 75.0% (adjust the opacity slider in the Layer tab of the Project window). This will allow us to use different effects on the top and bottom layers. You can use effects on the bottom layer that would otherwise change the image more than desireable, yet still retain image clarity because of the top image. Effects that don’t distort the image that you wish to be seen more clearly you can use on the top.

14. Select the Jak layer. Add a Cartoon Filter (Filters >Artistic > Cartoon). In the dialog box that appears, adjust the filter settings to your liking, using the preview as a guide (mine were Mask Radius: 7.83 and Percent Black: 0.221 but you don’t have to use those exact settings). This should give Jak a slightly edgier look. Note that you may have to undo and redo the image a bit to get things exactly right, as the preview only shows the one layer, and it will look different when seen the full image.



15. Select the Jak Copy layer. Add a Bump Map Filter to this image (Filters > Map > Bump Map). Adjust the settings to your liking. My suggestion: don’t bother with anything but Azimuth, Elevation, and Depth. Leave the others at default. My values for those three settings were 135.00, 45.00, and 3 respectively. This effect will give the image a little texture and depth.



16. Duplicate the City Layer twice. Name the duplicates City Copy (which one of them should be by default) and City Copy 2. They should be stacked in the following order from top to bottom: City Copy 2, City Copy, City (if you need to move a layer up or down in the layer stack, select it in the Project window and click the green up or down arrows).

17. Set the opacity of City Copy to 80.0% and the opacity of City Copy 2 to 75.0%.

18. Select the City layer. Use the free select tool to select the sky. Add a Fractal Trace filter to the selection (Filters > Map > Fractal Trace). Leave the settings at default. With just the sky selected, rather than the effect working on the entire layer, it will only work on the selection. Clear your selection.



19. Select the City Copy layer. Use a Make Seamless filter on this layer (Filters > Layers > Make Seamless). This filter makes the layer tileable (raise this layer to the top to get a good idea of what the effect does, then put it back in it’s proper place). This effect is the reason you cropped the city layer to the image size earlier. Had you left it alone, the filter would have included the whole cover, and you would have had the title, the Naughty Dog logo, and other such things in your image, which you didn’t want. Since you cropped those parts out of your image, and added the filter to a lower, less clearly visible layer, the effect is that it adds more shadow the city scene.



20. There is one flaw in this. You can see the outline of the ships in the sky inside your city buildings. You want to get ride of that. Select the Smudge tool (Tools > Paint Tools > Smudge OR select from the Tools widow). Draw over the ship “shadows” in the city so that they blend with buildings and are no longer visible. The Smudge tool, as its name suggests, drags colors across the image, smudging them. So by clicking outside the ship shadows and drawing inward, you smudge the building colors over the shadows, effectively hiding them. And since you used the colors from the image itself to do this, it doesn’t stick out.



21. Select the City layer. Colorify this layer (Colors > Colorify). Select a dark blue (click the Custom Color button and choose a darker shade than the default ones available to you). This gives the city a darker, more shadowy look that I rather like. You can experiment with different colors if you like and find something that gives the image an effect that appeals to you. This is just what I chose.



22. Now for some brushing. Create a new layer (Layer > New Layer OR click the New Layer button in the Layers tab of the Project window). Leave the dimensions the same as the image size and set the layer fill type to Transparency. This makes it so that the layer is clear. Otherwise, it would be a solid color, and would cover up your entire image. Name the layer Brush. Move this layer between the City Copy 2 layer and the Jak layer.

23. Duplicate this layer. Name it Brush 2. Move this layer to the top. You now have two layers you can use for brushing. One is in front of your focal point, one is behind. Having your brushing both over and between layers creates more depth to your image (to me anyway).

24. Select a brush (in the Project window, select the brushes tab in the lower half of the window, scroll through the available brushes, and click on the brush you want to use). Pick something you like out of the available brushes. If you’ve downloaded more brushes, you may have something you prefer better. But for the purposes of this tutorial, I’m going to the one of GIMP’s default brushes, Sparks.

25. Choose the Paintbrush tool (Tools > Paint Tools > Paintbrush OR select it from the Tools window). Adjust the size if necessary by adjusting the Scale slider in the bottom half of the Tools window. Some brushes are rather large by default and for a project this size, will likely need to be sized down. If you chose to use the Sparks brush, the default size will be fine.

26. Select the “Use Color From Gradient” option in the lower half of the Tools window. Select a gradient that you like, whose colors go well with the image (Click the Gradient button in the lower half of the tools window and scroll the the list OR scroll through them in the Gradients Tab in the lower half of the Project window). I chose Incandescent for my gradient. Now, instead of using FG/BG colors for the brushes, or any other default color the specific brush may have used, the colors of the brushes will cycle through the various colors in your chosen gradient. I find this to be a much nicer effect than one solid color, and the number of gradient options makes it easy to find a set of colors that fits well with your image.

27. Select the Brush 2 layer. Make some brush strokes in the right side of the layer that cross over top of Jak without covering up important features. The image should still be clearly visible.



28. Select the Brush Layer. Make brush strokes throughout the image, including the right hand side. You should see some brush strokes going behind Jak, in addition to in front of him. As before, don’t cover up too much of the city image. Don’t be afraid to cover up some of it, but you should still be able to clearly see the city through the brush strokes.



29. Now for some finishing touches. Merge all of your layers together (Select the top layer, then click Layer > Merge Down until every layer has been merged).

30. Choose the Circle (07) brush, then choose the Blur tool (Tools > Paint Tools > Blur OR select it from the Tools window). Trace a line around Jak so that his image is blended into the background.



Congratualtions. You have now made a sig. Hope y’all find it helpful. Comments are welcome and wanted, as are posted results.

 

Hmm, it says the attachment is invalid. Try uploading it to photobucket or a hosting site. I'm not sure what you mean by the size thing, but I'm sure when I see it, I'll understand.

And yeah, you can use other stocks. Of course, the steps won't be exactly the same, but you'll be able to practice using the effects just as effectively. Can't wait till I actually get to see what you came up with.

Oh, and another tip. I tend to work in a 2x zoom. (View > Zoom > 2:0 (200%)). It makes it easier to use the free selecttoo more accurately, and I can brush with a little more detail. It's not always a good thing though. Sometimes I'll do something that when I go to normal size, I can't really tell I've done.

 

I'm glad you found it so. That was my intention. When I was learning, people suggested looking at tutorials, but all they did was confuse me. I had no idea how to find the things I was being asked to do. And even if I could, I didn't know why I was doing them. The way I see it, if you already understand what you're doing and why, then you didn't need the tutorial in the first place. I assume if you need the tutorial, then you need to know how to do things and why, rather than just a list of steps. That's the tutorial I wish I could have found.

 

I assume the hugeness is what you meant by you had trouble with the size. There are some interesting things in that. Though based on what I see, you mostly just used the tutorial to find your way around the program. Which is fine by me, as part of the point was to show you around the program.

The background in the top sig looks like a gradient with some colorizing effects or a noise/edge detect filter, not sure which.

The second one looks like Fractal trace, then make seamless, then ripple effect. I've used a similar effect on a background before.

Am I close? I"m just trying to figure out what all you used to do that.

If those images are much bigger than you wanted and you're having trouble resizing them, then what you'd want to do is this. For each image, create a project the size you want it to be (File > New Project). Open the image as a layer (File > Open as Layer). Then scale the layer (Layer > Scale Layer) to the size of the image. In the case of the secnd one, if you want to get rid of the gray top and bottom of the image, you'd scale the layer so that the width of the layer is same as the project. The height of the project should them show all of your image, but the grey box should be cut off because it's outside the canvas.

I think that should work. Assuming that you do still have sizing issues. For the record, I changed them from images to links because they were large enough to stretch the forums skin. I don't so much have a problem with lots of images or large images being posted in the graphics section, as anyone coming in here should expect such, but the stretched skin annoys my slightly OCD nature, XD.

 

I think, concidering the amount of stuff in it. it's way to big. It's an interesting BG, but I'd make it about a third that height. Also, I'd try and make the feather stand out more. Use different colors, or angles, or whatever, that make it so that the feather, which is your focal point, is more distinct. I'd also have left the text out. But that tends to be my opinion about most text. Unless text is REALLY done right, in my opinion, it will ruin whatever it's in.

Other than that, it's ok, especially for a first project. But there's not much to it.