GIMP DISCUSSIONS

[Horus]

Ah yes Kiya, but can you catch a ............... SPIDER!

[Kiya]

Oh aye!!!! just put a glass tumbler over it till somebody comes in & shifts the creepy critter

[Grandad]

Horus encourages us to experiment with the tools in Gimp to find out what they can do. In my picture of the Sally Army Band the instruments did not throw any stars because there was no sunlight on them.....so I added a few. Thought you might be interested how I did that.

I had previously found the 'Sparkle' tool in the filters menu, but this does not work too well on a whole image if you have varying sized highlights so I did this:-

Decide which point you want to add a sparkle. Choose the eliptical select tool from the tools menu. (Top row, second left)

Describe a circle with the elipse select tool a little larger than the star you want to create and centred on the point at which you want the star to appear. Choose the brush tool and a hard brush. (Probably the third from left, second row of brush options) Make the brush size about 4 or 5 to start. You may need to change this depending on the size of your picture file.

CAREFULLY click one spot at the point for your star. Open Filters>Light and Shadows>Sparkle. A drop down menu will appear. At this stage the only options to concern yourself with are, Flare Intensity, Spike Length, Spike Points, and one of the colour selection boxes at the bottom. At this stage choose Natural Colour. (You can introduce other colours when you get the hang of using this filter by changing colours in your main colour pallette.)

Click OK and wait a few seconds for the action to be applied. If you are not happy with the result do Ctrl/Z to remove the star and go back to the Sparkle menu to alter your settings. i.e. If your star is 'blown out' reduce the Flare Intensity. Spike length and Spike points are obvious.

When you are happy with your star go to Selections>None to remove the marching ants.

You can use this method to add as many or as few highlight sparkles as you wish whereas doing the same thing to the whole image will add stars to places you didn't want them.

Have a go to put some sparkle on shiny metal edges or wherever you choose.

[Grandad]

Horus encourages us to experiment with the tools in Gimp to find out what they can do. In my picture of the Sally Army Band the instruments did not throw any stars because there was no sunlight on them.....so I added a few. Thought you might be interested how I did that.

I had previously found the 'Sparkle' tool in the filters menu, but this does not work too well on a whole image if you have varying sized highlights so I did this:-

Decide which point you want to add a sparkle. Choose the eliptical select tool from the tools menu. (Top row, second left)

Describe a circle with the elipse select tool a little larger than the star you want to create and centred on the point at which you want the star to appear. Choose the brush tool and a hard brush. (Probably the third from left, second row of brush options) Make the brush size about 4 or 5 to start. You may need to change this depending on the size of your picture file.

CAREFULLY click one spot at the point for your star. Open Filters>Light and Shadows>Sparkle. A drop down menu will appear. At this stage the only options to concern yourself with are, Flare Intensity, Spike Length, Spike Points, and one of the colour selection boxes at the bottom. At this stage choose Natural Colour. (You can introduce other colours when you get the hang of using this filter by changing colours in your main colour pallette.)

Click OK and wait a few seconds for the action to be applied. If you are not happy with the result do Ctrl/Z to remove the star and go back to the Sparkle menu to alter your settings. i.e. If your star is 'blown out' reduce the Flare Intensity. Spike length and Spike points are obvious.

When you are happy with your star go to Selections>None to remove the marching ants.

You can use this method to add as many or as few highlight sparkles as you wish whereas doing the same thing to the whole image will add stars to places you didn't want them.

Have a go to put some sparkle on shiny metal edges or wherever you choose.

SORRY HORUS, I THINK I HAD A BB DROPOUT AND DOUBLE POSTED

[Kiya]

Thanks Grandad will get that printed out & have a go at it

[Horus]

Great stuff Grandad, glad to see you experimenting with the tools and filters. I have not tried that one out yet, but its worth noting that before you deselect the marching ants you should be able to re-size or rotate your sparkle to get it as you want.

[Grandad]

Its worth noting that before you deselect the marching ants you should be able to re-size or rotate your sparkle to get it as you want.

Have not tried that Horus but wouldn't the whole selection rotate? In the sparkle drop down there is an opportunity to select the angle of the spikes.

Edit: I thought this might amuse you on this Sunday morning.

The guardian at Ay with a Colgate Smile.

[Horus]

Kerching!

[Horus]

Just had a quick try out and yes you are correct, it seems that the whole selection rotates and not just the sparkle, so the effect is being applied to the image and not to a seperate layer which I hoped that it would be. I did also try making the selection area on a different layer, but that does not work either, so it looks like you can only use what is available in the drop down menu.

[Grandad]

Horus, I found that if you create a new transparent layer over your picture you can add sparkle in a more controlled manner and avoid the sparkle filter finding other highlights that you do not wish to add sparkle to.

I took LLL's Christmas tree and added a few stars. (Hope you didn't mind LLL. )



Something I did find is that if you do not place a precise spot where you want the star to be and move even just one pixel it will make the star larger. Hence some of these are bigger than others and I was only using a 3 pixel brush.

[Horus]

I have to be honest and say I haven't actually played about with the effect, but your stars look pretty good to me, so was I correct in thinking that you can work with it on another layer and not the actual image?

[Kiya]

Loving your sparkle's Grandad

[Grandad]

Just a brief comment on my problems that I told you about a couple of weeks ago, i.e. computer shutting down for no apparent reason.

I have of late had an occasional window open telling me that Skype has crashed. I didn't even have Skype open but I just 'OK'd' with window to close it. This pm I opened Skype to contact my daughter (no response) so I closed it. Then opened E4U to view Kiyas post about PSE 11 and got shut down. I am now suspicious of Skype so have uninstalled it for now to see what happens...........

[Grandad]

Just to update on my last post, and in case it might help others who experience the same problem, I have now run 5 days with no problems so it would seem that Skype was conflicting in some way.

[Kiya]

Glad to see you got yourself sorted

[Kiya]

I aint ever going to look at this monk again , gosh the grief it has given me ....this is the best I could & going to do with it

[Horus]

There is nothing wrong with that Kiya it looks as good as anyone elses efforts and all that hard work you had to put in will pay off in the longer term, I bet you could do another ghost with your eyes closed Well done for persevering. :

[Grandad]

Looks very convincing to me Kiya.....got there in the end......very well done.

[Grandad]

It's been a long time since we posted on this thread. I did this picture of my favourite little subject. I should have tapered the frame to the right to give a more 3D impression but I like the effect. Horus did introduce us to this effect some time ago before we started using Gimp and I did this without reference or, as I say, 'knife and forking it'

[Kiya]

Very good Grandad this is another tutorial on my to do list for Horus after the festive season

So

1. The fancy coloured text.

2. Don't know what you call it but a tutorial on a subject jumping out of frame.

3. I'm sure I'll think of something else as we go along