GIMP

Welcome to Gimpblogging! Explore the blog or ask away.

[gimpblogging]

How come when I animate my gifs, they turn out grainy? It looks like it's suddenly snowing in my gif: heyhosers. tumblr. com /post/ 162528215556/ why-is-this-turning-out-so-shitty

I’ve never seen that before, so I don’t know. 

[gimpblogging]

Hi! If you are still taking xcf requests, could you make one that works for supergirl? If not, that's okay. Thank you!

Sorry, I’m not doing that anymore. I don’t have the time. Good luck with coloring anyway!

[gimpblogging]

Hi! I just wanted to say thanks for this blog, I've only recently started playing around with GIMP and your tutorials & posts have been super helpful in my learning!

Thank you, that’s so wonderful to hear!

[gimpblogging]

I hope this not a silly question to ask. I'm still new in making gifs using gimp. How do you make gif have pastel coloring? I haven't found a pastel gif tutorial for gimp. Please help, thank you for your time.

First, not at all a silly question. No question is a silly question. And I looked around quickly and couldn’t find a tutorial either. Unlike in PS, you can’t just download a psd and be done, but it’s not that hard. You can use the xcf:s and curves I have made, which might not give it that pastel a look, but if you desaturate a bit you’re gonna get close.

The quick answer is that you make a levels adjustment. In the first adjusment thing, move the middle arrow to the left and the left arrow to the right. Then edit it as curves, to use the other channels as well and to then export it and be able to use it in GAP. Then a hue-sat adjustment, and a channel mixer adjustment is not a bad idea either since it has a tendency to make pictures flat which is what you want.

Curve.

The longer answer involves a tutorial, which I can’t do at the moment, sorry. But I can do it Sunday or Monday, so no worries. I’ve been thinking of making one anyway, as it is seriously popular, pretty and something I’ve really wanted to do too. The tutorial would be a deeper explanation of what I briefly said above. If there’s anything else you’d like me to mention, tell me! Also, examples/exactly the coloring you want to achieve?

Also, any other request is welcome.

[justdrifting]

This is really whitewashed. Look at the difference in her skin tone between the first and the fourth picture. Pastel colouring in particular tends to whitewash characters of colour, mostly due to desaturating and using curves/levels without adding contrast I think, so you have to be mindful.

Here are some pastel/pastel-ish tutorials for people of colour. They’re for photoshop, but you can interpret them for gimp, right? The basic principles at least? 1, 2, 3.

I don’t do pastel colouring myself, but I think you particularly have to be careful with desaturating too much. You could use a layer mask on your Hue/Saturation layer to minimise the desaturation on a character’s skin but keep it on the rest of the image. Increasing the Reds and Yellows on a Selective Colour layer, and not decreasing the Blacks I think can help as well.

[I think this is a super old post, so this isn’t meant to be criticising the OP because they’ve probably learned more since making it. @downriversandroads I would just advise against using this type of colouring, especially for characters of colour.]

[gimpblogging]

OP here!

Yes, that is whitewashed. This was made ages ago and that was not the intention and I am incredibly sorry.

When it comes to applying PS tutorials for GIMP, especially when it comes to things like pastel coloring, they are heavily reliant on the fact that:

1. you make adjustment layers in PS. A looooot of them. In GIMP you aplly the adjustments directly on the gif which means less adjustments and more powerful adjustments.

2. selective coloring is an awesome thing that, unfortunately, doesn’t exist in GIMP. So a lot of the pastel gif coloring tutorials (and color porn ones) are impossible to apply to GIMP simply because selective coloring does not exist.

But the basic principles when it comes to not whitewashing POC is to not touch adjustments that change the reds and yellows (skin). So if you’re doing curves and using the red channel, don’t pull it down because that will decrease red and add cyan. Works on white people, not on POC. So don’t do that. If you’re using the blue channel in curves, don’t pull it up because that will be removing yellow and adding blue. Fine on white people, but not so much on POC. Incidentally, that’s what I did in the example. Don’t do that. With hindsight, I wouldn’t have done that.

The tutorial of the ones above that I can recommend is 3. Most of those adjustments are available on GIMP, so you can follow that one.

I second the recommendation of not using this kind on coloring on POC. It’s hard. What you instead can do is use a dull coloring! See this tutorial. You can make the edit as vibrant as you want, and then easily retain the skin color, and then you can add some grey over the white parts and it looks pastel-ish, but is a lot easier.

[gimpblogging]

do you have any basic tutorials for making gifs. for some reason when i playback after opening as layers it plays really slow and choppy. sorry that doesn't really make sense but idk how else to explain it

Hi!

The problem is probably that you caption too few frames. I usually grab every other frame, less than that and it looks weird.

If you want tutorial, click the box on the right that says “navi” and scroll to the bottom. I have a few gif-making tutorials there.

[gimpblogging]

Hello there! I'm having trouble installing a dds plugin. Could you provide a stable link for a dds plugin and a detailed explanation on how to install it? I've tried two different methods and neither worked. Thank you.

Hi!

I don’t know what a dds plugin is, so I can’t help.

[gimpblogging]

Whenever I optimize for gif on gimpshop the frames all get messed up. I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong

Hi!

I usually don’t optimize my gifs, it’s not necessary.

Sorry for the superlate reply.

[gimpblogging]

So I'm using your tutorial on how to color a gif using curves and hue-saturation and I am confused on what you put in the box after you are applying filters to all layers. How do you find your curve?

If you scroll down to underneath all the pictures of the curve, you’ll see text that explains it thoroughly. In short, you export your curve and name it. That’s the name that you put in the box, after where the curve is located in your computer (C://User/ etc.).

[gimpblogging]

I was just wondering if you had a link to download GAP

Sorry, I didn’t see this ask until now. 

Here.

[gimpblogging]

HI, so I just started using Gimp, i am brand spanking new and i had a few questions. I play a game on the Nintendo 3DS called animal crossing and post about it. I was wondering if there was a way to plug the pictures into gimp and basically make the resolution better and clearer & clean the pictures up a bit so they look nice. Occasionally add an effect or 2 but right now i'm just looking to be able to reduce the noise and like make the picture over all more clear and less blotchy. suggestions?

I don’t have any suggestions because there’s no way you can give a picture better resolution. Sorry I can’t be of more help.

[gimpblogging]

So I am an artist who needed an upgrade from Paint. My dad and I found GIMP but in trying to figure it out, I still have zero clue as how to color the brushes. Do you have any tutorials I could use for this, and maybe other helpfuls for my cluelessness?

Hi! Below comes my tips on painting in GIMP, and then at the bottom there are some useful links.

First, there are a bunch of coloring tools in GIMP. There’s a pen, a brush, ink, airbrush, eraser and bucket tool. And here on GIMP’s website is a walkthrough on all the tools.

To choose the colors to draw with you click on this thing:

The top color (in this case black) is the color you draw with. The white arrow switches the colors. When clicking on the black square you change the color you draw with. This comes up:

You can pick a color in the big square, and change which hue in the multi-colored slide. The small icons on top change which view you use for picking colors. I prefer the triangle in a circle view. Don’t forget to press “Ok”, so that the color picked actually becomes the color you paint with.

I would also suggest working on different layers. When I draw I use one for the background, one for lineart and one for painting.

There is also the issue of canvas size. Basically, don’t go too small. I also have an issue with when I go too big, my computer slows down. So I usually stick between 1000 and 2000. 

Here is a super-useful tutorial and here is a list of useful GIMP tutorials.

[gimpblogging]

Hi could you make a tutorial for installing gap on Mac? And if you already have, could you please post the link to it. Thanks :)))

Sorry, I can’t. I don’t have Mac, so I can’t test if it works. But I would suggest googling, you’re bound to find someone who has already asked that question and then someone who has answered it.

[gimpblogging]

Face Swap Tutorial for GIMP

Have you ever wanted to do a face swap? Maybe you, just like me, want to make some photo manipulations? But then you realize that you don’t know what to do. OH NO! Well, you don’t need to worry anymore. Follow this tutorial and you will be able to do anything in no time. I will show you how I achieved this, with some tips along the way.

In response to this ask.

Dramatic intro done, let’s get all the prep work done:

1. Decide what you want to do. I want to make Lydia (Teen Wolf character) into a superhero. To do that I need to find a superhero to manip her face on. And I picked the episode of Charmed were the sisters are superheroes.

2. Get your caps, preferably HQ. Match the angles of the faces. So in the image where I’m gonna put a face on, the original face is turned a bit and looking to the left. So I tried to find something similar.Below you can see the pictures I chose, and what I mean by angle of the face. Also, similar (ish) lighting is good.

They’re facing the same way, and there’s similar coloring in terms of lighting. Here they also both have pale skin and red hair, but that is less important, especially the hair color.

Now for the actual editing!

1. Open up the picture the face is going on.

2. Open up the picture with the face and remove the unnecessary bits.

3. Make the two faces similar size, clicking on this tool in the tool window or shift+T.

Make sure that the chain is linked and re-size.

A tip is doing the resizing in increments (small steps) so that you don’t end up with a too small face.

4. When I’m fairly happy with the size, I duplicate the layer (ctrl+shit+d and there’s also an icon in the layer menu with two images on top of each other) and invisible the bottom one by clicking on the eye. This so that I have a back-up in case I mess up too much.

5. Delete everything you don’t need. This is mine.

And then I decided that her facial expression was uninteresting so I switched images.

To get this one to match I flipped it using below tool and also rotated it using below-below tool.

But otherwise I did the same thing.

6. Let’s get down to the actual matching part! Below will be a rundown of what I did to make my images match. You may not need to do all these steps, or you may need to do some other stuff. This is more of a general guide than a step-by-step tutorial.

IMPORTANT! The adjustments are made on duplicates of the below layer. This way I can easily undo my actions.

First I lighten up Lydia’s face. At the moment it’s too gray and dark. This is my curve:

Then I start with the hair. Looking at the image, I can see that I need to erase parts of it and I also want to make it more orangey, like the woman’s hair beneath. It would also fit more with the warmth of the background and the outfit.

I erase some hair, and the rest of her dress. The purple and grey parts you can see at the bottom of the hair is the dress.

Then I make a new layer, paint some orange over her hair and set it to soft light. I paint with a soft brush, like the default brush, and also apply some gaussian blur and lower the opacity to make it blend better. I merge the layer with orange on with the layer beneath. To do this right-click and then click merge with below layer (this may not be exactly what it says, as my GIMP is in swedish and I’m translating).

And now, even though the hair needs more work, I’m going to work on the neck, which is what was originally asked about. Here the skin is matched via curves, and they have very similar skintones anyway. If it’s not this easy to match, I’d suggest using the hue slider in the hue saturation tool (Colors>Hue Saturation). You can also use a color picker.

First I fix the necklace, using the color picker to pick the same pink as the rest of the necklace.

Then I use the copy tool to pick up skin, and paint over the hair.

It’s this symbol:

Pick a suitable spot, press ctrl and click. The spot that’s marked will now be your “paint”. The spot can’t be transparent, so create a new layer from visible. I also used the smudge tool to blend. It’s the hand with a finger sticking out.

I then zoom out and blend more with the same technique. I used a textured brush for this to make it look more natural, specifically an acrylic brush (I think that it looks more natural). And now I have this:

And now the hair. I use one of my duplicate layers (see the beginning of this step) to get some hair. I duplicate it and cut out pices of the hair and match it.

And this is what I got:

And with that I’m done with the photo manipulation. But after this I made more adjustments until I got the graphic I wanted. Those adjustments include sharpening, among others. So you’re not done after this.

If anything was unclear or confusing, feel free to ask.

[gimpblogging]

im making an edit and im trying to put a face on top of another (so like someones face on anothers body) but i dont know how to make it look natural. Do you know how to blend the face and match the skin tone of the original picture? Sorry if this is confusing and thanks!

1. I’m in the process of making a tutorial of this.

2. I’d suggest using the color picker tool (both the one in the sidebar and and the one in the color menu) plus matching the pose.

Your message is not confusing. :)

[gimpblogging]

Installing GAP on Ubuntu (Linux)

1. Use the second post on this page. 

2. To open the terminal, search in the dash.

3. You’re done! When making gifs, go to Filters>Filter all layers>plug-in-wr-curves and then click “apply constant”, cancel and then ctrl+F. Put in /home/*your username*/.gimp-2.8/curves/*name of your curve*.

[fy-gimp-deactivated20220312]

[TUTORIAL] How To Make A Gif (MAC & WINDOWS)

I know that this has been way long over due (LOL 3 years to be exact) - an UPDATED GIF TUTORIAL. Shout out to @holdmetightae for mentioning this to me. 

First off, this tutorial is going to take you through the whole process of making a gif. So yes, I’m going to start from the very beginning: getting screen captures, to bringing it to gimp and also my editing and coloring process.

The very first gif tutorial was very basic - the more so simple version. I’m still going to keep that up for anyone that likes to go back and use it as reference. But I do want to point out that when I make gifs, the process is never the same. 

Some days, my gifs look great and other times they just look awful. That being said, I want you to look at this as more of a guide more than anything. You guys are free to experiment when it comes to the editing AND coloring part. But everything else is just the basic how to for a gif. 

Before we go ahead and jump into the tutorial, a few points to keep in mind:

Input Quality = Output Quality ; essentially, what you put into your gif will result in what you get out. So please, use HQ/HD videos when extracting frames and screen captures.

Tumblr’s max size for a single gif is 540px IN WIDTH ; so use less frames (10-15 range) for big single gifs. (2MB max for each gif)

If you are making smaller gifs such as 268px IN WIDTH or smaller, you can use more frames but don’t over due it. (2MB max for each gif)

What you need:

Gimp

MPEG Streamclip

Animstacks

Keep reading

[gimpblogging]

Tips for making a lot of gifs at once in GIMP

Say you’re doing a dialogue or an outfit gifset. That is a lot of gifs that are gonna have (basically) the same adjustments done to all of them. So how do you speed up the process?

1. Open all of the gifs up so that they are all ready. Open up the first frame as a picture, and the rest as layers.

2. Make the same adjustment to all the pictures at the same time. So, open them all up. Crop all the gifs (if you want to). Etc. 

3. Make a keyboard shortcut for resizing images. It is a lifesaver. Here are all the hotkeys. To change them, go to Edit>hotkeys/shortcuts (my GIMP is in swedish and I’m uncertain of the translation). Then, in the window that pops up, go to Image>Scale Image and activate it. Put whatever hotkey you want. It will be claimed by some other function, but a) you don’t need a hotkey for all the functions and b) some adjustments will be stuff you’ve never heard of. I put I (the letter). 

4. For applying the curve (or several curves) to all layers, copy the input, that is C:\\Users\*your username*\gimp-2.8\curves\ . I don’t put the name of my curve in the copied text because I might want to use different curves and then this method is easier. The text above is for Windows btw. 

5. Don’t apply the same curve to all the gifs if the frames come from different scenes. Check first that the curve fits. Use the curve tool, which will give you a preview. That said, I usually do apply my curve to everything even if the frames aren’t from the same scene. The worst that can happen is that I will have to undo. 

6. Make use of the ctrl+F function. It repeats the last action/adjustment. So when applying all the curves, ctrl+F. When sharpening, ctrl+F. 

EDIT!!!!: You can also put a hotkey for indexing an image. It is even more of a lifesaver than the resizing pictures one.