Hi all,

 

I am a student and have quite a tight budget. I am trying to do all of my graphics in gimp, but it's not working out. I'm really struggling. What do you think I should do? Should I get better at gimp, should I save money and buy photoshop (remember, quite a tight budget), or is there some other option that I should consider?

 

Thank you all in advance!

 

Regards,

 

Brendan

Paintshop Pro maybe?

 

But why is Gimp not working out for you? I think that should be a question to answer as it might just be as simple as looking at some tutorials to see exactly what Gimp is capable of.

I agree...i am a gimp convertee ....this is the tutorial that really helped me >http

://help-developer.com/index.php/2008/0...-html-and-css/

Given a bit of fiddling I reacon you'll see it

Maybe you're right, maybe I just need to learn how to work with it properly! I'll take a look at the tutorial you gave me, and post here again to say if it helped or not

 

Regards,

 

Brendan

I suppose it may be quite a basic tutorial, but it made me realise how the shortcuts and stuff work; I did the same tutorial over and over to familiarize myself with a few of the functions.

 

I also used this one >http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Lite_Quickies/

 

I hope you like

Thank you very much for the responses everybody, and certainly you quezela!

 

I'll take a look at the tutorials you pointed me to over the weekend.

 

Regards,

 

Brendan

I haven't used GIMP for about a year now. If you can I would really recommend saving the money for photoshop because it really is worth the money, however, GIMP may have improved greatly over that time.

I think the most valuable point to make here is it doesn't really matter what program you use, it's how well you use it. If you're on a budget and you don't like GIMP, you are not left with a choice of photoshop or nothing... There are plenty of other graphics programs out there - some are quite reasonable in price, some are not. Do a spot of research, and ask around to see what everyone's using.

Personally I think gimp is excellent, but it is a bit tricky at first. Once you get used to it, it does everything I want it to. I agree that photoshop is more intuitive, but then it isn't free, is it?

I know that GIMP can do everything that I need it to do, I'm just finding it hard to start off, and because I'm not a very patient person, was looking for a quick fix. Thanks all for the advice!

 

Regards,

 

Brendan

Hi Brendan

 

To Gimp or not to Gimp? That is the question.

 

If you were to do a poll, most people would probably say Photoshop is the best. Quite frankly it should be, considering its price tag! But it is not the only option.

 

I personally prefer Corel Photo Paint, this is possibly because I have just been using it for years.

 

Paint Shop Pro used to be a jasc product and was an excellent photo editor for a reasonable price tag. I am not sure how good it is these days, since corel has taken over, but it probably has only improved.

 

Paint.net is also improving every day and is a surprisingly capable little program also with a price tag of zero.

 

Microsoft expression software is apparently also pretty good.

 

Point is, there are a lot of options. At the end of the day, no matter how powerful the program, it is only as good as the user. I have a friend who produces the most amazing things using sierra print artist and corel presentations. I still have not figured out how she does it as print artist is essentially for kids and presentations is technically a slide show application.

 

In conclusion, find a product that fits your budget then work with it.

Very good advice... thank you for the response

have a look at Photoimpact from http://www.ulead.com as well - you can get a copy from Amazon for about £50. Well worth the money and for me at least it's much more intuitive than Photoshop - hell you actually have a right click menu that does stuff!

Hey Everyone,

 

I have been working with this tutorial here. Could somebody please explain step 10 and 11 to me? I'm finding it very confusing.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Regards,

 

Brendan

Having prob connecting to that page atm....

 

explain which step if you can. If i connect before, I will add to this post....

 

It did puzzle me in parts, but did it again and again till I got it. Don't worry, if you can php, you can do this lol

 

Ok got it...

 

Step 10. Text tool (t) Then just click anywhere under the line you made (i had problems making that but got it now) and a text box appears. For all the tools that I have got to know, there are options at the bottom of the tool box (ctl b to bring it to front) which help. In the text case you have sizes, colour, font etc. you might find you have to scroll to see it all.

 

Some problems i have had was to do with where my layer was created. It might be worth checking your layer of text is created on top of the others so open the layers tool (ctrl l)(If under some layers you might not see your text even tho you typed it) If your text layer is at the top of the list, the problem is not that. If it is underneath another layer, click on the up arrow on the bottom of the layer window and it will move it up for you.

 

If you still can't see the text, it might be your text colour (check toolbox at bottom) is the same or similar colour to your background.

 

I am presuming now your problem is not the text being seen. Once you have typed your text, you can add spaces in the text editing box until your positions are right. Then you can use the move tool (m) to move the text over to where you want.

 

Let me know if there is something else in this bit which is stumping you (chances are it did the same to me)

 

Moving to step 11.

 

Now an easy way to copy your header layer; ctrl l to open the layer tool. Then look for the layer called header copy, select it, and duplicate it using the icon that looks like two overlappng screens. Then you can select the rectangular select tool ® and use it to make an outline around one of your navigation descriptions you just created.

Then select the fill tool (shift B ). Again have a peek at the toolbox (ctrl B ) to check your colour. Then just click in your selection to fill it. On the bottom of the toolbox, there are some useful options for the fill tool; bg fill and fg fill. If checked, these will correspond with the colours you selected for your foreground / background.

 

Now have a quick look at the last layer your created (ctrl l) (might be worth naming it something like onhover). At the top you have a slider and a box which adjusts the layer's opacity - you can slide or type ( i finding typing more precise for a specific value but sliding is good to watch the effect on your image as you do it). Just enter 10 in the box and go back to your image.

 

I hope this has answered some of your questions. I have added you to my msn so I can always help you live if you have more probs.

 

It is worth knowing, now I have sussed this technique, as long as you know how to move between the layers etc, you don't need to do everything in the same order as suggested.

 

Edit: lol just see all my b's and brackets turned into smileys - sorry.

 

Found this resource too: http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/forum/GIMP-T...d-Tips-8-1.html

Also found this tutorial on the above forum which is really good and informative

 

i have a pdf file which is massive but maybe good as a basic offline reference. See attached

 

Am I overloading you now lol? End of Rosie monologue.

Thank you very much Guezala! That cleared it up... I think If I have any more questions I'll ask you via msn. Also, thanks for the tutorials, they're great.

 

In this case, overloading is a good thing lol, I need to learn this stuff!!!

 

Regards,

 

Brendan