From Monday to Thursday this week, I have made a video a day on simple Gimp techniques to do. I talk in all of them and in my opinion explain the techniques clearly. I hope you enjoy them :)

By the way, I really suggest going to Youtube to watch the high quality versions (the text on the screen will be clear).


Simple Space Background
[high quality]




Basic Text Effects
[high quality]




Pixel Decompose Effect
[high quality]




Picture in Text
[high quality]

Prologue:

This tutorial has been converted from the original Photoshop tutorial into Gimp. The original Photoshop tutorial can be found here: http://psdtuts.com/designing-tutorials/ ... le-poster/ . This tutorial is not recommended for beginners. I also recommend that you save often.

Resources:

Apartment Building: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/976442
Brick Wall: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/802046
Background Buildings: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/981381
Clouds: http://www.flickr.com/photos/azeected/2631417767/
Lamp Post: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/898294

Tutorial

1. Press Ctrl-O and open up the Apartment buildin stock. Let's make it easy to work with by reducing the size by %50. Make a new layer and name it "Guidelines". Use the path tool to make guidelines along the building's edges.



2. Get the text tool out and spell Gimp in all caps with a huge font (I used 700). Make the color a dark gray. Now make sure the yellow dashed lines are surrounding where the guidelines intersect. Select the perspective tool and make the preview in the settings "grid" with 15 lines. Click and drag the text layer to match the grid with the guidelines.



3. Go to layer>transparency>alpha to selection. This should have selected the text. Open a new image copy and paste the text into this image. Delete the background layer and go to Image>Fit canvas to Layers. Make the text black and save it as a .gbr (gimp brush) where the rest of your brushes are stored. Make a new layer named "First3d" and move it below the text layer. Go to the Brush tool and select the brush that you just made. Change the spacing to 1. Anywhere on the canvas, make a straight line using the path tool. Make the angle of the line follow the top right edge of the apartment. Stroke the path using the brush tool.



This is you layer dialog so far:



4. Now type the word "TUTS" in all caps with a little bit smaller font (I used 500). Use the perspective tool as before and move it towards the opposite direction of the first text. Then repeat the process of creating a brush and making the 3d effect as before.



This is your layers dialog:



5. Open up the original apartment on a new canvas. Scale it down to 1955x1300. Next use the Rectangle Select Tool, with the size set to 1000x1300, and crop out the outside pieces. Now go to Image>Fit Canvas To Layers. Use the Paths tool and cut out the blue sky. Also cut out the left edge of the building to make it look like it ends there.



6. Go back to the first image and copy and paste both of the text layers and the black 3d areas onto the new image. Hide the "TUTS" text and the corresponding black 3d area for now. Put the "GIMP" text layer and corresponding black 3d area below the Apartment layer. Position them right above the apartment. Get the Clone tool out and begin to clone the bricks from the apartment onto the a new layer called "brickclone". Cover up the text.



7. Make the "GIMP" text layer active and go to Layer>Transparency>Alpha to Selection. Then go back to the the "brickclone" layer and press Ctrl-I to invert the selection and then Ctrl-X to delete the selection. Now create a new layer called "firstcolorbrick" and fill it with the color #715b1f. Next, go to the "brickclone" layer and go to Layer>Transparency>Alpha to Selection. Now go back to the "firstcolorbrick" layer and press Ctrl-I and then Ctrl-X. Finally, change the "firstcolorbrick" layer to overlay and desaturate the "brickclone" layer. Back on the "firstcolorbrick" layer go to Colors>Hue-Saturation and make the settings Hue: 0 Lightness: -1 Saturation: -85



8. Repeat the same coloring process for the apartment building but don't use the same Hue-Saturation settings. For the color layer on the apartments, use these settings: Hue: 0 Lightness: -43 Saturation: -65. On the apartment layer, on the right side, darken that area with the burn tool.



This is your layers dialog:



9. Make the "TUTS" text and the black 3d area visible and move them to the bottom left. Go to Image>Canvas Size and make the canvas a little wider to fit in the "TUTS" text. Press Ctrl-Alt-O and open the brick the brick wall stock image. Scale it down to a realistic size and clone the scaled down bricks to cover up the text. Now change the perspective to match the "TUTS" text. Repeat the Alpha to Selection process to get the bricks to just cover the text.



10. Repeat the process of coloring the text, using these settings on the Hue-Saturation: Hue: 0 Lightness: -65 Saturation: -50. Create a new layer and name it "Sshadow" and move it below the "TUTS" text layer. Using a very soft black brush, make a shadow to the right of the "S" on the wall.



This is your layer dialog:



11. Press Ctrl-Alt-O and open the background building stock. Put this layer at the very bottom and cut out the top part with the Paths tool. Desaturate the layer and go to Colors>Brightness/Contrast and make the settings: Brightness: -127 Contrast: 28. Scale the whole image to %50. (Unless you just want it extra big)



12. Press Ctrl-Alt-O and open the clouds image. Put the clouds layer at the very bottom. Desaturate the layer. Make a new layer named "cloudcolor" on top of the cloud image and fill it with the color #0f0d08. Change the layer mode to Color. Change the opacity of the "cloudcolor" layer to %50. On the clouds layer go to Colors>Brightness/Contrast with these settings: Brightness: -127 Contrast: 40



13. Press Ctrl-Alt-O and open the Lamp image. Render out just the lamp post. Now desaturate the lamp. Add a simple vertical shadow to the lamp by using a soft black brush. Scale it down a lot and place it on the "P" of "GIMP".



14. Create a new layer and name it "light1". Make a triangle using the paths tool and fill it with white. Move it right below the lamp. Duplicate the layer and rotate it slightly to the left. Lower the opacity of both light layers to %30. Use a large and very soft brush and erase the bottoms of each triangle. Finally, gaussian blur the triangles by 7.0. Merge the two triangles and the lamp all together. Duplicate the new layer twice and move the duplicates on different letters of "GIMP" and scale them to the appropriate sizes.



This is your layers dialog:



15. Make a new layer and fill it with the color #292615. Change the layer mode to Color and the opacity to %70. Move that layer to the very top. Next, make a new layer and move it to the very top. Go to Filters>Clouds>Solid Noise with these settings: Randomize Checked, Detail: 15, and X and Y size: 6.0. Then change the layer mode to Overlay. Now, make a new layer and fill it with black. Change the mode to Soft Light and adjust the opacity to your preference.



16. Finally, add any additional things to your liking and you are through.

Prologue:

This tutorials is for intermediate users at Gimp. I recommend that you save often. This tutorials also involves the use of a lot of layers (mine had 69) so if your computer doesn't handle that well, then make sure you save often, and make the image smaller.

Resources:

Stock of girl: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/918065

Tutorial:

1. First, render out the girl in the stock image. It doesn't have to be the best render you have ever done, considering the end result. Include the rock on the girl's right foot to shape the foot.



2. Now copy and paste the girl onto a new canvas. The canvas size I used was 476x884. Make the canvas color black. Place her somewhere in the middle. While the girl is active, go to Layer>Transparency>Alpha to Selection. This should have selected the girl. Now create a new transparent layer (while the girl is still selected) and fill the selection with white. Now go to Select>Shrink and shrink the selection by 1 pixel. Now press Ctrl-X to delete the selection. Also, hide the original girl layer (you will need her for later). This should leave just the white outline.



3. Pick a dark green and purple for your fg and bg colors in the pallete. Now, using the Blend tool, make a simple vertical gradient (in order to make a perfectly vertical gradient, hold Ctrl). Now duplicate the girl outline layer twice, leaving you with 3 layers of the outline of the girl. Hide the bottom one. Change the layer mode of the middle one to Value. On the top layer, go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and blur it anywhere from 15 to 20.



4. Duplicate the hidden outline layer. Move the duplicate to the top of the stack. Make it visible and go to Filters>Distorts>iWarp. While in iWarp, use a Deform radius of around 50 and a Deform amount of around 0.05. Now just move around the line some here and there and click OK. Now duplicate this layer and make the bottom one's mode Value and the top one gaussian blur by 20.



5. Repeat step 4 as many times as you would like to get more lines.



6. Using the Rectangle Select Tool, create several squares in the bottom right on a new layer at the very top. Now go to Layer>TransparencyShrink and shrink by one pixel.



7. Repeat the process of making glowing lines as used with the girl.



8. Make a new layer of different squares and repeat the process.



9. Repeat the process in top left except use the Ellipse Select Tool.



10. Get out the Paths tool. Make a new layer and go to Layer>Layer Boundary Size and increase the size by about 150% and position the layer in the middle. Now make a curved line and stroke it with a thick green line. Now go to Filters>Distorts>iWarp and shrink the top part to give it some depth.



11. Go to Filters>Light and Shadow>Drop Shadow and create a drop shadow. Now duplicate the green line and move it below the drop shadow layer. Now move it even further towards the bottom left corner. Now add a drop shadow to that green line.



12. Create a new layer at the top and create a radial gradient in the bottom left with the settings like this:



13. Make the first green line layer active. Now go to Layer>Transparency>Alpha to Selection. Now go to the other green line layer and go to Layer>Transparency>Add to Selection. Finally, go back to the gradient layer and press Ctrl-I to invert the selection and then Ctrl-X to delete the selection. Change the layer mode to Overlay and duplicate the layer.



14. Repeat the process on the opposite side but use purple.



Conclusion

So you have completed the tutorial! Yes some parts were admittedly repeptitive, but they came out with some neat results. On a side note, to get more of a glow, you can duplicate some of the blurred line layers.

Video Tutorial:



To watch the video tutorial in high quality, click here. (you have to click "watch in high quality")

In this tutorial we will learn how to use the flame filter to make a simple abstract background. Here are some examples:







1. Create a new canvas. Make the background black by making sure your foreground color on the pallete is black and then go to Edit>Fill With FG Color.



2. Go to Filters>Render>Nature>Flame. Click on the Edit button and select a flame that you like. click on the tab that says 'camera' and position the flame near the center of the picture. go back to the 'rendering' tab and make brightness about 1.30 contrast about 1.00 gamma about 2.00. These settings can vary quite a bit just try to limit the amount of friz or extra dots out of your flame. Try to make it somewhat just a clean stroke without any extra stuff going on. Leave the other settings alone. Click ok.



3. Duplicate the layer and, with the top layer selected, go to Filters>Edge-Detect>Neon. Here you can make your settings whatever you want, just not too bright.



4. Make that layer mode set to 'screen' and merge the layer down. Sometimes, depending on the flame, it looks better without setting the layer mode to screen. its up to you.
*optional* you can choose to skip the part where you merge down and might get a different cool effect.

5. Go to Colors>Color Balance and make it whatever color you want. You could also try making some color with gradients if you know how.



6. *optional* If your abstract doesn't look complete then you can add a small amount of motion blur.