In-depth tutorial for GIMP users

969 Views 7 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Catana, Jan 7, 2013

Cege Smith

Discussion Starter · Jan 6, 2013

I am just dipping my toes into using GIMP to design covers for one of my pen names. I have had a difficult time finding a comprehensive tutorial, but finally found one that so far would be well worth the money (if I needed to spend it).

It's on lynda.com and is by Justin Seeley. (If you just go to the site and search for "GIMP" it'll pop right up at the top- GIMP Essential Training.) If you go through the whole thing, it's almost 5 hours of guidance, and the best part is that you can use the 7-day free trial to access it if you aren't already a member. Even at $20 for one month of access to the site, I think it's well worth the investment. It was just released on Dec. 12th, so the info is very recent.

Hopefully this helps some other GIMP newbies like me!

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60865

· #2 · Jan 6, 2013

Good luck, I tried and could not figure it out.

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Rayna Corday

· #3 · Jan 7, 2013

Save your money.
I think people often mistake GIMP's less-than-user-friendly UI for a steep learning curve, but it's actually pretty easy to learn -- and I'm faaaaar from tech-savvy.

There are tons of free GIMP tutorials available on youtube that teach everything you'll need to make ebook covers: 3d text; using filters, effects, and alpha channels; background removal; compositing; using layers; selecting around hair, etc.

Real basic stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbRxzQdwfHU&feature=related

More advanced text effects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfeIBK1k_PY

This lady has over 80 instructional videos that cover everything:
http://www.youtube.com/user/GIMPtricks?feature=watch

She's by far the best.

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Catana

· #4 · Jan 7, 2013

@Rayna Corday Not everyone does well watching videos. And they're not convenient if you need to go over the same material more than once. I have a very poor visual memory, and it would be impossible for me to learn anything as complex as a graphic program from watching a video. A book sits still and lets you reread until you've grasped the material. And many videos are not particularly well designed, either going too fast, obscuring important visuals, or lacking clear audio.

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Rayna Corday

· #5 · Jan 7, 2013

Catana said:
@Rayna Corday Not everyone does well watching videos. And they're not convenient if you need to go over the same material more than once. I have a very poor visual memory, and it would be impossible for me to learn anything as complex as a graphic program from watching a video. A book sits still and lets you reread until you've grasped the material. And many videos are not particularly well designed, either going too fast, obscuring important visuals, or lacking clear audio.

Not Convenient? Too fast? The video tutorials I linked to are all easy to follow and understand. At the risk of sounding facetious (I promise I'm not) YT videos all have pause buttons and progress bars, so you can conveniently replay any section until you've "grasped the material". You watch a step, pause, and then duplicate what you just seen.

I just wanted to suggest a free and viable alternative to paying to learn GIMP... baffling that someone would even have an issue with that.

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Cege Smith

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jan 7, 2013

I'm all for free resources. I mentioned in my original post that it isn't necessary to pay for this particular tutorial either. You could sign-up for the trial, watch the tutorials, run through the exercises, and then cancel your membership when the trial expires and you'd never pay a dime.

This is an option if someone wants to consider a professionally done, comprehensive, self-paced online tutorial. (I've seen some pretty crappy tutorials in my day.) Hence my further point that given the value I've found in it already, I would gladly pay for it if I wanted to keep the membership. And btw- the membership gives you access to all of the courses on the site- not just the GIMP tutorial. I'm considering it for access to the tutorial on Adobe products as well.

As with anything, if it's not your cup of tea or something you'd consider, that's totally cool. Just thought I'd put it out there so others can make their own educated decision on it like I did. YMMV.

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unkownwriter

· #7 · Jan 7, 2013

I went and looked at the lynda.com site, and that looks like a very comprehensive list of tutorials. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Cege, I'll be adding it to the resources page on my blog.

And thanks for that last link, Rayna, I'd forgotten about her tutes, and will also add a link to the blog.

As for written tutorials, here are a couple of places to check out:

www.gimp.org
www.gimpusers.com

There are also books for GIMP. I did a google search to find some, though you'll want to check that they are updated for the latest version, since there have been some significant changes in the latest update. I have no idea how good any of them are, since I used video tutes.

http://www.gimp.org/books/ some are out of date

Here's one you can download and read free, or buy a print version:

http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/

Sometimes it's better to have a written source -- I sure did for Photoshop, but I found a couple of fairly recent books at the thrift store and they are very helpful for basics, and it's easy enough to pick up the other stuff online.

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Catana

· #8 · Jan 7, 2013

Rayna Corday said:
Not Convenient? Too fast? The video tutorials I linked to are all easy to follow and understand. At the risk of sounding facetious (I promise I'm not) YT videos all have pause buttons and progress bars, so you can conveniently replay any section until you've "grasped the material". You watch a step, pause, and then duplicate what you just seen.

I just wanted to suggest a free and viable alternative to paying to learn GIMP... baffling that someone would even have an issue with that.

I wasn't criticizing your video suggestions. Just trying to point out that for some people, print is much easier to deal with than moving visuals. For them, (and me) pause buttons and progress bars are simply barriers to easy comprehension. But I appreciate the thread since it's inspired me to find more print material online and find a way to make a listing accessible for other people.

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