About GIMP and Inkscape

GIMP is a raster/bitmap graphics tool and Inkscape is a vector graphics tool. Together they meet most graphics needs in photo/image manipulation and creation of scalable graphics and offer free/open source alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

Answers to Common Questions on:

• Drawing simple shapes
• Layer manipulation
• Combining images and photos
• Application of filters
• Image Enhancement
• Opening and Transforming Files

The first stop for new users or people seeking reference documentation should be the GIMP manual available in various languages. It is easy to read with highlights for users and plenty of pictures to indicate what you should see while using the tools.

Basics

• Draw a straight line via GIMP Tutorials
• Drawing shapes in Paths (Bezier Tool) via GIMP Tutorials

Fading parts of images to white (or other colours)

•  The fade effect – Fade parts of images to image or other colours via layer masks and Gaussian blur.

Making collages

• Creating a collage using GIMP Let’s Begin! – [PDF]
• Make a photo collage with Gimp – [Video] YouTube – Overview of picture insertion and basics layer manipulation and resizing.
• How To Make a ”Good-looking Collage In Gimp – [Video] YouTube

Image Enhancement

These techniques can be helpful for post-processing (PP) of images and photos or highlight elements. Of course with photos it is best to take a good photo so you don’t need much PP!

• Contrast Mask – Control contrast in an image (e.g. brighten dark areas in an image, bring out more highlights in dark areas/shadows)
• Selective Colourization – Take a colour photograh and make certain parts of it black and white, while other parts retain their colour. This method is used to highlight portions of a photo with colour to bring attention to it, while other parts are black and white or have some other filter applied.

Text Manipulation

• Using an image as background to text (i.e. the fill pattern of the letters is an image).

Opening and Transforming Files

• Opening EPS files in GIMP – Open .eps files directly with GIMP with the aid of GhostScript
• Vectorize an image – Convert raster graphics to vectors