Stefan´s GIMP-demo
Of course, I can´t describe everything you can do with the GIMP. And when you read my description, some button or menu names might be different, as I have the Swedish edition and can´t see what the exact words are used in the English version.

The program is complex – No, not complicated to use, just many, many tools, filters and setup possibilities. GIMP is powerful enough to be used by proffesionals, but still free.

There is one thing to have in mind: RIGHT CLICK to get menues / submenues and sub-submenues. And be prepared to do some experimenting.

I hope that these examples will show a little of what you can do as an amateur after a little bit of practice.
The program is really not difficult to use, even if there are many functions.

You have a small overview of the program at the bottom of this page. Click here if you would like to see it now.

Here are some examples:

Decolorize and imagemap. The original picture is far too red. In fact, no color is needed, as the box is white and the speakers black. So, I used the decolorize function, and manipulated light and contrast a bit. There is also an image map on the left picture, (unfortunately) to a swedish webbpage.
A nice picture, but the sun had already disappeard before the picture was taken. That is easily fixed with GIMP. To make the picture even more realistic, lens flares were added.
You have a photo that you would like to convert to an oil painting, preferrably on canvas to make it look even more authentic. With GIMP this can be done in half a minute or so. You can of course set the depth of the canvas effect yourself.
You have a picture of a box. The box is shown in a perspective, but you want to know how it would look viewed from the front. With GIMP you don´t have to guess. The tranformation is done in half a minute. Notice the color of the hat...
What I did to the hat in the previous example, I have done to the jockey and horse on this picture. Notice that all other colors are left unchanged. This transformation can also be done in some 20-30 seconds.
Here are some other eye-catching things you can do with GIMP. Color the horse with a gradient or look at the picture through a magnifying glass.
Are there any blue-eyed frogs? With ”colourmap rotation” you can change any colour on any part of the picture quickly and easily.
Pictures that have been exposed to the sun for too long, or are badly scanned, can become very dull. The picture on the left is the original. The one on the right is the result of about half a minute of work with GIMP.
Filters can be applied to any part of a picture. All the grass doesn´t have to be red, and the head can have another color than the body... The Valutronic logo can be removed afterwards, as it has been added on a separate, transparent layer.
You can draw using pencils... (OK – I´m not an artist...) ... and paint with brushes. There are 110 brushes to choose from. If that´s not enough you can easily create your own.
Paint using ink (square) ...and on the right (text). It looks natural, just as if you have used brush and ink.
...and you don´t have to stick to one color... This is the text from the last picture, but with a few changes made in less than a minute. The picture on the right is an oversized text + a gradient fill + the ”Super nova” filter in one single layer. Two minutes.
Here you have the car again. This time as a poster background. This is slightly more complex than just touching-up the car picture, and takes about 2 minutes to complete. The right picture: Max RGB.
A picture of some flowers we got from a friendly nabour... Decolorized except for three of them...
...with a soft frame (really easy!) ...and as a Van Gogh painting (or through a frosty window)
A poster can be made in a few seconds... And what about this effect? It was made using the Fractal Trace filter. Nice!
GIMPressionist is a highly customizable filter. Look at these two samples... There are eight background materials, sixty brushes, and adjustment of orientation, size, placement, color and general settings. And 25 presets...
1) Emboss... and 2) Edge detection
You can render clouds... ...and planets...
And combine them with the supernova filter to make an ”outer space picture”... ...or, of course, you can take a real picture of the moon, and mix in a ”sunset” gradient by putting the gradient on a layer on top of the moon, and make the gradient layer semi-transparent.
The ”UFO” on the left was made with StarOffice 5.1. Not very realistic. But put it on a gradient background and add ”flare”... ... and suddenly it looks like a real photograph of something flying in the air...

What can you do with pictures using GIMP?

It is hard to tell, but here is an overview of the program. It is not complete, but it gives you an idea of how much can be done with the GIMP.

There are 11 main menues under ”Archive”
There are 136 sub-menues under the main menues.
–- And under the Picture - Colours submenue alone, there are 14 sub-submenues, of which one (colour balance) has three sliders for continous adjustment settings, three windows where you can write your settings more exactly, and three choices as to what parts of the picture you want to adjust. You can also decide if you want to keep the darkness of the picture intact, or have it affected when adjusting the colors.

This is how the window looks (in my swedish GIMP).

Do you think this is advanced? Then look att the Sphere Designer... under the sub-menue Filter / Render:

Here you have full control of what happens, and if you click on a color button, this is opened:

...where you have seven adjustments for each color...

As you can se, you have a detailed control over each thing you do. Every detail can be adjusted to your needs.

The fact that the GIMP has many advanced functions, doesn´t make it difficult to use. All standard functions are easy to get to, and the pre-settings are usually quite right as a start. You don´t have to fine-adjust if you don´t want to. But if you work proffesionally with pictures, GIMP has what it takes. If the presets don´t fit your needs you can always make your own.

Of course, you can also paint yourself. Here you see the brush dialog:

-110 brushes are included. Opacity, placement and distance are adjustable.
If you push the placement (”Läge” in swedish) button you get another menu where you can adjust how the brush acts when you use it.

If you press the New-button you get a dialog where you can make your own brushes. You can of course also save your own brushes for later use.

Even if this is a lot, it is not a complete description at all. You can do MUCH more.
And when you get used to right-clicking and sub-menues, and maybe started to use shortcuts (and you can make your own extremely easy!), the GIMP becomes a very fast program to use.

I personally find it difficult to understand people who think that freeware programs always are bad programs. Probably they haven´t examined the freeware market enough. There are a whole lot of very good freeware out there, and when it comes to graphic manipulation, GIMP is one of the best (if not THE best), even if you compare it to very expensive commercial programs.

The interface is somewhat ”Linux”-ic, but once you get used to it, you will love it. And please, read the help files. If you can´t open them from within the program, you can still use your browser and open them directly from your GIMP-folder. Start by opening the Gimp/help/C/index.html -file.