Sent: 2010-07-08 18:22:06 UTC (over 1 year ago)

From: Matias

[Offtopic] Design learning

permalink

Sorry for this completely offtopic question.

I'm a systems administrator with programming experience (mostly python
and C) and I love web applications design/programming and I'm pretty
good with html, javascript, css, etc... but I have a really weak point
when it comes to "images" desing. I mean, I'd love to learn how to do
images like this:
http://www.freecsstemplates.org/previews/solutions/images/img01.gif

(from the template http://www.freecsstemplates.org/preview/solutions/)

I understand the basics, and I use quite frequently Gimp, but this is
not like coding, when you code, most of the times it is easy to
understand what is happenning (except if the code you are reading is
perl :-P ) and thus, you can learn.... but I still can't "read" images I
see out there, so, I guess there should be any learning path for this
also or maybe is that just the creative half of my brain is missing.

Would you recommend any book? any website? or some other way to learn to
do "nice 3d looking menus, buttons"..etc?

Thanks for your help, and sorry for the offtopic, but I didn't find a
better place to ask this. (didn't look for a lot also...)

Thanks!

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Sent: 2010-07-08 18:53:48 UTC (over 1 year ago)

From: Deniz Dogan

[Offtopic] Design learning

permalink

2010/7/8 Matias :
> Sorry for this completely offtopic question.
>
> I'm a systems administrator with programming experience (mostly python
> and C) and I love web applications design/programming and I'm pretty
> good with html, javascript, css, etc... but I have a really weak point
> when it comes to "images" desing. I mean, I'd love to learn how to do
> images like this:
> http://www.freecsstemplates.org/previews/solutions/images/img01.gif
>
> (from the template http://www.freecsstemplates.org/preview/solutions/)
>
> I understand the basics, and I use quite frequently Gimp, but this is
> not like coding, when you code, most of the times it is easy to
> understand what is happenning (except if the code you are reading is
> perl :-P ) and thus, you can learn.... but I still can't "read" images I
> see out there, so, I guess there should be any learning path for this
> also or maybe is that just the creative half of my brain is missing.
>
> Would you recommend any book? any website? or some other way to learn to
> do "nice 3d looking menus, buttons"..etc?
>
> Thanks for your help, and sorry for the offtopic, but I didn't find a
> better place to ask this. (didn't look for a lot also...)
>

I understand completely what you mean and I have felt the same
way at times. It just takes some practice, but once you "get it"
it's really simple. (Note that I'm not a GIMP pro by any means.)

The image you linked can e.g. easily be created using the
following steps:

1. On the background layer create a gradient from gray to white.
2. Create a new layer.
3. On the new layer create a completely white box - select
rectangle and fill with white.
4. Create yet another layer.
5. On the new layer select a smaller rectangle and fill it with a
gradient which goes from green to lighter green.
6. Create a new layer with the green stuff at the top.

I know that this is not what you were asking for, but I hope this
helped you understand something new. :)

--
Deniz Dogan
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Sent: 2010-07-16 12:16:15 UTC (over 1 year ago)

From: bktheman34

[Offtopic] Design learning

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There are literally thousands of gimp tutorials out there, many concentrate on
web graphics.

Here's what I'd do.

1. Create your new image using the desired dimensions (make it slightly wider
than you need, you can crop it later)
2. click on the gradient tool. Choose foreground colour white, choose
background colour grey
click and drag the gradient tool from the top of the image to the bottom.
3. Choose green as foreground colour, use the rectangular selection tool to
select a thin line at the top of the image (doesn't matter if you go the edges
of the image) then click EDIT > FILL WITH FG COLOUR
4. Use the same tool to select a second rectangle further down (again it
doesn't matter if your selection goes off the edges), and fill with FG colour
again
5. Then choose white as foreground colour. Click EDIT > STROKE SELECTION -
choose line width of the stroke in pixels, click OK.
6. Now crop your image to size.

--
Bill (via www.gimpusers.com)
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Sent: 2010-07-16 13:29:39 UTC (over 1 year ago)

From: Mike Marchywka

[Offtopic] Design learning

permalink

----------------------------------------
> To: gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
> From: forums@gimpusers.com
> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:16:15 +0200
> Subject: [Gimp-user] [Offtopic] Design learning
>
> There are literally thousands of gimp tutorials out there, many concentrate on
> web graphics.

I know I'm hijacking this thread but I've been trying to find the right audience
to ask this question. In the past, "web graphics" or at least primitive
computer graphics consistented of ASCII characters arranged
in a way which when viewed from a distance created the illusion of
an image. I was recently browsing through an old disk trying to figure out what
was what and I was using ssh which is text oriented but had no way to figure
out what some images were- if I could just "type" them out that would have
been a big help even if the result was very crude. Also, there are times when you WANT to
convert an image into a more concise representation ( compression does this)
that captures the perceptually important stuff while tossing out
other detail ( you can imagine issues with image indexing too).

I guess my question is , " does anyone know of tools that can convert
images to ASCII characters,
say like imagemagick, or does GIMP provide a way to catagorize blocks
of pixels, say based on wavelet coefficients for each block, and convert
an arbitrary image into a smaller block of text, probably limited to
80 character width?"

Thanks.

>
> Here's what I'd do.
>
> 1. Create your new image using the desired dimensions (make it slightly wider
> than you need, you can crop it later)
> 2. click on the gradient tool. Choose foreground colour white, choose
> background colour grey
> click and drag the gradient tool from the top of the image to the bottom.
> 3. Choose green as foreground colour, use the rectangular selection tool to
> select a thin line at the top of the image (doesn't matter if you go the edges
> of the image) then click EDIT> FILL WITH FG COLOUR
> 4. Use the same tool to select a second rectangle further down (again it
> doesn't matter if your selection goes off the edges), and fill with FG colour
> again
> 5. Then choose white as foreground colour. Click EDIT> STROKE SELECTION -
> choose line width of the stroke in pixels, click OK.
> 6. Now crop your image to size.
>
> --
> Bill (via www.gimpusers.com)
>

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> Gimp-user mailing list
> Gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
> https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user

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Sent: 2010-07-16 13:45:11 UTC (over 1 year ago)

From: Dotan Cohen

[Offtopic] Design learning

permalink

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 14:29, Mike Marchywka wrote:
> I guess my question is , " does anyone know of tools that can convert
> images to ASCII characters,

This was the first hit on a google search for "images to ASCII characters":
http://asciiconvert.com/

--
Dotan Cohen

http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com

Sent: 2010-07-16 15:50:37 UTC (over 1 year ago)

From: Mike Marchywka

[Offtopic] Design learning

permalink

----------------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:45:11 +0300
> Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] [Offtopic] Design learning
> From: dotancohen@gmail.com
> To: marchywka@hotmail.com
> CC: forums@gimpusers.com; gimp-user@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu
>
> On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 14:29, Mike Marchywka wrote:
>> I guess my question is , " does anyone know of tools that can convert
>> images to ASCII characters,
>
> This was the first hit on a google search for "images to ASCII characters":
> http://asciiconvert.com/

Thanks,  I didn't  bother to look but I guess I will try that.
That link doesn't obviously have the ability to download an opensource  command line utility
but I'll see if others are out there. I think there used to be places that
put picture on T shirts or something by doing this, maybe algorithgms
have gotten betteer now with wavelets LOL.

>
> --
> Dotan Cohen
>
> http://gibberish.co.il
> http://what-is-what.com

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