On 03/09/14 18:54, NoWhizzKid wrote:

Please, can anyone give me a really simple step by step to achieve smooth edges on an image in GIMP? I've tried the tutorials I can find online, but I must be missing something. I just don't understand how to make the edges of my image smooth? This footprint is a prime example of something I want to smooth out around the edges, but it just isn't working whenever I follow instruction I can find online. Can anyone please help me? Thank you so much.

Attachments: * http://www.gimpusers.com/system/attachments/148/original/turquoisefoot.png

I think we have a question for you: how did you create that? Because it's likely more an error you do than a wrong technique.

If you want smooth outlines, you should create them using the path tool , then create a selection
from the path (Select>From path) and then bucket-fill the selection. With the path tool, the smoother lines are those created with the least nodes, and where the tangent handles on each node are symmetrical.

A path done using you existing foot as a guide, then used for a selection and bucket-filled:

http://imgur.com/Phb0SHA

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On 09/03/2014 01:38 PM, NoWhizzKid wrote:

I think we have a question for you: how did you create that? Because it's likely more an error you do than a wrong technique.

If you want smooth outlines, you should create them using the path tool ,
then create a selection from the path (Select>From path) and then bucket-fill the selection. With the path tool, the smoother lines are those created with the least nodes, and where the tangent handles on each node are symmetrical.

A path done using you existing foot as a guide, then used for a selection and bucket-filled:

http://imgur.com/Phb0SHA

Oh lord, lol. I am so grateful for your reply, and the image that you have attached is absolutely perfect - 100% what I am after. But I'm afraid I just don't understand most of what you have explained to me with regards to tangent handles, nodes etc. I am such an amateur!

Amateur? Aren't we all! "Professionalism is always faked."

Here's a couple of points on bezier curves (pun intentional):

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Bezier_Selections/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv9R6tK0Wos

Bezier curves are used all over the place - CAD programs, vector editors like Inkscape, etc. In addition to making precise drawings in a relatively quick and easy way, they are also useful for making selections where/as the shape you are trying to outline is bounded by smooth curves.

:o)

Steve

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On 03/09/14 19:38, NoWhizzKid wrote:

I think we have a question for you: how did you create that? Because it's likely more an error you do than a wrong technique.

If you want smooth outlines, you should create them using the path tool
, then create a
selection
from the path (Select>From path) and then bucket-fill the selection. With the path tool, the smoother lines are those created with the least
nodes, and where the tangent handles on each node are symmetrical.

A path done using you existing foot as a guide, then used for a selection and bucket-filled:

http://imgur.com/Phb0SHA

Oh lord, lol. I am so grateful for your reply, and the image that you have attached is absolutely perfect - 100% what I am after. But I'm afraid I just don't understand most of what you have explained to me with regards to tangent handles, nodes etc. I am such an amateur!

I will experiment with the path tool, but is there any way you could explain briefly how to start? The image I attached was originally a photograph of a paint footprint. I used the alpha channel to remove the background, then smoothed out the outline as best I could with the eraser and finally colourised the image. I appreciate this isn't the right way of doing things as the image doesn't look good! But I've taught myself how to use GIMP and it's still a struggle as I am a real novice!

Thanks so much again for your reply :)

OK, so now I start t understand what happened to you. To remove the background, I assume that you used the layer mask technique. This can work well if you use a soft brush (ie a round brush with "fuzzy borders"). There are a few in the standard brushes (called "Hardness 100" (very hard), "Hardness 075" (medium hard), "Hardness 050", "Hardness 025"). This produces smooth lines because the edge pixels of the foot print are partially transparent(*). And to colourize the image you applied a selection from the Fuzzy select (magic wand) or the Color select. Unfortunately these tools do an all-or-nothing job. Either the pixel is fully selected or it is not selected at all. So when you apply paint, the pixels that were subtly partially transparent become fully opaque, and there are no anti-aliasing pixels left and your outline becomes jaggy. Instead, you should have used the alpha lock to protect the partial transparency of these pixels.

In other words, your technique is OK if you are careful, and the Path tool isn't necessary in this case (even if in many cases, it can solve the problem in a totally different way, as seen in my first post).

(*) see http://gimpforums.com/thread-proper-subject-extraction-background-removal-and-background-painting

On 03/09/14 22:56, NoWhizzKid wrote:

Thank you!!! I'm slowly getting the hang of it, though not very accurate with my nodes at the minute!!! I'm struggling to fill the image though with an alternative colour? I don't understand where 'bucket fill' is?

The tilted bucket in the Toolbox palette, the by the menu Tools>Paint tools>Bucket-fill, or with the "Shift-B" keyboard shortcut.

On 03/09/14 23:35, NoWhizzKid wrote:

OK, this is my first attempt. It looks dreadful. I used the paths tool and followed this tutorial...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bMJH6aQwsw

It's so bad though! Where am I going wrong?!

Thanks again for your help - I very much appreciate it :)

Attachments: * http://www.gimpusers.com/system/attachments/149/original/TurquoiseFootFromPath1.png

Why do you have the gray outline? Did you do the bucket fill on a clean layer?

The trick with the path tool is to use as few nodes as possible. The more nodes, the more contrived the curve looks. In my version there are 16 nodes for the main print and 4 or 5 nodes for each toe.The path is also less contrived if the tangents on nodes are symmetrical (this is automatic if you depress the shift key while dragging the tangent handles).

On 05/09/14 19:18, NoWhizzKid wrote:

I'm so sorry - I haven't had an email to notify me of your reply, just popped on over to check your advice again! I can't remember what I did with that previous attachment now, sorry. I am getting better with the paths tool at creating smooth lines though - I just need to keep practising I think.

I really don't understand how to bucket fill the image though. Once I have done the mask selection, I don't seem able to change the colour. Any ideas where I might be going wrong?

Thanks again :)

To be clearer, when I attempt the bucket fill, the image just changes to a semi-transparent version of the original. I have attached so you can see what I mean :)

Attachments:
* http://www.gimpusers.com/system/attachments/150/original/bucketfill.png

I'd prefer the XCF... hard to tell from the result... but since the alpha is constant (144), it could be that your bucket-fill tool isn't at full opacity.

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On 09/07/2014 01:12 PM, NoWhizzKid wrote:

OK, I'm losing the will to live with this now! I started out with the first attached image - a photograph of a blue paint footprint. I then used the path tool and once I had completed the path of the footprint and toes, I did CTRL+SHIFT+G then pressed ENTER. After this, I did right click - edit - fill with FG colour (pink). Then, I did add alpha channel. The edges are STILL jagged and there is a greyish outline around the image.

I just don't know where I am going wrong! It's like I've mastered how to smooth out the lines using the path tool, but something I do afterwards is making the edges all jagged. I need the image to be .png with transparent background.

Can you tell me where I am going wrong please? It's getting increasingly more urgent and I just don't seem to be getting it no matter how much I practice! Thank you x

Attachments: * http://www.gimpusers.com/system/attachments/151/original/Eliza_and_Theo.jpg

*
http://www.gimpusers.com/system/attachments/152/original/ElizPrintFromPath.png

A pixel map a.k.a. raster image is ultimately a grid of squares, and can not represent smooth curves accurately: Aliasing, the "jagged" or stair-step appearance, is inherent in the medium. There are two ways to hide this and fool the eye into seeing smooth edges on curved boundaries: Blur the affected regions so the eye can't tell exactly where one region ends and a contrasting one begins, and/or, make the grid out of smaller squares that the eye and brain will ignore when "seeing" the image.

- From the image provided, it looks like your jagged edges - that's called aliasing, BTW - can be eliminated easily: Start with a larger image, which will give you more pixels per inch when the finished product is displayed at the same size as the version that is giving you problems: The stair-steps will then be small enough, relative to the whole image, for the eye to ignore.

In the case at hand you already have your vector path drawn, and unlike colored-in pixels, it will scale smoothly to any size. So, you can just open the XCF file, save it with another name, and scale it up. I would probably try about 300%.

Then use the eyedropper to pick the fill color you want from the footprint layer. Delete that layer or turn off its visibility. Make a new transparent layer, do Path To Selection in the Paths dockable dialog, then just drag and drop your color straight from the color tool in the main toolbox to the image canvas.

Hopefully this will restore your will to live for at least long enough to finish the project you are working on.

:o)

Steve

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Image > Scale

I understand wanting to jump right in and wanting it to work, but if you don't have a basic understanding of image editing programs in general, it can be hard to grasp at first. If you aren't the type that learns from book or manual reading, (I'm not) you might try one a the various gimp tutorials out there aimed at beginners. I made a 5 part series myself you might find useful.
https://fanart.tv/tutorials/gimp-from-scratch-part-1/

Try not to get too frustrated. There is very little that gimp can't do, which means it is a very complex piece of software that can take a little time to grasp. Once you do, you will astounded on what you can accomplish.

On Sun, Sep 7, 2014, at 03:53 PM, NoWhizzKid wrote:

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In the case at hand you already have your vector path drawn, and unlike colored-in pixels, it will scale smoothly to any size. So, you can just open the XCF file, save it with another name, and scale it up. I would probably try about 300%.

Then use the eyedropper to pick the fill color you want from the footprint layer. Delete that layer or turn off its visibility. Make a new transparent layer, do Path To Selection in the Paths dockable dialog, then just drag and drop your color straight from the color tool in the main toolbox to the image canvas.

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I'm sorry, I really am... I just don't understand. I just don't know HOW to do
these things. I don't know my way around the menus well enough and/or know the
language of the program well enough.

-- NoWhizzKid (via www.gimpusers.com/forums) _______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list
List address: gimp-user-list@gnome.org List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list List archives: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

akovia

I'm sorry, I really am... I just don't understand. I just don't know HOW to do
these things. I don't know my way around the menus well enough and/or know the
language of the program well enough.

Maybe look at http://www.gimp.org/docs/ and not only peruse the help but do some of the basic tutorials.

Owen

Sorry you don't have time to explore a little more. Hopefully this will help with your exact situation.
Cheers
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93550827/temp/nowhizzkid.mkv

On Mon, Sep 8, 2014, at 10:10 AM, NoWhizzKid wrote:

Maybe look at http://www.gimp.org/docs/ and not only peruse the help but do some of the basic tutorials.

Thanks. I have been using GIMP for a year now, it isn't that I'm just jumping
in. This is literally the only thing I need to be able to do and I'm astonished
it can be so difficult. to just smooth out the outline of an image without
having a 2nd colour there.

I'm afraid time isn't something I have on my hands so will continue to try and
figure it out for myself. Thanks for help offered.

-- NoWhizzKid (via www.gimpusers.com/forums) _______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list
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akovia

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On 09/19/2014 12:34 PM, NoWhizzKid wrote:

Sorry you don't have time to explore a little more. Hopefully this will help with your exact situation. Cheers https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93550827/temp/nowhizzkid.mkv

Thanks so much for that - my laptop doesn't recognise the file... anything I can do to watch it?

Try VLC; it plays just about everything including mkv files.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Yet another instance where "Free Software is better because..."

:o)

Steve

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Hi again,
Sorry I haven't responded sooner but my main computer took a dump and am just checking my mail from my laptop. I'm not exactly sure what you are having trouble with, but it kinda sounds like you are not understanding how paths work.

The path you created is available to use on any layer. They are completely separate from your regular layers. So say you wanted to create your footprint on a transparent background. You would just create a new layer in your layers menu, and choose transparent. (either click the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers menu, or Layer > New Layer from the main menu.)

Select that new layer and then go to the paths menu to select the path you just made. (You don't have to turn the visibility on for the path, just make sure that the path layer is highlighted.) Then use the path to selection button like I showed in the video to make your marching ants. Now go back to the layers menu and fill the marching ants with whatever color you want.

Of course you can also make a new layer with any colored background you like and do the same thing. You can have as many layers as you like with footprints on all of them in all kinds of different color combinations. When you find something you like, just turn off the visibility of every other layer except the one you like, and then export that image. Make sure you save the image as a .png file if you are using transparency. Otherwise, you will probably want to export as a jpg.

I hope that's what what you were having trouble with. If not, try to explain again and I'll do my best to help.

Cheers.

On Sat, Sep 20, 2014, at 11:45 AM, NoWhizzKid wrote:

Me again! OK, I've got to grips with everything, right up until I've finished my path. Once my path is finished, I struggle to get the path and take it to a new layer. I'm getting it wrong every time. I am trying to make a screen video to show you what I mean but if anyone main menu. can suggest how to do this in the meantime, I'd be really grateful.

I do appreciate I'm being a bit of a nightmare... thanks for your help so far!

My video won't upload as it is too big. However, I understand how to use the
path tool better and get a lovely curved footprint, but once I have my path
selected and my footprint filled with the colour of my choice, I struggle understanding how to remove the background and to select just the footprint. Can
anyone help? Thanks :)

--
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akovia

On 20/09/14 17:45, NoWhizzKid wrote:

Me again! OK, I've got to grips with everything, right up until I've finished my path. Once my path is finished, I struggle to get the path and take it to a new layer. I'm getting it wrong every time. I am trying to make a screen video to show you what I mean but if anyone can suggest how to do this in the meantime, I'd be really grateful.

I do appreciate I'm being a bit of a nightmare... thanks for your help so far!

My video won't upload as it is too big. However, I understand how to use the path tool better and get a lovely curved footprint, but once I have my path selected and my footprint filled with the colour of my choice, I struggle understanding how to remove the background and to select just the footprint. Can anyone help? Thanks :)

Add a new transparent layer and fill the footprint on it, and then hide/discard the initial layer which is just used as a guide to create the path. This way you don't have to remove anything since you start with a clean layer.