On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 10:17:52PM +0100, Andy wrote:

Hi all

I'm having problems adapting to the GIMP. I'm not a professional designer (far from) and never had much plastic skills. I mainly used psp and paint to create my webimages before.

when i was first starting to play with graphics on the computer my experience was with paint shop pro and gimp. it took more time to learn to use gimp, but when i went back to psp, i found i could do everything that was easy with it and more with gimp. in fact, i was able to spot paint shop pro web graphics then and liked the fact that my graphics looked like my own. so, be patient and understand that the more you use the gimp, the less you will want that so called simplicity that you might be used to.

Are you aware of resources that might facilitate the switch for me? Like for instance, when I want to create a geometric shape, like a rectangle I don't find the tool for it.

there are shapes on buttons on the toolbox, the button with the square on it will draw shapes that are rectangular, depressing the shift or the control button will constrain the shape to be a square. the same thing is true for the button on the toolbox with a circle on it.

Edit -->Stroke paints on that line for you, converting the "selection" (which is what those shapes are once they are drawn) makes better outlines in almost the same way.

i am working on tutorials that should be helpful for new users, and users experienced with other applications -- at least this is my goal. http://carol.gimp.org/gimp2/
i dont have any recent experience with other apps though and the people who have stopped using other apps have not been as generous with writing tutorials as the people who have been using the gimp for a long time, as far as i can tell from this list.

else where on my web site are other broken and messy tutorials that i am trying to clean up and update, so feel free to wander around: http://carol.gimp.org/gimp/ and
http://carol.gimp.org/art-techniques (in particularly bad shape)

please understand that as soon as you start to help with free software, it seems that everyone wants a voice and has an opinion on what you are doing and how you are doing it. as well as being used; you can get used for good purposes and bad purposes and still not seem to get anything from it. whatever mess you find there is a really good reflection of what happens when people who do not know you are able to affect you and have access to your good intentions.

From what I see, GIMP has SO many options and menus that some level of (GIMP) training is required to be able to maximize output.

there is an online book:
http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/index.html

and tigerts tutorials were useful to me: http://tigert.gimp.org/gimp/

also, the tutorials at the gimp web site were chosen to make it easier to use gimp and to learn graphics, some of them are suffering from some of the same problems that my attempts on my web site suffer from. so please be nice to people who are not new to gimp and still trying inspite of everything.

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

Please refrain from criticizing a gimp newbie. Remember, we ALL are newbies in some area or another.

criticism is usually a reflection of the inquery. there is a lot of criticism when you request features that have been discussed to death via the established ways to request features. the developers and other volunteers get frustrated when someone running their computer without ttf fonts has a problem when gimp doesnt work, for instance (this was being discussed on the irc today).

a respectful approach should always get a respectful answer. if this has not been the case it is because the people trying to help have been stressed out and like other humans, a second try should be given.

your request was respectful, people will get frustrated if your questions do not get more specific and it doesnt seem like you are working with the stuff that is out there to help yourself with.

here is an apology from at least one person trying to document things precisely for this situation, sorry it is so difficult to take what life gives you and keep your tutorials up to date. many of the out dated tutorials can be useful for you if you know in advanced that several items moved from the Image menu to the Layers Menu between gimp-1.2 and gimp2 and a few others found a place in the Filters Menu.

gimp has so many options and buttons because it tries too much to be everything to everybody.

carol

On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 07:08:42AM +0100, Andy wrote:

Hi Carol

I wish to thank you for your long email and wish to point out that if excuses need to be made, they should be made by me - excuse me for not having looked for help where I should have.

Thank you

actually, thank you. this is what i have been trying to do and what i thought others were trying to do also.

carol