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irregular cropping

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irregular cropping Ward Ricker via gimp-user-list 05 Nov 02:47
  irregular cropping Rick Strong 05 Nov 04:03
  irregular cropping Steve Kinney 05 Nov 04:07
  irregular cropping Liam R E Quin 05 Nov 04:18
Ward Ricker via gimp-user-list
2018-11-05 02:47:13 UTC (over 5 years ago)

irregular cropping

I downloaded GIMP in order to crop around an odd shaped picture, i.e., remove the white background around an object in a rectangular picture so as to leave an odd-shaped image. I have not studied how to use GIMP. Since this is the only thing I wish to use it for I am simply following the third-party instructions from the website where I found out about it, but they are simple. I am:

Opening my image in GIMP

Using the Free Select Tool to go around a click on all the corners, thereby outlining the portion of the image I want.

Going to Select - Invert in order to deselect the part I want to keep and select everything else.

Hit Delete.

When I do so I am expecting everything outside of the desired picture (i.e. the white area) to go away as the third-part tutorial shows. Instead, everything gets deleted.

I also tried selecting portions of the white area using the Free Select Tool and not doing Select - Invert. Similarly, it deletes my entire picture rather than the selected portion when I hit Delete. Can you tell me what is going on here and why it won't delete only the part that I wish to delete?

Rick Strong
2018-11-05 04:03:47 UTC (over 5 years ago)

irregular cropping

With GIMP 2.10, you MUST hit "Enter" after you make a selection with the Free Select tool to make your free selection "stick".

Rick S.

-----Original Message----- From: Ward Ricker via gimp-user-list Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2018 9:47 PM To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: [Gimp-user] irregular cropping

I downloaded GIMP in order to crop around an odd shaped picture, i.e., remove the white background around an object in a rectangular picture so as to leave an odd-shaped image. I have not studied how to use GIMP. Since this is the only thing I wish to use it for I am simply following the third-party instructions from the website where I found out about it, but they are simple. I am:

Opening my image in GIMP

Using the Free Select Tool to go around a click on all the corners, thereby outlining the portion of the image I want.

Going to Select - Invert in order to deselect the part I want to keep and select everything else.

Hit Delete.

When I do so I am expecting everything outside of the desired picture (i.e. the white area) to go away as the third-part tutorial shows. Instead, everything gets deleted.

I also tried selecting portions of the white area using the Free Select Tool and not doing Select - Invert. Similarly, it deletes my entire picture rather than the selected portion when I hit Delete. Can you tell me what is going on here and why it won't delete only the part that I wish to delete?

Steve Kinney
2018-11-05 04:07:48 UTC (over 5 years ago)

irregular cropping

On 11/4/18 9:47 PM, Ward Ricker via gimp-user-list wrote:

I downloaded GIMP in order to crop around an odd shaped picture, i.e., remove the white background around an object in a rectangular picture so as to leave an odd-shaped image. I have not studied how to use GIMP. Since this is the only thing I wish to use it for I am simply following the third-party instructions from the website where I found out about it, but they are simple. I am:

Opening my image in GIMP

etc.

I would suggest:

Open your image in the GIMP.

Find your picture in the Layers dialog, right click the thumbnail, and click Add Alpha Channel. (That enables transparency.)

Find and activate the Magic Wand tool, a.k.a. contiguous select. Click on the background you want rid of.

Then, then do Control-x, or Edit > Delete.

This should remove the unwanted border area, leaving blank space represented by a two-tone gray checkerboard on the screen.

Then do File > Save as, and enter a name for your edited file, ending in .png. Save the image and there ya go: The result may be good enough for your purpose, or you may have to use more "manual" techniques. But at least it's a start.

For more precise results, the "Lasso" tool used as you describe should work well; but remember to do Select > Invert before deleting, or you will remove the content you want to keep, and keep the border you want rid of. And always make sure the Alpha channel is on, any time you want to make something transparent.

:o)

Liam R E Quin
2018-11-05 04:18:33 UTC (over 5 years ago)

irregular cropping

On Sun, 2018-11-04 at 18:47 -0800, Ward Ricker via gimp-user-list wrote:

When I do so I am expecting everything outside of the desired picture (i.e. the white area) to go away as the third-part tutorial shows. Instead, everything gets deleted.

i'm not sure what's going on here. You could select part of the image and drag the white swatch of colour from the toolbox onto the image, and just the selected part should fill.

You might need to press Enter to confirm the selection after using the select tool - you should end up with "a line of "marching ants" moving dots around the edge of your selection.

If the background is solid white, bu the way, the "fuzzy select tool" is easier:
(1) choose the fuzzy select tool;
(2) click on a white corner of the image (3) if necessary, shift-click other parts of the picture to add those to the selection.

For a pro-quality result, (4) use selection->grow by 1 pixel
(5) use select-feather by e.g. 3 pixels (the best numbers in these two steps depend on your image and its resolution really)

In either case, then (6) press delete, or control-x, or drag the white from the toolbox onto the image, or use control-. (control and comma) to fill the selection with the current background colour; if you're not sure if it's perfect white, press d to restore default black and white colours.

Liam (slave ankh)

Liam Quin - web slave for https://www.fromoldbooks.org/
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