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Books : Computing & Internet : Software & Graphics : Graphics & Multimedia : Image Manipulation & Creation : Gimp
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The excitement described by Carey Bunks when he first beheld the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) in 1996 is palpable when you hold Bunks' new book in your hands. The phantasmagoric image on the cover of Grokking the GIMP: Advanced Techniques for Working with Digital Images melds a photograph of the moon's surface from a high orbit with an apparent solar eclipse by the earth. A penguin floats discretely in a hot air balloon between sun, earth and moon. Is the sun-moon-earth image a bit of the penguin's imagination? Is it a piece of GIMP artist/developer Tuomas Kuosmanen's imagination? Maybe it is really a credit to the visionaries at New Riders who have produced an art book to suit the computer how-to market."Grokking" is a Robert Heinlein-ism for "appreciating", and docent Bunks takes us through the museum of computer art and method as he demonstrates the features of the freely-redistributable package. The contents follow that path set down by many other how-to tech book authors: tutorial, a taste of image theory, working with the independent features of GIMP (layers, selections, masks and colourspaces) before advancing to compositing and rendering, and ending with short reviews of web-based applications of image manipulation.
The book's strengths are Bunks' obvious passion for his subject, his mature didactic style, and the wonderfully spacious design and breathtaking colour-on-every-page strategy that allows him to beautifully frame GIMP features at their best. The most notable of his many case studies is the "Panorama" project that glues a series of laterally overlapping narrow-view photographs of an architecturally interesting room into a single, stunning wide-angle panorama of the whole. Bunks documents each step in the transformation and describes the required geometrical, hue and brightness adjustments needed to warp and blend them together.
Look again at the cover, but not literally. Ignore the unphysical details. Rather imagine the mind's capacity for juxtaposition and GIMP's power for actualising this visual synthesis. In form and content, Bunks and New Riders have shown that the possibilities for the tech book are far broader than previously imagined. This is an eye-opening contribution, indeed. --Peter Leopold, amazon.com
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The GNU Image manipulation program, or GIMP to its friends, is an open source image-editing application for Unix and Linux operating systems. It is supplied with many Linux implementations and you can also download it from the Web.Sven Neumann has been using the GIMP since 1997, and his GIMP Pocket Reference is a simple-structured guide to everything the GIMP has to offer, starting out with the tools and interface, moving through the menus and finishing with a table of supported file formats. It is a useful quick reference for those times when what should be obvious isn't, or as an introduction to the GIMP's feature set.
Occasionally, Neumann goes beyond mere functional description and provides more detailed explanation of techniques like selection, layers and channels. There is also a short overview of colour models, and drawing and layer models.
The GIMP Pocket Reference won't tell you how to set up a scanner or graphics tablet to work with GIMP, or how to go about scripting, retouching or compositing. If you are looking for information on configuration, scripting and practical hands-on advice then you need one of the more comprehensive manuals, such as GIMP User's Manual. But if you can't remember how to select the ink tool brush, or add an alpha channel this handy little reference provides a direct and low-cost route to the answer. --Ken McMahon
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The Gnu Image Manipulation Program is one of the best image editors available--and it's free. It's part of every Linux distribution but also runs on any Unix. Divided into five parts, the book covers getting and installing The GIMP (a CD complete with GTK library and 200 filters is included), tools, concepts, filters and Script-Fu, and real world uses.The tools, concepts and menus discussion is good, while the coverage of selections, layers and channels-the most confusing feature for new users though essential to tap into The GIMP's power--is excellent. There are a number of illustrative image editing and creation mini-tutorials, but a lot of the book is more about Linux than for creatives using the GIMP. For example, it starts with editing GIMP configuration files, has heavy coverage of Script-Fu, The GIMP's unfriendly scripting language, and the alternative Gimp-Perl. While most GIMP extensions are written as scripts, it isn't what most people do with The GIMP. Another example is the section on adding fonts. PostScript fonts is a fuss but adding TrueType fonts often involves adding a new font server. Getting this wrong can cripple your system--and is likely to confuse creative types. Similarly, the final 100 pages list The GIMP's procedural database as a reference for those creating scripts. Overall, this is a useful addition to the excellent free GIMP manual, but it does suffer from a confusion of purpose in mixing technical and programming aspects with image editing. --Steve Patient
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GIMP: The Official Handbook explains virtually everything about this robust, flexible, and freely available graphics editor. Within the nearly 900 glossy pages, users of all levels can learn how to use and become productive with all the tools, filters, scripts, and effects, beginning with how to compile GIMP for a given system.GIMP is not for everyone. It must be built, configured, and customised on each Unix-based system where it is installed. GIMP: The Official Handbook does a valiant job of explaining the technical details of this process. For instance, if you want to add support for a graphics tablet, chapter 41, "Drawing Tablets and GIMP", describes how to make the necessary configuration changes as well as instructions for recompiling the application so that it recognises the new input source.
Full sections on GIMP's basic usage, navigation, tools and scripting language, Script-fu, as well as how to compile plug-ins, use different filter types (render, distort, colour, artistic, etc.), and create animation using AnimFrames are just a few of the 47 chapters that make this book worthwhile.
There are six appendices covering many technical aspects: GIMP start flags and initialisation files, GIMP manual pages, Perl-Fu scripting, installing scanners, and more. GIMP: The Official Handbook doesn't lack for technical information.
A 32-page colour section includes screenshots and examples of what GIMP can do, and how many of the filters work.
GIMP is emerging as a breakaway application in the never-say-die grassroots movement of the open source initiative. With its powerful scripting languages, plug-in filters, and the free nature of its distribution, the GIMP is a powerful asset to any web artist, or any multi-platform digital artist. GIMP: The Official Handbook can show you how to use, and make the most of, this robust graphics application. --Mike Caputo, Amazon.com
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GIMP, the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, is the freely available image editor and paint program that runs under UNIX or Linux. It offers many of the features of mainstream tools like Photoshop, and other features that the others lack. The GIMP Essential Reference is a valuable guide for anyone doing serious work with the GIMP. This little book covers the interface and tool sets, how the effects work, and how the GIMP handles layering and masking.The most valuable chapter is certainly "Writing Your Own Script-Fu". Script-Fu is the GIMP's scripting system, which is extremely powerful and flexible, allowing the one feature that makes the GIMP stand head and shoulders above the mainstream tools. Script-Fu is much more than a macro recorder. Images can be manipulated, effects can be controlled, and complex and repetitive tasks can be made painless. This feature is very popular with Web developers and Web administrators, who can use the GIMP for automatic creation of graphics.
Another stand-out chapter discusses how the GIMP handles non-native file formats like JPG, PSD (Photoshop's native format), GIF, and others. It also describes creating and using graphic formats for use on the Web--the right formats, the right colour palette, and using the GIMP to create GIF animations.
Two drawbacks come to mind when paging through the book: it does not include a CD-ROM, and it lacks colour plates. No doubt these help keep down production costs, but when an author writes about a graphics and painting program, one expects some colour examples (especially in the chapters that discuss colour manipulation.)
Still, this is a valuable reference guide for anyone making a break toward this open source graphics manipulation software. The reference chapters on the function definitions for scripting are a valuable asset, especially when you want to browse through it without sitting at a computer. --Mike Caputo, Amazon.com
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