How to Make a Blog Background With Gimp

Blog Backgrounds - How to Make Your Own Blog Background

By Deborah Erickson


I have been using blog skins from various websites to decorate my blog, so I thought it would be fun to create my own. Here are the steps to creating your own blog background.
1. Download a photoshop type program. One that worked for me is Gimp and it is free.
2. First create a new project and set the image size at 1650x1000 pixels.
3. I also opened the layer window. If you are using Gimp you can find this window under the heading window, dockable dialogue, and layer.
4. Select a background color for your blog center and paint the whole background this color.
5. Open the other pictures or images you want to use for side bars in your blog background. Then crop the pictures to the dimensions of 450x1000 pixels
6. I then pasted my images onto my colored background. The middle section of your blog background needs to be about around 665 pixels, so you will be able to read your text on your blog.
6. The most tricky part is creating layers. Everytime you paste a new image onto your background you need to hit the layer button on the toolbar and create a new layer, so you can resize this image or move it without moving the whole page. You can view all you layers in the layers window, so it will be easy to navigate between layers if you need to.
7. Then add embellishments and borders. Be creative. For my border I cut out an image from one of my pictures and then repeated the image with copy and paste.
8. Save your blog background in gimp under file extension.xcf so you will be able to edit later if you need to.
9. After saving your photo in gimp you have to save the picture again under file extension.jpeg, so the picture will be able to be seen on your blog.
10. Next create an account at photobucket.com. This is another free service.
11. Upload your picture on to their server and click the Save & Get Links button.
12. Under the picture there are four links, Copy the info from the directlink and
paste the info in notepad or word you are going to need it in a minute.
13. Go to your blogger page click customize, Pick New Template
14. Select Minima, which is the first option.
15. Find Edit HTML. This is the trick part so make sure you follow the directions exactly.
16. Open the code and look for the information that looks exactly like this. Delete the code below.

body {
background:$bgcolor;
margin:0;
color:$textcolor;
font:x-small Georgia Serif;
font-size/* */:/**/small;
font-size: /**/small;
text-align: center;
}

17. In place of the code paste the following code. Place your direct link where it says paste your photo bucket direct link here.
body {
background:$bgcolor;
background-image: url('paste your photo bucket directlink here. ');
background-position: center;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-attachment: fixed;
margin:0;
color:$textcolor;
font:x-small Georgia Serif;
font-size/* */:/**/small;
font-size: /**/small;
}

18. Save and view Blog
Congratulations! You have a customized blog.

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Creating Logos With Gimp In 15 Easy Steps

Here is a tutorial by Beverly Houston:

15 Easy Steps to Creating an Easy Logo Using GIMP in No Time

You believe in doing things on your own, and you want to design your own easy logo. But you don't know which application or software to use.
Have you ever tried GIMP software?
Shed all your worries, I will tell you how to use the GIMP to create a brand mark...
Although you may have all the skills to create a good business icon, but every designer needs the correct and appropriate tools for designing. GIMP is a very good application which will not only provide with all the assets of art, but also enhance your creativity.
GIMP is an easy logo creator. Using this application, you can make a symbol as good as a professional in just a few minutes. Following steps will show you how to do that:
1. Open up your GIMP application.
2. Write the text of the insignia (not more than two or three words). This text would be appearing with your business icon. You can choose any font from the options available, but remember that your choice of font should go with the personality of your brand name. You can also decide which color you want your text to be.
3. Now, to transform you text into a real symbol, you need to create a path. You can draw any figure or a shape that you have in mind. It could be a curve or a square or anything. For this purpose you will have to use the paths-tool (B).
4. You will have to form closed points around your text to resemble a shape. You can move those points around till you are satisfied with the placement of the shape.
5. You can see dashed lines? These are to adjust the size and shape of your figure. You can drag those dashed lines to even out your shape.
6. Press enter.
7. After pressing enter, you will be having a selection of the path you have just drawn. On that new selection, create an empty layer. Choose a suitable background color.
8. Now open the gradient tool and look at the settings on the picture.
9. Now drag the gradient on the empty layer to fill the selection with it.
10. Adjust the color brightness and contrast according to your taste.
11. Now, you could give more depth to your business icon by adding the shadow effect.
12. In the layers-dialogue, right-click the layer with the color - Alpha to selection.
13. Give a new layer to the form layer.
14. Choose a color for this form and set the opacity.
15. You can use the Move-Tool to move your active layer, to make adjustments if any.
You're done! Your design is ready with the use of an uncomplicated brand mark maker.
All you need is a good software for creating an easy logo and voila! Here you are with the best graphic design for your corporation.

Beverly Houston works as a Senior Design Consultant at a Professional Logo Design Company. For more information on easy logo creator find her competitive rates at Logo Design Consultant.

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Gimp Photo Editing Tutorial: Cool Photo Manipulation

Add Color to Black and White Photo with Gimp

Gimp Black and White With Color: Gimp Video Tutorial

Change Background in Gimp: Video Tutorial

Gimp Photo Editing Tutorial: Easy Color Correction

Are you looking for a way to correct the color in your photographs but can't afford pricy photo editing software.  Here is a way to do it for free.

How to Make Quick and Easy Color Corrections Using GIMP

By Pranav Bhasin

This tutorial will discuss how to make color fixes using the GNU Image Manipulation Program, otherwise known as GIMP. Quite often you will take a great shot, but the colors may appear faded or a bit too much contrast. The problem with many of the commercial photo editing packages is that it applies universal correction to the entire photograph.

Sometimes this works well, but other times you are left with less desirable effects after applying the correction. GIMP is very well suited to manage this problem by using layers to apply color correction. In this tutorial we are going to make some simple color corrections by using layers, making a selection, adjusting colors using curves, flattening the layers, and saving a final product. Does this sound complicated? It is actually much easier than it sounds.

1. Start the GIMP application.
2. Once GIMP is loaded, select FILE from the menu the click OPEN. Locate a photograph that you would like to make color corrections. I am going to use a portrait taken outdoors for the purpose of this demonstration, so it may be beneficial to find a similar photograph to work with.
3. We don't want to work with the original version of the photograph, so we are going to duplicate the layer by selecting LAYER from the menu bar, then DUPLICATE LAYER. You should see two thumbnails of your photograph on the right side of the screen in the floating box.
4. Select the lasso tool from the toolbox; it is the icon toward the top that looks like a rope. We are going to create an exclusion area around my subject's face since I don't want to alter his complexion; I only want to adjust the dark colors.
5. With the lasso tool selected, drag the mouse around the desired area you want to exclude from the adjustment. Try to get as close to the edges as possible. You will need to end at the starting point in order to complete a full path. You will know you have it right when you have a "dancing ants" selection around the desired area.
6. If we were to make any adjustments now, the only area that would be altered would be the selected area we drew. Since we want to make adjustments to everything except our selection, we must invert our selection. We do this by selecting SELECT from the menu bar, then INVERT. You won't notice anything, but what happened was the selected area was swapped with the unselected area. Now we can make changes and the subject's face won't be altered.
7. Open the curves tool by selecting COLORS from the menu bar, then CURVES.
8. Now, select tow or three points on the graph and move the points up and down until you are satisfied with the results. Select OK when you are happy with your corrections.
9. We can now deselect our previous selection by choosing SELECT from the menu bar, then NONE.
10. Now we can "flatten" our layers so we can save our final product (you cannot save a layered image to a transportable file, such as.JPG when there are active layers). Select IMAGE from the menu, then FLATTEN IMAGE.
11. We can now save the file by selecting FILE, then SAVE AS (you may want to save the image to a new file rather than saving over the original file). You will be given an option to select the quality of the file you want to save. Naturally, the higher quality will be a larger file. Make your choice, then select SAVE.

That's it, you have successfully opened an image file in GIMP, duplicated a layer, made a selection, inverted the selection, adjusted the colors, flattened the image, and saved the image to a new file. If you have used Adobe Photoshop in the past, then this process may have been familiar to you.

You will find there are thousands of tutorials available on the Internet for Photoshop, but very few for GIMP. Once you become more familiar with the application, you should be able to apply the tutorials you find for Photoshop to GIMP with ease. Now, take a few minutes to repeat this tutorial until you are able to do it on your own without referring back to the instructions.
Good luck and enjoy using GIMP.
About the author:
Pranav Bhasin is the co-founder and CEO of lifeblob, one of the largest and fastest growing photo print upload services with over 5 million photos shared online. He also likes to design photo gifts and merchandise on his india photo gifting page.

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Free Photoshop Alternative - GIMP, a Review

What is Gimp?  If you are looking for a free photoshop alternative-read on.


By Webiny Lumshway

Whether you are a budding website designer, graphic artist, or just a kid who wants to whiten his teeth in that photo before it goes on Facebook, you need photo manipulation software. Of course, there is the image editing giant Photoshop, but that is not up your alley. Either it's too pricey, too complicated, or both. Well, if you're hunting for a decent piece of photo editing software with a price tag that won't leave you out of pocket, then The GIMP might be right for you.

An open source program
GIMP is an acronym that stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. The free software is made by volunteer computer developers as an alternative to pricey image software like Photoshop. For over a decade they have been dedicated to upgrading their software. The result is remarkably user friendly experience, and you can tell that they were thinking about ease of performance when they built the editor. The GIMP has a huge community of users who are constantly working hand in hand with the developers to upgrade the software. Since the software has not got any team of workers to check for bugs, it is up to to the user community to find and report glitches

Functional yet simple
The program has all the basic features of image editing software including layers, coloring, contrast adjustment, masks, and text tools along with some more professional ones that rival paid software. The interface is very simply laid out and easy to use, so you don't have to be a professional to navigate the tool. The working palettes are laid out in separate windows, which can take a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it navigation is really easy. Though the software was initially built on and used with Linux, it is now is available for all the major platforms.

The bottom line
After all is said and done it comes down to this: if all you want is the capability to do basic photo editing and drawing with convenience and ease and if you want it for free, then The GIMP is definitely right for you. Should you choose to go beyond your current level of experience and try more professional things requiring image editing software then The Gimp will serve you well there too. If you are familiar with Photoshop and then switch to The GIMP you will notice a difference in quality, but for a 600 dollar price tag Photoshop ought to be a lot more functional than an open source tool, right?
Webiny Lumshway

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