Re: [Gimp-user] Crop to oval?

2012-03-30 Thread Burnie West

Hi, Ronald -

Seems to me what you are trying to do is really easier than all this.

1. Click on the Ellipse Select tool to get your oval selection.
2. Click on the little "Feather Edges" checkbox in the "Ellipse Select" tool. 
You can experiment with the "Radius" setting to get the amount of shading you want.
3. Select your oval - a bit larger than the picture because the shading tends to 
center on your selected boundary.
4. In the Select menu at the top of the window, pick "Invert". Now you have 
marching ants around the oval and also around the entire image.

5. CTRL-X (Cut).

At this point you have your oval the way you want it .

What you really wanted to know, though, is that the annoying checkerboard really 
indicates a transparent background.


 It's replaced by white if you simply Save As yourPicture.jpg.

The JPG save will complain about that b/c jpg does not handle transparency, and 
when you save it the "transparency" checkerboard automatically fills white.


There are subleties here that you will find interesting.

If you right-click in the Layers, Channels box,  a menu appears with a bunch of 
submenus. Select the Layers menu, then the Transparency submenu, and you will 
have a menu item saying Remove Alpha Channel. Click that, and your white 
background appears for you.


You can get it back by following the same selection, and then you will find the 
Remove Alpha Channel menu item gray, and you can now Add Alpha Channel.


If you want to save your portrait in a form that can show up on a webpage with a 
colored or patterned background, export to PNG rather than JPG.


Have fun, tho - that's what it's all about.

On 03/30/2012 05:08 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:

In message<4f763699.3000...@gmail.com>,
Stefan Maerz  wrote:


On 03/30/2012 03:19 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:

Anyway, a relative just sent me an old old family photo that some nitwit,
perhaps a generation or two ago, did some seriously violence to with a pair
of scissors.  To salvage this one and to make it look presentable I really
need to be able to take the scan I have of it and crop it into a oval shape.
(Yes, it is a portrait.)

P.P.S.  For bonus points, somebody please also explain to me how to fade
the edges of the oval slowly to white.  that would be really cool, and
would, I'm sure, impress the bejesus out of some of my relatives

Hi Ronald,

Gimp's user interface is a bit hard to learn at first. Just do some
tutorials, and you'll pick it up in no time.

Any suggestions for which ones?  URLs?


For your question, I don't know of a way to do this without the use of
layers.

With the oval selected, press CTRL+X to cut it out.
Then do a CTRL+V To paste the oval. This puts the oval into a "Floating
Selection". It is almost like a layer, but not quite.

OK, I did what you just said.


Now a little about Gimp's interface: You have three windows. In "Layers,
Channels, Paths, Undo - Brushes, Patterns, Gradients" there is an area
for Layers (you probably know this).

I'm still on the early/steep part of the learning curve, but yes, I've seen
that one.


At the bottom of the layers area
(above brushes) and to the left is a create new layer. Press it this
turns the "Floating Selection" into a layer.

Hummm... OK.  Yes, I see.  Now it says "Pasted Layer" next to it, instead of
"floating layer".


Next you can select on the other layer (Titled "Background" by default),
and delete it by right clicking and pressing "Delete Layer". At this
point you should have your image as you desire.

Okey dokey.  Yes.  So now I got just my oval'd pic on top of the checkerboard.

Question:  *Now* what the bleep do I do?  I gotta put some 255-white into
the rest of the rectangle that's not covered by the oval.  So how do I do
that?  And then how do I subsequently smush my oval pic together with the
outer whiteness and save the whole shebang together as a single JPEG?
(Do I gotta do a "flatten layers" in here somewhere?)

(Sorry, but I really am ignorant, as you see.  So even though what I'm asking
is probably very basic, I still have no idea how to do this.)


Instructions for feathering (the bonus points):

If your oval's layer isn't selected for any reason select it now.

OK, hold on.  When you say "select it now" do you just mean that I should
place and size my oval, you know, and then just leave it with the marquee
outline flashing around it?  Or once it has been placed and sized to my
satisfaction, do I need to do one more step, e.g. place the cursor inside
the oval and then either left-click or else hit return?  (I know that I
always have to do the latter when I am cropping to a rectangle.  In fact
that's one of teh very few tghings that I _do_ know.)


Then pick the "Select by Color Tool" from the Toolbox. Set the threshold to
255(in the bottom half of the toolbox) and click on your oval. This
selects your oval...

Hummm... if I have placed and sized my oval to my satisfaction, and then I
click on the lttle "Select by Color Tool" icon (and

Re: [Gimp-user] Crop to oval?

2012-03-30 Thread Chris Mohler
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 7:24 PM, Steve Kinney  wrote:
>>> For your question, I don't know of a way to do this without the use of
>>> layers.
>
> Fast and simple:

Faster, simpler:

Make your oval selection
Press [CTRL]+[i]
Press [Delete]

And as others have pointed out, you may with to feather the selection
- but this is the shortest path to your goal.

Chris
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Re: [Gimp-user] Crop to oval?

2012-03-30 Thread Stefan Maerz

On 03/30/2012 07:24 PM, Steve Kinney wrote:


Fast and simple:  Open your image.  Make the selection you want with
the oval select tool.  Do Select>  Feather in your main menu.  Then
do Control+i (or, Select>  Invert) to select everything /but/ your
oval.  Then drag and drop "white" from the color selector tool in
your main toolbox into the image.

Do Control+alt+a to remove your selection (or Select>  None), and
look at the result.  Want more/less "blur" around the edge?  Do
control-z repeatedly until your oval selection reappears and
disappears.  Start over, and select more/less pixels in the Select>
Feather menu.

No layers, no complications.

:o)

Steve

Steve beat me. I wrote an response explaining just this. My explanation 
was _much_ too complicated, so my apologies.


Anyways here are some tutorials grouped by difficulty:
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

-Stefan Maerz
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Re: [Gimp-user] Crop to oval?

2012-03-30 Thread Steve Kinney
On 03/30/2012 08:08 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:

>> For your question, I don't know of a way to do this without the use of 
>> layers.

Fast and simple:  Open your image.  Make the selection you want with
the oval select tool.  Do Select > Feather in your main menu.  Then
do Control+i (or, Select > Invert) to select everything /but/ your
oval.  Then drag and drop "white" from the color selector tool in
your main toolbox into the image.

Do Control+alt+a to remove your selection (or Select > None), and
look at the result.  Want more/less "blur" around the edge?  Do
control-z repeatedly until your oval selection reappears and
disappears.  Start over, and select more/less pixels in the Select >
Feather menu.

No layers, no complications.

:o)

Steve


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Re: [Gimp-user] Crop to oval?

2012-03-30 Thread Ronald F. Guilmette

In message <4f763699.3000...@gmail.com>, 
Stefan Maerz  wrote:

>On 03/30/2012 03:19 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
>> Anyway, a relative just sent me an old old family photo that some nitwit,
>> perhaps a generation or two ago, did some seriously violence to with a pair
>> of scissors.  To salvage this one and to make it look presentable I really
>> need to be able to take the scan I have of it and crop it into a oval shape.
>> (Yes, it is a portrait.)
>>
>> P.P.S.  For bonus points, somebody please also explain to me how to fade
>> the edges of the oval slowly to white.  that would be really cool, and
>> would, I'm sure, impress the bejesus out of some of my relatives
>Hi Ronald,
>
>Gimp's user interface is a bit hard to learn at first. Just do some 
>tutorials, and you'll pick it up in no time.

Any suggestions for which ones?  URLs?

>For your question, I don't know of a way to do this without the use of 
>layers.
>
>With the oval selected, press CTRL+X to cut it out.
>Then do a CTRL+V To paste the oval. This puts the oval into a "Floating 
>Selection". It is almost like a layer, but not quite.

OK, I did what you just said.

>Now a little about Gimp's interface: You have three windows. In "Layers, 
>Channels, Paths, Undo - Brushes, Patterns, Gradients" there is an area 
>for Layers (you probably know this).

I'm still on the early/steep part of the learning curve, but yes, I've seen
that one.

>At the bottom of the layers area 
>(above brushes) and to the left is a create new layer. Press it this 
>turns the "Floating Selection" into a layer.

Hummm... OK.  Yes, I see.  Now it says "Pasted Layer" next to it, instead of
"floating layer".

>Next you can select on the other layer (Titled "Background" by default), 
>and delete it by right clicking and pressing "Delete Layer". At this 
>point you should have your image as you desire.

Okey dokey.  Yes.  So now I got just my oval'd pic on top of the checkerboard.

Question:  *Now* what the bleep do I do?  I gotta put some 255-white into
the rest of the rectangle that's not covered by the oval.  So how do I do
that?  And then how do I subsequently smush my oval pic together with the
outer whiteness and save the whole shebang together as a single JPEG?
(Do I gotta do a "flatten layers" in here somewhere?)

(Sorry, but I really am ignorant, as you see.  So even though what I'm asking
is probably very basic, I still have no idea how to do this.)

>Instructions for feathering (the bonus points):
>
>If your oval's layer isn't selected for any reason select it now.

OK, hold on.  When you say "select it now" do you just mean that I should
place and size my oval, you know, and then just leave it with the marquee
outline flashing around it?  Or once it has been placed and sized to my
satisfaction, do I need to do one more step, e.g. place the cursor inside
the oval and then either left-click or else hit return?  (I know that I
always have to do the latter when I am cropping to a rectangle.  In fact
that's one of teh very few tghings that I _do_ know.)

>Then pick the "Select by Color Tool" from the Toolbox. Set the threshold to 
>255(in the bottom half of the toolbox) and click on your oval. This 
>selects your oval...

Hummm... if I have placed and sized my oval to my satisfaction, and then I
click on the lttle "Select by Color Tool" icon (and set the threshold to 255)
and if I then just left click inside of my oval (which still has the marquee
outline blink around it) the only thing that seems to happe is that the
blinking marquee goes away.

This can't be right.  Is it?  I'm thinking that I messed up your simple
instructions somehow.

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Re: [Gimp-user] Crop to oval?

2012-03-30 Thread Stefan Maerz

On 03/30/2012 03:19 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:

Anyway, a relative just sent me an old old family photo that some nitwit,
perhaps a generation or two ago, did some seriously violence to with a pair
of scissors.  To salvage this one and to make it look presentable I really
need to be able to take the scan I have of it and crop it into a oval shape.
(Yes, it is a portrait.)

P.P.S.  For bonus points, somebody please also explain to me how to fade
the edges of the oval slowly to white.  that would be really cool, and
would, I'm sure, impress the bejesus out of some of my relatives

Hi Ronald,

Gimp's user interface is a bit hard to learn at first. Just do some 
tutorials, and you'll pick it up in no time.


For your question, I don't know of a way to do this without the use of 
layers.


With the oval selected, press CTRL+X to cut it out.
Then do a CTRL+V To paste the oval. This puts the oval into a "Floating 
Selection". It is almost like a layer, but not quite.


Now a little about Gimp's interface: You have three windows. In "Layers, 
Channels, Paths, Undo - Brushes, Patterns, Gradients" there is an area 
for Layers (you probably know this). At the bottom of the layers area 
(above brushes) and to the left is a create new layer. Press it this 
turns the "Floating Selection" into a layer.


Next you can select on the other layer (Titled "Background" by default), 
and delete it by right clicking and pressing "Delete Layer". At this 
point you should have your image as you desire.




Instructions for feathering (the bonus points):

If your oval's layer isn't selected for any reason select it now. Then 
pick the "Select by Color Tool" from the Toolbox. Set the threshold to 
255(in the bottom half of the toolbox) and click on your oval. This 
selects your oval...IIRC, there is a easier way to do this, but I don't 
remember how.


Right Click on the image somewhere and press Select>Shrink. Select a 
value, perhaps 4 or 5 and hit okay.


Now right click on the image again and press Select>Invert. Right click 
on the image and Select > Feather Put 4 or 5 and press okay. Press the 
delete button on your keyboard, and you should be good to go.


Hth and ask away if you have questions,
-Stefan Maerz

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Re: [Gimp-user] Crop to oval?

2012-03-30 Thread Liam R E Quin
On Fri, 2012-03-30 at 13:19 -0700, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:

> So anyway, how do I do this? 

Bitmap images are rectangular. What you really need is a rectangular
image with the corners being transparent or white.

Make the selection bigger than you want, feather the selection, invert,
and cut.

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/

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[Gimp-user] Crop to oval?

2012-03-30 Thread Ronald F. Guilmette


I've been using gimp for awhile now and have had great success using it
to retouch about a zillion scans of old family photographs. but other than
then few things I need in order to do that (paintbrush, clone tool, rotate
tool and crop) I am still largely ignorant of how to use gimp.  (There's
just so much functionality in there, and I'm sure that I don't even have
any use for about 90% of it.)

Anyway, a relative just sent me an old old family photo that some nitwit,
perhaps a generation or two ago, did some seriously violence to with a pair
of scissors.  To salvage this one and to make it look presentable I really
need to be able to take the scan I have of it and crop it into a oval shape.
(Yes, it is a portrait.)

So anyway, how do I do this?  It isn't obviously.  I already did manage to
figure out how to make a selection of the exact size and shape (and location)
of oval that I want, and I _did_ make a selection like that... at least I
_thought_ that I did... but then when I did crop-to-selection I ended up
with the picture cropped to a rectangular shape, where the rectangle in
question is, quite apparently, the rectangle which only and exactly contained
the oval that I had selected earlier.

So um, could some kind soul instruct me here?  I'm obviously lost and should
probably spend a couple of hours reading the manual, but I guess you could
say that I am looking for that ever elusive "Royal Road to Geometry".
(Too bad I can't just download the whole Gimp manual direct into my brain,
like Trinity did for that Bell 212 helicopter.)

I'm sort-of guessing that what I really want is gonna end up being another
one of these things that ends up involving multiple layers... yes?  I mean
of course, what I _really_ want to end up with is an image that _is_ in fact
a rectangle, but everything outside of my selected oval has to end up being
painted total white (255).


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  This is a strictly B&W image, BTW... just like all really old family
photographs everywhere.

P.P.S.  For bonus points, somebody please also explain to me how to fade
the edges of the oval slowly to white.  that would be really cool, and
would, I'm sure, impress the bejesus out of some of my relatives.
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Re: [Gimp-user] avery labels

2012-03-30 Thread John

"Kevin Cozens"  wrote in message 
news:4f750443.5060...@ve3syb.ca...
> On 12-03-29 05:31 PM, John wrote:
>> What is the best way to place the card image onto a format that prints a
>> sheet of Avery labels? Is that an external plugin?
>
> Once you have your final image, the easiest way to print them on to labels 
> is to use the label template features of your favourite word processing 
> program.
>
Hello, Kevin.  That would be "Word".  I looked at the free Avery label 
wizard program, but no thank you.  One of the issues I have with the labels 
pattern in Word is getting the images to line up exactly along the border of 
the pattern. It appears to be a smidgin away from it. It is a pain, really, 
for such a simple request.  Thanks. 



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