bring out the GIMP
i’m just a lowly sometime dabbler in graphics, though i love it. until last week, everything graphic made for this site was done with a combination of a cheesy prog that came with my sony vidcam, and microsoft paint. it had been years since i used a real graphics program.
however, after stumbling onto this site a few days ago and being led to this site (same guy), i’m now a huge fan of The GIMP. maybe i’m easily impressed because i’ve been living in the dark ages, but i’m really enjoying the power of this thing. even pixel-by-pixel masks are a pleasure. it’s far more powerful than i’ll probably ever need, and it’s open source software. i’m gonna have to get more into that whole deal, because The GIMP is jammin’.
quick example: i wanted to put a new pic into my rotating cycle for the main page here, so i grabbed this vid capture from a flight a few years ago (landing at freeway airport in mitchellville, MD). just look at the difference between these shots.
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| unaltered capture from video | after a quick whirl with The GIMP |
the masking required to lighten the interior and darken the exterior would’ve taken me 3 hours in my old prog, and it was always hit or miss whether you’d lose the mask and have to start over. in The GIMP, you have about 4 million levels of undo for pretty much any changes you make, including to some program parms. even the raw techniques for masking in The GIMP are far superior (e.g., QuickMask, fine tuning with the paintbrush). then there’s the quick and easy drop shadow script. these may be standard tools in pro graphics programs, but were a nice surprise for me. can’t believe the program’s a free download.