[Kill454]

Ok, I have noticed that there are not many GIMP tutorials. I have decided to make one really big one that goes over a lot about rendering in GIMP. I want to help everyone who couldn't find a good GIMP tut. And I want to prove that GIMP is pretty much as equal as Photoshop.


To Do List:
1. Quick Rendering for Same Color Background Images.
2. Starting Off a Render for a Signature or Piece of Graphic Artwork
3. More Tips & Other Helpful Info.
4. Add click links to sources for images not made by me.
5. Put tutorials in a good and reasonable order.
IF YOU WANT TO SHARE THIS THREAD IN ANOTHER FORUM, DON'T COPY AND PASTE IT. PLEASE JUST LINK TO THIS PAGE...
The Ultimate GIMP Rendering Thread by Kill454

[url=http://planetrenders.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=101556]The Ultimate GIMP Rendering Thread by Kill454[/url]

This thread will sometimes get updated with new tuts. So check in occasionally for them.

TIPS & OTHER HELPFUL INFORMATION
1. Always check the mode of the image you are rendering and make sure it is in RGB mode. Sometimes, when you find images from the web, the images will be indexed. Indexed images have bad quality and look bad when rendered. Check the mode by looking at the bar above File, Edit, Select,etc. where it says the following...
*Name of Image*.*File type**Some numbers* and in parenthesis it says (*Image Mode*) and then your image size. To change the image mode, go to Image-Mode and click on RGB for best quality.
2. Your render look choppy? Try feathering it, do this by going to Layer-Transparency-Alpha to Selection and then going to Select-Feather... and feather the selection by around 2 or 4 pixels. If feathering doesn't work, try looking at specific parts of the render that are choppy and fix them by either erasing them or using more paths to get rid of it.

LOGO DELETION
Well, I am just going to explain this because it is a fairly simple thing to do. How to get rid of logos on renders you find on Planet Renders in a snap. All you have to do it get out your Free-Select tool by clicking on it in the main GIMP window or just by clicking F on your keyboard. Draw a circle or any type of weird shape around the logo. Make sure the circle does not have any part of the render in it, then go to Selection-Sharpen, then go to Edit-Cut or press Ctrl-X on your keyboard. And there you go!

If you want to make sure you did it right, you can go to your layers dialogue which can be found by going to File-Dialogs-Layers, on the GIMP main menu. Right-click on the render layer, then go to New Layer... A window will pop up, leave all the settings there except fill in the bubble for white on the Layer Fill Type. Now drag that newly-made layer down under the render layer, so it is at the bottom. Now look at your render. If you see some extra scrap where the logo used to be, get out your eraser tool and erase that. Or use the Free-Select tool again.

BASIC RENDERING
Ok, let's get to basic rendering. When rendering, do not use the intelligent scissors tool. When you use it, your selection is bumpy and will make your render choppy and messy on the edges. For rendering, you should use the paths tool which can be located here or by pressing B...

Now, what you want to do is open up the picture you want to render. I am going to render this picture of cheese I randomly looked up...

Now, let's get started, get out your path tool. If you wan't to make your cut look really good, you should zoom in a little on the image before you add your paths. I'd recommend zooming in by 150, but since my image is so small, i am going to zoom in by 200. You can zoom in by going to View-Zoom (*Whatever much you are already zoomed in to). Now start adding your paths around the image you wan't to cut, when you reach the last path and you want to sum it up, click on the first path your made which should be close to your last path, it should look like this...

Now, let's make this less choppy, once you end your path, start to check your paths, if you see one that could be curved more, then click on one of your path lines and drag it to make a curve. Keep doing this on every choppy part of the path you see. Once you're done, it should look like this...

It doesn't look much different, but believe me it helps. Now let's see your whole image, go to View-Zoom and zoom back to 100%. Looks good? Now, open up your paths dialogue, you do this the same way with the layers dialogue except you click paths instead of layers. Now in the paths dialogue, press the following red square...

It should be pretty much at the bottom. Now you should see that your path lines has been selected. Now, most people would cut it from here. But I think we can make the cut even better. You know how when you zoom in like 300 or 400 on an image, it seems to fade into the background? Now lets do that, except it fades into transparency. Go to Selection-Feather. Feather the selection by 1 or 2. We dont want to cut the image, we want to cut the background, so let's go to Selection-Invert. That should invert the selection. Now, if you go to Edit-Cut, the background will appear white, so before you cut it, go to Layers-Transparency-Add Aplha Channel, now cut it (Edit-Cut). There you go! You rendered the image! Let's look at the difference if we didn't do the feathering...
Unfeathered:

Feathered:

Small difference, but it looks better on a sig. or a non-transparent background. Now for the finishing touches. Get out your 1-pixel brush which is called "Circle (01). With your eraser tool, set the settings to the following...

Zoom in about 800%. Look on the edges of the render and check if there are any scraps. If there are, erase them. Now here is my final outcome with my logo...

NOTE: I also sharpened the image. If you feel that your render is a bit bad quality, you should tweek it to your liking as well.

ADVANCED RENDERING
Ever wonder how to render those annoying light-sabers or gunfire effects? Well here's how you do it in GIMP. Im going to be using this image...

I'm going to render the Phantom Menace (the guy with the red double-sided light-saber on the right). Now the first step, is to just render him, render all of him exept the main part with the lightsaber, using the info from the Basic Rendering tut. before this one. Render him but don't render the light-saber, instead, just put your path away from the light-saber when you get to that part...

Here is the render cut so far...

^Notice that i cropped it because the image was very big^

Now, lets make that light-saber glow. Get out your path tool again, and start making paths around the white part of the light-saber like this...

^Notice that I stroked the path in black because it was hard to see over the transparent pattern on GIMP^

Now, finish up your path resembling the image above, and in the path dialogue, click on the "Red Square" that looks like this... then, the path should be selected. Now, go to Selection-Feather... and feather by 5 pixels. Go to Edit-Cut (Ctrl-X). Now your render should be like this...

Now you should notice that your light saber does have some glow, but I know you want more glow and some red glow on that right? Let's add some more glow to make it look more like the other side of his lightsaber (more red). Using your path tool again. Make paths around the whole part of the lightsaber...

^Notice that I stroked the paths once again^

Now, click on the "Red Square" in the layers dialogue to select the path. Go to Edit-Copy or press Ctrl-C. Go to Layer-New Layer... and make a new transparent layer. Now, in your layers dialogue, click and drag the new layer that you just made under the render layer so it is at the bottom. Now, having the bottom new layer highlighted, go to Edit-Paste or press Ctrl-V. Now, use the move tool which looks like 4 arrows going in all directions on the GIMP main menu, and move it into the exact spot where the lightsaber is supposed to be (it may help to zoom in when moving it for better results). Now anchor it into the layer by clicking a part of the person holding lightsaber that is inside the yellow and black line. Now, go to Layer-Colors-Color Balance... Set it to these settings...

Cyan-Red: 100.
Magenta-Green: -100.
Yellow-Blue: -100.

The settings really depends on the color of your light saber, mine was red, so I made my settings look red. Now, set one of you colors, Foreground or Background, does not matter really which one. Set one of them to the color of you light-saber. Now, in you layers dialogue, right click on the bottom layer (light-saber layer) and go to "Alpha to Selection". Now go to Edit-Fill with FG/BG(whichever one you made as your lightsaber color) Color. Now, go to Filters-Blur-Gaussion Blur... and blur it by 20 pixels. Go to Filters-Blur-Gaussion Blur again and blur by 20 pixels again. Now, duplicate that layer by going to Layers-Duplicate Layer. Now, in you layers dialogue, click on the middle layer, and set the Opacity of that layer to 50.0. Now you are finished! Here is the semi-final result...

Save it and do whatever you want with the render. Here is my final result with some tweaks and my logo...


Getting Rid of Unwanted Text
Have you ever wanted to render something, but it was off a cover of a magazine and there was some text on the render so you you couldn't render it? Well I'll show you how to do that now. I am going to be getting rid of the text on this render...

Ok, so first, use the previous tuts. to render the image...

Now, to get rid of the text, we will be mainly using the smudge tool, then other tools to perfect it, first, in the layers dialogue, right-click the render layer and go to "Alpha to Selection". Now, when we smudge, we won't go outside of the render. Now let's get started, get out your smudge tool which looks like the following on the GIMP menu or just press "S"...

Now, start smudging with some nice small smudging brushes like the first ones in this set...
http://www.deviantar...h+age_scale%3A5
Smudge over a part close the text and smudge over the text a little. Keep doing this in all direction off the text. To cover it up with the smudge. Don't smudge from the outside transparency to the render or it will smudge the transparency onto the render and will mess it up. Now, you might want to add some special touches to make it look more realistic and less noticeable. Get out and other softer smudge brush and smudge in a good flow of the render to make it look good. Then, get out your eyedropper tool which looks like the following on the GIMP main menu Or you can just press "O" on your keyboard. Now, select a good part of the render that has the color you want to make the adjustemnts to the part where you smudged. Now, that color should be set as your Foreground color. Now, get out your Airbrush tool which looks like the following on the GIMP main menu Or you can just press "A" on your keyboard. Set your settings so that your opacity is 60.0. Leave everything as it is. Airbrush a little on the smudge spot and make it look good. Now, do you see any spots that look weird and sort of repeated sort of like it needs to be blurred a little. Or some parts that don't look realistic enough and need to be more sharp? Let's fix that, now, get out your Convolve tool that looks like the following on your GIMP main menu Or you can just press "V" on your keyboard. Set your opacity to 60.0 again. Now, for the parts that need to be blurred, click on Blur as your Convolve type and on that area. Then, for the parts that need to be sharpened, do Sharpen as you Convolve type and click on that area. Now you are pretty much done. You may do some other things to make it look better like using the brush tool with a really low opacity for finishing touches. Here is my semi-final result...

Here is the final result with my final touches and logo...


PARTICLE RENDERING
This tut. is going to teach you how to render things out of the main thing in the picture without cutting it off. Today, we will be rendering this picture...

We are going to focus on the guy in the top-left corner with the beam of light coming from his ring in particles. I will render the rest of the image as well, but for this tutorial, I will just explain how to render the particles of the beam of light coming from his ring. First, I'm going to render the whole image without the beams of light, but not cut anything out of the image. Just do the paths...

^Notice that because I was rendering people who were not connected, I had to right-click the path layer I finished on one person in the paths dialogue, and went to New Path... and then started on the next person. This is what you will be doing to render the beams of light as well. I also had to use my imagination for some parts that covered the body that i would have had to gotten rid of later.^

Now to render the beams of light, I need to do what I said before. In the paths dialogue, right-click on the top path layer and go to New Path... Now all you have to do is make paths and end them around a particle/beam of light that you want in the render and then right-click on the top layer in the paths dialogue and go to New Path... and repeat until all particles/beams of light have paths around them. It is better if you click on the far left box in the path dialogue for each path as you go along to show an eye in the box making it visible when you go to other particles so you dont redo one of them. Now my image looks like this...

Now, make sure all of your path layers are visible and have an eye in the far right box in the path dialogue for each layer and right-click on any layer in the path dialogue and go to Merge Visible Paths. Now all of your paths should be combined into one path. If you have more than one path in your path dialogue after you do this, that means some of your path layers weren't visible. Now, click on the path layer to highlight it and click on the "Red Square" that looks like this... to select your path. Now go to Layer-Transparency-Add Alpha Channel, then Select-Invert and then go to Edit-Cut. Then click on the Red Square again, then go to Select-Feather... and feather the selection by 3 pixels. Now go to Select-Invert and finally Edit-Cut once again. If your particles were very small and skinny like mine, you should go to Layer-Duplicate Layer and then Layer-Merge Down to make it easier to see. Now you are pretty much done. I'm not obviously because I need to get rid of unwanted things like the speech bubbles and I need to add some finishing touches like a couple green glows in specific places to make it look more realistic. As well as my logo. Here is the semi-final render...

Here is my final result with final touches and my logo...


Hope everyone enjoys this thread.

[Kill454]

how will i edit this now??

[indie]

just edit that post
you should be glad that this one got saved though kill.

[Bash]

try editing it now

[Kill454]

ok thnx! and yes, im lucky(should save a back-up of this o.O )

So... man.. i have to do extraction all over again..

This post has been edited by Kill454: 30 November 2007 - 12:11 AM

[B5Freak]

I'd like to know if you planned on doing part of this tut on the new Foreground Extraction tool. I'd like to figure out if it could be used in the same way that PS's extraction tool can be used to extract lots of particles & glow effects easily.

[Orrin]

wow thanks for sharing =] ill use this

[Sassafras]

One...
Very....
Seckzy...
Tut...

[SB Red Flag]

This is a great render. It would be great if you added how to extract special effects though

[jakeyuan110]

wow...
that is hard work....
preps for all those render makers
i'm a super noob

[Kill454]

B5Freak, on Dec 8 2007, 07:21 PM, said:

I'd like to know if you planned on doing part of this tut on the new Foreground Extraction tool. I'd like to figure out if it could be used in the same way that PS's extraction tool can be used to extract lots of particles & glow effects easily.

Yeah, that tool is crap, theres an easier way. the way i use to extract effects, for now ill just say this..
SPOILER

Spoiler

layer-transparency-color to alpha..

I'll be making a better tut soon, for now if anyone could pm me some nice pics with good effects it would save me time..

This post has been edited by Kill454: 01 February 2008 - 01:13 PM

[SG_Jordan]

Hello, the forum I am part of doesn't have any rendering tutorials so I was wondering if I could use this one and give you 100% credits. PM me for yes or no, or if you need any information. Thanks,

- Jordan

[darksaw5]

i followed the tut and when i pressed cut everything got deleted
is there a way to connect it or something?

This post has been edited by darksaw5: 09 February 2008 - 04:31 AM

[Orrin]

thanks for tips =]

[Kill454]

SG_Jordan, on Feb 7 2008, 08:53 AM, said:

Hello, the forum I am part of doesn't have any rendering tutorials so I was wondering if I could use this one and give you 100% credits. PM me for yes or no, or if you need any information. Thanks,

- Jordan

dont just copy and paste the whole thing, just link to this topic on pr

darksaw5, on Feb 8 2008, 02:57 AM, said:

i followed the tut and when i pressed cut everything got deleted
is there a way to connect it or something?

check the selection, if you can see the selection on the outer edges of what you are cutting out, then go to edit-invert and cut out the bg..

[HippoZ]

Sweet man, thanks that really helped me out cause im pretty new to this also.

[8MR]

<3

[Cry Nyxius]

Nice tutorial. Thank you for the tips. I was doing it the long and hard way XD!!

[infernophyte]

WOW awesome. Thank you FOR LIFE. I use GIMP right now, and I've been hoping to come across a tutorial like this. I'm still doing some basic stuff, but I hope I might be able to get THAT good.

[Mr_tissue]

Dude when I'm done rendering an Image what do i save it as?