LinuxFocus Article Number 314 HTTP
LinuxFocus Article Number 314 HTTP
http://linuxfocus.org
by Eric Lamarque
<eric_lamarque/at/yahoo.fr>
In this article I will present the various brushes that GIMP offers and
Translated to English by: show how to create brushes.
Guido Socher First we will look in detail at the brushes dialog, "Brush selection", and
<guidoatlinuxfocus.org> the different brushes it contains. After that I will show you how to create
your own brushes.
The version of Gimp used for this article is 1.2.3.
_________________ _________________ _________________
Now let us see the various types of brushes. For all the exercises in this part, open a new image RGB
with a white background.
Reset the colors of foreground (FG) and background (BG) to black/white. Select the
brush "Circle Fuzzy (13)" and draw a line with the paintbrush tool. Change the
color of foreground to blue and draw a second line.
Impressing!!
It’s a simple brush. The brush in this case is a grayscale image used by Gimp as an
inverted alpha channel. The white corresponds to the transparent color and the
levels of gray are used as value for the foreground color. The file associated to the
brush has the extension ".gbr".
Set again the colors of foreground and background to black/white. Select the brush
"Vine" from the "Brush Selection" dialog. Change the foreground color to blue and
draw something.
You note: you wanted vine in blue but it remained green. "Vine" is a RGB pipe or
animated brush: it is not possible to change the color in this type of brush. On the
other hand, the image evolved/moved while you draw. The associated file type for
this brush has the extension ".gih".
Reset the colors of foreground (FG) and background (BG) to black/white. Select the
brush "PencilSketch" and draw. Change the color of foreground into blue and draw
a second line.
Your master piece is ready. Here an outline of my example already reduced to 64x64.
If you think of modifying/reusing the elements of your image later on, it is the moment to save now as
.xcf or never come back : the creation of the brush is an operation with a single direction. Once the file
".gbr" is generated, one loses the original elements of the work in progress (path, channels...).
if your image contains more than one layer, transform it so that it has only one layer and flatten the
image (layers->flatten).
if need be, scale the image to the final size of the brush. In the example, the image is reduced to
64x64 (right click image->Image->Scale Image).
save your image with the extension ".gbr" in the directory ~/.gimp-1.2/brushes/. In the example, the
file is called "bateau.gbr".
file is called "bateau.gbr".
give your brush a name and choose spacing (percentage). These parameters will appear in the
dialog "Brush Selection". Here, the brush will be named "bateau" (French for boat).
And ready is the magnificent and decorative brush. But it does not appear in
the dialog "Brush Selection". Press the refresh button and it becomes
available.
This is what you do: create a new image RGB with "fill
type" transparent.
Hint: Do not hesitate to create an image larger than the size
of the desired brush: it is easier to work on a big image and
then to reduce than to make the brush in the final size.
if need be, scale the image to the final size of the brush e.g 64x64 (right click->Image->Scale
Image).
save your image with the extension ".gih" in the directory ~/.gimp-1.2/brushes/. In the example, the
file is called "bateau.gih".
file is called "bateau.gih".
The dialog to create a pipe has a lot of possibilities. For clearness of the article, I will just focus on
the simple case:
1. Enter the spacing in percentage
2. The name of the brush as it should
appear in the "selection of brushes"
dialog.
3. Ranks: this parameter must correspond
to the number of layers present in the
brush (4 layers in the example).
4. Selection: it is the order in which the
layer(copies) of the brush are used. In
the example, "incremental" will produce
the image "Deep Blue" then "Blue" then
"Blue blade" then "Deep Blue"... The
other modes which are easy to use are
"angular" and "random".
It is done: now you have a new animated brush. But it does not appear in the
dialog "selection of brushes" until you press the refresh button.
If need be, scale the image to the final size of the brush. In the example, the image is reduced to
64x64 (right click ->Image->Scale Image).
Save your image with the extension ".gih" in the directory ~/.gimp-1.2/brushes/. In the example, the
file is called "faces.gih".
file is called "faces.gih".
The dialog to create a pipe has a lot of possibilities. For clearness of the article, I will again focus
on the simple case:
1. Enter the spacing in percentage
2. The name of the brush as it should
appear in the "selection of brushes"
dialog.
3. Ranks: this parameter must correspond
to the number of layers present in the
brush (3 layers in the example).
4. Selection: it is the order in which the
layer(copies) of the brush are used.
It is done: now you have a new animated brush. But it does not appear in the
dialog "selection of brushes" until you press the refresh button.
1. Check first of all that the conditions/license to use the brush are compatible with your project.
2. Simply open it in GIMP: if this fails, then the format is unknown because the file was created with
a too recent version of Paint Shop Pro. No chance.
3. When brush is open in GIMP; save it with the extension "gih". The majority of the parameters are
already correct just set the name of the brush and the spacing.
4. Move the brush image to the directory ~/.gimp-1.2/brushes/. Press the refresh button in the dialog
"selection of brushes".
Let’s try and example from graphicssoft.about.com, the site of Sue Chastain.
This site has the advantage of providing good information for each brush: note it down for later use.
Open the file in GIMP. Even if the extension ".tub" is not mentioned
explicitly in the type of files, the format Paint Shop Pro ("PSP") is
supported.
6. Conclusion
Now, you know almost everything about brushes. But for what can that be useful? Here some examples:
To convert the characters of the dingbats fonts into decorative brushes ( Playing around with
Dingbats and The Gimp by Katja Socher)
Retouch/improve photos ( Digital Hair Mania by Russell Brown)
To draw along a path ( Stroking along path by Gautam N. Lad) (local copy)
One can also create brushes to change photographs, to add texture to parts of an image and probably
plenty of other uses.
References/Links
Note: The tutorials ones on mmmaybe.gimp.org will change URL at the time of the redesign of the
www.gimp.org site: mmmaybe.gimp.org will become www.gimp.org.
GIMP User Manuel - Creating A New Brush (Karin Kylander - Olof S. Kylander)
http://manual.gimp.org/manual/GUM/brush2.html
Custom Brushes Tutorial (Gautam N. Lad) http://mmmaybe.gimp.org/tutorials/Custom_Brushes/
Image Pipes (Adrian Likins) http://mmmaybe.gimp.org/tutorials/Image_Pipes/
Image Pipes 2 (Sam Jones) http://mmmaybe.gimp.org/tutorials/Image_Pipes2/
Graphics Software, the site of Sue Chastain who gave me permission to use her colored bubbles.
Webpages maintained by the LinuxFocus Editor
team Translation information:
© Eric Lamarque fr --> -- : Eric Lamarque <eric_lamarque/at/yahoo.fr>
"some rights reserved" see linuxfocus.org/license/ fr --> en: Guido Socher <guidoatlinuxfocus.org>
http://www.LinuxFocus.org