The Labs.Com Graphic Lab The GIMP

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The Ultimate Answer to Photoshop

1. Introduction
2. Installing Fonts
3. Wacom Pad & Mouse Simultaneously
4. More coming soon ..

The GIMP is the UNIX replacement of Adobe's Photoshop. The GIMP is free, and source-code is available and goes under GPL. It has most features you want to have:

• PostScript font support
• Transparency
• Layers
• many modes: normal, lighten-only, darken-only, overlay etc
• XCF file-format saves all settings and picture with all infos

There are many resources available, just visit GIMP.ORG first and explore the site intensivly, there is much worthwhile to read. I specially recommend the The GIMP Manual: GUM. We only provide here additional information for GIMP.

Misc Gimp

Film Gimp 16 bit channel version of GIMP

The GIMP 2. Installing Fonts

PostScript Fonts

Look at The Fonts section and download your favourite PostScript Type1 Fonts. Proceed like this: XFree86-4.x: make sure the Type1 render module is loaded:     Load  "type1"  within Section "Module". Use type1inst (has sometimes problems with strange .pfa files) or Edit /usr/X11/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/fonts.scale First line is the amount of fonts you list Sample line: Bajoran.pfa -adobe-bajoran-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-m-... I copied quite a few Type-1 fonts, and under XFree86-4 I noticed the Type1-fonts are dropped when only one font is bogus. To resolve this I did this:  cd /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1   foreach i (*.pfa)   type1afm $i   end  and then check all *.afm files, and this one with filelength zero (where type1afm core-dumped) you know to remove this font (also from your fonts.dir/scale). Under XFree86-3.6.x this wasn't a problem. Call mkfontdir within this directory (updates fonts.dir) Either restart X11-server or do  xset fp+ /usr/X11/libs/fonts    xset fp rehash  then with new start of GIMP the new fonts will be available.

TrueType Fonts

XFree86-3.6.x: install Xfstt (under FreeBSD just go into /usr/ports/x11-servers/Xfstt and make install) copy all your *.ttf into /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/* and call xfstt & and xfstt --sync, then xset fp+ unix/:7101, and then GIMP (and all other X11-apps) see the TrueType fonts! XFree86-4.x: just make sure you load the module in /etc/X11/XFConfig, excerpt:     Load "freetype"  within the Section "Module".

The GIMP 3. Wacom Pad & Mouse Simultaneously

X11 Setup

By adding the stylus like this you can use both at the same time (without switching). Just pick up the stylus. Note that you must choose between using the TiltMode and using the Eraser: XF86Config addenum.

GTK

Also make sure your GTK was compiled with XFree-Wacom support (read the INSTALL file within the gtk-distribution). For FreeBSD edit /usr/ports/x11-toolkits/gtk12/Makefile like this:  ...   CONFIGURE_ARGS= --includedir=${PREFIX}/include/gtk12 \       --with-xinput=xfree  and then install ports ../graphics/gimp1.

GIMP: Input Devices

Once you started GIMP select in the main-window then Dialog -> Input Devices, and then enable the Wacom support. Once you did, then the airbrush and ink-pen are pressure sensitive, a real joy to use GIMP then . . .

More you can find at

Wacom X11Input Xfree86 Wacom drivers bin & source

The GIMP 4. More coming soon ..

We will add some tips & tricks later ...

                                                                                                                                   

GIFTool

Graphic Lab

Image Collection