First pure GIMP primitive sig

[Bucic]

It's a Herne's arrow. You know, the Herne from Robin Hood It's primitive but suites nicely to the target forum.

Done from this render http://lockon.co.uk/img/fc2/14_AIM-9P.jpg
I used Foreground Select Tool with Feather Edges enabled and added Alpha Channel to the Layer. Unfortunately saving as GIF made the bottom front a bit pixelated.

Below is my second signature ever done in Inkscape

[Maffe811]

Save it as a png, gif indexes it and makes it only 256 colors... if i remember right!

=
Gif for animations, ONLY!

[Bucic]

I know but the target forum converts it to GIF anyway.
Hey! I can try using IMG code instead of their signature uploader! Off to test it...

Edit:
Nope. IMG codes not allowed.

[Maffe811]

do you got the xcf?
if you do not know what an xcf is, its away to save the raw gimp file, alwayss save a xcf before you save as jpg/png/gif/whatever

[Bucic]

Of course. I don't do any image and many other stuff that can't be modified later. In this particular case I didn't save it as xcf because I did it for training in 5 minutes.

My background/raster image knowledge:

- no previous raster image editing background
- seen some GimpKnowHow YouTube tutorials
- xcf GIMP format, lossy vs lossless image formats, quality settings with preview, including indexed GIF, cdds plug-in
- canvas, layers (+opacity, alpha channel and layer mask) and selection basics (+ floating selection)
- all the basic transformations (rotating, scaling, cropping etc.), copying, pasting, moving selections
- basic usage of all the selection tools incl. feathering
- basic usage of all the paint tools
- gradient tool
- erm... all the tools in the toolbox, so it looks
- some filters of name clearly indicating the final effect
- VERY poor at all the stuff involving color manipulation (lack of theoretical preliminaries) (except of what's RGB and HTML color notation)
- Very poor at Layer Modes which I know have great potential

Generally I would be grateful if someone could supplement this list with missing BASIC stuff (including needed theory). Followed by top 10 most underrated image manipulation program functions (from basic to intermediate) and top GIMP tricks that allow achieving quick effects almost like some Picasa manipulations. I went through some chapters of the gimp.org documentation but it's obviously not relevance structured.

I've been playing with layer mask



T = ~20 minutes. It's not ready. It's just a playground, obviously.

[Maffe811]

KUBICA

[David Wood]

Not bad, the arrow is rather choppy though. What you should do is use the paths tool to create better cuts. Search for rendering tutorials.

[Bucic]

Yup, I'm a Kubica fan (not a fanatic) since before his F1 debut.

DW, I don't think it will help. It was fancy and smooth but it get's broken during GIF export as the smoothness in PNG was achieved by feathered selection thus different transparencies level and GIF supports only 100% transparent/0% transparent.

[Maffe811]

I kinda like em all, but Fernando Alonso is my fav... i think

you should go to youtube at koin4444 and watch his rendring tut!
was made by Kyle from... here! (ta da!)

[Bucic]

From what I see I was right - even koin4444's rendered hero would become pixelated if exported to such a low resolution GIF. The only way to get rid of pixels from the bottom of my sig (right side) would be to pick lighter color and draw a thin line along the edge of pixelated part.

Edit:
The only thing that will improve the final image will be to reduce the selection feathering. I used value of around 6! This gave an excessive area with graded transparency which is "disliked" by GIF.

[Maffe811]

save it as png!!!!!!!

[virtualTune]

SCHUMACHER!

[Bucic]

I know but the target forum converts it to GIF anyway.
Hey! I can try using IMG code instead of their signature uploader! Off to test it...

Edit:
Nope. IMG codes not allowed.

It's a piece of cake to do it in PNG. I did it in 5 minutes. But the signature is not for gimper.net. It's for the other forum and that's the goal

BTW, it looks liek selection feathering is a no go if I wanyt the output file in GIF.

[Bucic]

I can't get rid of that damn transparency inside the selection. How to force 0/1 transparency?



I set feather selection to 0. I tried even put another layer underneath but it didn't help.

Edit:

Got it! Select - Sharpen !

[Bucic]

Hahaha, exactly the same result (without transparency=without anti-aliasing -> GIF), like I said before