GIMP
GIMP is a powerful raster image editing program, and commonly used for photo retouching, image composition, and general graphic design work. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.
Tips and tricks
Captions
To caption an image follow these steps after inputting the desired text:
- Click Layer and Text to Path
- Click Select and From Path
- Click Select and Invert
- Click Edit and Stroke Path
Create a circle
To draw a circle in GIMP follow these steps:
- Select the Ellipse tool and hold
Shift - Click Edit and Fill with Color
- Click Select and Shrink
- Press
Delete
Photoshop behaviour
Since GIMP is highly configurable, it is possible to change the keybinds, and even the UI, to be more familiar to those who are used to the raster image editing program Photoshop.
Specifically the GimpPs theme aims to make GIMP behave more like Photoshop, which you can install on top of GIMP.
Alternately, if you just want the keybinds, the relevant lines are included in the theme's menurc file, which you can then add to your local ~/.config/GIMP/2.10/menurc.
There is also the PhotoGIMP project, aiming to do to the same.
Plugins
GIMP has an extensive plugin system, as well as a Scheme interpreter which can be used to write Script-Fu scripts.
Most plugins are distributed via the official repositories (for example, gimp-plugin-gmic) and the AUR; some, but not all, are listed as optional dependencies of the gimp package.
Manual installation
If not distributed via the repositories, plugins can be compiled and installed using the executable.
To install a plugin from source:
To install a pre-compiled plugin:
To install a Script-Fu script:
$ gimptool --install-script script.scm
Further options may be found in the gimptool --help message.
Packaging
Plugin packages should add their files to a directory with their name within .
Troubleshooting
Green text
Add the following to if you see a green tint around letters with antialiasing enabled:
Hide Noto
Add the following to if you have installed and would like to remove them from GIMP's fonts list:
See and Font configuration#Whitelisting and blacklisting fonts for more information.
PDF files
GIMP requires the library to open PDF files or it will report that they are unrecognised.
Since GIMP rasterizes PDF files right from the start, it will not exploit intrinsic PDF capabilities while editing them. Other programs (like LibreOffice Draw) can be used to better edit PDF files.