Coloring in Gimp

RE: Coloring in Gimp

by Montanto - 04/13/2005 - 11:33

Never actually heard of Gimp but there are tons of online coloring tutorials for photoshop coloring. My personal favorite is this one.
http://well-of-souls.com/gallery/cg101a.htm

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RE: Coloring in Gimp

by Jae - 04/14/2005 - 00:28

I have used Gimp just a little, but without tutorials. I was able to work through some things because it does have many of the same capabilities as Photoshop. So if you get into Photoshop tutorials, that will help you learn Gimp. If you have any specific questions, feel free to post here and I'll see if I can get you an answer, but I don't know about where to find the tutorials, other than Google!

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RE: Coloring in Gimp

by esoterictowers - 04/14/2005 - 05:50

Thanks Jae (Montanto too). I had two basic questions up front. Do you use layers or channels when coloring and what the hell is the difference? And how do you choose the color you want? I can't find anything on my tool bar. I'm sure I'm just overlooking something simple.

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RE: Coloring in Gimp

by llothcat - 04/14/2005 - 06:24

I made a tutorial about using the Gimp for comics.

My webserver crashed in february, and I haven't gotten that page back up just yet. Will llikely get to it this weekend--hopefully. The Gimp is an awesome tool, but the downside is that is doesn't export to CMYK, the setting needed to print in color. You'll likely need to find another application to be able to print up your comics reliably. For online work, it's great. It's B&W setting is fine for print. (I compiled together my webcomics, Teriibly Brave Security Forces, for the APE, and printed them at comixpress.com All but the first 3 pages were done in the Gimp)

Re your question: Short answer...

Channels involve color separation.

Layers involve everything else.

Picking colors Colors in Gimp..I use a PC, we double click the foreground color square thingy. This brings up another window. In this window, you just move the cross-hairs target thingy to where you want it. Blam! New color. Perhaps this method works in Mac version too?

There is also the eyedropper method. But in Gimp, it generates the hexcode for the color sampled instead of automatically changing the foreground color square.(I suppose it's useful for websites in a way) You'll have to hand-type in the hex-code in the same pop-up window I mentioned earlier.

Too confusing? Maybe I'll have to add a few things to the tutorial.

Gimp is complex, and if you're new to pixel based image malipulation programs, you'll be a little lost for a while. Just hang in there.

Just wait until you learn about the layer settings.

What are you using for your lettering? I'm not sure what works in the Mac, but you'll need a vector based program to get good lettering done right. I use Inkscape--also free. (It crashes a lot, but it'll do)

llothcat
http://www.llothcat.com

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RE: Coloring in Gimp

by tynic - 04/14/2005 - 10:09

I use a mac, and gimp (and linux and gimp, for that matter), and find it fairly intuitive. If you're using the 2.0 distribution, the online help should be sufficient to get you through the basics. Select 'help' in the help menu, which should take you straight to the online site, and read through the tools and dialogs section of the help to understand things like layers, paths, channels, curves, etc. Colour picking is similar to llothcat's experience - you can select your colour by eye, by clicking once on the foreground colour in the main sidebar, or you can use the eyedropper tool (which in the Mac, by the way, does not require you to hand-type in the hex-code - sounds like you guys got gypped there).

Basically, just mess around with it - if you're not afriad to try out stuff, your learning curve should be pretty steep. Quick tips for colouring: colour under your lineart, not over it, don't colour on a white background. But here's some tutorials that go over it in more detail. They're for photoshop, but the principles are the same, you just might have to hunt around the menus for a while, since things will be in different places.

1. quick and dirty colouring tute
2. Similar, but different artist, so different style
3. Another one
4. Speedpainting tute by a really cool dude
5. Some more specific tutes - the channels tutorial is particularly useful.

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RE: Coloring in Gimp

by William_G - 04/14/2005 - 10:30

Gimp works pretty much in the same way as Photoshop. Photoshop just does it better, but that's to be understaood since Gimp is done by some guys in their spare time and Adobe has a full time staff working on it.

Gimp does a nifty function that makes titles for you. I think it was a script-fu that you have to download seperately, but I cant remember since its been so long.

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RE: Coloring in Gimp

by llothcat - 04/17/2005 - 08:54

http://www.llothcat.com/gimpcomics/

there ya go..I finally found the sucker. It's image heavy, so be patient, please:D

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RE: Coloring in Gimp

by esoterictowers - 04/18/2005 - 21:23

I really appreciate everyone's help. This was my frist time coloring, so as you can imagine I was pretty frustrated and lost. The responses to this post made all the difference though. Specifically, llothcat, your tutorial was excellent. The screenshots made it so much easier to understand. The only problem I encountered was that I didn't set the right layer to "multiply" so the colors were overlapping the original image. I later realized my mistake though. I looked at a few other tutorials for some technique tips, but basically yours was the one that go me going initially and helped to build my confidence.

I've posted my first ever colored comic on my blog, if you guys would like to see the result. Any feedback you have would be great. I definiately need some more practice, but I'm pretty happy with my first attempt
http://halfemptythoughts.covblogs.com - Japan Comic

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RE: Coloring in Gimp

by Anonymous - 04/19/2005 - 06:39

not bad at all:D

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