If you want to draw a shape like a circle in GIMP there is no direct button. But it doesn’t mean you cannot create different shapes in GIMP. It just takes a little bit of knowledge, and of course, effort.

GIMP basically is an image editing tool for Ubuntu and other versions of GUI Linux operating system. In fact it has grown so much that it is no longer considered a basic image editor: in Ubuntu 10.04 it is no longer installed by default while you are installing the operating system, you install it only if you need it.

Although here on HowToPlaza we’ve already covered how to draw basic shapes in GIMP, since lots of search engine queries are based on individual shapes, this tutorial is specifically for creating circles in GIMP.

Start GIMP and open a new file. From the tool box select the Ellipse Select Tool:

This tool helps you select a circular region in the drawing area. In order to draw a perfect circle (with a fixed radius) it is often advised that you keep the SHIFT key pressed while drawing the circle but we’ve observed it doesn’t work; it doesn’t mean you need to depend on your eye-hand coordination in order to draw a perfect circle in GIMP. After you have drawn your circle, whatever shape, refer back to the Tool box. At the bottom you have options that let you set the height and width of the circle by manually entering the numbers:

This way you can create the shape of a perfect circle. But it isn’t over yet. You need an outline. For creating an outline you need to decide the color, the width, and type of outline you want. As type, you can use the Brush or the Pencil or the Airbrush tool:

You can adjust the width and other features of these drawing tools

Once you are through with all the settings, click Edit in the main menu and then click Stroke Selection. You get the following window:

Here too you can pay around with different settings. In fact all the features that we’ve discussed above can be altered through this window too. Finally, click Stroke.

You have drawn a circle in GIMP

In GIMP there is a no direct tool in the tool box to draw a straight line, but then you need to understand the it is not a drawing tool. Again, it doesn’t mean you cannot draw a straight line. You just need to use one of the drawing tools — pencil tool, paintbrush tool or airbrush tool — in combination with the SHIFT key of your keyboard.

In the Tool box, select the color you want for your line. Once that is done, select one of the drawing tools:

For this example we choose the paintbrush tool. When you click the paintbrush tool you can set its width and force etc. in the following area:

You can use the slider marked with the red arrow to decide how thick or thin you want your straight line to be. You can also use the “Brush” button to decide how your straight line should appear:

As you can see, you can also fill your line with pepper.

Once you have decided how your straight line in GIMP should appear, you can begin drawing the line.

• Go to the drawing area
• Click somewhere without releasing the mouse button
• Press SHIFT and now you can release the mouse button while keeping the SHIFT key pressed
• Move your cursor to whatever direction you feel like
• Keep stretching according to the line length you want
  
• Click the end point with your mouse and your line will be drawn
  
• Release the SHIFT key

This is one of the easiest ways of drawing a straight line in GIMP. In fact, like this you can draw many shapes that involve straight lines by keeping the SHIFT key pressed and clicking the mouse button at various places.

Photoshop is perhaps the greatest graphics tool available to graphic and web designers. From basic text effects to complete surrealistic imagery nothing is impossible with Photoshop. If you want to create an effect, you can create it with this software.

The greatest benefit of using Photoshop over any other image and photo editing tool is that it has a plethora of features for major effects and even if there is no direct feature, with a little bit of manipulation you can do what you want to do. You can create a multitude of effects for every single layer you create. Every major design company uses Photoshop to create breathtaking effects and even the models that look so pretty [read how to beautify a face with Photoshop retouching] have to thank Photoshop for their godly looks.

It’s an expensive software so you may get to use it an a design agency or with a professional who uses it for his or her projects. You can also get started with Photoshop at your design school or college. Here’s a list of some excellent Photoshop tutorials to get you started.

You can easily create text with border or outline in GIMP. Some also call it stroke if you are familiar with using Photoshop. There is no dedicated feature in GIMP that allows you to create text with border or create an outline around your text, but through a combination of a couple of features you can easily achieve this.

Launch GIMP and open a new document. Then create the text you want to create a border around. In our case we’ll be creating HowToPlaza:

Then use the color tool to select the text

Click on the tool first and then click somewhere on your text. Your text begins to look like this:

You can try out various setting in the section shown below to create smoother selection of the above text:

Once you have selected the text, go to the Tool box and change the color to the one you want around your text. Then in the top menu, click Edit and then Stroke Selection… You come across this screen:

This is the screen you use to create border or stroke around your text. The final result looks like this:

The end product here doesn’t look very neat but you can try out various GIMP tweaks to make this image look sharper and a bit more professional.

Although you can create a gradient text effect with GIMP using the procedure described in this tutorial, if you think this is a long-winded way, especially compared to how easy it is in Photoshop, then you must know GIMP is basically a photo editing tool. Nonetheless, if you’re working in Ubuntu then Photoshop is not an option and with some trickery you can do whatever you want to do with GIMP too. In fact with the latest version of GIMP there is no trickery involved. You can simply use the gradient tool present in the tool bar and create your desired text effect.

Launch GIMP and create a new document. Then using the text tool create some text on which you’d like to apply the gradient effect.

In the tool box there is button that lets you regions with the similar color.

Click on this button and then click somewhere on the text. You’ll see ants moving around your text which means the area of your text has been selected.

In the tool box you now need to click the gradient button.

Once you click the gradient button, in the lower portion of the Tool box all the options available for this button become visible.

The button marked with the red arrow is the one that allows you to select various gradients for your text. When you click, a drop-down menu appears and you can select the one you want. After selecting it, go to your text, click on the upper edge, don’t release the mouse button, and drag it to the lower edge, and then release the mouse button. The gradient text effect will be applied. You can change the direction of the drag to create more effects with the same gradient option.

You can try out different options available with this GIMP tool box section. In order to use the text, simply crop your image and save it.

Want to make fonts smoother in Windows XP? The original font rendering in Windows is quite unpleasant. In fact if you haven’t tweaked at all, the fonts in Windows appear somewhat like this:

As you can see it’s not much pleasure working with such font rendering. A standard way of improving font rendering in Windows is through the Control Panel. From Control Panel go to Display and in the Display window click the Appearance tab. In the Appearance window there is a button labeled Effects… There is a checkbox labeled “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts”; check it, and then from the drop down select ClearType. Apply this setting and the display improves to an extent:

As you can see, font rendering is a lot better. Still, it’s not as smooth as you can see in Ubuntu or say, Mac OS. Microsoft uses different technology to render fonts and images and Ubuntu uses a different technology. That’s irrelevant here, but if you want your font rendering to look as smooth as it looks in Ubuntu, you can use a rendering program called GDI++. It’s further development and support is suspended and it may have some issues and give you troubles (it may look bad in lower resolution), but if you can try it out you can download it from here and unzip it in a separate folder. From there you simply need to launch an executable with a big G icon. The program runs in your system tray as a blue G

If you’re looking for a powerful alternative to Photoshop you’ll have to settle down with GIMP. It’s a great freesource image editing tool but it has its peculiarities and sometimes, unlike it’s commercial counterpart, even simple tasks can seem cryptic. For instance, if you want to draw squares, lines, circles and triangles using GIMP, you cannot select them from the tool box. But then many say GIMP is not a drawing software, it’s primarily used for image manipulation. So what do you do if you want to draw these shapes in GIMP? The developers may be thought (since you get it for free) if a task can be achieved with 3-4 steps, why have a separate button for that?

Instead, you use the selection tool and a combination of other tools to draw shapes like squares, lines, circles and triangles (and possibly, more intricate shapes — like autoshapes in Photoshop).

Drawing a square in GIMP

1. Open a new file (you can also use a currently open file).

2. Using the Rectangle Selection Tool you select an area. You can select a square area manually or you can add coordinates in order to achieve a square:

Drawing a square in GIMP

Then from the Edit menu, go to Stroke Selection…

Stroke selection

This brings you to the following screen:

Stroke selection for drawing a square in GIMP

From this screen onwards it becomes fairly simple to draw a square of your choice. You can play around with different options. The color of the stroke (boundary) depends on the current color selected in the tool box.

This is how you draw a square in GIMP.

Drawing a circle in GIMP

You need to follow the same routine as you did while drawing a square, it’s just that this time you have to select the Ellipse Select Tool instead of the rectangle one.

Drawing a straight line in GIMP

Again, there is no straightforward button in GIMP that allows you to draw a straight line; you need to use a combination of different tools and the keyboard (the SHIFT key, to be precise) to draw a straight line. First of all you need to select any of the drawing tools present in the Tools bar.

Drawing straight lines in GIMP

Then in the editing area, click wherever you want the line to begin from, then press the Shift key (keep it pressed), drag your mouse pointer according to your line preference, click at the new position and then release the Shift key.

Drawing a line

Your line is drawn.

Straight line is drawn

Drawing a triangle in GIMP

Drawing a triangle in GIMP simply involves drawing lines using the method mentioned above and joining them to form a triangle. This image explains it better:

Drawing triangles in GIMP

In case you’d like to manipulate the shapes independently you should first insert a new layer and then draw the shape on that layer, so that you can move it around.

Disappointed with the latest pics you shot because there wasn’t enough light? A dark, unclear image can be a result of bad light around the scene being captured or your camera not getting enough time to process the image, or whatever other reason. But it doesn’t mean the photo has gone waste. This blog posts explains to you in detail how to brighten up a dark image in Photoshop.

There are three major image formats people normally use as web images: JPG, GIF and PNG. A great benefit if using PNG images files is that you can create good transparency effects with them. Although all major image editing tools let you create ping files, there are not many way of optimizing png files. But why would you optimize your png file. The reason is same as laid out in the post titled how to optimize your JPG images; you need to optimize your PNG images so that you can manipulate them as you wish, and they use less bandwidth as your traffic increases.

But why use a PNG image file instead of a GIF image file? There are many benefits. This blog post explains the benefits of using a PNG image file and how you can optimize a ping image.

Why do you need to optimize a JPG file and what does optimizing a JPG file actually means. Optimizing a JPG file means reducing its size with minimum quality compromise. When you’re trying to reduce a JPG file you must have observed that it no longer looks as good as it used look originally. Strange shades and boxes begin to appear in a scattered fashion. Different image manipulation tools let you reduce the size of your images while trying maintain as much quality as possible.

But why optimize your images? Two reasons. Some of your visitors may have slower internet connections so they’ll appreciate if they don’t have to wait forever before they can make out what’s the image all about. And lighter images save you lots of bandwidth cost. It hardly makes a difference if your image is viewed by 500-600 odd visitors per day. But what if your web page contains 5-10 images and that page is visited by thousands of visitors daily? You can do the math and figure out how much you are going to pay to your web host just to display the images.

This Smashingmagazine blog post tells you how to optimize your JPG images.