Not hard to get the hang of basic editing in GIMP.
A general rule I always follow is when you start editing … create a folder, place all your starting images in there and duplicate the folder … keep one folder as the original (and keep it hidden in the background) and start editing in the copy.
This way, if you ever mess up or can no longer undo whatever you did … just grab a copy of the original layer and restart
Sometimes if I’m doing a complicated edit, I’ll keep multiple duplicates of each layer version of the edit I’m doing… just to be safe.
It took me a ton of lost hours of editing before I got to the point of creating duplicate backup layers … it creates massive files but if I’m just doing memes, I just delete the editing file once I’m done anyway.
Thanks for the tips! Yeah, it’s definitely confusing at this point, trying to keep all the layers and masks straight. Most of the work done so far has been: ok, that was time-consuming, and I can’t really use this result, but I’ve learned something. Doing some parallel messing about with Shotcut.
Would you say learning GIMP is worth it? I’ve largely been using the built in tools in a meme generator, often on my phone, so my process feels pretty sloppy. Lol
Too soon to say; I’m merely a dabbler so far! I wanted to make a gif from this TNG scene, but it’s at the beginning of an episode and has credits obscuring it. So I spent a while trying to figure out the optimal method of removing them. Tried some online AI tools, but wasn’t getting the results I wanted, so I’m doing it frame by frame in GIMP, figuring out layer masks and stuff. I had messed around a bit with Photoshop before, so it’s not wholly alien.
@carlo@lemmy.ca had this idea for “gorn hub” in another thread. Just took me a couple of weeks to get around to making it.
Love it, thank you! I’m working on another one I had an idea for, but it turned out I had to learn how to GIMP first.
Not hard to get the hang of basic editing in GIMP.
A general rule I always follow is when you start editing … create a folder, place all your starting images in there and duplicate the folder … keep one folder as the original (and keep it hidden in the background) and start editing in the copy.
This way, if you ever mess up or can no longer undo whatever you did … just grab a copy of the original layer and restart
Sometimes if I’m doing a complicated edit, I’ll keep multiple duplicates of each layer version of the edit I’m doing… just to be safe.
It took me a ton of lost hours of editing before I got to the point of creating duplicate backup layers … it creates massive files but if I’m just doing memes, I just delete the editing file once I’m done anyway.
Happy editing … I look forward to it!!
Thanks for the tips! Yeah, it’s definitely confusing at this point, trying to keep all the layers and masks straight. Most of the work done so far has been: ok, that was time-consuming, and I can’t really use this result, but I’ve learned something. Doing some parallel messing about with Shotcut.
Would you say learning GIMP is worth it? I’ve largely been using the built in tools in a meme generator, often on my phone, so my process feels pretty sloppy. Lol
Another alternative is the slightly simpler Pinta. I’ve started using that instead of the more complex Gimp.
https://www.pinta-project.com/releases/
Oh cool, bookmarking this now. Thanks!
Too soon to say; I’m merely a dabbler so far! I wanted to make a gif from this TNG scene, but it’s at the beginning of an episode and has credits obscuring it. So I spent a while trying to figure out the optimal method of removing them. Tried some online AI tools, but wasn’t getting the results I wanted, so I’m doing it frame by frame in GIMP, figuring out layer masks and stuff. I had messed around a bit with Photoshop before, so it’s not wholly alien.