This is about the only tutorial you'll ever see here that isn't particularly hands-on. It is important to take some time with any new program to explore the landscape, and that is what we'll do in this post and the next. If you'd rather go hands-on right away, you'll want to skip ahead to the first hands-on tutorial. I'll be reminding you of a lot of the basic information covered here in that tutorial, and it may better suit your way of learning.
1. When you open GIMP the first time it looks like this:
2. If the GIMP window isn't already maximized, maximize it (even if the reduced view is almost as big as a maximized window).
3. You can see the menu bar at the top of the page. It includes the menus for File, Edit, Select, View, Image, Layer, Colors, Tools, Filters, Windows, and Help. We won't get into all of these in this tutorial, of course. Just know that's the menu bar in case I refer to it.
4. On the right hand side of the screen your Toolbox has opened. I'll talk about the Toolbox in a bit of depth in this tutorial.
5. There will be a status display at the bottom of the window once you start working, and that's why you need to be fully maximized. Here's a quick screen capture of what the bar will look like when you've got an image open:
6. Right now I just want you notice that percentage in the status bar. When GIMP opens an image it adjusts it to a size that fits nicely on your screen for editing. That may not be the full size of the image. So, if you want to see how large your image actually is you can open the drop down box for the percentage and change it to 100%.
7. Let's look at the Toolbox now. The toolbox is the heart of GIMP. If you click on the X to close the toolbox, you'll close the whole program. However, it will disappear sometimes when you're working. When that happens, just use CTRL-B to bring it back up.
8. In this default view, the top half of the toolbox has icons for each of the commonly used tools. Move your cursor over an icon to see a description of the tool. If you click on an icon it activates that tool.
9. The bottom half of the toolbox shows the settings for whichever tool is active. My screenshot is showing the settings for the rectangle selection tool since that's the one I've clicked on.
10. But wait! There's more! *g* In between the top and bottom half of the toolbox you'll see a group of icons that will open dialog boxes:
11. These icons will change what you see in the bottom half of the toolbox.
12. The first icon opens the Tool Options Dialog, which is actually what you are looking at now and, as mentioned above, will change depending on what tool you have selected in the top half of the toolbox.
13. This icon open the Layers Options Dialog. For some reason it shows up as both the second and fourth choice in my icons. Anyway, this will open your layers controls in the bottom half of the toolbox, and you will be using it a lot in future tutorials.
14. This one opens the Brushes Dialog.
15. And this one opens the Foreground/Background Colors Dialog.
Here's a quick review of what we've touched on in this tutorial:
1. Maximize the GIMP window whenever you are using the program.
2. The Menu Bar is at the top of the page.
3. The status bar at the bottom of the GIMP screen shows you how much your image is zoomed to a smaller or larger size. You can change this by opening the drop box with the percentage in it and selecting a different percentage there.
4. If you close the Toolbox in GIMP the whole program will close.
5. The top half of the Toolbox shows icons for all of the tools in GIMP.
6. The bottom half of the Toolbox shows settings for tools.
7. There are five icons in a center row of the Toolbox that allow you to change the settings dialog that is shown in the bottom half of the Toolbox.
In the next post, we'll learn more about the menus in GIMP.
