PICTURE
PERFECT
Using Layers and Effects
Give your images a professional touch
L
ayers and eff ects go hand in hand. They comple-
ment one another and, despite sounding compli-
cated, are easy to master. Layers are the soft ware
equivalent of the onion skin paper used by animators in
the days before CGI. They enable you to position one im-
age above another, and each layer is entirely independent
of all the others. You can move layers around, drag them
above and below other layers, and show and hide them at
will. This means you can construct complex images from
simple parts and, as long as each layer is kept separate,
you’re always free to change things around. You can alter
the opacity, for example, and you can change the way the
colors in one layer aff ect the colors in another. But best of
all, you can process the image in one layer with an eff ect,
while all other layers remain untouched.
EFFECTS EQUAL FILTERS
GIMP has some fantastic eff ects to choose from and refers
to them as fi lters. You can perform wonderful contor-
tions on your image data, ranging from the utilitarian and
perfunctory to the creative and abstract. Filters can create
texture and fracture, distort, or alter the color of an image.
Just select the area of an image you want to change and
choose the eff ect from the Colors or Filters menu.
COLORS
The Colors menu contains the practical eff ects. The
Brightness-Contrast panel, for example, is a worthwhile
tool whenever you import a digital photo. Increasing the
contrast while decreasing the brightness of a photograph
will nearly always improve the image, adding more
STEP BY STEP
Ba`e a H]aYol
- CREATE A NEW
LAYER
Click the New Layer
button on the lower
border of the Layers
dialog and make
sure the Layer
Fill Type is set to
Transparency. This is
because we want our
shape to be visible
only in this layer to
create an accurate
shadow.
3. DUPLICATE LAYER
Click the Duplicate Layer
button and select the
lower copy. Choose Color
Balance from the Colors
menu. Disable Preserve
luminosity and drag the
Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow
sliders to 100 in each
color range.
4. CREATE SHADOW
To create a realistic
shadow, use a blur
effect. There are sev-
eral to choose from
in the Filters > Blur
menu, but we prefer
the look of Gaussian.
The last step is to
use the Move tool
to slightly offset the
shadow layer. - DRAW YOUR
SHAPE
Import or draw the
shape you want
to use to cast a
shadow. Text is a
special case, as
you also need to
select “Discard
Text Information”
from the new text
layer’s right-click
menu.
LAYER DIALOG
Each layer has its own preview
thumbnail, and you can drag-and-
drop layers around. Click the Eye
symbol to toggle visibility. Increase
transparency using Opacity.
LAYER MASKS
A layer can have something called a layer
mask channel. This is a separate grayscale
image that defi nes which parts of the layer
are visible and which remain opaque.
To enlarge the thumbnail images in the Layers
dialog, go to Edit > Preferences, select the Inter-
face tab from the menu at the right and choose
a larger size for the “Default layer & channel
preview size.”
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