You have always been attracted to the world of graphics and photo editing but you have never found the time to put this passion into practice, at least until today. In the end, however, you did everything to carve out at least a few minutes to dedicate regularly to the world of photo editing and you would like to spend it trying some nice programs to improve and retouch photos on your computer. How about GIMP ?
GIMP is a very famous free and open source photo editing program, available for Windows, macOS and Linux, considered by many to be one of the best free alternatives to the very expensive Photoshop , since it allows you to easily improve the appearance of digital photos, apply special effects to images, distort them, resize them, rotate them and perform many other operations.
If you want some advice, start your “tour” in the world of graphics starting right from GIMP, since it is a fairly simple software to use and, at the same time, very versatile. If you give me a few minutes of your free time, I can show you how to use GIMP : I guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised by the potential of this program.
Index
- How to download GIMP
- How to use GIMP: tutorial
- How to use GIMP to edit photos
- How to use GIMP for photo montages
- How to use GIMP to remove background
- How to use GIMP to draw
- How to use GIMP online
How to download GIMP
Before we show you how to use GIMP , we need to guide you through installing the program. I guarantee you that the software installation procedure is very simple. If you’re using Windows 10 or Windows 11 , just use the Microsoft Store .
Alternatively, you can get the classic program installation package: to do so, connected to the GIMP website , press the red Download [version] button and then click the orange Download GIMP [version] directly button , which is located on the right of the page, or on the GIMP for Windows or GIMP for macOS , depending on the operating system you use.
Once the download of the GIMP installation file has been completed, open it by double clicking on it and follow the wizard that is proposed to you: on Windows , for example, you have to press the Yes button and then OK , Install and Finish .
If you are using a Mac , instead, you have to drag the GIMP icon into the macOS Applications folder , right click on the software icon and select the Open item twice (you have to perform this procedure only at the first start of GIMP, for ” override “the restrictions applied by Apple to software from non-certified developers).
If you are using a Mac and can’t download the GIMP installation package because you see the message “There is no macOS package yet, sorry. Please check back later ” under the heading GIMP for macOS , unfortunately means that the latest version of GIMP has not yet been made available for macOS. Most likely you will be able to install the program in the next few weeks: check the GIMP download page from time to time, or consult the page with previous releases For more details on how to download GIMP , I leave you to my dedicated tutorial.
How to use GIMP: tutorial
As soon as you have installed GIMP, you will notice that the program seems to be quite slow to start: this is due to the initial configuration process, which is carried out at the first start of the software and which is necessary to optimize all its components. I guarantee you that subsequent starts will be much faster!
Once GIMP has finally started, you will notice that its interface is divided into three main “blocks”: the toolbar , located on the left, which contains all the tools necessary to edit images (the brush , the pencil , the eraser to erase , the color fill tool, etc.); the main work area located in the center, in which you will see the images to be modified, and the toolbar located on the right, which instead contains the advanced commands for managing layers , viewing the history of changes and so on.
At the top there are then the various drop-down menus, where you can find all kinds of advanced functions or other program settings. For example, with the View item , you have access to a number of options for changing the workspace and visual aids. With Image you can make advanced changes on the file you are working on, while with Layer you can act on layers. Their names are intuitive enough to let you know what you’ll find inside them, so let’s get to the action!
How to use GIMP to edit photos
The first thing to do is to select a file from the memory of your PC and, to do so, all you have to do is select the Open … item from the File menu (top) and choose the image to work on. Once you have chosen, press the Open button and, if asked if you are asked whether to convert or keep the color profile , the right choice in 99% of cases is to keep , but you have to decide this yourself.
Once opened in the workspace, you can start editing the image to your liking. To use one of the tools in the toolbar, you must first click on the icon of the tool you want to use and then on the portion of the image on which you want to act.
The main ones are the selection tools , the color editing tools , the brushes , the cloning tools and the color picker . If you learn how to use these then you will be able to do most of the edits to your photos without any kind of hassle.
The selection tools are used to select and deselect parts of the photo and then modify them, the modification of the colors allows you to add them (even if it is more useful for drawing), with the brushes you can do practically anything and they give the best coupled with the layers (of which I will talk to you in a second), cloning is used to copy parts of the image and replace them with others (perhaps to hide flaws), while the color sampling allows you to exactly identify the color of a certain point to replicate it. Finally, there are the levels, which is what gives you access to creating more extreme effects, but we will talk about this later.
To give an example, if you wanted to use GIMP to improve the colors, brightness and other properties of a photo: open the file you want to work on using the procedure I described earlier, click on the Colors menu and select one of the tools in it ( Color balance… to adjust the colors, Brightness-contrast… to adjust the brightness and contrast, and so on).
In the window that opens, adjust the image properties as you see fit by helping you with the real-time preview of the changes made and press the OK button to apply the changes made.
To resize or rotate a photo, on the other hand, all you have to do is select one of the tools in the Image menu : Transform , to rotate the image horizontally or vertically or Scale image… , to specify the new dimensions to be taken on the photo.
To crop a photo, select the Rectangular Selection tool from the toolbar located on the left (the gray rectangle icon with the dotted perimeter located at the top left), draw a rectangle around the portion of the image to be cropped with the mouse and select the Crop to Selection item from the Image menu . In the guide where I explain how to resize photos with GIMP , you can find more information that will certainly be useful for you to make full use of the GIMP photo resizing feature.
To remove a writing or an imperfection (e.g. a mole, a scratch etc.) from a photo, select the Duplicate, Clone in perspective or Patch tool (the double patch icon located in the toolbar on the left), press and hold the Ctrl key (on Windows) or cmd (on macOS) and click on the point of the photo surrounding the imperfection to select the portion of the image with which to cover it.
Finally, release the Ctrl key (on Windows) or cmd (on macOS) and “tap” repeatedly in the point of the photo where the element to be removed is present by clicking many times until you reach the desired result. If you want to learn more about how the Patch tool works, read the guide where I explain how to remove an element from a photo with GIMP .
To add a text to photos with GIMP, select the Text tool from the left toolbar (the capital letter A ), click on the point of the image where you want to write by drawing a rectangle and type the text inside it. To change the font or color of the writing, use the control panel that appears in the lower left part of the GIMP toolbar and that’s it. For more information on how to write on photos with GIMP and how to sign photos with GIMP , take a look at the insights I just linked to.
As soon as you have finished editing a photo with GIMP, save the result obtained: go to the File menu , select the Save as … item and, in the window that opens, indicate the format in which to save the output image and the folder of destination. Did you see how simple it was to use GIMP? I’m sure, with a little practice, retouching photos with this versatile program will get easier and easier. For more details on how to edit a photo with GIMP , I leave you to my guide on the subject.
How to use GIMP for photo montages
If you have read the previous chapter, you will surely have seen that I have mentioned the levels . They, coupled with the masks , work just like the semi-transparent paper that is used by children at school to learn how to draw. They are used to show parts of an image and merge them with those of other photos (among other things).
You can have 10 images on 10 levels and show a detail of each one thanks to the masks. Each layer can be made completely opaque , completely transparent and everything in between. You can, for example, make a beautiful starry sky visible above the photo of your house, just take two shots (one with the beautiful sky and one of your house) and make visible the ground and the house of one and the sky in the other. .
To act on the layers use the layer masks coupled with the brushes. The mask, as the name implies, is used to cover while the brushes change the transparency of this element. To apply a mask go to the layer in question, press the mask button at the bottom right (last lowercase icons) and then use the white brush on the mask itself (square next to the image) to display the areas where you step or the black brush to cover. If you want to know in more detail how to overlay images with GIMP , I leave you to my dedicated tutorial.
How to use GIMP to remove background
Do you want to remove a horrible background from a photo of you where you looked great? Get ready then, because you can do it in 5 minutes with GIMP. The first thing to do, even in this case, is to open the file in question to start working on it.
You now have several tools that can be used, such as the Free Selection , or the more advanced one of the Scissor Selection tool . I will use the second one because it is simpler and has some interesting automatisms, but you choose what you prefer.
Once you have selected the Scissors Selection by right clicking on the lasso icon and then selecting this item, make a first click in the point where you want to start the selection and then a second not too far along the edges of the subject. You will see that the two points will be joined by a straight or broken line, which indicates the border of the selection. Continue with this process until you have done the full circle of your subject.
When you are done, press the mask button and select the Selection item to make sure that only the content of your selection is made visible, with the rest becoming transparent. If you want to know how to use masks you can go back to the previous chapter while, to know how to remove the background with GIMP , I leave you to my dedicated tutorial.
How to use GIMP to draw
Do you want a program for drawing that is not as expensive as the professional ones? Then in GIMP you might find a good solution for your purposes (although in reality it would be better to opt for vector graphics software, such as Inkscape , or any other drawing programs designed for this purpose).
The first thing to do is to open a blank worksheet and, to do so, click on the File item and then on New in the top menu, then indicating the dimensions of the table. Once you press the OK button , the drawing sheet will appear in a new window, where you can start drawing.
The most obvious tool to use in these cases is the brush , which can have infinite shapes (you can check out my tutorial on how to add brushes to GIMP) and do all sorts of things. In the classic version, in the left pane you will find all the sliders to change strength , size , angle , spacing , hardness and aspect ratio .
Just below is a handful of dynamic options that you can apply by checking the respective box, such as the one that applies a flicker to the stroke or smooths it . To change the color, click on the two squares below the tool icons.
Once you have chosen a square, you can apply any color from the palette or use the tool to “steal the color” in order to have perfect matches. You may have two colors selected , one per square, which are swapped by clicking the arrow just above them. All the other tools I have talked about so far, can then also be applied to the drawing as appropriate, so I suggest you also read the previous paragraphs.
Want to know how to use GIMP with graphics tablet ? Just configure it by going to the Edit menu , clicking on the Preferences option and then choosing the Input Devices item . Now click on Extended Input Device Configuration… and, if everything works fine, you should have your tablet ready to use. To know how to add brushes to GIMP , I leave you to my guide on the subject.
How to use GIMP online
If I wanted to use an online version of this program, then it pains me to inform you that it hasn’t been created yet (and may never be). If you are looking for various alternatives, however, those are certainly not lacking: in this regard you can read my guide on how to edit photos online for free , in which I have mentioned several.
