Phillip Whitt

Practical Glimpse

Learn to Edit and Create Digital Photos and Art with This Powerful Open Source Image Editor

1st ed.
Phillip Whitt
Columbus, GA, USA
ISBN 978-1-4842-6326-6e-ISBN 978-1-4842-6327-3
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6327-3
© Phillip Whitt 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
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This book is dedicated to my family and friends—thank you always for your support and encouragement.

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in this book. It’s written primarily to acquaint the reader with the most important aspects of Glimpse to help them start using it quickly. Throughout this book, there are a total of 35 step-by-step tutorials that can be used with the digital work files provided—they can be downloaded from the Apress website (https://www.apress.com/9781484263266 ) by clicking the Download Source Code button.

What Is Glimpse?

Glimpse is a powerful, open source image editing program. Glimpse is a fork of the popular program GIMP (an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program), meaning it uses the same base source code but is maintained by its own group of developers. Although (at this time) it’s virtually identical to GIMP in most respects, it is a separate project. To see the Glimpse website, just click here: https://glimpse-editor.org/ .

Why Was Glimpse Created?

GIMP is a free, open source image editing program. It’s used by many graphic designers, web designers, digital illustrators, photographers—just about anyone who frequently works with digital images. Because GIMP is such a powerful program, it’s often used as an alternative to Adobe Photoshop.

However, the name GIMP has been somewhat problematic for some. According to the Glimpse development team, the word gimp is a slur against a physically disabled person in some countries. It can also be meant as an insult to unpopular school children. To read more about their views on this matter, just click here: https://glimpse-editor.org/about/#what-is-wrong-with-the-gimp-name .

One especially good point made by the Glimpse development team is that educational and business environments unwilling to adopt GIMP because of the name might be willing to use Glimpse—this would be advantageous to schools or businesses constrained by limited budgets. Any potential negativity the GIMP name could cause would be eliminated by using Glimpse.

What Can Glimpse Do?

Glimpse, like GIMP or Photoshop, is used to modify, enhance, and retouch digital photos. It can be used to digitally repair and restore damaged old family photographs, or prepare images for use in marketing and other business materials.

One example of a useful feature is the Shadows-Highlights dialog, which is used to adjust dark and light parts of the image. Figure 1 shows an example of an image being enhanced using this feature by lightening the foreground.
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Figure 1

The foreground lightened using the Shadows-Highlights dialog

Glimpse is also used to create digital artwork. There is a wide array of tools for drawing, painting, and creating shapes. Figure 2 shows an illustration created from scratch using Glimpse.
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Figure 2

This illustration was created from scratch using Glimpse

Glimpse is also useful for creating art from photos by using filters and experimenting with layer blend modes. The example in Figure 3 is the result of combining two images resulting in a digital mural.
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Figure 3

This image was created by combining two photos applying an artistic filter and using the Hard Light layer blend mode

This book covers Glimpse 0.1.2, which is based on GIMP 2.10.12. While this book was in the late stages of production, Glimpse was updated to version 0.2.0. The download and installation instructions in Chapter 1 have been updated accordingly. One of the major changes made is that many of the program’s tools are now nested, resulting in a less cluttered toolbox. The tools are still there, they just aren’t visible until the icon displaying a small triangle is clicked. For example, clicking the Clone tool icon reveals the Clone tool, Perspective Clone tool and Heal tool. Another notable update is that the 64-bit version of Glimpse for Windows now includes G’MIC (Greyc’s Magic for Image Computing), an open-source framework for image processing. For more information about G’MIC, visit https://gmic.eu .

Now that you’re introduced to Glimpse and some of its abilities (and hopefully, you’re intrigued) and ready to start, let’s move on to the first chapter.

Acknowledgments

I’d like to first thank Louise Corrigan and Nancy Chen, both of whom I always enjoy working with. They are both first-rate professionals, and each one a credit to Apress. I’d also like to acknowledge everyone involved in the production of this book; your work is forever appreciated!

Table of Contents
Part I: Acquiring, Installing, and Getting to Know Glimpse1
Chapter 1:​ An Overview of Glimpse 3
Downloading and Installing Glimpse 3
Installing Glimpse on Linux 7
Customizing the Workspace 11
Windows and Menus 18
Chapter Conclusion 32
Chapter 2:​ Layers, Channels, Paths, and Undo History 33
An Overview of Layers 33
Layer Basics 33
Organizing Layers 36
Layer Masks 39
The Layers Dialog and Layer Menus 41
An Overview of RGB Color Channels 45
Selection Masks 48
The Channels Dialog 50
An Overview of Paths 52
The Paths Dialog 55
An Overview of Undo History 57
The Undo History Dialog 58
Chapter Conclusion 59
Chapter 3:​ An Overview of the Tools 61
The Toolbox, Tool Options, and Tools Menu 61
Tool Options 63
Tools Menu 64
The Selection Tools 64
The Paint Tools 67
The Transform Tools 71
Other Tools 73
Chapter Conclusion 75
Part II: Working with Digital Photos77
Chapter 4:​ Correcting Exposure and Contrast 79
Tutorial 1:​ Using the Exposure Dialog 80
Overview of the Shadows-Highlights Dialog 83
Tutorial 2:​ Lightening Dark Areas Using the Shadows-Highlights Dialog 84
Tutorial 3:​ Improving Contrast Using the Brightness-Contrast Dialog 87
The Levels Dialog 90
Understanding the Histogram 91
Tutorial 4:​ Improving Contrast Using Levels 93
The Curves Dialog 94
Tutorial 5:​ Improving Local Tonality Using Curves 98
Chapter Conclusion 101
Chapter 5:​ Enhancing, Correcting, and Working with Color 103
Tutorial 6:​ Correcting a Color Shift Using Color Balance 103
Tutorial 7:​ Correcting an Image Using Color Temperature 107
Tutorial 8:​ Restoring Faded Colors Using Levels 110
Tutorial 9:​ Restoring Color Using Auto White Balance 115
Tutorial 10:​ Turning a Color Image to Sepia Using Desaturate 118
Tutorial 11:​ Turning a Color Image to Black and White Using Mono Mixer 120
The Desaturate Dialog 123
Tutorial 12:​ Colorizing a Black-and-White Photo 124
Chapter Conclusion 129
Chapter 6:​ Modifying, Retouching, and Restoring Photos 131
Tutorial 13:​ Removing Unwanted Objects 131
Tutorial 14:​ Correcting Perspective 138
Tutorial 15:​ Brightening Teeth 141
Tutorial 16:​ Reducing Wrinkles 144
Tutorial 17:​ Repairing Scratches and Damage 148
Chapter Conclusion 156
Chapter 7:​ Compositing Images 157
Tutorial 18:​ Adding a Person to an Image 157
Tutorial 19:​ Replacing Backgrounds 167
Chapter Conclusion 173
Part III: Creating Digital Art175
Chapter 8:​ Drawing Basics 177
The Pencil and Paintbrush Tools 177
Brush Tips 178
The MyPaint Brush Engine 180
Tutorial 20:​ Drawing a Simple Flower 182
Tutorial 21:​ Drawing a Simple Butterfly Using Symmetry Paint 186
Tutorial 22:​ Drawing a Pattern Using Symmetry Paint 191
Chapter Conclusion 193
Chapter 9:​ Creating Digital Artwork 195
Raster vs.​ Vector Drawing 195
Tutorial 23:​ Creating a Sunny Sky 198
Tutorial 24:​ Creating a Scenic Sunset 207
Tutorial 25:​ Creating a Retro TV Set 212
Chapter Conclusion 222
Chapter 10:​ Using Artistic Filters 223
Tutorial 26:​ Turn a Photo into a Digital Oil Painting 224
Tutorial 27:​ Turn a Photo into a Digital Watercolor 226
Tutorial 28:​ Turn a Photo into a Digital Pen and Ink Drawing 228
Tutorial 29:​ Turn a Photo into a Warhol-Like Painting 231
Tutorial 30:​ Combine Two Images to Create a Digital Mural 237
Chapter Conclusion 243
Index 245
About the Author
Phillip Whitt

is an author, photo retouch professional, and graphic designer. He is the author of several Apress books and video tutorials pertaining to image editing using GIMP and Adobe Photoshop Elements. He has edited, retouched, and restored countless digital images since the late 1990s. He has served both clients from the general public and a number of commercial clients over the years. In addition to over 20 years of image editing and graphic design experience, he also has an Expert Rating Certification in Adobe Photoshop Skills and VTC certifications in GIMP and Scribus.

 
About the Technical Reviewer
Seth Kenlon

is a multimedia artist, free culture advocate, Linux geek, and D&D nerd. He has worked on indie and studio movies, including Deadpool, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and Guardians of the Galaxy 2. He’s worked in the computing industry for Apple creating bespoke RISC rendering tests, Red Hat, and IBM. He is one of the maintainers of the Slackware-based multimedia production project (http://slackermedia.info ).

 
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