GIMP Interview Questions And Answers

The GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP, is a raster graphics editor application with some support for vector graphics.GIMP is used to process digital graphics and photographs. Typical uses include creating graphics and logos, resizing and cropping photos, altering colors, combining multiple images, removing unwanted image features.

GIMP can be used to:

* create layouts for websites,
* to generate pictures and enhance existing images,
* and everything else that has to do with 2D (bitmap based) graphics.

Most (if not all) GNU/Linux distributions will support GIMP through their package management systems and may even come with GIMP preinstalled. You can follow links to GNU/Linux and UNIX, Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X for the latest binaries. Of course, this is free software so the source code is available to, along with instruction on how to compile it.

Not really. It doesn't use the GNOME application framework. The only thing it has in common is GTK+. GIMP can optionally use gnome-vfs, allowing you to load and edit images from remote servers.

Yes.

Yes. It's available on Windows and uses TWAIN, and on GNU/Linux you even have a choice between XSane and gnome-scan — both can be used as GIMP plug-ins.

Yes.
In either the system-wide gimprc file or your personal gimprc file, uncomment the line that includes install-colormap.

This error message should say something like "the plug-in (or the main GIMP app) I was talking to has exited before returning any results, so I assume that it has crashed."

Yes, you have to have some form of X server (unless you're running Windows, of course). It needs an X server for image processing, and for font manipulation. However, if you wish to run in batch mode, you can run with a special, frame-buffer-less X server called Xvfb, which doesn't require a graphics card or mess with your screen:

Any system capable of running Gnome 2, KDE 3.2, Windows 2000, Mac OS X and later versions should be able to run GIMP. GIMP's biggest appetite is for memory and how much you will need will depend on the how many images you are working with, their resolution, size, the number of layers you use and so on. As a general rule, more is better, but 128MB should be enough to be getting started with.

Version 2.8 may bring a combined Transform tool (Scale, Rotate, Shear, Flip and Perspective), more use of Cairo for beautiful antialiased graphics and more usability improvements. We will also make GIMP use more of GEGL, namely for projection (everything you see in a visible stack of layers). This will be another step to version 3.0, which will bring long requested features like support for 16+ bits per channel and adjustment layers, to name a few.

The easiest way is to create a new selection with Ellipse Select tool and stroke it (Edit -> Stroke Selection...). We welcome patches that add tools to draw geometric primitives on canvas.

Place some text somewhere. Then click "Create path from text" in the "Text tool option" window. Then use "Edit" -> "Stroke path" and select the appropriate options in the following dialog. Please also see the Paths section in the user manual.

Use "Edit->Paste As->New Image" menu command or press Ctrl-Shift-V key combination, then save newly created image.

The script-fu-selection-to image can also be used to cut a selection out of an image and create a new image with it.

Use "File->Open As Layers" menu command or just drag the file to a window and drop it there. The file will be added as a new layer on top of the layers stack.

Make sure that "Use dynamic keyboard shortcuts" option in "Interface" tab of Preferences dialog is enabled, then go to the menu selection you are interested in. Keeping it selected (hold the mouse's menu selection down if necessary), press the key sequence you wish to assign to the menu. It will appear on the right of the menu. The new binding will be saved and used in future GIMP sessions. You can also use "Keyboard Shortcuts" dialog ("Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts") to assign keys to menus and functions.

Not at this time. With GIMP based on GEGL, so that all changes are non-destructive, it will be much easier to implement this feature by just remembering all nodes in given range and reapplying them to other images. This is something that can be part of a future release of GIMP like 3.0.

At the bottom of the toolbar there is a box with two smaller boxes and an arrow. The uppermost box displays the current foreground color; the lowermost box displays the current background color. You can single-click on the arrow to switch these two. You can also double-click on either of the color boxes (or single-click if that box is already selected) to pop up a color selection tool, with which you can elect any color you like for that box. That color then becomes the new foreground or background color. Subsequent drawing operations (including text and color fill) will now use these colors.

Sometimes it is nice to place layers in groups. It makes them easier to organize when you have lots of them. It also means you can easily apply the same effect to lots of layers, without directly affecting those layers. Long story short, it makes life easier. This will be much easier to program once GEGL has been integrated into GIMP.

First, copy the plug-in[s] to your plug-in directory (typically /usr/local/lib/gimp/$VERSION/plug-ins/).

After copying the plug-in to its proper directory, just run GIMP. It should automatically find new plug-ins.

Some of the plug-ins have proven unstable. These have been moved into a separate download, which should be available wherever you got the GIMP, in the file gimp-plugins-unstable-VERSION.tar.gz or gimp-plugins-unstable-VERSION.tar.bz2 .

Since this list may change frequently, the unstable plug-ins are no longer listed here. Script-Fu

In the words of S&P:

* Script-Fu is the first GIMP scripting extension. Extensions are separate processes that communicate with the GIMP in the same way that plug-ins do. The distinction is that extensions don't require an active image to operate on, instead extending GIMP's functionality. GIMP internals for version 1.0 have been completely overhauled from version 0.54. In particular, the plug-in API has been made far more general with the advent of the procedural database (PDB). The PDB allows GIMP and its plug-ins to register procedures which can then be called from anywhere: internally, from extensions, and from plug-ins. There are already over 200 internal GIMP procedures, and more being created all the time. Because all of these procedures can be easily invoked from extensions, the logical next step was to create a scripting facility; thus, Script-Fu was born.

The trick to calling script-fu-scripts from another script is to just reference the main define for the script and not to try to use the pdb call. All the scripts in script-fu share a common name space; you call other scripts just like a regular function / define / whatever you call those those things in_scheme.

Net-fu is a web-based interface to a script-fu server. The work is done at a remote site. To see Net-fu, point your web browser or one of the miiror sites, and then go to "gimp/net-fu/". Any web browser can read net-fu pages; the browser must be Java-enabled to actually run Script-fu. Fonts

You need to copy the gtkrc file that comes with the GIMP source (in the top level directory) into $HOME/.gimp/gtkrc . As of 0.99.10, this should be recognized. You then go in and edit the default font style, the one that looks like this:

style "default" { font =
"-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*" }

I'm sure ther's a lot of clever stuff that can be done here, and I'll try to track it down soon, but in the meantime, just change that "100" to something larger, like "120" or "140". (The number is points= 10, so 100 is a 10 point font).

Obviously, you could stick in any font you have available.