GIMP is hard.

[KeithTalent]

I have this task I am trying to do; essentially just pasting text on a picture so we can tweet them out (the text is just quotes from a filmmaker and they are longer than 140 characters). I did a quick and dirty one in MS Paint and thought it looked decent enough (took about 5 minutes), but then I tried to get fancy, so I installed GIMP 2.8 and while I finally got to something sort of resembling what I wanted in one of the pictures, I honestly don't think it looked much better. The text itself looked weird, even with AA on; the only thing that really looked better was the opacity of the text box which was not something I could achieve in MS Paint. So it seems I have to choose which presentation I prefer, neither of which is great.

I have 10 of these things to do and I feel like it's going to take all night! GIMP just seems so finicky and not very user friendly. Sorry, just complaining and had to vent. Thanks for reading.

KT

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I've been trying to get myself to use Gimp since it's Linux native but I always find myself going back to Photoshop in a vm for any real work. The workflow of Gimp is really weird and convoluted and it has crappy fonts and little to no effects like outline, glow, etc like photoshop has.

In photoshop you can just grab a chunk of image, move, resize, rotate all in one go, but in gimp that's all separate operations and it's hard to see what's going on because of the grid.

 

[KeithTalent]

Yeah the text looks awful in GIMP for sure. I've never used Photoshop, so can't refer to that, but even in Paint the text looks way better. If only I could change the opacity of the text box, Paint would be perfect for my needs. Alas...

Oh yeah and the grid thing is weird; very confusing.

KT

 

[dave_the_nerd]

GIMP is nothing like Photoshop. It's equally confusingly hard, but in a completely different direction.

Have fun - it's an awesome-powerful program if you put in the time.

 

[KeithTalent]

Thanks Dave; I'm trying.

Yeah Marion I am figuring that out the hard way! I may have found a workaround for the main issue I was having we'll see. Being able to vent here has made me feel better about things.

KT

 

[Crono]

GIMP's a prstty decent alternative to Photoshop given that it's free, but it's hard to use if you are used to Photoshop, and the learning curve is much steeper for even simple things like drawing shapes versus a program like Paint.NET.

 

[KeithTalent]

Well maybe I'm actually better off never having used Photoshop then; nothing to re-train myself on. I expect I could do some pretty cool things once I get the hang of it.

I think I've finally solved the problem I was having; now to just finish off the other 9 photos, Hootsuite that shit, then go to bed!

KT

 

[Darwin333]

Nvmd, stupid images won't work for me.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Agreed, I've given it a shot a few times but always find myself returning to Photoshop.

 

[bbhaag]

A Linux based program that is difficult to use. I am shocked. Did you try the cli? Word is that's the only way to get things done.

 

[KeithTalent]

Nvmd, stupid images won't work for me.

Lol, appreciate the effort man!

KT

 

[KeithTalent]

Never heard of cli. I will check it out after I am done with this little project. Thanks.

KT

 

[bbhaag]

Your an elite member and you've never heard of a command line interface? Really?

 

[KeithTalent]

Your an elite member and you've never heard of a command line interface? Really?

What does my member have to do with anything?

KT

 

[bbhaag]

Not much.

 

[KeithTalent]

Agreed.

KT

 

[IronWing]

How big does the image need to be? For what you want to do, if smaller than your screen, Word and snipping tool might do the trick. PowerPoint is even easier than Word for this, if you have it.

Also, I love this program…

http://www.mediachance.com/realdraw/

There's a free trial version.

 

[Crono]

It's hard out here using GIMP
When you're just tryna get to bed

 

[Elixer]

Bah, too much manual labor involved using either GIMP or photoshop for simply slapping text on a image.
ImageMagick with a script (for pulling in text from external source) wins!
convert blah.png -gravity center -pointsize 30 -annotate +0+100 'blah blah blah blah' NewBlah.png

http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/annotating/

 

[IronWing]

Bah, too much manual labor involved using either GIMP or photoshop for simply slapping text on a image.
ImageMagick with a script (for pulling in text from external source) wins!
convert blah.png -gravity center -pointsize 30 -annotate +0+100 'blah blah blah blah' NewBlah.png

http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/annotating/

Have you had any luck using ImageMagick in Windows? I beat my head against that wall trying to stamp photos with GPS locations.

 

[KeithTalent]

Whoa, lots of interesting stuff here. I am done with my GIMP session; they did not turn out perfectly, but should be fine for now. I will definitely check out Real Draw and ImageMagick; they look cool. Thanks for that.

Once the first tweet posts I will post the image here and you guys can critique my handiwork.

KT

 

[KeithTalent]

Try a search engine with "How to use GIMP"

I did that and watched a bunch of videos, but they apparently completely reworked the text tool in 2.8 and there were not a lot of updated videos showing the effects I needed. I got there though and I'll only get better with more practice!

KT

 

[KeithTalent]

IMO, Stick with it! Every bit as powerful as Adobe and free.

I will, thanks! It's kind of fun to be learning something new.

KT

 

[Paladin3]

I feel your pain. Photoshop is complex and powerful tool that most folks don't fully appreciate the skill required to master. I assume GIMP is the same, and if you got passable results on a dozen photos in your first evening with it then you did a pretty good job.

There are lots of automated tools and websites that paste text over images, but if you need more there is no substitute for taking the time to learn the tool like Photoshop or GIMP.

 

[KeithTalent]

I feel your pain. Photoshop is complex and powerful tool that most folks don't fully appreciate the skill required to master. I assume GIMP is the same, and if you got passable results on a dozen photos in your first evening with it then you did a pretty good job.

There are lots of automated tools and websites that paste text over images, but if you need more there is no substitute for taking the time to learn the tool like Photoshop or GIMP.

Yeah, passable is what I would say; not amazing, but it will do. I looked at those automated tools, but I figured I was better off trying to learn how to do it myself. Early frustrations would be worth the long term gains...in theory.

KT