Need help cropping an image for a header in Gimp

[Maghdalena]

Hi, I'm new here, and to Gimp. I got a new computer and heard about and decided to give Gimp a try. I have Gimp 2.10 installed as well as Photoshop Elements 12.


I was wondering if someone could help me with this. I have a header that I'm trying to put together for a site that has to do with confidence. It's part of the Astra Starter Sites. This is the original header:

   

The image said it’s originally 1920 X 500, but saving the image I got 1024X267. The image has an all-white background with the picture on the far right because there’s a blue overlay with text on the left. This is the image I’m working from:

   

What I want to do is crop the left part out, and just leave the right side with the woman and the text “Victory begins with Confidence” with the gold(It was professionally done by someone at Fiverr), but when I cropped it, this is what I got:

   



Is There a way to crop the smokey grey out and the blue or is there something better that can be done with the upper left corner, like making it the dark blue of the border, or what do you suggest? Did I use the wrong crop tool? I used the “Rule of thirds” cropping tool, and got it as far as I could and as much of the left side out as possible, but I couldn’t get it all. What do I do with that left part because it looks unfinished. Could I just have the rest of it be blue like the dark blue border, or does or copy the color for the rest of the image?  Does anyone have any suggestions or help on how to get rid of the greyish blue at least?

I admit I used Photoshop Elements when I did the first cropping experiment, but I"d like to know how to do it in Gimp, but I've never used it before, so don't know the steps to take to do this. Could someone baby-step me through this, as it's the first time I've used Gimp. Can this actually be done in Gimp?  If so, how? What am I doing wrong, if anything? Well, I am a newbie at Gimp.

I'm using a Hewlett Packard Compaq 6000 Pro with Windows 7 Professional, if that helps

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely yours,

Katherine M. Logan


BTW, it’s the header for the internal images.
The website is https://buildconfidenceeeasily.com/about

[Blighty]

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you are wanting to do. There are 2 images, which one are you wanting to crop? Are you wanting something like the image below, or something different?

[rich2005]

@ Maghdalena

I hope that this is not just a bit of covert advertising

First, you need to really determine the size of the hero-small-free banner. Is it 1920 wide or 1024 wide? Small would indicate 1024 but maybe you actually need 1920. You should work a larger size, better to eventually scale down than scale up.

Then image format, does not matter while you are editing, always save your work as a Gimp .xcf file until finally exporting as a png or jpeg.

The hero banner is a jpeg, your replacement is a png.

Using your png banner. It does not have an alpha channel (transparency) first thing to do is add one Layer -> Transparency -> Add Alpha Channel

Then, as with Blighty comment, what do you need. Something like this?



To get a good curve for cutting out the left side, I created a path then path to selection. With the white background it looks as a jpeg which does not support transparency.

I will attach the gimp .xcf.gx file so you can have a look at the path. Next question might be, regardless of shape, do you want a hard edge or a fade out? Various thing you can do, but first find out the correct size.

[Maghdalena]

(10-18-2018, 06:11 AM)Blighty Wrote: I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you are wanting to do. There are 2 images, which one are you wanting to crop? Are you wanting something like the image below, or something different?

Actually, yes. This is exactly what I'm going for(the image above. So how does a newbie at Gimp do this? I assume the healing tool is involved here or is that something else? I'm just totally new at Gimp and have spatial relationship issues, so please bear with me. Some ADHD here. So how do I do it in Gimp to get the image as you got it? Step by step would help. I'm taking a course in Gimp at Udemy, but I'm just getting started, so anything would help. This is exactly the look I want, though!

Thanks, Blighty!

Sincerely yours,
Katherine "Maghdalena" Logan

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(10-18-2018, 08:34 AM)rich2005 Wrote: @ Maghdalena

I hope that this is not just a bit of covert advertising

First, you need to really determine the size of the hero-small-free banner. Is it 1920 wide or 1024 wide? Small would indicate 1024 but maybe you actually need 1920. You should work a larger size, better to eventually scale down than scale up.

Then image format, does not matter while you are editing, always save your work as a Gimp .xcf file until finally exporting as a png or jpeg.

The hero banner is a jpeg, your replacement is a png.

Using your png banner. It does not have an alpha channel (transparency) first thing to do is add one Layer -> Transparency -> Add Alpha Channel

Then, as with Blighty comment, what do you need. Something like this?



To get a good curve for cutting out the left side, I created a path then path to selection. With the white background it looks as a jpeg which does not support transparency.

I will attach the gimp .xcf.gx file so you can have a look at the path. Next question might be, regardless of shape, do you want a hard edge or a fade out? Various thing you can do, but first find out the correct size.

Rich,

As far as I know, no covert advertising here. I'm just starting to work from the Template, so it's nowhere near ready to market, covert or otherwise, lol!   

Someone at a Photoshop Elements showed this one too, and while I like the idea, it didn't work too well when I tried to put it in. So, I'm looking for something more like Blighty has in mind.

I agree what you said about sizes. I'm thinking that what I need is the larger size, that is 1920 px wide. 

As far as the alpha channel... Huh?    I didn't even know you could add a transparancy layer/alpha channel. At first I wasn't even sure what it was let alone how to put it in. And yep, it's a jpeg, so no transparancy. 

As I was saying it looked good on paper, but it when I tried it in Photoshop Elements, and put it in, replacing the image that was originally there, the overlay in Elementor went over it and the page title "About Us" ran into the "Victory begins with Confidence" tagline, so that didn't work so well. 

   

It was a real shame, because I really liked it, so I"m going with Blighty's idea, which was what I wanted in the first place. Thanks though. At least I know what an "Alpha Channel" is, now! 

Best wishes.

Katherine "Maghdalena" Logan

[Blighty]

The Clone Tool can be used, but I used a different method just because it was quicker.

1) Use the Colour Picker to set foreground and background colours. They are slightly different.

2) Use the Free Select tool to make a selection on the top left corner.

3) Use the Gradient Tool to create a gradient in the selected area.

4) Select > None

5) Use the Smudge Tool to hide the line of the newly created gradient and original image.

[Maghdalena]

(10-19-2018, 05:04 AM)Blighty Wrote: The Clone Tool can be used, but I used a different method just because it was quicker.

1) Use the Colour Picker to set foreground and background colours. They are slightly different.

2) Use the Free Select tool to make a selection on the top left corner.

3) Use the Gradient Tool to create a gradient in the selected area.

4) Select > None

5) Use the Smudge Tool to hide the line of the newly created gradient and original image.

OK. By "Colour picker" do you mean the eyedropper tool to pick the colors, because I feel a little out of my depth with deciding the colors. The Hex numbers, no problem, I can copy and paste the numbers, but eyeballing the colors I have a real issue with with the spacial relationship issues. What is the eaiest way to do that to get the colors you did, understanding that it's only a little different from each other in the background/foreground colours. 

Also, I'm having a real difficulty with drawing a straight line with the free select tool. Does it have to be a straight line, because I can't draw a straight line to save my life, Argh!

Maghdalena

[rich2005]

Picking Colours: (double) click in the Foreground (FG) swatch bottom of the tools. That brings up a dialogue that includes its own colour picker. Click on the picker icon then click in the canvas to set the colour. Ok that to put the colour in the swatch. Repeat that for the Background (BG) colour. 

   

Free Select tool: Draw in straight lines by clicking at corner points: Note you can go outside the canvas. When complete hit the enter key (or choose another tool) to fix. You get the selection outline showing as 'crawling ants'

Gradient tool: Choose the FG to BG option click the first point FG then the second point BG both those points can be moved around. Adjust as required, hit the enter key to fix (or choose another tool)