03-01-2023, 02:46 AM
I am a brand new user of GIMP and so am not familiar with the correct terminology. I searched on various permutations of this thread title but came up empty. I am not especially graphics oriented and will never be a frequent user. However, when you learn how to use a new tool, it turns out to come handy in the future for many tasks you never foresaw.
I was steered toward GIMP by a friend who used to have Photoshop and I mentioned that I had a project in mind about making a photo collage. Because his Photoshop had died with his computer's hard drive, he suggested I look into GIMP. Well, the photo deal is on hold but I have been using the program to help create silkscreen stencils for cookie decorating. I have found several You Tube videos which really help explain how to accomplish my simple tasks much easier and quicker than the simplistic, inefficient ways I had started out using. My current dilemma concerns a logo shape which I want to make thinner. The procedure will be to screen the logo shape, in this case the script of a college name, with one color of icing. Then a reduced shape is screened over in a different color, which will hopefully yield a uniform border around the second screening.
I started with a PNG file of the logo. Using GIMP I split the file into separate files for each color. The inner color outline is too close in size to the border color. To get an outline of the inner color I followed an on-line suggestion:
LAYER > TRANSPARENCY > ALPHA TO SELECTION
SELECT > TO PATH
SELECT > NONE
[hide layer, make new layer]
EDIT > STROKE PATH in the STROKE LINE menu
This left, presumably, a STROKE LINE around the edges of the inner color. I have a background in AutoCAD. In any CAD program, OFFSETing a line refers to drawing a parallel line on whichever side of the object line you choose. If the object closed, say a square or an unfilled alphabetical letter, you end up with larger or smaller squares or letters but the centers of both the originals and offsets remain the same. With this background I had intended to OFFSET the STROKE LINE inside the current outline by several pixels. Then I intended to flood that with the inner color, thereby creating a slightly enlarged border around the now smaller inner color. But it appears that OFFSET has an entirely different meaning in GIMP.
So some specific questions:
I see the STROKE LINE I created, but don't know how to select it and verify what entity type GIMP thinks it is, i.e., is it actually a STROKE LINE?
Can a STROKE LINE be offset smaller as I described above, i.e., not scaled?
If not, what type of GIMP entity or procedure is able to accomplish this?
Thanks for any guidance, Rick
I was steered toward GIMP by a friend who used to have Photoshop and I mentioned that I had a project in mind about making a photo collage. Because his Photoshop had died with his computer's hard drive, he suggested I look into GIMP. Well, the photo deal is on hold but I have been using the program to help create silkscreen stencils for cookie decorating. I have found several You Tube videos which really help explain how to accomplish my simple tasks much easier and quicker than the simplistic, inefficient ways I had started out using. My current dilemma concerns a logo shape which I want to make thinner. The procedure will be to screen the logo shape, in this case the script of a college name, with one color of icing. Then a reduced shape is screened over in a different color, which will hopefully yield a uniform border around the second screening.
I started with a PNG file of the logo. Using GIMP I split the file into separate files for each color. The inner color outline is too close in size to the border color. To get an outline of the inner color I followed an on-line suggestion:
LAYER > TRANSPARENCY > ALPHA TO SELECTION
SELECT > TO PATH
SELECT > NONE
[hide layer, make new layer]
EDIT > STROKE PATH in the STROKE LINE menu
This left, presumably, a STROKE LINE around the edges of the inner color. I have a background in AutoCAD. In any CAD program, OFFSETing a line refers to drawing a parallel line on whichever side of the object line you choose. If the object closed, say a square or an unfilled alphabetical letter, you end up with larger or smaller squares or letters but the centers of both the originals and offsets remain the same. With this background I had intended to OFFSET the STROKE LINE inside the current outline by several pixels. Then I intended to flood that with the inner color, thereby creating a slightly enlarged border around the now smaller inner color. But it appears that OFFSET has an entirely different meaning in GIMP.
So some specific questions:
I see the STROKE LINE I created, but don't know how to select it and verify what entity type GIMP thinks it is, i.e., is it actually a STROKE LINE?
Can a STROKE LINE be offset smaller as I described above, i.e., not scaled?
If not, what type of GIMP entity or procedure is able to accomplish this?
Thanks for any guidance, Rick