Screaming Frustration

[bearcat22]

       

Ok, I'm trying to do a simple project, not get
a college degree in how to use GIMP.

I have ZERO knowledge of computers or
software.

After this, I might never use GIMP again.

If this forum allows it, I will upload the image
in question.

What I am making is an image that I will then
pay Office Depot to print out as a poster.
I will then cut it up and construct a game board to give as a gift.

This link below shows what I want the finished game board to look like.

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/20548/troke

So, I began by hunting on google for a nice crisp image of the texture and shade of the background, sort of a woodgrain.
I could not find what I really wanted, and settled on an image of corkboard.

I pasted this into GIMP.  The board has got to
be 16 inches by 16 inches total.  

I begin by changing the ruler in GIMP to inches, and it shows that my pasted image is too small.

This is where I'm running into trouble.
I have "re scaled" it, but then two things become problems.

Number one, the ruler stays exactly the same.
This is confusing, so please be patient with me. What I mean is that the ruler does not fit the enlarged image.  Even though the image is larger, the ruler isn't changing.

Another problem is that now the cork board image I got off Google is so blurry that it looks awful, it is worthless.

After I get the background, I have to understand how to draw the colored rings and circles and lines and dots and the corner decorations.  I will probably have to find some clipart for the corners, and have to learn how to insert that clipart.

Kind of desperate here.  I have only a month to finish this birthday gift.

I hope you can see my screen shot.  The ruler says the image is only a tiny bit more than 4 inches by 4 inches.
The Scale dialog box says that it is 40 inches by 22 and a half inches!

I mean...does it HAVE to be hard, confusing, frustrating, punishing? It can't be intuitive, friendly, easy, nice, useful, pleasant?

[Blighty]

You want an image 16 x 16 inches.
A good quality print is 300 dpi (dots per inch, or pixels per inch)
So 16 x 16 inches is (16 * 300) x (16 * 300) pixels
= 4800 x 4800 pixels.
Find a background that size (in pixels !)

Your image has only one layer. You need to work with layers.

Your image has a white background which is 3840 x 2160 pixels
This can be seen in the title bar at the top of the Gimp window.
If you look at the ruler you can see that this white background is 40 x 22 inches
You can see that your pattern is much smaller than the white background

Your background pattern is pasted into the white background. MISTAKE !
Your background pattern should be on its own layer
Edit > Paste As > New Layer
You can see this in the Layers Dialogue.
You can see that your pattern is much smaller than the white background. Gimp is showing it correctly.

The Scale Tool scales the entire layer, in this case the white background with your pattern on it.
If your pattern was on its own layer it could be scaled independently.

Bitmap images do not scale well. It introduces blurring. The greater the amount of scaling, the greater the blurring.
In your case your background image is much too small to scale to the size you want.

[Ofnuts]

It's hard because you don't know the basics. You are doing the equivalent of building a chair by gluing matches/toothpicks, and then
try to make the chair big enough to sit on it.

Gimp works in pixels, and its these pixels that give details to the image. If you stretch the image to more pixels, the resulting image doesn't contain more information. The original pixels are just spread of several pixels, so either you see big squares as in pixel-art (no interpolation), or you get something blurry (with interpolation).

The correspondence between inches and pixels is called the "print definition", expressed in pixels per inch (or abusively in dots per inch). In Gimp, see "Image>Print size". This is what sets the ruler in inches. But don't jump with joy, there is a catch, expressed with a formula:

print size in inches = image size in pixels / print definition in PPI

In other words, these three values are interrelated. For a given size in pixels, if you change the print definition to change the print size. But for a nice a crisp print the print defitnion should be more than 150PPI, ideally 300 or more.

In other words, if you want a decent image, you have to know in advance at what size and minimum definition you want to print it, and start te image in Gimp with an adequate size in pixels. The "advanced options" in the "File>New" dialog let you specify an image in inches and PPI, and will compute the required pixels. But of course if you take a random image on the web, it may no be big enough. For your 40"x22" board, you would need at least a 6000x3300px image (150PPI) and double this for 300PPI (12000x6600).

One last catch: the image on your screen is displayed with your screen resolution by default, and since your screen often has a lower resolution that a print, the image will appear bigger. To vie the image at its true size, reset "View>Dot for Dot" and make sure that Gimp uses the proper definition for your screen.

You will note that most of the notions above have nothing to do with Gimp per se, you would have the same problems with Photoshop or Paint, that provide tools equivalent to Gimp's to address them.

[bearcat22]

(01-08-2020, 05:11 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: It's hard because you don't know the basics. You are doing the equivalent of building a chair by gluing matches/toothpicks, and then
try to make the chair big enough to sit on it.

Gimp works in pixels, and its these pixels that give details to the image. If you stretch the image to more pixels, the resulting image doesn't contain more information. The original pixels are just spread of several pixels,  so either you see big squares as in pixel-art (no interpolation), or you get something blurry (with interpolation).

The correspondence between inches and pixels is called the "print definition", expressed in pixels per inch (or abusively in dots per inch). In Gimp, see "Image>Print size". This is what sets the ruler in inches. But don't jump with joy, there is a catch, expressed with a formula:

print size in inches = image size in pixels / print definition in PPI

In other words, these three values are interrelated. For a given size in pixels, if you change the print definition to change the print size. But for a nice a crisp print the print defitnion should be more than 150PPI, ideally 300 or more.

In other words, if you want a decent image, you have to know in advance at what size and minimum definition you want to print it, and start te image in Gimp with an adequate size in pixels. The "advanced options" in the  "File>New" dialog let you specify an image in inches and PPI, and will compute the required pixels. But of course if you take a random image on the web, it may no be big enough. For your 40"x22" board, you would need at least a 6000x3300px image (150PPI) and double this for 300PPI (12000x6600).

One last catch: the image on your screen is displayed with your screen resolution by default, and since your screen often has a lower resolution that a print, the image will appear bigger. To vie the image at its true size, reset "View>Dot for Dot" and make sure that Gimp uses the proper definition for your screen.

You will note that most of the notions above have nothing to do with Gimp per se, you would have the same problems with Photoshop or Paint, that provide tools equivalent to Gimp's to address them.

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/20548/troke

Again, thank you for your kindness, I appreciate your advice, but I suspect I am too stupid to use it.

You are being kind, but your words are like sledghammers to my spirit.  I am almost certainly not up to this task.
I sincerely and literally do not understand why something like this should be so insanely complicated.

Let's begin all over again.

Back to ZERO.

I want to reproduce, as closely as possible, a copy of this game board, shown in the link below. I will also try to attach an image.

I would love explicit advice as to the SIMPLEST way to produce this.
Ultimately, I will have to submit the file to Office Depot in a format that they can print it as a poster.

It is CRUCIAL that the image be very high resolution, super professional looking, as it will be a gift.


https://boardgamegeek.com/image/20548/troke


I found a handsome wood image that might be a decent background, but I'm too stupid to understand
how to make it the correct size in inches.

I am never going to be able to think in pixels, any more than I could speak Martian or Japanese.
I think in inches. I'm 58 years old.