Photo effects to mimic MS Word

[Green Pig]

Hello good folks, 

After spending several hours experimenting with various guides/how to's I have reached the conclusion that my approach/search for tutorials may not be correct. GIMP has lots of cool ways to do things but may not be applicable for simpler tasks, added to this many of the tutorials online are out of date with key menu selections no longer available,

My quest is to find something similar along the lines of MS Word picture formatting, this takes an image which you can then apply borders, angles and reflections amongst others - this worked well when creating user manuals with stock photos, just removes that glaring amateur 'photo look' (see below)

Applying the refection to photos through GIMP takes a little too long, instead have opted for the 'shadow' effect as in the tutorial below.

Couple of issues, first when selecting the 'cut' menu selection to apply rounded corners the whole image disappears, and secondly when exporting to PNG using another tutorial the end file ends up too big for web use (rejected by ebay for example).

The issue with the whole image being removed is the same on at least two tutorials but earlier GIMP versions.

Thinking of a workaround, I tried importing into Word then screen shot, that worked okay-ish but lost some of original clarity/resolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRollf6OQWs

Ideal image 

 


Thanks in advance.

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rich, you have replied here (post 7)  - will check this out as very similar.

https://www.gimp-forum.net/Thread-Deleti...ection-Why

[Ofnuts]

PNG doesn't compress photo efficiently, so you have to use JPEG. If the picture is displayed on white you can have rounded corners, just make sure that the default background color is white before exporting.

Fake reflections don't work well with cars. They work only with pure vertical surfaces such as smartphones. Otherwise, in real life the reflection is not a flipped image, in a car reflection you see things that are under the car that do not appear in the upright view.

[rich2005]

I agree with Ofnuts about reflections. Very dependent on the image.

Quote:Applying the refection to photos through GIMP takes a little too long, instead have opted for the 'shadow' effect as in the tutorial below.

Does it? take too long It is a matter of practice, but not difficult.
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EDIT: Even easier a script (I know there are scripts / plugins but struggled to remember this one)
http://www.gimphelp.org/effects_reflection.html
(the instructions are old, put the script in C:\Users\"yourname"\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\2.10\scripts The menu entry is top of the main window - Script-Fu )
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Something like this

   

And a video to demonstrate:  https://youtu.be/mK6PZnVUztc  5 and a half minutes, so without the commentary maybe 3 or 4 minutes.

File size too large? When exporting as a jpeg, tick the show preview option, that also gives an estimate of file size.

[Green Pig]

Rich, thanks for taking the time to respond, especially with that video (now saved).

This not only gave direction but highlighted two areas which may have tripped me up, the 'select all' option but needs to be activated by clicking on layer, also the 'click in the middle' reference (1.38) also applies to other similar tutorials, Lastly the rounded rectangle option, nothing shows immediately which probably led to me trying something else clicking merrily away.

On another note I came across this tutorial (before reading your reply) which worked first time, exported as JPEG and uploaded without issue.

GIMP 12.7 Round corners

In future will look further back in Google search results, or better still query this database direct.

Much appreciated.

[Green Pig]

It was going so well then.. the rounded corners became black corners  

Rich, I reverted to your tutorial which worked well, only slight imperfection in my interpretation related to the corners appearing from time to time.

Let me clarify, once exporting as JPEG the file would appear in Windows explorer folder with black corners, open the file and after hesitating disappear? Ignored this uploading to ebay for a test and all good, rounded corners aplenty in both thumbnail and slideshow.....however on clicking the photo to enlarge back they jolly well pop in black.

Tried various backgrounds prior to exporting with variations on above, wondering if the photo has actually been cropped or just made transparent to match the background?


Cheers

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I have just noticed the same with your Nissan photo, clicking on the image reveals the corners against a black background?

[rich2005]

Quote:Tried various backgrounds prior to exporting with variations on above, wondering if the photo has actually been cropped or just made transparent to match the background?  ....
I have just noticed the same with your Nissan photo, clicking on the image reveals the corners against a black background?

That is the way browsers work 

Your final image is a Jpeg - Jpeg file format does not support transparency - remember that for the following.

The transparency is an illusion. It is a mask that the application, could be image viewer, web browser, MS Word...uses. Gimp takes the current background colour (BG) for the mask. 
You can check this out if you remove any transparency Layer -> Transparency -> Remove Alpha Channel then make your (inverted) selection and cut or clear. The cut bits - the rounded corners will take the BG colour. White or Black - or any other colour set as BG.

   

But you need that transparency - the alpha channel - for that faded mirror effect.

1. Make sure the BG colour is White. Save your work as a Gimp .xcf in case you need to go back for more editing

When complete:

2. When it comes to exporting the image as a jpeg you can go two ways.
-- Put a white background layer (or even the color of your web page background) so the image looks how it will appear. Exporting as a jpeg will flatten the image into one layer without transparency.

-- Remove the alpha channel Layer -> Transparency -> Remove Alpha Channel before exporting.

This using Win 10 image viewer and the jpeg.

   

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Edit:
I noticed in Windows Gimp 2.10 that the script I referenced, 210-effects-reflection.scm throws up an error message. There is still one function in there that was not updated for Gimp 2.10 (a bit strange since compat-mode works ok in linux)

The corrected script attached. While I am not a fan of a refection, it depends on image. This script applies a layer mask and does save a bit of work. I am all for saving a bit of work, providing the basics are understood.

Unzip, put in your user scripts folder.

[Green Pig]

Great, thanks Rich.

I guessed that was the issue after playing around with backgrounds/transparency, also the black corners gave it away in file view too. Given this, I am assuming there is no 'rounded corners' crop option which would explain why no other online tools offer such either (flicker, MS 3D)

Ebay use white for preview and gallery photo but black when enlarged, that scuppers any approach using this method, that said it looks a bit odd anyway.

Its been a great learning experience but I think the original photos are not up to the job, at least a few anyway - rounded corners looked okay in Word but different impression generated online.

I need to digest your last post while using GIMP but hopefully have the gist of it, thanks again.