Getting back from a week in a cottage near the Dutch coast, I have an SD card with plenty of pictures waiting to be edited. Of course you are never quite satisfied with the shots you made and a “liitle editing” is never a bad thing. Whether you just want to quickly crop the image and fiddle with the contrast , or paste aunt Irma’s head onto a giraffe .. the possibilities are endless.
If you have money to burn (and own a mac or a PC) you might want to go for cool applications like Aperture or Photoshop … and then again, maybe you don’t !
So there is “The Gimp” which, in all honesty used to be a typical “old school Linux” application. A terrible user interface, poor documentation and you did get a fair chance of getting flamed whenever you asked a question on how to use it. Luckily those times have changed. The Gimp became a “native” Mac application, cleaned up its interface and is now easily one of the most powerful applications for the cross-platform photog on a budget.
Video Tutorials : In order to get started we have found some excellent video tutorials on the “basics” of using the gimp. Standard image editing and basic picture manipulations : You can find some tutorials HERE.
Pdf tutorials : The official Gimp tutorial can be found on the Gimp website. Some quick reference cards for the Gimp and its many keyboard shortcuts can be found HERE.
Podcasts : Over at “Meetthegimp.org” you can find an extended video podcast about using the Gimp. With over 150 episodes this is truly a plethora of information on using the Gimp. You can subscribe directly in iTunes.
Magazines : Why not get your very own Gimp Magazine. An interactive free and open source magazine for Gimp newbies and hardcore ninja’s. Much like Ubuntu’s Full Circle magazine this is an interactive magazine that relies on the contributions from the community. You can download the latest version here.
And of course : If you haven’t installed “The Gimp” yet .. why not get it first .. its free, open and completely cross platform compatible. Download it here.