Download the Video! (110.2MB, 57:59)
Download the companion file with the images used

This is the first episode made by Philipp (note the missing “e”) and he has done an entire hour with two topics.

First he develops a script in Python for applying a vignette effect to your images. It shows that he is a much better programmer than me.

In the second part he has a shot of a “For Sale” poster (the self made ones with the phone number at the bottom for tearing off) in Greek and shows, how to make a version with your own believable text out of it.

You can get his original image and the script in the companion file. The XCF is lost, sorry.

My only contribution is slapping the music and bumpers on and the image on the right which has a vignette and Python written in Greek. If you like Phillip’s show, shower him with nice comments here. Perhaps he will make more shows then.

Meet the GIMP will make a video publication break until the first week in September. I’ll use the time to move and settle, clear up the blog and server, work out the feed and torrent problems, get the mobile version running again and hopefully produce some shows in advance for filling weeks suffering of time theft. Then I’ll be back on a regular one week schedule – it is better for me and you.

Up to now there is no TOC for this show.

Meet the GIMP Video Podcast by Rolf Steinort and Philippe Demartin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.

Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial, Programming | 6 Comments »

Download the Video! (59.9MB, 31:30)(link fixed)

This show covers the single window mode of GIMP 2.7.1 with a video (which sat some weeks here) from nachbarnebenan. I just installed the new version on my machine and I like it.
Then I scratch an itch I had – Printing DVDs with GIMP.
The sound in this episode in not as good as usual. Sorry.

00:20 Berlin and you
01:45 Single window mode demo
06:00 Printing on CD/DVDs
06:50 Defining the media size in Turbo Print
08:20 Defining a new image template
11:30 Starting a new image from the template
12:20 A layer with guide lines
16:15 New layer(s) for content
16:50 Inserting a source image
17:40 Scaling down of the new layer
20:00 A gradient background
21:00 Blending the layers with a mask
24:20 Adding text
25:50 Printing
28:50 Recap and more background about units

Meet the GIMP Video Podcast by Rolf Steinort and Philippe Demartin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.

Tags: 2.7, 2.7.1, cd, cd printing, DVD, dvd printing, single window, single window mode
Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial | 4 Comments »

Download the Video! (49.5MB, 26:02)
Download the Torrent! (Broken?)
Download the companion file with the images used

Parts of the old Bremen harbour (the Europahafen and the Überseehafen) have been closed and are rebuilt as a new part of the city, called “Übersseestadt”. I took an image of the border between old and new. In the video I try to make the difference stronger by desaturating and colouring parts of the image. Not much success with the image, but the saturation and colour layer mode get explained.

In the begin I talk a bit about difficulties in the forum and my thoughts about flattr.

The TOC

03:25 Subscribe to the RSS feed
04:35 flattr
06:30 An image from the Europahafen
08:15 Goal: Enhance the contrast between old and new
08:25 Rotation correction
10:15 Saving as XCF
10:45 Cropping
11:25 Fixing the aspect ratio
13:15 Duplicating the layer before tweaking the colours
14:05 Adjusting the curve to get more contrast
15:35 Desaturationg parts of the image with a layer in saturation mode
20:00 Adding sepia colour
22:20 Colour layer mode

Meet the GIMP Video Podcast by Rolf Steinort and Philippe Demartin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.

Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial | 4 Comments »

Download the Video! (18.2 MB, 9:35)
Download the Torrent! (Broken?)

This is the first Microsode of Meet the GIMP. This are short(er) videos that are produced ahead of publication and cover one topic – and no chit chat about my life, the site, the forum and so on.

In this Microsode I talk about the fourth value of a pixel, the opacity or transparency. It turns up in layers, tool settings and in the concept of layer masks. The erase tool can erase to the background colour or to transparency. You can even lock the alpha channel of a layer and so keep the transparent parts while painting in the image. BTW, I think I forgot to mention the proper name of the fourth “colour” – alpha. (Edit: I did at 5:00! )

TOC

00:27 Microsodes
01:25 3 nubers for red, green, blue – and one for opacity / transparency
02:40 opacity in the layer dialogue
02:50 the checkerboard
03:10 opacity in paint tools
04:30 two modes of the erase tool – alpha channel of a layer
05:40 lock opacity
06:20 making straight lines
07:40 layer masks

Meet the GIMP Video Podcast by Rolf Steinort and Philippe Demartin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.

Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial | 8 Comments »

Download the Video! (68.0 MB, 35:48)
Download the Torrent! (Broken?)
Download the companion file with the images used

I spent last week in England – but not on a vacation. In this episode I process one of the “tourist shots” made on the class trip following a workflow guide made from Bill in Belize. This guide will be published here in some time, there is still some work needed. It covers all the basic steps for polishing up an image.

The second part of the show covers a question from Bill: How to publish something with keeping your claim to fame and giving others the option to improve your work. My answer: Creative Commons. Let’s see if Bill shares my opinion. (Disclaimer: I am biased – see the button on top of the right column.)

You can license your images under Creative Commons too. We had an example of the advantages in the forum with this image.

There is a list of all possible licenses on the site and a very nice “click your license” boilerplate license generator. I used it to make the license text below.

One question I have for you: Should I drop the “Share Alike” part of the license for Meet the GIMP and leave only the “Attribution”? Please help me with discussing this in the forum.

The TOC

00:20 My trip to England
02:00 My photographic output – the image to process
03:20 Bill’s workflow guide
03:50 Copy the original layer
04:30 Perspective correction
05:15 Rotate (two attempts)
10:00 Crop, inside out
12:30 Cloning and healing
14:30 Contrast correction with a curve
15:05 Dodge and burn
19:00 Scaling
22:20 Sharpening and flattening the image
24:00 Saving for the Web
24:20 Scaling discussed
26:30 How to license the workflow guide
27:30 Creative Commons License
32:45 Creative Commons for images

Meet the GIMP Video Podcast by Rolf Steinort and Philippe Demartin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.

Tags: beginner, creative commons, license
Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial | 18 Comments »

Download the Video! (50.9 MB, 26;46)
Download the Torrent! (Broken?)
Download the companion file

Finally there is a new show! This time I tackle an image shot at the airport here in Bremen. Before that I tell a bit about the dangers of being a teacher, an online paint program written in HTML5, content aware fill in TheOtherProgram and my new job in Berlin. I am looking for a flat there, by the way.

The image from the Hamburg train station I had planed to process turned out to be marred by motion blurr. A short discussion about how to avoid this is in the show – I hope I recall this next time.

Oh, and I’ll be in England the first week of May 2010. I may have time for a meeting in central London on May 6th – Election Day. Depends on how the kids behave. More on twitter.

The TOC

00:20 Greetings and looking for a flat in Berlin
03:30 Content aware Fill in Photoshop – http://photwalkthrough.com
04:20 HTML5 graphics program
05:30 Train Station image and motion blurr
08:10 Baggage claimage area shot
08:50 Intentions of the image
09:40 Straighten the image
11:30 Finding a crop
14:30 First try: enhance contrast and colours
16:00 Using curves for reducing contrast
21:40 Selective sharpening
24:00 Function of a layer mask
25:00 Denoise the layer mask
26:30 Sharpen the top layer
31:00 Saving as XCF for further work
32:00 Rolf is in England next week – http://twitter.com/rstein

The companion file contains the original shot in JPG and NEF and the XCF file in its present state. Still work to do. And I put the train station image in there too, perhaps somebody wants to play with it.

Meet the GIMP Video Podcast by Rolf Steinort and Philippe Demartin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.

Tags: curves, curves tool, layer mask, mood, selective sharpening, walkthrough
Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial, Photocast Network | 29 Comments »

Download the Video! (37.8 MB, 19:53)

Download the Torrent!
(Mobile version tomorrow)

The German word “Terrorie” was coined by a kid in a Physics lesson of my late colleague Helmut Mohr in Hamburg. It is what it sounds like – and today’s video is full of it. No GIMP, no images, only the blackboard and me talking. Please consider this as a WARNING.

We had a lively discussion in the forum about the theory behind making images, circling around the term “dynamic range”. There is a big difference between light and dark parts of our world, often more that a camera can catch. And nearly always more than fits onto paper or a computer screen.

The process of squeezing this big range into the small output range is called Post Processing. Either you do it via RAW anf GIMP – or the smart chip in your camera does it while saving your iage as JPEG. What I forgot to say – if you do it, you can redo it. The RAW file still exists. If the chip does it, the RAW file is discarded and you are stuck with the version of the image made by the chip.

I got a lot of information about this subject from a wonderful paper by Karl Lang at Adobe(R). Worth to download and read, even if you decide to skip the video this week.

The TOC

02:04 Orders of Magnitude
04:00 How much light is in a scene? (Dynamic range ramp up)
06:00 There is no black and white
06:30 Dynamic range of a scene
06:50 Dynamic range of LCD and prints
08:50 Dynamic range of the camera
09:50 Exposure = slide the dynamic range
11:05 Post processing by the camera
12:15 RAW -> GIMP -> print
13:00 Slides and egatives in analog photography
15:05 A source at Adobe(R)
15:15 8 Bits – a problem (sometimes)
17:10 Why is it possible to make images? Because our eyes are no camera and our brain no computer.

“Meet the GIMP”  by Rolf Steinort is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.

Tags: 8 Bit, dynamic range, post processing, raw
Posted in Gimp video tutorial, Photography technical basics | 14 Comments »

Download the Video! (31.0 MB, 16:18)
Download the Video for mobile devices! (29.8 MB, 16:18)
Download the Torrent!
Download the Companion File!

This week I have a challenge for you. Do my homework and edit my shot from our Samba Carneval. You’ll find the JPEG and the NEF (RAW image by a Nikon D200) of a shot I did from my window. It is not a good photograph but catches a beautiful moment. Improve the image, store it somewhere on the Internet and post a link to it in the comments. You can embed a small version of it in a comment, just copy the HTML code from 23, flickr or other sites. It should be there in a box to cut and paste.

Then I’ll tell you why you always shall set your camera settings to a defined standard state before you put your camera in the bag or cupboard. I didn’t and it has ruined a whole series of shots from this occasion.

Have you ever wondered how to make a selection with a zig-zag border? Well, if you have, I have the answer. (Stolen from Saul Goode, BTW ) I was reminded that a Quickmask is an image and so can be editied much better than a selection. Making waves and sawteeth into it then is “elementary”.

And finally I reveal how I built a dust free blackboard and chalk with GIMP. The blackboard from the “Basics” series looses its mystery.

I made a TOC and forgot to save it.

Tags: blackboard, chalk, challenge, editing a selection, quickmask, selection
Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial | 14 Comments »

Download the Video! (59.0 MB, 31:03)
Download the Torrent!
The Video for Mobile Devices! (57.3 MB, 31:03)
Download the Companion File!

This week there is only a little bit of GIMP, but a lot more about the free video editor Cinelerra. I use it to make a kind of slide show video used to illustrate a short “bumper” for Martin Bailey’s blog and podcast about his (mostly nature) photography. Martin is living in Japan and has a lot to tell about photography and Japan. Highly recommended!

Cinelerra is a full “non linear” video editor for Linux – and so perhaps a bit overkill for making a slide show. Non linear says that the program does not change the video and sound data and that you can access all your media easy and fast because only references are moved around. I forgot to introduce it properly at the start of the video. There are programs around for Windows and MacOS which do the same, I am sure.

Cinelerra comes in a lot of different flavours. I take the version from cinelerra.org.

The final version of the bumper, the used images and the Cinelerra XML file are in the companion file.

And here are, as promised, my settings. Compare if you have problems, my setup is running, but I am not sure why….

Playback – check for “Stop playback locks up” if you encounter stutter – uncheck “Play every frame” for performance

Recording – Important is the last point about images

Performance

Interface – Check “Show Thumbnails”

About – for version information

This week we have a mobile version of the video again. It’s not on the feed, because I don’t know if this version fills your needs. So feedback please!

Sorry, I could not make a TOC this time, too much school stuff around.

Meet the GIMP Episode 132 by Rolf Steinort is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.

Tags: cinelerra, slde show
Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial, Other OS software, Photocast Network | 8 Comments »

Download the Video! (57.9 MB, 30:27)
Download the Torrent!

After a bit of “housekeeping”, which includes thanks to contributors and a nod over to the Focus Ring, I try to use the stuff hidden in the <Image>/Color/Auto menu. My results are not that good and I try to do it better with curves.

Why did I fail? No idea, it may be the software or perhaps my choice of image was bad. Please share your experiences with this option.

At the end of the show I lift the secret behind the numbers 1 – 1.4 – 2 – 2.8 – 4 – 5.6 – 11 – 16 – 22 …. – aperture numbers decoded.

I couldn’t decide which of the two shots I made for the show image should go into the post, so here are both.

The TOC

00:20 Starting 2010 – thanks and a guy selling GIMP
04:30 New Forum policy
05:40 New Focus Ring Episode
07:00 Exporting an image from F-Spot to GIMP
07:20 The Histogram shows underexposure
08:00 Exploring /Colors/Auto
09:15 Equalize, stretch contrast, stretch HSV
11:50 Color Enhance
12:50 The manual curves approach
15:30 Unsharp Maks (USM) for getting details in snow
17:00 Selection with layer mask
19:00 Basics: Apperture numbers explained

Meet the GIMP Video Podcast by Rolf Steinort and Philippe Demartin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://meetthegimp.org.

Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial | 18 Comments »