Scraps Of Mind

Gimp Installation Guide – Step by Step

Thank you to Olga as the latest Guest Writer on Scraps of Mind. And don’t forget, the invitation to become a Guest Writer on Scraps of Mind is always open.

Olga digitally scrapbooks using the Gimp software which is an OpenSource (therefore FREE) graphics editing program which has much of the functionality of Photoshop.Gimp is probably not well known in the Scrapbooking world so this is a great opportunity to learn more about it. In this tutorial Olga will walk you step by step through the downloading and installation process for Gimp (which can be more complex than we’re used to with packaged products).And when you’ve enjoyed her article, why not click over and check out Olga’s blog 9990 Ways of Scrapbooking?

Gimp, the Free Graphics Editing Program

Gimp is what is called an Open Source program.

That means that the program has been created and developed by many people and if you have the right coding experience you can participate in the project and add more functionality to it. As it is also licensed under the GPL, you have access to the code and you can change it and even distribute the changes you have made without a problem.

It is also a free program and nowadays it is considered to have almost at the same level of Photoshop CS. It does not have all the features as Photoshop but it does have most of them and with a bit of effort you can get to do everything that you can do in Photoshop.

Gimp was first developed in the Linux environment, and for sometime it had a way of installing it that was a bit complicated and strange compared to other programs you install in Windows. Even though that has been made easier in the latest release of Gimp, 2.4, it continues to have some rules that are important to follow to get the most it.

If you are thinking of installing Gimp in your system, in my opinion, the best thing to do is to first download and organise all the pieces in a folder before starting to install anything.

Because the project is developed by a community of software developers and not a company you might have a problem finding drivers to print directly from Gimp (in my experience some Lexmark printers won’t recognise any output from Gimp, so trying to print directly from Gimp with some Lexmark printers won’t be possible). But that can be easily solved saving your work and opening your printer program and printing your jpg, or any other compatible file from it.

So without going into more technical details, here are links for all the main parts of the program follow by the steps in the installation.

Click on the thumbnails for larger screenshots. Read the rest of this entry »