Product: 1593273835

This hefty volume claims to be your source of information and guidance to nearly everything [GIMP]. And indeed, at first glance at the Contents in Detail, the book does seem to meet the challenge of the sub-title’s boast.

The Book of GIMP is divided into three sections: Learning GIMP, Reference, and Appendices. I jumped into Part 1, Chapter 2, Photograph retouching. The sample image used reminded me of a potentially interesting pic my sister took with her cell phone on a recent visit. I had grabbed a copy of her image with the idea of applying a little straightening and a lot of exposure adjustments. The tutorial that starts off Chapter 2, Enhancing Badly Taken Photographs, addresses both of these issues and more. Just perfect! The directions are clear, accurate, and broken down into easy to follow steps. There are plenty of accompanying screen shots of dialogs and example images.

The tutorial provides basic instructions (more detailed & in-depth coverage comes in later chapters), for cropping, straightening, and restoring perspective. Correcting exposure and color balance comes next. How to remove a distracting object from the image, add sharpness, and correct for red-eye follows. The section on the pros and cons of resizing an image or image layer also includes a nice discussion of resolution and printing hard copy. The shear tool is explained. However, the authors do mention that it is rarely useful'. All images seem to need a bit of tweaking of the brightness, contrast, and hue and so there is an explanation of how to use the levels, color balance and curves tools. Once again, the step-by-step instructions are easy to understand and follow.<br /><br />The authors of this book do an admirable job of covering the subjects that you expect to find in books of this flavor. But this book actually does present Everything GIMP. Whether you are interested in that obscure rarely used feature or are looking for the theory behind the process, it is touched upon between these covers.<br /><br />At this point I want to jump ahead to Part II: Reference, and look over the section on filters, Chapter 17. GIMP comes loaded with all kinds of nifty tools to use to transform an image. The authors state that while some of the tools are not strictly filters, they are included in this chapter because they are included under the program's Filter menu. The breakdown by category also follows the menu listing - blur, enhance, distorts, light and shadow, edge detect, generic, combine, artistic, decor, map and render. I've often been at a loss when it comes to figuring out how many of the gizmos under the Filters menu work. Sometimes I just want to know how to use a particular tool, sometimes I need to know why I would want to. Whether you just want to apply corrective measures, or transform an image into an artistic rendition, the tools are part of GIMP and suggested uses are detailed in these pages.<br /><br />For those who would like to ponderThe Physiology of Vision’, optical illusions, the screen to printer process, and color theory, appendix A would be your cup of tea. Appendix B provides Tips and Hints' for many of the exercises included at the end of the chapters. If 630 pages of GIMP aren't enough for you, Appendix C offers additional resources. Appendix D is titledFrequently Asked Questions (about GIMP), and is just that. Appendix E provides installation help for GNU/Linux and Unix, Windows, and Mac OS X. Appendix F covers batch processing of images.

If you want to learn how to use a robust image editing application and are willing to invest the time, effort, and practice required to do so, this is the book for you. The quality and quantity of the content is outstanding. The Contents in Detail and extensive index make it easy to find help with whatever questions or GIMP challenges that confront you.
Rating: 5
1593273835
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