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Showing posts from August, 2012

Apply a paper/canvas texture to a digital painting image using Gimp

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Patterns of paper or canvas texture can be applied on digital painting images to create a paper or canvas texture using Gimp 's Bucket Fill tool . The screenshot below shows the result of an image with an applied canvas texture. To apply a texture onto an image, the following can be done. Open up an image in Gimp . Select Layer | New Layer . The New Layer dialog box appears . Click OK . A new transparent layer is created . In the Toolbox , click the Bucket Fill Tool icon. In the Tool Options  pane, toggle on the Bucket Fill Pattern fill . Click on the pattern fill button. A drop down menu showing the pattern fill options appear . Choose a pattern e.g. Canvas . Click anywhere in the image. The pattern is applied to the image . Select Colors | Color to Alpha . The Color to Alpha dialog box appears . Click OK . The white color fill is converted to a transparent fill . In the Layers pane, reduce the opacity level of the pattern layer e.g. 21% until the canvas te

Making a seamless paper texture pattern using Gimp

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It is nice to apply a paper texture to an image created using digital painting software like  Photoshop , MyPaint , Gimp , or Corel Painter . The texture makes the image look more realistic somehow. In Gimp , there are built in filters that can automatically adjust scan images of paper textures so that the textures appear seamless when placed as pattern tiles. The following steps show how to make a seamless paper texture pattern using Gimp . Start Gimp . Load in a scanned paper texture image file e.g. watercolor.jpg . Select Colors | Desaturate . The Desaturate dialog box appears . Choose Lightness . Click OK . The image is desaturated . Note: there are alternative ways to convert the image to a grayscale RGB . Select Filters | Map | Make Seamless . The image is adjusted so that the images edges match when tiled . Select File | Export . The Export Image dialog box appears . In the name field, type in the pattern file name (with a pat extension) e.g. mypaper.pat . Browse to t

MyPaint watercolor still life of a banana

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I really like the results of MyPaint 's water color brushes (specifically Deevad's water 1 brush) in painting a simple still life of a banana. It looks almost like a real water color painting, as shown below. In order to achieve a realistic looking water color effect, the brush's opacity, radius and/or hardness should be adjusted to get the effect you want - wet-on-wet , wet-on-dry , hard edges , soft edges , etc. The brush controls are shown in the screenshot below.