Introduction to Gimp

First of all, you can download gimp from here. www.gimp.org.

Brushes can be downloaded from anywhere. Google search it. Best thing is, brushes for photoshop also work in Gimp so everything is available to you.

Another thing i recommend using is patterns. Bad thing is, photoshop ones won't work with gimp and some gimp patterns don't work in gimp either lol. But the best thing is, normal pictures do, such as gif, png and jpeg picture files. Example. You want a pink swirly background for a banner. Seach pink swirls on photobucket or tinypic (i recommend these sites the best as there's some cool stuff there) save the image and voila! You have a pattern.

To use brushes in gimp, they need to be placed : My computer > Local Disc (c:) > Program Files > Gimp 2.0 > Shared > Gimp > 2.0 > Brushes

To use patterns in gimp, the pictures you want should go to the same place, except into the patterns folder, instead o f the brushes

Fonts are also a very important feature for making banners :) Check out the Freebies! Section on my main page and download some of my favorites. You can also see how to install the fonts on your computer so you can use them in gimp.

Now! Lets get started!

My favorite things to use in gimp, are those circled in red. Don't freak out, you probably won't use all of them.

Top Row >
Rectangle Tool - Use for making boxes for borders
Circle Tool - Used to make cirles
Magic Wand - Use to get rid of the dreaded white backgrounds

2nd Row >
Color Dropper tool > Used to select a certain color

3rd Row >
Moving Tool > Used for moving things around
Crop Tool > Cropping the banner to size
Rotate Tool > Rotating layers

4th Row>
Flip Tool > Flipping the bimbo and layers
Text Tool > Writing!

5th Row >
Paintbucket Tool > For coloring the background with a solid color or pattern
Gradient Tool > For using gradients
Paintbrush Tool > Drawing
Eraser Tool > Erasing :p