Help with cropping using scissors

[miamisunray]

Hi all

First-timer here.

I love the GIMP program, even though my attempt at doing my first thing does not seem to be happening.

simply, I have taken a shot of a piece of artwork and I am wanting to crop right at the frame of the artwork. I successfully did the Scissor-thing...hovered over the first 'dot' and held down the cntl key...and the marching ants were seen..OK so far.

HOWEVER, (after following a youtube tutorial) when I was at the 'CUT' stage, my crop did not turn white, like in the tutorial--the tutorial was Peyton manning's photo--I think-- so that is the hurdle I have to overcome...All worked well up to that point

--my photo is the first layer, then created another layer, named it, then moved it down one space then deleted one of the layers--I'm doing this from memory now--then did the scissor-thing and then the 'cut' step should have made my artwork all white....but no

Any thoughts out there??

thanks a lot

Ray
Miami Beach

[ofnuts]

A real "Crop" (crop tool: ) doesn't turn anything white because it applies to the whole image.

If you select (scissors or else) something and then delete it, there are two possible outcomes:

1) if your layer can have transparent pixels (inn Gimp parlance, it has an "alpha channel"), the deleted part is made transparent, and you see the underlying layers (that may be white, or not)

2) if your layer can't have transparent pixels, the deleted part is painted with the background color, which, by default, is white.

Without he URL of the tutorial, I can't say much more...

[miamisunray]

Thanks so much for the reply. I think I get what you are saying, but in layman's terms I still have to get around this step to make me feel happy!!

Here is the URL of the tutorial....skip ahead to maybe 3/4on where he goes to the 'edit/cut' step and Peyton turns all white ( bear in mind, mine does not change at all...just the marching ants still.......)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj7dTQJTSL4

Thanks again for your help...

Ray

[ofnuts]

The player turns white because he does a "cut" and you are in the same case as a delete (ie, the removed part is replaced by the default background color).

From cursory look at the rest of this tutorial, I find the author is making it a lot more complicated than needed. There is a lot of unnecessary layer shuffling. Normally, I would just do:

- load picture
- make sure I can make the layer transparent: "Layer/Transparency/Add alpha channel"
- define clip path with scissors
- [Enter] to get the marching ants (this selects the player)
- "Select/Invert" to select the rest of the image
- [Delete] that leaves only the player and makes the rest transparent (which is a lost faster than doing a copy/paste to a new layer (that I suspect he uses because he doesn't know how to add the transarency (aka "alpha channel") to the original layer)

[miamisunray]

(Sep 16, 2011 16:23)ofnuts Wrote:  The player turns white because he does a "cut" and you are in the same case as a delete (ie, the removed part is replaced by the default background color).

From cursory look at the rest of this tutorial, I find the author is making it a lot more complicated than needed. There is a lot of unnecessary layer shuffling. Normally, I would just do:

- load picture
- make sure I can make the layer transparent: "Layer/Transparency/Add alpha channel"
- define clip path with scissors
- [Enter] to get the marching ants (this selects the player)
- "Select/Invert" to select the rest of the image
- [Delete] that leaves only the player and makes the rest transparent (which is a lost faster than doing a copy/paste to a new layer (that I suspect he uses because he doesn't know how to add the transarency (aka "alpha channel") to the original layer)

AHHHH!!!! Very interesting. Looks like I came to the right place. After an evening meal I will try to do what you say... I assume that when I see only my cropped art-frame and the rest transparent in GIMP, that when I save to desktop the finished result should be just my unusually shaped frame, correct? Or is the resultant .jpg going to still be rectangular....just with transparency where the wall used to be (the wall where the art was hanging.?) The book editor wants just the frame to place in this art book... nothing around it... if you know what I mean....

I am going to try it anyway...

thanks again

Ray
Miami Beach

[ofnuts]

You can't save transparency in a JPG... you will have to save as PNG (if this is to use in a web browser) and posibily XCF (the native Gimp format, that saves everything), if you want to rework your photo later. The result is the size of your original image, with transparent pixels where the wall was. You can use Layer/Autocrop to reduce the layer size to the minimum rectangle that contains all the non-transparent pixels (beware: this includes faintly transparent stuff as well, so if your background is "dirty" it won't likely crop much, but since you delete the background it should work OK in this case). And after that you can use Image/Autocrop image to reduce it to the smallest image that contains the layer...

[miamisunray]

(Sep 16, 2011 23:22)ofnuts Wrote:  You can't save transparency in a JPG... you will have to save as PNG (if this is to use in a web browser) and posibily XCF (the native Gimp format, that saves everything), if you want to rework your photo later. The result is the size of your original image, with transparent pixels where the wall was. You can use Layer/Autocrop to reduce the layer size to the minimum rectangle that contains all the non-transparent pixels (beware: this includes faintly transparent stuff as well, so if your background is "dirty" it won't likely crop much, but since you delete the background it should work OK in this case). And after that you can use Image/Autocrop image to reduce it to the smallest image that contains the layer...

Well, Turned out I was busy doing other things tonight, so tomorrow morning will be the test run.

Thanks again for your explanations...I am a bit surprised that, (after I crop the image with the scissors) that there is not simply a step to tell the program.. "look, I have cropped the image as I want it, now simply give me what I want''.. does everything have to export as a rectangle??? Well, the image I am referring to is not going to be in this book.. but this one is.. and I see the same issue with it as well, as the artist often has items outside of the regular square or rectangle frame..... Here is one of the 5 art peices I need to crop, etc. Not too sure if the attachment will work or not....

[ofnuts]

(Sep 17, 2011 02:08)miamisunray Wrote:  

(Sep 16, 2011 23:22)ofnuts Wrote:  You can't save transparency in a JPG... you will have to save as PNG (if this is to use in a web browser) and posibily XCF (the native Gimp format, that saves everything), if you want to rework your photo later. The result is the size of your original image, with transparent pixels where the wall was. You can use Layer/Autocrop to reduce the layer size to the minimum rectangle that contains all the non-transparent pixels (beware: this includes faintly transparent stuff as well, so if your background is "dirty" it won't likely crop much, but since you delete the background it should work OK in this case). And after that you can use Image/Autocrop image to reduce it to the smallest image that contains the layer...

Well, Turned out I was busy doing other things tonight, so tomorrow morning will be the test run.

Thanks again for your explanations...I am a bit surprised that, (after I crop the image with the scissors) that there is not simply a step to tell the program.. "look, I have cropped the image as I want it, now simply give me what I want''.. does everything have to export as a rectangle??? Well, the image I am referring to is not going to be in this book.. but this one is.. and I see the same issue with it as well, as the artist often has items outside of the regular square or rectangle frame..... Here is one of the 5 art peices I need to crop, etc. Not too sure if the attachment will work or not....

Yes, in the world of digital images, everything is a rectangle, but some of it can be transparent. My elliptical signature, for instance, is made that way.

If you need to do more stuff from the same artist, put the work farther from a wall, and have a light source behind it that lights up the wall... this will remove the shadows and make the cutout a lot easier.

PS: attachment is OK, I'll have a shot a the cutout later today.

[miamisunray]

I think I am slowly 'getting it'... what you said before makes sense.. I can crop, after I get the 'wall' transparent, and make a rectangle as close as possible to the frame. Considering that the photo is going in a book of white pages I wonder if it makes more sense to make the background a 'pure' white (although if it is not exactly the color white of the book that could be complicating things as well...).. I will try it right now.

Thanks for trying it yourself...

Ray

[ofnuts]

(Sep 17, 2011 11:47)miamisunray Wrote:  I think I am slowly 'getting it'... what you said before makes sense.. I can crop, after I get the 'wall' transparent, and make a rectangle as close as possible to the frame. Considering that the photo is going in a book of white pages I wonder if it makes more sense to make the background a 'pure' white (although if it is not exactly the color white of the book that could be complicating things as well...).. I will try it right now.

Thanks for trying it yourself...

Ray

Right, for a book you may want to use a specific background. But since you have made the wall transparent, the specific background is very easy to make, just insert a layer of the required color behind the layer with the painting.

[ofnuts]

A quick shot at your pic.

1) if you use the perspective, tool you'll find that you can't have the two left corners of the perspective frame inside the image and not cut one of the boys. The solution is to drag the bottom left corner outside of the current image. This will add a triangle of transparent pixels to the corrected image but since you are going to cut them out it's not a problem.

2) of course I did a very quick job but I find that scissors don't work too well on that one (or you'll have to be very patient).

Since the cutout is really making a complicated selection, have a look at this, this can avoid you a lot of grief: http://gimpforums.com/thread-efficient-a...selections

[miamisunray]

Hey...

I actually got a fantastic result just from the scissor tool... all white background... great-looking crop. The perspective did not seem that bad to me.... maybe not being critical enough (did I send you the one with the 2 terrier dogs???--that is the image to which I am referring)... I say "on to the next one!!!!!

I read your link but a lot of that went over my head. I will re-read it later to see if I can get my head around it. I usually end up using very complicated programs (see Logic pro $1,000 a couple of years ago, as an example) and use less that 5% of it's capability with great results. That is why I am so happy to have found GIMP and this great community of support!! As some of my work in the near future will be magazines and gatherings, I think this 'art shoot' will end up being one of the more complicated ones, at least as far as post-production goes.
I have a total of 5 art pieces for this book and I will try to do the other 4 by Sunday evening when I will present them all on Cd to the client. They are so nice and patient and I am under no pressure.... but I think this one will all work out. Plus I'll get publishing credit on the 5 shots... Not bad for a first gig (plus they are wealthy so I bet I'll get a little 'bone' thrown my way..)

Thanks for the help and I'll write back if I run into any 'snags'


Ray
Miami Beach