Make your own wallpaper - a quick Gimp walkthrough

Make your own wallpaper - a quick Gimp walkthrough

First of all: Install Gimp. If you run Linux it should be in your repositories. For Fedora just do a 'yum install gimp'. For windows, get it from http://gimp.org

Start Gimp, and in the 'Windows' menu select 'Single-window mode'. This is usually easier to understand for beginners than the default mode.

'File' -> 'New...' and set the image size to match your monitor resolution. For me it's 1920x1200.

Now remember that if you make any mistake, hit Ctrl-Z to backstep until you  are back to where things went wrong. Then try again.

You now have a 'layer' called 'Background', and the color used to draw is set to black by default. Press the 'Bucket fill' icon at the left edge of your drawing and then click in the background. Great. Now you have a completely black wallpaper.

Next press the 'Text tool' icon (the letter), and then click on the black square at the bottom of the left hand icons and switch to a new foreground color. Click anywhere in your wallpaper and type something. Your text will be created in a new layer on top of the background. As you can see, it's way to small, so select your entire text, and then adjust font size and/or other attributes.

Switch to the 'Move tool' and let's place your text correctly. It's not enough to just click within the text you want to move, you have to actually hit one of the letters or you will move the background instead. Remember that ctrl-Z is the easiest way to redo a mistake.

We could be done here, but let's spice it up. Right click the text layer in the layer list at the upper right. Select "Layer to image size". Without this step some of the filters will resize your image to just the border around the text. Then try 'Filters' -> 'Alpha to logo' -> 'Alien glow'.

Now you have 2 new layers. You can turn layers on and off by clicking on the eyes to the left in the layer list. When you have the result you want, save using 'File' -> 'Save as' first. This saves a version in the gimp xcf format. This is the format you want if you want to re-edit, as it saves all those nice layers. Then 'File' -> 'Export...' and save in a format you can use as a wallpaper. .jpg or .png should do nicely. Exit Gimp, and select your new wallpaper the way you normally do on your OS. Enjoy your digital creation. Then go back to gimp and play around. Perhaps get the Gimp Paint Studio extension that brings more brushes and stuff for the artist in you.