Finally we have upgraded our forum software with a new professional skin for the forum and portal page. We kept the default phpBB skin for a couple of days while we were working on this new skin called GimpTalkPro skin. It has finally been applied to the forum. We tried to keep the same look and feel of the site as it was earlier since most of the people were used to that skin and also requesting to have something similar, so finally it all here. Below are some of the new features you will be able to see (other than standard features of phpBB).

Portal Page Improvement
I tried to keep the portal page as simple as possible and keep it easy to navigate for our users, and I think I have succeeded to some extent. Now users can see the latest announcement along with the most recently posted "Official Tutorial" on the portal page.

Official Tutorials Section
Well, this section is still under development, however it may take more 1-2 days to be completed, this will also allow users to browse clean tutorials, most commented, most viewed tutorials along with the ability to see tutorials from "user's contribution" section.

Gimp Art Galleries
It was the most requested features, so we have added it to the forum. Now, you can upload your Art Work in the specific gallery in the Gallery section, and also keep you own album at the same time.

Thank You Modification
A post "thank you" has been added to the forum, where one can THANK any user for their good posts rather than writing a simple "thank you" post, I think it is a good addition and with the help of this mod we will have less 1 word posts.

Top Poster on the Index Page
We have added top posters of the day on the index page, we are still making changes into this module, however it will be a good and encouraging module for our users.

Finally you can tell us how you feel about this new skin and changes and post here
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=31081

Hey guys, this is GimpKH, or GimpKnowHow.
You can see the video version of this tutorial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55xC99zEilo
OK, lets start. This is my first text based tutorial, so be kind in the comments, please. Some credit goes to Xgeous on youtube for some of the icy text technique.



1. Create a new image. Lets make one 400 x 100.




2. Fill in your image with the pattern fill -Pink Marble. Do this by selecting the fill tool, then select pattern, then select pink marble. This is what it should look like:



3.Ok, now that you have your marble done, it is time to use the dodge/burn tool. Select Burn as the mode, then click rapidly and drag the burn. Each time you press and drag the burn tool on the image, it will darken it only 1 "level". To keep on darkening it, you need to keep on clicking the mouse and dragging. Focus around the cracks in the marble, they should turn a reddish brown. Don't burn father than about this point:

As you can see, this gives the marble a nice 3d effect, and it doesn't look so textured.



4. Desaturate the marble. Just click on the colors drop down menu, then click desaturate.
Select Lightness as your desaturation method.




5.Now, lets change the marble's color from gray to a nice blue.
Click on colors -> color balance. Use these settings for midtones:

and these settings for shadows:


Leave highlights alone.

When you are done, your image should look something like this:


6. Now on the overhead bar, click filters -> animation -> waves.
Use these settings:




7. Now your picture should have 20 layers and look wavy. You can see what your water will look like at this point by going filters -> animation -> playback. Go ahead and create a new layer, move it to the top.



8. Now, on the new layer type the text you want on the top layer. I used the font Sans Bold.
Heres mine:



9.Right click on the thumbnail of your text layer and click alpha to selection. Now lets render up some plasma.
(NOTE: In the picture, it is a solid body of plasma, really, it should be plasma in the form of your text. I just took the picture to show you the values.)
Use close to these values, it doesn't have to be precise, but the plasma looks better around this turbulence.




10. Desaturate your text layer with the plasma on it. This will turn it gray.




11. Now we need to rotate the text 90 degrees. Click on the rotate tool in your main GIMP tool panel and click on the image. Enter 90 degrees.



12. Render up some wind. On the top navigation bar, click filters -> distorts -> wind. Once again, here are the settings I used.




13. Now rotate it back -90 degrees. This is what it should look like:




14.Now use the color balance that we did in step 5 on the text/ gray plasma layer.



15. Alpha to selection the wind. Click on select ->grow in the upper navigation bar. Make it grow 1 px. Go back to the layer under the text layer. Fill the selection in with black. We should now be able to see the text clearly.



16. Now use the rotate tool again. Manually rotate the text so that it is a little crooked. You don't have to do this step if you don't want to.


17. Here comes the tricky part. Duplicate the text layer and move each text layer in between a water layer. (Make the text the top layer, then go water, text,water,text,water,text.) You get the idea.




18.Now merge all the text layers down. NOT THE WATER LAYERS!!!!!!!! Merge the text layers into the water layers. When you are done, you should end up with 20 layers again.



19. Thats it! Go filters -> animation -> playback again. The water should move, but the text shouldn't.

20. Now save it as a .gif! Thats it! You are officially done.



Thanks for reading this tutorial.


This is GimpKnowHow saying:
Long Live the Gimp!