GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is an Adobe Photoshop-like free image editing program. It is not quite as user-friendly as Photoshop, but, well, you get what you pay for, I suppose. I have not done a whole lot with it because Picnik has always suited my very simple photo-editing needs. Now that Picnik is on its way out, I will be working more with GIMP to edit photos for this blog.
I do, however, use GIMP for editing screenshots. It has an easy to use cropping tool. I used it extensively for my post, "Osama is dead, now what?"
1 - Take a screen shot of your computer screen (this works for screenshots from my iPhone, also) and paste it into the open GIMP application.
2 - Select the "crop tool" from the GIMP toolbox.
3 - Select the area you would like to crop. This tool maintains straight edges; you merely drag the selection box to cover the area you want to crop.
4 - Hit "enter." Then, under "layer" in the GIMP editing bar, select "Anchor Image" (Ctrl +H), and then save the image. You can choose what folder to save it under and various file formats.
That's it.
I have actually found it to be easier to edit screenshots with GIMP than with other software that came with my computer. These tips also work for editing screens shots from Facebook and other web pages.
Do you use GIMP or any other free tools for image editing? What is your favorite? Any tips for the novice image editor?
