HowToColorYourOwn.html

Best GIMP Digital Scrapbooking Tutorials

GIMP Tutorial: How to color your own elements using color and patterns

What is "color your own"?

"Color your own" is a process by which you color a black and white digital scrapbook element, using a color of your choice. "Color your own" elements have image characteristics that allow them to be color. One of the greatest advantages of "Color your own" elements is that they can be change an endless number of times to match any color, allowing them to match any kit or layout. This tutorial will teach how to color your own elements using The GIMP. To color your own elements, we will use these digital scrapbooking techniques:

"Alpha to selection" to select our the shape of our bow.
"Layers Mode" to adjus the color on the bow.
"Merge Visible Layers" to merge the color and the bow layers.

In this tutorial, we will start with this bow:

We will add color and it will look like this:

We will then add a pattern and it will look like this:

Let's begin!

Step 1: Open the "Color your own" bow

File->Open->color_your_own_bow.png

Step 2: Make sure your Layers Dialog window is open

The layers dialog window is a very important tool for digital scrapbooking. It allows you to see how all of the digital scrapbook elements are place in relationship to each other in your digital layout.

The GIMP opens the layers dialog upon starting the program, but if you close it, The GIMP does not re-open it again, unless you tell it to.
The layers dialog window can only be open from an image window. In our example, we are going to use the window "color_your_own_bow.png".

To open the layers dialog window perform these steps:

On our Main Window [The one with the bow] -> Click on the "Dialogs" Menu -> Create New Dock -> Layers, Channels & Path

** Please note: This window can display three diffrerent dialogs: The Layers, The channels and The Paths. To view the Layers tab, click on the layers icon

[This is color in red in our "Layers Dialog Window" image below].

This is Layers Dialog Window

Step 3: Add Color to your bow

In this step, we will be coloring our bow. Coloring our bow will consists on

Creating a a new layer to add our own color
Tracing our bow shape to color only the shape of our bow ( instead of coloring the entire layer )
Selecting our color using the Color Tool
Painting our bow using the Paint Tool.
Using the Layers Mode to blend our color with the bow

Creating a new layer to add our own color:
Adding the color to a new layer give us the flexibility to play with the blending color modes. In the later steps, you will see how fun this is.

On the Layers Dialog Window click on the "New Layer" button

[This is the first button on the bottom of the Layers Dialog]

Once you click on the "New Layer" button , the "New Layer popup window" opens. On the "New Layers" popup window, select the defaults values. These values will change depending on the size of the first window that was open using The GIMP.

On the "New Layer Pop Up window", Click OK.

Note: If you do not see this winow, move your GIMP windows around. Sometimes The GIMP Popup windows hide in the back of The GIMP Tools and Image windows.

This is the New Layer Pop Up window:

Tracing our bow shape to color only the shape of our bow ( instead of coloring the entire layer )

In order to color just the area of our bow and not the entire layer, we will first "trace" our bow. To trace our bow, we will use the "Alpha to selection" tool. This tool is very useful when you want to select the shape of your digital scrapbook elements, as you will see in this tutorial.

To trace the shape of your bow:

On the Layers Dialog Window -> Click on the "Bow_color_your_own" layer.
On the Layers Dialog Window -> Right-Click on your mouse and select "Alpha to Selection"

Your bow should now look like this:

Selecting our color using the Color Tool and Painting our bow using the Paint Tool :
While your bow is still trace, we will pick our favorite color and paint our bow. To pick your color, use the Color Tool

and to paint your bow, use the Paint Tool. For this tutorial, I picked the color the red.

To paint your new bow:

On the GIMP Tools Dialog, Click on the "Color Tool" and select a color. I selected color #680505
On the Layers Dialog, Click on the "New Layer"

On The GIMP Tools Dialog, Click on the "Paint Tool"

Your GIMP Windows should look like this:

Make sure you have two layers on your Layers Dialog: The "Bow_color_your_own" and the "New Layer". Also, make sure your bow is color like in this picture.

Using the Layers Mode to blend our color with the bow

Notice how the color of our bow looks unreal. To add realism to our bow, we will use the Layers blending mode.

On the Layers Dialog Window-> Click on the layer with the name "New Layers"

On the Layers Dialog Window-> Click on the layer Mode, Select "Color"

Your bow should now look like this:

Step 4: Time to add a pattern to our bow

Adding a pattern to our bow is very similar to adding the color. We need to create a new layer for a pattern, we need to trace the bow using the "Alpha to Selection" tool, We use the Layers Mode Tool, etc, etc, The only difference is that instead of picking a color from our Color Tool, we pick a pattern from our Paint Tools Options.

Most of this steps will sound like a repeat for you, but they might also be a good practice, so I will repeat them here.

Creating a new layer to add our own pattern:
Adding the pattern to a new layer give us the flexibility to play with the blending layer modes. In the later steps, you will see how fun this is.

On the Layers Dialog Window click on the "New Layer" button

[This is the first button on the bottom of the Layers Dialog]

On the "New Layer Pop Up window", Click OK.

Note: If you do not see this winow, move your GIMP windows around. Sometimes The GIMP Popup windows hide in the back of The GIMP Tools and Image windows.

This is the New Layer Pop Up window:

Tracing our bow shape to add the pattern only to the shape of our bow ( instead of adding the pattern to the entire layer )

In order to add a pattern to just the area of our bow and not the entire layer, we will first "trace" our bow. To trace our bow, we will use the "Alpha to selection" tool. This tool is very useful when you want to select the shape of your digital scrapbook elements, as you will see in this tutorial.

To trace the shape of your bow:

On the Layers Dialog Window -> Click on the "Bow_color_your_own" layer.
On the Layers Dialog Window -> Right-Click on your mouse and select "Alpha to Selection"

Your bow should now look like this:

Selecting our pattern using the Paint Tools Options:
While your bow is still trace, we will pick a pattern from our Paint Tools Options. To select a pattern, We will use the

Paint Tool and the "Fill Type" options.

To add a pattern to your new bow:

On the Layers Dialog, Click on the "New Layer"
On The GIMP Tools Dialog, Click on the "Paint Tool"
On The GIMP Tools Dialog, Click on the "Pattern Filled" radio button.

Using the Layers Mode to blend our pattern with the bow

Notice how the pattern of our bow looks unreal. To add realism to our bow, we will use the Layers blending mode.

On the Layers Dialog Window-> Click on the layer with the name "New Layer#1"

On the Layers Dialog Window-> Click on the layer Mode, Select "Value"

On the Layers Dialog Window-> Change the Opacity to "36.4"

Your GIMP Windows should look like this:

Make sure you have thee layers on your Layers Dialog: The "Bow_color_your_own", the "New Layer" and the "New Layer#1". Also, make sure your bow is color like in this picture.

Your bow should now look like this:

Step 5: Merge layers

Our bow now has color and pattern!! We will now finalize our work by merging the three layers so that we can save our bow as a png file.

On the Layers Dialog Window-> Click on the "Bow_color_your_own" layer.

On the Layers Dialog Window-> Right Click on your mouse and select "Merge Visible Layers"

On the "Merge Layers" Popup window select "Clipped to bottom Layer".

Note: If you do not see this winow, move your GIMP windows around. Sometimes The GIMP Popup windows hide in the back of The GIMP Tools and Image windows.

Step 6: Time to save our bow!

We are done! Its time to save our hard work.

On the Main Window [The one with the bow] -> Click File -> Save As

Enter your new bow's name. Make sure that you change the name and do not save over your "color your own" original image. In this example, I rename my file "color_your_own_bow_red.png"

In the "Save as PNG" Popup window, make these selections:

Note: If you do not see this winow, move your GIMP windows around. Sometimes The GIMP Popup windows hide in the back of The GIMP Tools and Image windows.

Congratulations!!
You completed the "Color Your Own Elements Tutorial Using Color and Patterns"
You can now recolor any "Color your Own" elements. The technique is the same, what changes is the element!

We want to see your first "Color your own Element" ! Post it in our GIMP Tutorials Homework Gallery:

GIMP Tutorials Homework Gallery

Have questions ? Got lost in the process? Would like to thanks us? We love to hear from you! Post your comments in our GIMP Tutorials Forum:

GIMP Tutorial Forum

Thanks!

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