I am a complete idiot when it comes to using all this tech stuff. I can't even understand what I'm reading in the help offered by the softwear company. Can anyone help me with something I want to create for my husband for Father's Day? I want to take a picture of my husband - place his picture toward the upper left of the page - then fade it into a picture of my son - in the lower right of the page. Here I was thinking it would be simple - ha. I was lucky to even get a picture into the softwear program. Thank you for any help at all.

not sure how gimp works, many way to do it in photoshop.
a clear vignet on each pic would be the best way to go, easy way to do it would be with the erasor tool, set the opasity to 10% if you have 2 photos on the stage you should have 2 layers, sellect the top layer and start erasing the bit you want to merge, i'm sure gimp can do that much,
if you are desperate send me a PM or email with the photos i'll do it for you, that's the kinda guy i am

Splodge: I can't tell you how very nice it is to hear your extremely kind offer. I do not have Photoshop - I think I'm the only one. I really want to try and find a way to do this, so I can do it for other members of my family. I want to do one of my Father-In-Law and Husband that will say. "Thank you for helping me become the man I am today." I'm sure that somehow I will figure out a way to do. I'm so grateful for your offer. Honestly, it made my day just to know that someone out there would take the time for another person they don't even know. Thanks again.

no problem jkm, it's what i do all day and i wanted an excuse to download and run gimp, i always knew it existed but never i've used it,


here's me and my boy, i'm the old biker
took 30 min's in gimp because i dont know the tool set-up but it is possable, would of taken me 1 min' in photoshop,
used the 'selection' and 'eraser' tool to cut out the circle of me, just used the 'eraser' tool to cut out my son

GIMP is awesome, and its almost as good as Photoshop for any basic stuff... like this... and, its freeware, unless you buy it on disc, which is silly unless they add extras.

It sounds like you would want to use layer masks, although those are rough to teach without being right there.

If you get the pictures to me, I'd be happy to try what you wanted, but my computer might have some trouble if they're really large images... but still... I don't know if you want someone else to do it. (If you want to see what I've done with the GIMP, click on the link in my signature, and browse my pieces. I've got some pictures in there.)

Tell me if you want me to try and explain how to do it. I'd be more than happy to try. I use the GIMP for almost all I make, unless I'm at my school, where they've got Photoshop, which is all fancy.

Vaerli:
Thank you so much for your reply as well. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to respond. It seems there are always several things going on at once for me. My son is graduating from Kindergarten on Tuesday and I'm trying to make keepsake boxes for the twenty-eight kids and two teachers. He has a playmate that we've known since he was five monthes old that is moving and her going away party is tomorrow. I have been trying really hard to just get two pictures to merge. I'm not even tech savy enough to do that. These are the photo editing programs I have - I know it seems like a lot, but I use all of them but the last three: Kodak (great for making coloring pages); HP Photo Imaging; Picture Project; ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5 and 5.5; ArcSoft PhotoBase 3 (I left this on my computer because it was there); ArcSoft Panorama Maker 3; Gimp 2; IrfranView 4.10 . I downloaded the last two to try and make this Father's Day gift. I want to take a photo of my husband's face (from the side view) - put his picture in the upper left of the page; then in the lower right of the page - a photo of my son's face (from the side view). I want to blurr the middle so it looks like they are bleeding into each other. My son is a little carbon copy of his Dad. I can't even get two pictures on the same page to edit. I can't get one picture to show the different layers. I honestly feel like a moron. I have wasted many hours just to end up where I started - well with higher blood pressure too. It seems like it should just be a few steps, but I don't know what they are. I would like to do this for other members of my family as well. Is there just a basic few steps to follow? I need to get the pictures on the same page in proper position then blurr the middle. Any help at all would be very much apprecated. Sorry this is so long. Thank you for your help. I wish I could express just how grateful I am for any help at all. We live in a big city, but are from a small town. Even though we've been here eleven years, it's hard to not be shocked by the "all for me" mentality. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to repay the favor. Thank you.

[color="#FF8C00"][/color][font="Impact"][/font][size="4"][/size]Just wanted to say thank you again to Splodge and Vaerli for offering to help. Thank you both.

nah, I'm happy to help... half the time I'm on my computer and have nothing better to do.




Here begins my tutorial on blending your images :D


Okay, so open one of the images... hopefully they were taken by the same camera, so you don't have to mess with image sizes and stuff like that.

So, after you've opened the first image, then go to File->open as layer

The second image you wanted should appear over the first image, and if they're the same size, you shouldn't be able to see the first image you opened.

Now, open a layers palette. This can be done by clicking on the tool box window, and then going to File-> Dialogs -> Layers

Now, a layers palette will pop up. Arrange and resize the windows to your liking, hopefully so that nothing covers up anything else.

Okay, now that the windows are taken care of, look at the layers palette. It should have two layers in it, one with the picture that you opened at first, underneath the picture that you used "open as layer" with. Now, if they are perfectly on top of each other, then you could just erase one so it shows the one underneath, but I'm going to try and walk you through something a bit harder, but definitely more worth it.

So, click on the top layer in the layers palette. Right click on it, and find an option that says "Add layer mask"

Click add

Okay, now there should be a white area next to layer on top. Click on that white area.

Now you can use the black paintbrush to take away parts of the top picture. If you paint with white, then it will show that part of the top picture again. To change colors, double click on the rectangles in the toolbox palette, and then choose a color, and select OK.

While you might not think its that helpful to have a layer mask, it is, just because you can bring back areas, and you can use gradients... :D

Now, this is what is awesome about layer masks. If you want something to blend smoothly together, you take a gradient, and make it fade the color. In this, we'll use the foreground to clear gradient.

So, click on the blend tool, which should be in between the paint bucket and pencil tool.

Now, in the tool options, click in the picture area that says gradient. It should come up with a menu. Scroll down and select the one that has "FG to Transparent"

Make sure you're on the upper layer, and have the layer mask selected, and then click and drag the pointer just a small area across the image window. It should make it fade into the below image...

Of course, your first thing wasn't probably how you wanted it, so undo that, by using Edit-> Undo. Now, get the hang of how the tool works, and when you like it, save it.

Thats all of what I've got for now with the actual image editing, but I also want to add something about saving...

When you're saving with the GIMP, its native saving format is a .xcf extension. I reccommend saving whatever you make first as that. Just when you first save, it will let you name it, and on the end, just add the .xcf. Now, then when you want to show it to other people, and use it, you'll probably want to use a .jpg file extension. You'll then need to go to File-> save as. In that window, make sure after the name, it has .jpg after it. When it prompts for saving options, just leave the quality around 85, and it should be fine. Just don't delete your .xcf file unless you have to...


If you've got any questions, let me know. If you want to email me, ask me... or it might be in my profile..