Re: New to Gimp, Cut/Clone question

["glengarrymac" <glengarrymac@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- In gimpi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "willbritt2001" <willbritt2001@...> wrote:
>
> 
>   Hello everyone, this is Bill. I am just an average home WinXP PC user,
> I've never done anything with photos outside of Microsoft Paint. I have
> been hunting for a simple program to do more with home family photos and
> found the Gimp website but have not downloaded it yet.
> 
> What I am trying to do, to see if Gimp can do, is cut out unwanted parts
> of photos then blend in the background. I have studied some pages at
> http://docs.gimp.org/en/ <http://docs.gimp.org/en/>  , specifically 1.5.
> Removing Unwanted Objects from an Image 
>
<http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-imaging-photos.html#gimp-using-photography\
> -retouching>  , Lasso and Magic Wand tools, but I am not yet clear on
> selecting the borders of the cutout. Can Magic Wand automatically select
> an area of contrast to remove? I think I can figure out filling in the
> background afterwards.
> 
> I will now try to upload an example section of a photo called
> 'beaveredit' and ask, for instance, can the 'hand' be removed?
> 
> I have also been looking at the Adobe Photoshop Elements but that is
> such a HUGE program and too expensive for what little editing I want to
> do.
> 
> Thanks
I think you are asking how the select tools work. Briefly, Magic wand
and its fellow the "select by color tool" will draw a "fence" around a
certain area(s) of the picture. Say you have a reddish area you want
to remove. Click the magic wand in that area. MW draws a "fence around
all the pixels of of similar color to the one you clicked on, which
are contiguous ie. touching each other. Select by color, on the other
hand draws fences around all segments of the picture having color
similar to the pixel chosen. Then you can conduct operations on and
only on the specifically chosen area(s). For example you have a jpg of
a map of North America. The USA is in red Canada is blue and Mexico is
yellow. If you just want to change the color of the "lower 48" you
would use the magic wand to select that portion of the map. However if
you wanted to include Alaska in the selection you would use the color
select tool.
You might also consider playing with the program to see if it is
suitable. It is a free download, unless you have bandwidth issues.