GIMP Paint Studio Collection
By mjhammel ~ February 3rd, 2009. Filed under: Brushes, Commentary, Community Contributions, GIMP Announcements, Palettes, Presets.
Ramón Miranda has released GIMP Paint Studio (GPS), a highly polished collection of brushes and palettes along with configuration files that will change the way you use the GIMP. The collection includes nearly 100 new brushes and 15 palettes. The brushes include a large number of high quality animated brushes which, for the first time, show the real power of this type of brush.
Also included in this collection are new sessionrc and toolrc files which, when used with the collection of tool-option presets, will change the default configuration of your GIMP session. The new configurations make navigating GIMP easier while showing the power of our favorite editor. Topping off this release is an extremely useful PDF document explaining the details and how to make the most out of the new brushes and palettes.
There are some minor downsides to this collection. First, the PDF document is in Spanish and there are currently no translations available. However this is a minor issue and doesn’t affect actual use of GPS. If the source to the document is released I suspect that the translations will follow in short order.
More importantly the updated configuration files will present a layout that will not fit on most desktops smaller than 1280×1024. While the width of the windows fit on my 1280×800 laptop, the height of the windows did not and I was unable to get the window manager controls to resize the dock windows. This, too, should not be a huge problem as you can drag the docks off from those windows and rearrange them to fit your needs, or simply don’t install the sessionrc or the toolrc.
Finally, the documentation refers to a number of brushes which I suspect are to be used with specific tools. However, the brush names in the document do not match the brush names in the Brush dialog nor do they match the names of the brush files.
No license file accompanied the release though if my spanish is good enough it appears the page does refer to free software.
The collection is packaged in the 7z format, a zip like format available on Windows but which is not commonly used on Linux or Unix systems. Fortunately a Linux port of an unpacking tool is available. On Fedora systems look for the p7zip package and install with yum. If you can’t find the package for your Linux distribution you can try grabbing the source code from its sourceforge page. To unpack the package use the following command:
7za x gps_v1.0.7z
One of the features you won’t notice without deciphering the documentation is that most of the Tools now have a number of tool option presets. To use these, click on the “Reset options from…” button at the bottom of the Tool Options dialog and select one of the new presets installed with GPS. The presets for the Smudge tool are particularly interesting.
GPS adds additional presets to most Tool Options.
Examples of Ramón’s work with GPS can be found on his blog.
Update: 2009-03-07
I was browsing Ramon Miranda’s blog and found that someone has translated the PDF documentation into English. The package is the complete GPS including all the original files (sans PDF) and the translation is in HTML. It uses the images from the original PDF so they don’t display well, though this could probably be fixed up a little with some CSS. Anyway, You can at least get some idea of what the PDF is saying now.
It shouldn’t be hard to convert the PDF to english now, using the same format as the original. I may try this if I can find a night to do all the cut/paste work.
Update: 2009-03-08
I’ve rewritten the english translation that was in HTML format into both OpenOffice and PDF formats using the same basic layout as Ramon’s original PDF documentation. I’ve also cleaned up the grammer and made the document (IMHO) a bit easier to read. I also added a small section on using the palettes, a title page and a table of contents. Hopefully this will help those english readers who would like to understand how to use this very well done improvement to GIMP.
Update: 2009-03-10
I’ve noticed that I missed cleaning up the grammer in the sections describing each preset. I’llupdate those after I finish my (currently due) column for Linux Format later this week.
Update: 2009-06-08
Ramon pointed out I’ve been calling this by the wrong name: it’s GIMP Paint Studio, not GIMP Paint Shop. Mea culpa.
In the 3-8-2009 update, the OpenOffice and PDF links point to the same odt file.
Thanks for doing this.
Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve fixed the links.
I still have to update the sections describing each tool preset example. The translation there is not very good. I’ll get to it eventually.
Hope you find it useful.
Hi Michael.
I have to say a big thanks to make the english version of the manual. I notice this:
quote:
“I’ve also cleaned up the grammer and made the document (IMHO) a bit easier to read. I also added a small section on using the palettes, a title page and a table of contents. Hopefully this will help those english readers who would like to understand how to use this very well done improvement to GIMP.”
Sure you did a good contribution with your ideas. i like a lot the reorder, much cleaner than mine. and the table of contents is simply very good idea.
This makes Gimp paint studio more versatile. Thanks a Lot.
Only a detail, it is Gimp Paint Studio ,not Shop
minor but important to me.
You’re quite welcome. I use GPS at home for all my graphics design work now (especially now that I have large, dual monitors). You did an absolutely terrific job at exposing seldom discussed but important features of GIMP.
If I can speak for the community at large: a very hearty thank you for creating GPS!
Oops! That’s an important correction – most especially because I wrote an article about GPS for Linux Format magazine (published in the UK) and called it GIMP Paint Shop! Agggh!!! I messed up big time.
I’ll post a correction in my column for that magazine in my next article. Serves me right for not contacting you about the article. Dopey me. I’ll get around to correcting here on the web site as soon as I can, including in the documentation (if its incorrect in there too).
ok one more thing Michael,
The development of GPS is still running so now is the 1.2 version and this is important becouse i have made a BIG change, new brushes, re order the all brushes ,(thanks to you)changing their names and following the follow Mnemonics code appearing in the brushes folder.i quit some brushes and add others. i still refining that
.MNEMONICS CODE
PARAMETRIC
A = Airbrush
B = Brush
C = Circular Brush
F = Fast
K= Knife
S = Smudge, Star
GBR AND GIH BRUSHES
A = Angular
C = Cloud
D = Dust
F = Fur
G = Glow
L = Nature
M = Mecha (mechanical stuff )
N = Nature
O = Oils
P = Pencils
R = Rake
S = Splats
Sc = Scratches
T = Texture, fibers
Te = Techno
U = Circle shapes
V = Vyle´s
Z = Various, Pixel, Text, Triangular.
letter followed the name of brush.
I hope you studied the newest version. You teaches very well. and i hope you enjoyed GPS in your dual monitors. fun eh?
and thank you for your compliments. i am happy to help the community.
i am also waiting you revise the grammar of the tools presets pages. please let me know when this was finished.
best regards
I don’t think I’ve looked at the new version yet. I’ll put it on my todo list, though.
Hmm. I’d forgotten about that. I’ll put it on my todo list too, though it may not be available for awhile. I’m finishing up some big projects at both home and work right now. But I’ll do my best.
Thanks for your contribution.