It is very common to find fantastic Photoshop tutorials, just look at PSDTuts. However, finding high quality tutorials for the Gimp is much harder. In this collection I am going to show you 22 of the best Gimp tutorials I have come across. If you know of more then please do add them as comments.

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Icons and Buttons

Web 2.0 badge

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Paper Fold Icon

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RSS Feed Icon

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Create an iMac Vector Image

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Sleek Website Button

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Userbar Tutorial

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Signature

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Effects

Mac Wallpaper

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Sunburst Effect

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Glow Effect

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Old Photo Effect

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Contaminated Effect

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MSNBC Effect

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Windshocked Text Effect

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Jump out of the photo effect

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Polaroid Effect

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Web Layouts

Design and code a website in The Gimp, XHTML and CSS

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Design a website in the Gimp

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Design a blog theme

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Design and Code a website

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Web Graphics

Professional Web Header

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Navigation Menu

Hi, I was looking around the internet today for some funny Gimp images and found this collection of pics, I hope you like them:

Credit: http://gimpart.info/

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Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/photocomix-mandala/1275668175/

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Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pifiania/2423872013/

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Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spyndle/366904135/

SGlider12 has released a new tutorial on her blog showing how to create a vector image of a car like this:

You can view the tutorial here: http://sglider12.blogspot.com/2008/06/car-vector-tutorial.html

Gimper over at Gimp-Tutorials.net has released a new tutorial. In this tutorial he creates an engraved text effect in just 5 easy steps. A quick and easy tutorial worthy of a look. The outcome looks something like this:

Welcome to the countdown of my personal favourite Gimp sites, these include tutorial sites, blogs, forums and download sites. For those of you who don’t know what Gimp is, it is a graphic creation/manipulation program with similar features to Photoshop, however it is free, fast and open source, oh and works on Linux so I can use it.

Feel free to add any others in the comments below if you know of any, I am always looking for new sites as Gimp has so much to offer.

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howtogimp | http://howtogimp.com

The sister site to Help Developer, howtogimp pulls everything out of Help Developer to do with Gimp, so that Gimp users that aren’t interested in any of the other stuff I write about have a place of their own. I also pull together tutorials, downloads and news from all over the internet to the site.

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Gimp Tutorials.net | http://gimp-tutorials.net

Gimp Tutorials.net has long being one of my favourite Gimp sites, the tutorials are of a great quality and have that personal edge by the writer. You can also downloads brushes, gradients and lots of other great stuff right off of the site and it has a form, see next one in the list for info on that.

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Gimper.net | http://gimper.net

Gimper.net is a Gimp forum that has one of the best communities I have seen, as a member of a lot of forums myself, I have always being given a warm welcome on Gimper and everybody is really appreciative of peoples work that they showcase. It’s a great little community and if you ever have any problems with the Gimp or just want to chat with like minded people then get yourself over there.

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GimpTalk Forums | http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/

Gimp Forums are a great place to find answers to any problems you may be having and it is often the first place you find tutorials or downloads. Gimp Talk is a great forum, although personally I don’t think the community aspect is any where near as good as Gimper.net. However, it is definately worthy of a place in the list, a great forum so check it out if you haven’t already done so.

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Gimpology | http://gimpology.com

Whenever I write a new Gimp tutorial I always submit it to Gimpology first as it is so easy to add and it is up instantly (God help them when the spammers move in). Gimpology is a tutorial directory for the Gimp and a great place to find out how to do some really cool things.

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Gimp-Tutorials.com | http://gimp-tutorials.com

Similarly to Gimpology, Gimp-Tutorials.com is a Gimp tutorial directory, however it also has the latest Gimp news. These kind of sites are a great place to find out new things about Gimp and this site is one of the best.

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Pixel2Life | http://www.pixel2life.com/tutorials/gimp/

A great selection of the best Gimp tutorials around. I don’t use it as much as the other Gimp sites because there is no sense of a community on Pixel2Life because of the vast areas that it covers.

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Gimp Official Tutorials | http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

If you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced user in the Gimp (so that’s everyone covered) I truly recommend that you take a look at the official Gimp site, in the tutorials section. The tutorials are professionally written and easy to follow although they are purely there for an introduction to the tools, to get the most out of the tools, I suggest you look at the other sites.

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So there you have it, the top 8 Gimp sites, as I said at the top, if you know of any others then please add them, Gimp sites are hard to find, this was going to be a top 10 list but I was struggling to find 8.

This tutorial is from howtogimp brother, Help Developer

In this tutorial I will show you how to design a web 2.0 badge in the Gimp. These type of badges have made their place in the web 2.0 design as a great graphic to have on your website for all sorts of options such as subscribing to an RSS feed. Some techniques in this tutorial are based on the Photoshop tutorial written by Photoshop star which can be found here.

The outcome will look like this:

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Step 1

Firstly, create a new canvas and make it a good size, I will be using the dimensions 300px x 200px. Fill it with a colour of your choice, I am going to use 661818 for this tutorial.

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Step 2

Create a new layer and use the Select Ellipse tool to draw a circle on the canvas with a width and height of 125px:

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Step 3

Now fill it with an orange colour, I am opting for f05528:

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Step 4

Next select the Paths tool and click and drag to select the bottom right of the circle like this:

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Step 5

Now go to the Edit menu and select Cut and create a new layer. On this new layer select Paste from the Edit menu and fill the selected area with white, then click off the selected area. Now use the Rotate tool and the move tool to rotate the selected area around and position it like it is below:

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Step 6

Now duplicate the circle layer, select the layer contents (Ctrl and A), cut the content (Ctrl and X) and then paste it back in again (Ctrl + V), this will make it selected. Select the Blend Tool and in the Tool Options change the Gradient option to FG to Transparent and change the forecolour to white (FFFFFF). Now click and drag from the bottom right to the top left to create this:

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Step 7

Now change the opacity of the layer to 30.0 which will create this:

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Step 8

Duplicate the folded area layer and select all the contents, cut the contents and then paste it back in to make the area selected. Now select the Blend tool and change the forecolour to black (000000), make sure that the gradient is set as FG to Transparent and click and drag from the right to the left of the selected area so that it looks like this:

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Step 9

Change the opacity of the layer to 30.0. Select the folded area layer (not the one with the gradient) and select the Filters menu -> Light and Shadow -> Drop Shadow and change the options on the window that appears to this:

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Step 10

Finally, repeat the last step for the circle layer and add the image/text to the badge using the Open As Layers option on the File menu.

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Result

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Download

OK, I think that it is time for another RSS feed icon tutorial over on Help Developer. This time we are going to create this:

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Step 1

Create a new canvas sized 420px width and 300px height. And fill it with the colour 6f1919 so that you can clearly see the reflections and other effects, you can change this at the end to the appropriate colour for your website.

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Step 2

Download the image below and use the Open As Layers option on the File menu to add it to the canvas:

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Step 3

Duplicate the new layer and click the canvas to make the window active. Then press Ctrl and A then Ctrl and X and finally Ctrl and V. This should Add a selection area around the curves of the image. Now use the select ellipse tool to draw an oval shape like this onto the canvas:

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Step 4

Fill it with white and change the opacity of the layer to 15.0, it should now look like this:

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Step 5

Now select the first (from the bottom) RSS icon layer and click Duplicate. Go to the main Gimp window and select the option to Flip and change the Flip properties to Verticle, then click the layer on the canvas which should flip it upside down like this:

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Step 6

Change to the select tool and use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the layer down till it looks like this:

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Step 7

Select the Gradient tool and in the Gradient options change the Gradient to FG to Transparent and click and drag from half way down the layer to the top to create this effect:

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Step 8

Go to the Colours menu and choose the Colour to Alpha option. Click the big white button and change the HTML notation to 6f1919. And click OK until you get back to the canvas. Change the opacity of the layer to 20.0

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Step 9

Create a new layer above the background layer and choose the Select Ellipse tool and draw an oval like this:

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Step 10

Fill the oval with white. Select the Filters menu and choose Blur and then Gaussian Blur, change the blur radius options to 10.0 horizontal and vertical and click OK and then change the opacity of the layer to 20.0 so that it looks like this:

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Step 11

Finally change the colour of the Background layer if you wish to change it and then Crop the image down so that it looks like this, the final result:

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Download

You can download the XCF file here

OK, it is hard to describe what this is as you can probably tell by the title, but I do this a lot when I show off websites or themes that I want to sell because it looks really good. The effect will look like this when finished:

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Step 1

Firstly, create a new canvas in The Gimp with the dimensions 500px width and 400px height. Fill it with black so you can see the reflections properly.

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Step 2

Now we are going to add the screenshot to the image, to do this choose the File menu and select Open As Layers. Resize the layer to width 400px by selecting Scale Layer on the Layers menu, the height property should change automatically to keep aspect ratio. It should now look like this:

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Step 3

Duplicate the screenshot layer. Then select the flip tool on the Toolbox and press Ctrl and click the image at the same time, this will flip the layer upside down like this:

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Step 4

Change to the select tool (shortcut: R) and using the arrow keys on your keyboard move the layer down till it looks like this:

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Step 5

Select the gradient tool (shortcut: L) and go to the Tool Properties and change the Gradient option to FG to Transparent. Click and drag from the centre of the upside down screenshot to the top so that it looks like this:

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Step 6

Change the opacity of the layer to 20.0 and go to the Colours menu and select Colour to Alpha. On the window that appears click the coloured button next to the “From:” and change the colour to black (000000) and click OK, the effect should now look like this:

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Step 7

Go to the Layers window and click the eye on the bottom layer so that it isn’t there anymore:

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Step 8

Now go to the Image menu and select the Merge Visible Layers option and click the Merge button on the window that appears. This will make the two screenshot layers merge. Then reselect the eye on the Background layer so that it is visible again.

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Step 9

Select the new screenshot layer and choose the Perspective tool (shortcut: Shift and P). Click and drag and drag the top right like this:

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Step 10

Now grab the bottom area and do it again so that it looks like this. Once finished click the Transform button.

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Step 11

Add a drop shadow to the screenshot by going to Filters, Light and Shadow and then Drop Shadow and change the offset properties to 0 and click OK:

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Step 12

Now to add the logo. We are going to do this by using the Open As Layers option again on the File menu and resize it so that it fits nicely on the image like this:

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Step 13

Finally, to change the background select to the Background layer and go to the Filters menu and choose Render -> Clouds -> Plasma. On the window that appears click OK, and there you have it, the final outcome:

You can download the XCF file here

Gimp Tutorials.net (one of my favourite Gimp tutorial sites) has developed a great tutorial showing how you can create this fantastic effect:

It uses a number of techniques including glows, easing and path tools and can really improve your skills in The Gimp. I wouldn’t recommend this to beginners in the Gimp but for more intermediate users, this is a great tutorial to have a go at.

You can view the full tutorial on Gimp Tutorials.net here

From my graphic design blog, Help Developer, I bring you a collection of tutorials detailing how to create RSS icons, I will update this post as I add more.

Tutorial 1

Tutorial 2

Tutorial 3

Tutorial 4

In this tutorial I will show you how to develop a vector iMac in The Gimp, this is based loosely on the tutorial for Illustrator from Blog.Spoon Graphics. This is designed at the more advanced level Gimp users but for you beginners I will try and explain it as easy as possible.

The outcome will look something like this:

1. First things first, create a new canvas (Ctrl and N) about 600px width x 500px height and fill it with a black colour, this is just so that the image will stand out more.
2. Now create a new layer, and draw a rectangle with the select tool about 345px width x 230px height
   
3. Go to the select menu and select Rounded Rectangle, change the radius to 5 and click OK
   
4. Change the forecolour to d9d9d9 and the background colour to FFFFFF and choose the gradient tool, click and drag from the left of the selected area to the right of the selected area till the effect looks like this:
   
5. Create a new layer and repeat steps 2 and 3 only make this one smaller so that it looks like this, and change the colour to black:
   
6. Create a new layer and draw a rectangle on top of the image like this:
   
7. Change the forecolour to 3358c1 and the background colour to 006cb8 and with the gradient tool, click and drag from the left of the selection to the right of the selection to produce this:
   
8. Now we will make the stand, to do this create a new layer just above the bottom layer and draw a rectangle like this:
   
9. Now choose the Rounded Rectangle option again from the Select menu. This time, set the options like this:
   
10. Set the forecolour as 777777 and the background colour as FFFFFF and with the gradient tool click and drag from the top of the selected are to around the middle of the selected area so that it looks like this:
    
11. Click off the selected area and use the arrows on your keyboard to move the layer down until it looks like this:
    
12. Now select part of the layer like in the screenshot below and press Delete:
    
13. Now draw a small rectangle at the bottom of the base:
    
14. Make the rectangle rounded to 30% by selecting Rounded Rectangle from the Select menu and fill it with a gradient of 777777 and FFFFFF:
    
15. Now download this icon and place it under the screen area by using the Open As Layers option on the File menu like this:
    
16. Now create a new layer on top of all the other layers and use the ellipse select tool and draw an oval shape like this and fill it with white (FFFFFF):
    
17. Change the opacity of the layer to 10.0 and delete the sides so it looks like this:
    
18. And that’s it, you now have a simple iMac vector image. You can download the xcf version of the image here.

In this tutorial I will show you very quickly how to produce an engraved line like this:

It has many uses, personally I use it in a lot of my websites as you can see from the header of Help Developer.

1. Firstly, create a new canvas and fill it with a darkish colour and create a new transparent layer on top, select this new layer.
2. Now grab the select tool (Ctrl and R) and select a region x pixels width and 1 pixel high and fill it with black.
3. Do the same exactly one pixel under the line you just created however, this time use white to fill it, which will produce this effect:
   
4. No change the layer opacity to 10.0 on the Layers window, which will produce this:
   
5. That is the main effect, we will now go on to create the merging in with the colour like in the Help Developer header, but for most things this is as far as you need to go.
6. Go to the Layers window and select the bottom layer and use the colour picker (shortcut: O) to set the foreground colour the same as the colour on the canvas.
7. Now select the Gradient tool (shortcut: L) and go to the Gradient options, change the gradient option to FG to Transparent
8. Go to the top layer (the one with the 2 lines) and go to the Layers menu and select Autocrop Layer.
9. Now with the gradient tool click and drag from the left of the line to just over half way making sure that the line you produce with the tool is straight. The outcome should look something like this:
   
10. Thats it, you now have a great looking engraved effect. You can download the .xcf file here

In this simple and quick tutorial I will show you how to produce a sticker like effect to your images, similar to this:

1. Create a new canvas (Ctrl + N)
2. Change the background colour else the white may not stand out too well.
3. Now go to File and Open As Layers, find the image you would like to add, I have used an icon from Everaldo’s Crystal Iconset and click Open
4. Go to the layers window (Ctrl + L) and select the image layer and click the Duplicate button (4th button along from the left)
5. Select the new layer and click Scale Layer from the Layers menu
6. Click the link button (the button to the right of the width and height number boxes)
7. Change the Width and Height properties to 10 less more than the current value (for example if the width is 100 then change it to 110). Once you have changed these values click the Scale button.
8. Now select the layer by pressing Ctrl and A, then cut it by pressing Ctrl and X and then paste it back in Ctrl and V.
9. Change the forecolour to white (FFFFFF) in the colour selector on the main window and press Ctrl and , (comma). This will fill the area with white.
10. Finally, go to the canvas and choose Filters -> Light and Shadow -> Drop Shadow, change the offset X and offset Y to 0, change the Blur radius to 10 and the opacity to 40 and click OK.
11. There you have it, you now have a simple sticker effect. You can download the XCF file here