<DIV><p>As a full-featured, free alternative to Adobe Photoshop, GIMP is one of the world's most popular open source projects. The latest version of GIMP brings long-awaited improvements and powerful new tools to make graphic design and photo manipulation even easier—but it's still a notoriously challenging program to use.</p><p><i>The Artist's Guide to GIMP</i> teaches you how to use GIMP without a boring list of menu paths and options. Instead, as you follow along with GIMP contributor Michael J. Hammel's step-by-step instructions, you'll learn to produce professional-looking advertisements, apply impressive photographic effects, and design cool logos and text effects. These extensively illustrated tutorials are perfect for hands-on learning or as templates for your own artistic experiments.</p><p>After a crash course in GIMP's core tools like brushes, patterns, selections, layers, modes, and masks, you'll learn:</p><ul><li><B>Photographic techniques</B> to clean up blemishes and dust, create sepia-toned antique images, swap colors, produce motion blurs, alter depth of field, simulate a tilt-shift, and fix rips in an old photo</li> <li><B>Web design techniques</B> to create navigation tabs, icons, fancy buttons, backgrounds, and borders</li> <li><B>Type effects</B> to create depth, perspective shadows, metallic and distressed text, and neon and graffiti lettering</li> <li><B>Advertising effects</B> to produce movie posters and package designs; simulate clouds, cracks, cloth, and underwater effects; and create specialized lighting</li> </ul><p>You'll be inspired by the original art, amazing photo manipulations, and tips for designers. Whether you're new to the GIMP or you've been playing with this powerful software for years, <i>The Artist's Guide to GIMP</i> is sure to teach you some new tricks.</p></div>