Resource Spotlight: GIMP

Time to boost the signal! This September I am planning on doing a roundup of some favourite resources for Table Top Role Playing Games. Most of which are free and online.

GIMP

Wilber, Mascot for GIMP
Cc-BY-SA Jakub Steiner

Whether you are making maps, creating handouts or drawing character portraits, one of the best tools at your disposal is a good photo editing program. Adobe Photoshop has dominated the market since the late 1990s, and having good Photoshop skills has been desirable on a resume for a long time. However, Photoshop is expensive. When I was working with it in the late 90s, a copy would run you about $500. The lighter weight Photoshop Elements Just under $200. 

Today Photoshop is available as a part of the Adobe Creative Suite on a subscription basis, which can get costly in a hurry. For someone who is only planning on using it for a hobby basis, Photoshop may be too steep and investment. Thankfully, there is a free alternative that can do pretty much anything Adobe Photoshop can do, and that is GIMP. 

GNU Image Manipulation Program is a donation supported GNU license photo editing program that was first made available for LINUX, and more recently made the jump to iOS and Windows. It is free to download here.

Just like Photoshop, there's a learning curve to using gimp. The latest versions of gimp using interface very similar to the Adobe Photoshop 4.5 that I learned to use Photoshop in, which I found fairly intuitive. In fact, I find it as a slightly better interface than the current versions of Photoshop out there. But, your mileage may vary

Fortunately, GIMP offers quite a few tutorials, and a decent manual detailing the tools the tools and methods for using the software. I have considered doing some tabletop role-playing specific tutorials for things like adding map details or colouring character portraits here, if my readers show interest.

My map for Love Nest of the Barbarix was painted using GIMP. I started with a skull image from Pixabay, and used it as a model or painting the skull, then designed the banner map in Dungeon Scrawl, before editing it in GIMP and adding it to the image.