Step by Step How To Guide - Popart Pictures with GIMP - Zachary Allen Pilz

Popart Your Pictures

Below is a step by step guide to taking your favorite photos and "poparting" them.

Want make a really personalized and cheap gift for your mother? Want to immortalize yourself in print Warhol style? Want to create a really cool print for a tshirt? Just follow these easy to follow steps and by tomorrow you too can be popart!

First thing's first: Download GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)

http://www.gimp.org/

After opening the program, you will need to copy and paste your favorite picture to the working area. This one's my wife's favorite.

Now you will need to select the "layer" drop down menu and select "duplicate layer". You will want to do this twice.

You should now have 3 identical layers showing on your dialouge box.

Select the bottom layer and click on the "eye" to hide the bottom layer.

Now you will wnat to select the top layer and then select the "color" drop down menu and select "invert".

Your picture should now look like a negative print. Scary, right?

Now you will need to select the "filters" drop down menu, select "blur" and then "guassian blur".

Now you will see a pop up box. Make sure that the horizontal and vertical blur intensities are both set to around 5.0 and select "OK",

Your image will now be slightly blurred.

Now select the top layer from the top of the "layers" box and change the mode from "normal" to "dodge".

Your image will now look like a faint black and white outline of the original. Now you will need to select the "layer" drop down menu and select "merge down".

Now you will need to select the "color" drop down menu and select "threshold".

You will now see the pop up "threshold" box. Slide the black triangle towards the right side of the bar. Play around with this a little, but the idea is to get the black triangle pretty close but to the white one already on the right.

Keep playing with the bar until you get an image that looks about like this with clear outlines but still maintaining open white spaces.

Now select the "layers" dropdown menu and select "new layer"

Make sure that you choose "transparency" and select "OK".

Your layers box should now show the new layer.

Now change the "mode" at the top of the layers box from "normal" to "multiply".

Now click on the "foreground color" on the toolbox. (This looks like a black square overlapping a a white square about midway down the toolbax window).

This brings up the "change foreground color" box. Choose a color. In this case I am choosing a color for skin.

You will notice the previously black square now is the new color.


Now go ahead and use the paintbrush tool from the toolbox to paint the top layer the color that you selected earlier.

Now choose a color for the eyes.

Paint the eyes on the same layer. Be careful not to paint over your other colors.

Continue to choose a color and paint each area until you have the entire foreground painted.

If you want, you can paint the background color as well. However, I think that it's best to leave the background colorless or choose a light color so that it won't distract from the main image.

And that's it. You have a simple popart image!