Better still, the book is a beauty in its own right. Moving away from the standard format we’re accustomed to seeing in technical manuals, The Artist's Guide to GIMP, 2nd Edition looks more like a coffee-table book. It has a horizontal, widescreen bias, to allow for larger screenshots and making it easy to lay flat for reference on your desk. You get the benefit of large, annotated, color screenshots, rather than just snippets or zoomed-in pictures of pop-up dialogues and menus. One thing that’s difficult for GIMP newbies is the sheer volume of stuff available in the program. Not only do you need to know what to do with a particular part of the application, you often need to know where to find that tool! Presenting whole screens and stressing images over text gives The Artist's Guide to GIMP, 2nd Edition a real advantage over books where you’re left to figure out how the description applies to what you’re seeing on your screen. I’d liken it to cookbooks that show images for each step of a recipe. Additionally, the physical book is printed on nice paper stock and bound for durability, so it’s going to take a fair amount of abuse in your bookbag. Referencing the e-book is also a great option, but we love cases like this where the printed product is so well designed and purpose-built.
Hammel’s approach to teaching GIMP in The Artist's Guide to GIMP, 2nd Edition is to start with the basic tools. You’ll learn how to use painting and drawing tools, how to isolate and manipulate elements of photos, particularly when modifying colors and selecting certain areas or layers. These are the fundamentals of almost every other technique; if you learn how to do these things well, the other 80% of the book will be much easier. More advanced sections cover photo manipulation, which applies to both photographers and web designers who routinely modify photos for use on sites. Creating elements for websites is the focus of an entire chapter, as well as techniques for designing visual backdrops that can be used on a site or printed collateral. Because typography is always important in design, Hammel gives extended treatment to text effects and using special techniques to create the kind of decorated titles we see on sites, in videos, and as part of advertising pieces or posters. The book wraps up with a few examples of how GIMP was used to create finished pieces, detailed out like a recipe so you can follow along.
The Artist's Guide to GIMP, 2nd Edition adds a great deal, in keeping with the new additions to the program itself. The high quality production of the book is a testament to how widely adopted and supported this software has become in the community. The widescreen presentation of the material makes it a bit awkward for reading electronically, so we’d have to put in a vote for the physical copy. Sure, it’s a bit more money, but you’re going to appreciate having the desk reference when you’re hunched over your screen, trying to work out that last little detail in your photo or website graphic. Either way you go, the material is extremely solid, well organized, and pertinent for new or mid-level GIMP practitioners.
