GIMP is a graphics editor tool and there are not much resources available to learn it. The recently released The Book of GIMP by Olivier Lecarme and Karine Delvare provides a comprehensive coverage of GIMP in a consise style. Published by No Starch Publishing, the book is divided into 3 parts spread over 22 chapters.
The chapters in Part 1 examines GIMP basics, Photograph Retouching, Drawing, Illustration, Logos, Textures, Composite Photography, Animation and Image Preprocessing. The authors also provides coverage of the various tools used for designing a website including guides, snaps, grids,and layers.
Part 2 provides reference material for the following aspects associated with GIMP
- The GIMP Interface
- Display
- Layers
- Color
- Selections
- Masks
- Drawing Tools
- Transformation Tools
- Filters
- Animation Tools
- Obtaining and Printing Images
- Image Formats
- Scripts and Plug-ins
- Customizing GIMP
The Book of GIMP also includes several appendixes which provides a detailed coverage of Vision and Image Representation, Batch Processing in addition to several FAQs. The author also provided links to additional resources such as Tutorials, Communities, Blogs, Brushes, Plug-ins, Mailing Lists, IRC channels including information rlevant to graphics related tools and websites.
The authors have made a great attempt to provide comprehensive explanation along with plenty of screenshots in color.
I am sure that The Book of GIMP is a handy reference manual and the material covered will be very useful for beginners, media professionals and for all those who are involved in the usage of GIMP.