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kristarella.com

kristarella.com

Happiness Engineer at Automattic, lover of knitting, crochet, sci-fi and more

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You are here: Home / Design / Graphics / GIMP / Grid masking: video tutorial

Grid masking: video tutorial

29 June 2008 by kristarella

Check it out! My first video tutorial.

In this tutorial I create the following image while demonstrating rounded rectangles and tiled clones in Inkscape, as well as text, masks, pasting into masks, and some shortcuts in GIMP.

It’s taken me a week to find the right way to compress this video to a reasonable size with decent quality. It’s still rather large though, so I don’t recommend trying to load it if you’re short of time or on a slow connection.
Update 8th July 2008: I removed the embedded video because it automatically loads every time you load this page. The link to the video is below.

Update 15th September 2009: In an effort to reduce memory I’m currently occupying with my hosting service I’ve uploaded the video to Vimeo.

Constructive feedback is most welcome! (Next time I’ll use a different codec when recording, I should be able to get a smaller file!)

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Filed Under: GIMP, Graphics, Tutorials Tagged With: free, Free Software, Inkscape

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Comments

  1. Gio says

    1 July 2008 at 03:42

    Very useful tutcast, Kristarella. InkScape looks like an interesting program, but I’m used to Photoshop and Illustrator. What sort of program did you use to capture what you were doing on-screen? Also, I don’t mind the load time as much – I prefer high-quality video over load times, since I can always go do something else while it buffers up, anyway. But kudos to you! :coffee:

  2. kristarella says

    1 July 2008 at 13:23

    Thanks Gio!
    Inkscape is quite useful. I especially like it for manipulating text; much easier to play with letter spacing, kerning and such than my other programs. I’ve made a few invitations using it. It’s good for other vector stuff, but I haven’t done a lot of that recently.
    I guess you wouldn’t have a need for it if you own Illustrator… unless you really love open source.

    Edit: Oops, missed responding to your question. I used iShowU to record my screen. I’m going to write a post on my impressions of this kind of software soon.

  3. amigapc says

    2 July 2008 at 11:52

    Great video using open source software! :cheers:

  4. Andrew says

    3 July 2008 at 06:17

    It’s wonderful and congratulations too! I really like watching clear quality video demonstration of GIMP and Inkscape. Will watch out on your next screencasts. thanks

  5. kristarella says

    3 July 2008 at 22:12

    Thanks amigapc and Andrew! For your comments and for watching. 😀

  6. Hubbabub says

    6 July 2008 at 18:38

    Cool tutorial.

    Have you looked at Episode 064 at
    http://screencasters.heathenx.org/
    There they also do a bitmap masking tutorial,
    but they use only Inkscape for that.

    //Hubbabub

    Greetings from Sweden 🙂

  7. kristarella says

    7 July 2008 at 07:31

    Thanks Hubbabub!
    I haven’t seen that site before. I’ll check it out. I am a fan of clipping in Inkscape. I think what Inkscape really needs when doing work like this is a list of objects and layers. Hey, maybe it has one… I’m going to have a look.

    Correction: I have seen the site before, but I haven’t spent much time there and didn’t see that particular tute.

  8. kristarella says

    8 July 2008 at 13:01

    Hubbabub, that Inkscape tutorial was excellent. I learnt heaps!
    I generally don’t like using bitmaps in Inkscape, I’ve found that they’re not as sharp after export, but it did look easier, perhaps 0.46 is better at handling bitmaps.

  9. amanda says

    4 April 2009 at 03:04

    Hey,
    First: Great tutorial, it is like my favorite new way to tweek photos!
    I had a quick question, how did you pop up the video onto your website in a white box? I’m making a website for a class right now and I’m trying to do the same thing, but I can’t seem to get it right. I’ve probably spent about a week trying to figure it out.

    Thanks,
    Amanda

  10. kristarella says

    4 April 2009 at 13:58

    Thanks Amanda. At the moment I’m using a WordPress plugin called Shadowbox 2. If you’re not using WordPress, there are a few javascript plugins that you can add to your site to do that sort of thing.

  11. BionicNellyWiz says

    8 December 2010 at 22:17

    I came across this site whilst I was looking at using firebug as wanted to get more out of it whilst I’m developing/testing website as I use Joomla. I’m a Ubuntu user and use every possible open source as possible, e.g. GIMP, Openoffice Suite. I do have Inkscape installed and haven’t used it but this is an excellent tutorial – very clear to see what you are doing as alot of tutorial have blurred software showing and you can’t see it. Very inspiring and has given me some ideas with my websites. Cheers

A triptych of baubles. These are very satisfying t A triptych of baubles. These are very satisfying to paint ❤️💚💙

#watercolor #watercolour #christmas
I have really enjoyed this Christmassy painting! S I have really enjoyed this Christmassy painting! So glad my friend asked me to make some cards for our church helpers, because it set me on a roll!
#watercolor #watercolour #christmas #christmascards #watercolorcards
Had a great Saturday at the GKR Karate State Title Had a great Saturday at the GKR Karate State Titles! I was a sub for @jamesxuereb.me in the Blue Flame Dragons thanks to his sprained ankle; we won first round and came fourth overall!
I did a bunch of judging and officiating, which was really good.
I didn’t place in my individual events, but had a very fun final round of kumite (sparring).

#gkrkarate #karate
More stamping tonight. Even better than last night More stamping tonight. Even better than last night’s!
Did some stamping this evening. Love it! I wish I’d done some pages in other ink colours before I dismantled the stamps 😂
Had an appointment in the city, so I got to visit Had an appointment in the city, so I got to visit the @legocertifiedstores_anz Wicked display!
#wicked #lego #afol #sydney
A little book I made from Bunnings paint sample ca A little book I made from Bunnings paint sample cards. It’s going to be for mini paintings and collages. Sometimes it’s nice to start with a colour rather than a blank white page!
A little while ago I did some swatching of Daniel A little while ago I did some swatching of Daniel Smith and Schminke Horodam watercolours. So soothing! I love some of the granulating colours!
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