OK I'm being dumb here...

but how the hell do you draw a rectangle or circle in Gimp? I can make that shape with a selection and then fill the selection, but that's not the same as a basic shape tool. I just can't see it on the tools options. Surely it must exist or am I ust used to "retro" paint packages? ...

I've never used GIMP, but could you create your circle/rectangle in MS Paint and copy and paste it over?

Bit of overkill I admit! :D

Dabz

http://docs.gimp.org/en/

Gimp doesn't have primitives - so you will have to do whatever it is you are after using the other tools.

I'm not a very knowledgeable Gimp user, so there may be a much easier way to do this, but this is one option:

1. Draw a rectangular or elliptical selection using the appropriate selection tool

2. Use Selection > To Path to turn the current selection into a path

3. Use Edit > Stroke Path to draw a line or pattern along that path.

Depending on what you are doing, a vector editing program such as Inkscape might be a better tool.

No Primitives? o.O???

Yeah it stinks! Oh well thanks anyway.

If you're after a decent free paint package, Paint.Net is pretty good.

http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/

OR you could add primitives and vector basics to GIMP... been waiting a long time for someone with some C knowledge to do that me!

Or you could buy Photoshop, and get it all in a top of the line package, supporting normal primitives and their extended counterparts such as rectangles with curved corners.

I have no regrets using it. Every time I try to use Gimp, however, I go back to Photoshop thinking "I should never have trusted him, he only wanted me for my money!" Er.. you know what, let's forget I said that.

Nothing beats PhotoShop. It's hands down the best image editing software available.

Have you tried them all?

Or for a subset of the most commonly used features, you can look at the significantly cheaper Photoshop Elements, which is aimed at home users rather than professionals.

yeah the cost really puts me off - even if it is great. So many people on these forums seem to be using though.

OEM versions of Photoshop Elements are bundled with a bunch of scanners and digital cameras.

Paintshop Pro is in the same price range as Elements, and also pretty nice... In my experience Paintshop pro is a little less powerful than Photoshop when it comes to photo editing, but it beats PS in manual pixel drawing (sprites and the likes)

You can get Photoshop Elements and Paintshop Pro 10 retail both around $80... Paintshop Pro 8 or 9 can be found for around $20 if you look around a bit.

Paint.NET (mentioned above) is also not bad, plus its free... It's definitely less powerful than the others though, and appears to be pretty weak when it comes to working with layers.

thanks for the info. I used to use PSP 4 for years until I needed proper layers etc. Gimp is good for layers and I've got used to it now. It's good for transparency and anti-aliasing etc for BlitzMax graphics, I'm just amazed there are no primatives when there's so much else in the program.

I haven't used PSP4, but I haven't really run into much problems with layers in PSP8... No idea what (if anything) actually changed, layer-wise, between those versions though.

Hmm i have no clue about gimp so maybe you should ask in the gimp community (request the missing features?) or maybe just buy a graphic software. There are lot's around beside of photoshop and even photoshop if you're not after the latest version can be bought for a nice price. Should really be affordable...

xlsior: Well PSP4 had no layers so you couldn't make PNGs with an alpha channel.

Taumel: It's true that there are many affordable ones, and maybe I should get one. I try to run my games business on a shoestring though, only reinvesting money I actually made, and also being careful about what I spend it on.

I would say that you can use the software also for non games stuff. A nice 2d paint program is more an allrounder and as you can use it for so many tasks i personally would invest some money into a good one.

Compare it to your Framework. It could save you just a lot of time.

If there's a free one which does the job, good. If not, buy a commercial one and also support these guys.

to be honest at the moment I like gimp, it has its quirks, but it's pretty good except for lack of primative. I'll have to try that stroking thing (that's what she said anyway ;-))

There's a filter that can help with drawing primitives, it may even be a script fu whatsit.

It's not very intuitive and I can't remember what's its called off-hand. :o/

...<something>fig... ??
...fig<something>... ??

ok thanks mr short name now.