My first thought when I first installed and used this incredible piece of freeware was: “why should anybody pay for expensive image editors when you can get GIMP for free”. It’s almost embarrassing that this fabulous image manipulation and retouching program is 100% for free. So, buckle-up your eyes ’cause I’m going to take you for a ride!! Today I’m going to tell you how to create an awesome abstract wallpaper for your desktop to dress it up in the most glamorous GIMP-Style. Before we start… have you got GIMP in your computer? If you don’t, just visit www.GoFree.com there you’ll be able to download the latest 100% free fully functioning version of GIMP.
So, let’s get our noses to the grindstone, now that you have GIMP installed and running, the first thing to do is to create a new image by going to File > New… in the Image Window menu, and in the dialog that opens you can adjust a few parameters, the most important is the size which you should adjust to fit your monitor resolution, as a guide line, 1024 x 768 pixels may fit most displays resolutions.
Click OK to create it. Make sure that the Foreground & background Tool is set to black like in the next screen capture.
The next step is to activate the Bucket Fill Tool and click on the new image to make a black background for your wallpaper.
This is the background for your wallpaper, and now you are going to select the colors for the image itself, to do so click on the black rectangle of the Foreground & background Tool, doing so opens the color selection dialogue box, as you can see in the next screen capture I selected a turquoise-like color for the first color but you can select whatever you want, it will be better if it is a bright color, avoid dark ones because the image will not contrast enough.
Next comes the foreground, for this item I’ve chosen a gray-pink color as you can see in the next screen capture.
Having set the colors, let’s start with the image itself, to do this you will use a flame rendered filter, so go to Filters > Render > Nature > Flame…
In this dialog you can play a bit till you see the image you like in the Flame window, click on the “Edit” button and you’ll go to the Edit Flame selection options, if you click repetitively on the Randomize button you’ll get different options…
Once you selected the one you liked most click on the OK button, some advice? take your time and search as there are so many cool variants. Now you are back in the Flame options, if you open the Camera tab you can adjust the size (Zoom control) and position (X and Y controls) of the image.
Through the Rendering tab you can adjust other settings like brightness, contrast etc. You can also play a with these parameters till you find the image appealing.
So, just click on the OK button and in a matter of seconds your wallpaper image will be created. Cool huh?
In order to finish this procedure you have to export the wallpaper and be able to use it as your desktop background is to convert it in a supported format, JPG is highly recommendable but some others work too, like PNG, BMP, etc.
Now you can use your new wallpaper and place it as your desktop background, just browse to the folder where you stored the wallpaper and right-click on it, from the popup menu click on “Set as desktop background”.
Your new Wallpaper is show. I added a few gadgets and meters to fulfill this screen capture but you can certainly think of some other to make of yours the coolest desktop.
Final Words
Easy and straightforward, that is what it is like to create a new wallpaper of your own with GIMP. If what you are looking for is to let your imagination run free with some abstract backgrounds, GIMP is definitely your friend!!
Download GIMP now and start creating, visit our GIMP dedicated section at www.GoFree.com and enjoy!!