1. I've just downloaded and installed GIMP and GIMP help system for Win7. When I hover over the action buttons or options, I'm told to press F1 for help, but no help comes up. What do I need to do sto connect GIMP to its help.

2. My first task is to upgrade some music pages for a composer. He has grayscale PDFs. The music scanned well but the horizontal staff lines are a light grey, clear but light. How do I make any pixel darker than certain threshold value black? How do I set that threshold?

I have no experience with GIMP, just some minimal experience with MSPAINT. But I'm happy to learn.

1. I've just downloaded and installed GIMP and GIMP help system for Win7. When I hover over the action buttons or options, I'm told to press F1 for help, but no help comes up. What do I need to do sto connect GIMP to its help.

2. My first task is to upgrade some music pages for a composer. He has grayscale PDFs. The music scanned well but the horizontal staff lines are a light grey, clear but light. How do I make any pixel darker than certain threshold value black? How do I set that threshold?

I have no experience with GIMP, just some minimal experience with MSPAINT. But I'm happy to learn.

I got it done, Steve. It worked the first time. I used the Tools > Color Tools > Curves method with the value x=141 and y=64, the dot near the middle horizontally and 1/4 of the way up. The staff lines became considerably darker.

Thank you very much.

On 1/17/2013 8:39 PM, Steve Kinney wrote:

On 01/17/2013 07:42 PM, Thomas Widlar wrote:

1. I've just downloaded and installed GIMP and GIMP help system for Win7. When I hover over the action buttons or options, I'm told to press F1 for help, but no help comes up. What do I need to do sto connect GIMP to its help.

2. My first task is to upgrade some music pages for a composer. He has grayscale PDFs. The music scanned well but the horizontal staff lines are a light grey, clear but light. How do I make any pixel darker than certain threshold value black? How do I set that threshold?

I have no experience with GIMP, just some minimal experience with MSPAINT. But I'm happy to learn.

Wow, you are starting from "ground zero" here! But that means things can only get better - and better, and better.

First thing is to open your PDF files in the GIMP. You did not mention a problem with this but if there is one, you might have to install and configure Ghostscript. If so, see:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghostscript/ http://registry.gimp.org/node/25039 [for this purpose EPS = PDF]

The Threshold tool, for converting grayscale (or other) images to 2-color black and white is at: Tools > Color Tools > Threshold

Also of interest, a much more subtle tool is the Color Curves one, at Tools > Color Tools > Curves. Dragging the diagonal line down at a point 1/3 of the way in from its left end, and dragging it up 2/3 of the way from its left end, will make the contrast between dark and light regions much stronger - play with it to see what it can do.

At the top of the Threshold and Curves windows you will see a drop box labeled "Presets." This stores a history of past adjustments. When you find a setting that is "just right," you can reload it by using this drop down list and selecting the one you want for e-z consistent results.

And another thing to get used to: If you do File > Save, the GIMP will save your file as an .XCF file, which is the GIMP's own native file format. To "save as" a PNG, JPG, etc., do File > Export. In the dialog that comes up, you can choose the format to save your file in just by naming your file with the correct extension, i.e. "example.png" The GIMP will present the options for saving the file - i.e. compression / quality, embedded comment if any, etc.

GIMP 2.8 is a fairly new release, and a lot of the newer features don't have help menu entries yet. On the other hand, you will find a lot of very useful tutorials on YouTube. And of course, if you are really stuck, you know where to ask.

Welcome to it!

:o)

Steve

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