Hi Gimp-user,

Following the LJ thread, I thought I'd mention some resources I found useful at this moment in time. Perhaps it'll help someone else get up to speed faster. For background: I was a previous PSP user (didn't like it). I know technology. The extent of my photography/art was icons, snapshots, and non-processed digital images. The list below is beyond Gimps built-in Help[F1]/Context Sensitive Help[Shift-F1], which imho, should always be tried first :-) If you are starting out, you should probably try to read either the Gimp Documentation, or the book at Gimp-Savvy. It's the old 80/20 rule. You'll get 80% of your knowledge from one of these resources. The 20% you'll pick up as you go and on the Net. The links listed below are in no particular order. There is a lot out there, of various quality, and age :-( There is nothing worse spending hours at a site, only to find out that it is irrelevant because it applies to the previous release or older :-) I'm also not a fan of a site that only contains links, without content. It consumes time and the "knowledge meter" stays the same :-) I try to pick sites that are any of the following: official, active/maintained, the owner cares/has passion for the subject, and is original, with some exceptions. These links are geared towards linux, but there seems to be another whole group of links for Mac and Windows which I haven't pursued. Once you get the basics down, then searching with the search argument "gimp" and "function" or "whatever you are trying to do" seems to work. It never hurts to search for "gimp faq" or "gimp tips tricks". The complaint I keep reading about GIMP is the interface. I have had the exact opposite experience. It isn't perfect, but in general it really works for me. One thing I did was dock all the dialogs in one window. The tools on top, the layers, channels, brushes, gradient, tool options, etc., on the bottom. I thought it was a little tricky docking things. It wasn't obvious to me that you had to drag a dialog to a very specific horizontal line (drag handle area). I found it easier to close the dialog and use "Add Tab".

Gimp Documentation: http://docs.gimp.org/

GimpGuru: Specializes in photography: http://www.gimpguru.org/Tutorials/

Gimp-tutorials: I'm not sure this is original content: http://www.gimp-tutorials.com/index.php

Wiki Gimp: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_GIMP/Contents

Wiki Gimp 2: http://wiki.gimp.org/gimp/

Gimp tutorials: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

Gimp user group (with tutorials): http://gug.sunsite.dk/

Gimp Savvy: Online book: http://gimp-savvy.com/

Akkana Peck's web site: http://shallowsky.com/linux/limaging.html She did a nice tutorial at linuxchix.org (currently being reorganized). And, she did an excellent presentation at the Sydney 2007 Linux Conference that is available in ogg format. imho, this has been the single best resource that took me from square 1 to 10 :-) in a short amount of time. She is knowledgeable and a good speaker, the pace is just right, and you can visually see what she is doing and try it yourself.

Adapting Photoshop tutorials for the GIMP: http://gimparoo.wordpress.com/tag/tutorial/gimp/

Couple specific tutorials on Bezier that seemed useful and unique: http://www.tigert.com/gimp/tutorials/

Gimptalk: Forum: http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/
and tutorials: http://www.gimptalk.com/ and tips: http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/forum/GIMP-Tutorials-and-Tips-8-1.html

Gimp at flickr: http://flickr.com/groups/gimpusers/discuss/

Gimp at Deviantart: http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/tutorials/gimp/?order=9&alltime=yes

Gimp at Linuxartist (just links): http://www.linuxartist.org/gimp.html

Gimp article at tuxmagazine (PDF): http://www.tuxmagazine.com/system/files?file=Touring_The_GIMP.pdf

Tutorials for Gimp: http://gimpology.com/browse/category/Getting+Started

YouTube and Gimp: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gimp+tutorial&search=Search

HTHS