by Mike Caprio

Created on: June 26, 2010

Have you been looking for a fast and easy way to make a banner image for a web site? Are you having issues with the complexity or the cost of a commercially made, proprietary image editor? Well, look no further - there is some free software available that is quick to install, simple to use, and freely available. Bring out the GIMP!

GIMP is an acronym for "GNU Image Manipulation Program" and you can download a version of it for any modern Unix, Windows, or Mac OS computer. The latest release of GIMP and instructions for installing it can always be downloaded from gimp.org, and if you're interested in how it's programmed you can even download the source code for the software from various web sites. The GNU in the acronym stands for "GNU's Not Unix" and refers to the set of software packages that GIMP belongs to, as provided by the Free Software Foundation; you can read more about them at gnu.org. But on to making your banner!

Making a banner can be an involved process, as one usually needs to gather technical requirements for which web browsers and other third party software the banner needs to work with, let alone design considerations. And of course if you're working to create someone else's banner, you need to follow their specific requirements, too! Whatever the case, a good place to start is the web site of the Interactive Advertising Bureau at iab.net - the IAB is a collective industry organization that promotes good standards and practices in making online ads. Check out their "ad unit guidelines" to see what kind of image dimensions and file sizes are appropriate for your needs.

Once you've downloaded and installed the GIMP for your particular operating system, start it up and spend a little time looking at what you've got; many of the windows and icons will look very familiar if you've got any experience with other image editing programs. The key window to look at is the Toolbox, the window that contains image editing icons and options for those icons. Here you'll find such tools as Zoom, Pencil, Eraser, Text, Paintbrush, and Rectangle Select, common items used in most image editors. If you're a fan of using hotkeys or shortcuts, you'll want to note that GIMP always uses the Ctrl key (an important distinction for Mac OS users).

Now for the fun part: go to File, then New to create a new image. Input the dimensions your banner requires and press OK - or, go ahead and choose one of the "web banner templates" available in the select box marked Template. Proceed to pick colors and draw with Pencil or Paintbrush, add text, or otherwise select, import, and combine images to create your banner. But let's say that you're interested in making an animated GIF banner... surprise! GIMP can do that too. Just like other image editors, GIMP supports image editing in multiple layers. Each layer will be a frame in the animation, and the time for each frame's display is added as a layer comment in the layers window as a number of milliseconds in parentheses, e.g. (1500 ms). You can then run Filters / Animation / Optimize (for GIF) - when you save the image, GIMP will ask if you want to save it as animated. You're done!

Hopefully this is enough info to bring you success in whatever project you've undertaken! A short amount of time messing around with GIMP and even reading a few choice sections of the User Manual (located under Help) will get you very far very quickly. Don't be afraid to refer to the gimp.org web site for more help; they even have a series of tutorials (including much more in depth tutorials about animation) available that will teach you the ins and outs of this fantastically versatile image manipulator. Happy editing!

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