The Two Types of Digital Images: Vector and Raster

All digital image files fall into one of two categories: vector or raster. Each format
has advantages and disadvantages in different situations, so knowing the properties
of each can help determine which format is the best choice for any project.

Vector

Vector files are most useful when a graphic needs to be able to handle resizing, as
they retain crisp detail when scaled to any size. Vector format is an excellent
choice for digital illustrations such as logos.

A vector file can be converted to a raster file, but it will permanently lose the
advantages of the vector format.

Common vector file extensions: SVG, EPS, and EMF

• SVG — web-based vector format

• EPS — Adobe-based vector format
• EMF — Microsoft Office-based vector format

Raster

Raster images are best for complex images like photographs, and are more likely
to be a widely compatible file format (such as JPG). However, raster images lose
detail and become increasingly blurry when enlarged.

Although a vector image can be saved as a raster image, it is not possible to

convert a raster image into a vector image. Raster files saved as vector file formats
will still be raster files. Most images on the web are raster files.

Common raster file extensions: JPG, PNG, and TIFF

• JPG — compressed raster format, often used for photos

o Best for web use
o Small file size
o Universal — compatible with most software
o Most images on stock photography websites will be downloaded as
JPG files
• PNG — raster format good for illustrations or icons
o supports transparency, unlike JPG
 o Best for web use
o Small file size
• TIFF — raster format that is best for high-resolution printing
o Great for professional print use, especially when preserving crisp
image detail is important
o Large file size

types Digital Objects:

1. Audio Format
2. Video Formats
3. Image Formats
4. Text File Format

Audio format :defines the quality and loss of audio data. Based on application
different type of audio format are used. Audio formats are broadly divided into
three parts:

1. Uncompressed Format
2. Lossy Compressed format
3. Lossless Compressed Format

1. Uncompressed Audio Format:

• PCM –
It stands for Pulse-Code Modulation. It represents raw analog audio signals
in digital form. To convert analog signal into digital signal it has to be
recorded at a particular interval. Hence it has sampling rate and bit rate (bits
used to represent each sample). It a exact representation of the analog sound
and do not involve compression. It is the most common audio format used in
CDs and DVDs
• WAV –
It stands for Waveform Audio File Format, it was developed by Microsoft
and IBM in 1991. It is just a Windows container for audio formats. That
means that a WAV file can contain compressed audio. Most WAV files
contain uncompressed audio in PCM format. It is just a wrapper. It is
compatible with both Windows and Mac.
 • AIFF –
It stands for Audio Interchange File Format. It was developed by Apple for
Mac systems in 1988. Like WAV files, AIFF files can contain multiple
kinds of audio. It contain uncompressed audio in PCM format. It is just a
wrapper for the PCM encoding. It is compatible with both Windows and
Mac.

2. Lossy Compressed Format:

It is a form of compression that loses data during the compression process. But
difference in quality no noticeable to hear.

• MP3 –
It stands for MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3. It was released in 1993 and became
popular. It is most popular audio format for music files. Main aim of MP3 is
to remove all those sounds which not hearable or less noticeable by humans
ears. Hence making size of music file small. MP3 is like universal format
which is compatible almost every device.
• AAC –
It stands for Advanced Audio Coding. It was developed in 1997 after
MP3.The compression algorithm used by AAC is much more complex and
advanced than MP3, so when compared a particular audio file in MP3 and
AAC formats at the same bitrate, the AAC one will generally have better
sound quality. It is the standard audio compression method used by
YouTube, Android, iOS, iTunes, and PlayStations.
• WMA –
It stands for Windows Media Audio. It was released in 1999.It was designed
to remove some of the flaws of MP3 compression method. In terms of
quality it is better than MP3. But is not widely used.

3. Lossless compression:
This method reduces file size without any loss in quality. But is not as good as
lossy compression as the size of file compressed to lossy compression is 2 and 3
times more.

• FLAC –
It stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. It can compress a source file by up
to 50% without losing data. It is most popular in its category and is open-
source.
 • ALAC –
It stands for Apple Lossless Audio Codec. It was launched in 2004 and
became free after 2011. It was developed by Apple.
• WMA –
It stands for Windows Media Audio. But it is least efficient in term of
compression and is not open-source. It has limited hardware support.

Video format:

Whenever a video file is basically saved it contains two types of file in it. One is
basically the container and second type of file is codecs. Container basically
defines the structure of the video file and which type of codecs will be used.
Codecs is basically used to compress and decompress original video file.

Some of common container format of video files are as follows:

1. AVI format (.avi):

Audio Video Interleave basically contain both audios as well as video data.
It was basically developed by Microsoft. It basically uses less compression
and contains almost any type of codecs. It is commonly used by internet user
due to multiple codecs support. It basically means that even if AVI files may
look same from outside but they are different from one another on the inside
basically all windows OS support this type of format including another
player for other platform exist.
2. Flash Video Format (.flv):
Flash video format is very popular due to the availability of flash player for
cross-platform in the market. These type of video files are basically
supported by almost every browser making suitable for web purpose. This
type of format is compact and support progressive and streaming download.
Some users who are using this format are Youtube, Yahoo! Video, VEVO
etc.
3. MP4 (.mp4):
This type of format is basically used to store to store audio and video stream
online. This type of file format was created by Moving Picture Experts
Group (MPEG) as a multimedia container format which can store
audiovisual data. It uses different compression technique for both video and
audio.
4. 3GP (.3gp):
This type of format is basically design to store both audio and video file
format which was designed to transmit data between 3G phones and the
 internet. It is most commonly used while we capture video from the phone
and upload it online. Both Windows OS and Mac OS supports this type of
format.
5. WMV (Windows Media Video):
This type of video format was basically developed by Microsoft. It was
basically designed for web streaming applications. This type of files is very
small in size over the Web, as their file size decreases after compression and
it basically leads to poor quality of the video. But this makes it only file
format that can be sent through e-mail also.
6. QuickTime Format (.mov):
This type of file format was developed by Apple. It is basically used to store
multiple tracks(for a different language), text file(subtitle) and effects. MOV
files are of high quality and these are usually large in file size. It is supported
both by Windows OS and Apple OS.

Image File Formats

There are numerous image file types out there so it can be hard to know which file
type best suits your image needs. Some image types such a TIFF are great for
printing while others, like JPG or PNG, are best for web graphics.

The list below outlines some of the more common file types and provides a brief
description, how the file is best used, and any special attributes the file may have.

TIFF (.tif, .tiff)

TIFF or Tagged Image File Format are lossless images files meaning that they do
not need to compress or lose any image quality or information (although there
are options for compression), allowing for very high-quality images but also larger
file sizes.

Compression: Lossless - no compression. Very high-quality images.

Best For: High quality prints, professional publications, archival copies
Special Attributes: Can save transparencies
Bitmap (.bmp)

BMP or Bitmap Image File is a format developed by Microsoft for Windows.

There is no compression or information loss with BMP files which allow images to
have very high quality, but also very large file sizes. Due to BMP being a
proprietary format, it is generally recommended to use TIFF files.

Compression: None
Best For: High quality scans, archival copies

JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg)

JPEG, which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Groups is a “lossy” format
meaning that the image is compressed to make a smaller file. The compression
does create a loss in quality but this loss is generally not noticeable. JPEG files are
very common on the Internet and JPEG is a popular format for digital cameras -
making it ideal for web use and non-professional prints.

Compression: Lossy - some file information is compressed or lost

Best For: Web Images, Non-Professional Printing, E-Mail, Powerpoint
Special Attributes: Can choose amount of compression when saving in image
editing programs like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP.

GIF (.gif)

GIF or Graphics Interchange Format files are widely used for web graphics,
because they are limited to only 256 colors, can allow for transparency, and can be
animated. GIF files are typically small is size and are very portable.

Compression: Lossless - compression without loss of quality

Best For: Web Images
Special Attributes: Can be Animated, Can Save Transparency
PNG (.png)

PNG or Portable Network Graphics files are a lossless image format originally
designed to improve upon and replace the gif format. PNG files are able to handle
up to 16 million colors, unlike the 256 colors supported by GIF.

Compression: Lossless - compression without loss of quality

Best For: Web Images
Special Attributes: Save Transparency

EPS (.eps)

An EPS or Encapsulated PostScript file is a common vector file type. EPS files can
be opened in many illustration applications such as Adobe Illustrator or
CorelDRAW.

Compression: None - uses vector information

Best For: Vector artwork, illustrations
Special Attributes: Saves vector information

RAW Image Files (.raw, .cr2, .nef, .orf, .sr2, and more)

RAW images are images that are unprocessed that have been created by a camera
or scanner. Many digital SLR cameras can shoot in RAW, whether it be a .raw,
.cr2, or .nef. These RAW images are the equivalent of a digital negative, meaning
that they hold a lot of image information, but still need to be processed in an editor
such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom.

Compression: None
Best For: Photography
Special Attributes: Saves metadata, unprocessed, lots of information

Text File Format:

Microsoft Windows text files

MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows use a common text file format, with each line of
text separated by a two-character combination: carriage return (CR) and line feed
(LF). It is common for the last line of text not to be terminated with a CR-LF
marker, and many text editors (including Notepad) do not automatically insert one
on the last line.

On Microsoft Windows operating systems, a file is regarded as a text file if the

suffix of the name of the file (the "filename extension") is .txt. However, many
other suffixes are used for text files with specific purposes. For example, source
code for computer programs is usually kept in text files that have file name
suffixes indicating the programming language in which the source is written.

Most Microsoft Windows text files use "ANSI", "OEM", "Unicode" or "UTF-8"
encoding. What Microsoft Windows terminology calls "ANSI encodings" are
usually single-byte ISO/IEC 8859 encodings (i.e. ANSI in the Microsoft Notepad
menus is really "System Code Page", non-Unicode, legacy encoding), except for in
locales such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean that require double-byte character
sets. ANSI encodings were traditionally used as default system locales within
Microsoft Windows, before the transition to Unicode. By contrast, OEM
encodings, also known as DOS code pages, were defined by IBM for use in the
original IBM PC text mode display system. They typically include graphical and
line-drawing characters common in DOS applications. "Unicode"-encoded
Microsoft Windows text files contain text in UTF-16 Unicode Transformation
Format. Such files normally begin with Byte Order Mark (BOM), which
communicates the endianness of the file content. Although UTF-8 does not suffer
from endianness problems, many Microsoft Windows programs (i.e. Notepad)
prepend the contents of UTF-8-encoded files with BOM,[2] to differentiate UTF-8
encoding from other 8-bit encodings.[3]

Unix text files

On Unix-like operating systems text files format is precisely described: POSIX

defines a text file as a file that contains characters organized into zero or more
lines,[4] where lines are sequences of zero or more non-newline characters plus a
terminating newline character,[5] normally LF.
Additionally, POSIX defines a printable file as a text file whose characters are
printable or space or backspace according to regional rules. This excludes most
control characters, which are not printable.[6]

Apple Macintosh text files

Prior to the advent of macOS, the classic Mac OS system regarded the content of a
file (the data fork) to be a text file when its resource fork indicated that the type of
the file was "TEXT".[7] Lines of Macintosh text files are terminated with CR
characters.[8]

Being certified Unix, macOS uses POSIX format for text files.[8] Uniform Type
Identifier (UTI) used for text files in macOS is "public.plain-text"; additional, more
specific UTIs are: "public.utf8-plain-text" for utf-8-encoded text, "public.utf16-
external-plain-text" and "public.utf16-plain-text" for utf-16-encoded text and
"com.apple.traditional-mac-plain-text" for classic Mac OS text files.[7]

Video editing :

Video editing is a massive industry, and it is growing each year exponentially.

It is also increasingly accessible to edit videos and create brand new, more
beautiful ones.

1.Linear video editing

Linear video editing is rarely used nowadays.

It involves copying video clips from one tape to a new one in a specific sequence.

For example, tape 1 has ten scenes of 5 minutes each. You need 4 of those, so you
bring another tape and copy only those four scenes from tape 1 to tape 2.

The resulting tape two has been created linearly.

Back in the days, this was one of the few video editing methods used because
people didn’t have access to computers and video editing software.
As you can probably imagine, linear video editing comes with a few
disadvantages.

For example, you cannot erase data from tape 2 and begin all over again if you
made a mistake. You need to start from scratch which takes time and effort.

Linear video editing is usually done using two VCR tapes.

2.Non-linear video editing

This type of video editing is done using computers and specialized editing software
called NLEs (short for Non-Linear Editor). Non-linear editing is the standard form
of editing today.

The process begins by copying raw video footage into a computer. This footage is
then opened up in an editing program such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut.

The editor has full control over the editing process. He can create a new video file
with different scenes, arrange them in any order he wants as well as insert and
delete them if necessary.

Once the editing process is complete, the new video clip can be copied on a CD or
USB memory stick. It can also be uploaded online.

Non-linear video editing is very popular these days and used by many companies
to create brand new video footage quickly and easily.

3.Offline editing

Offline video editing is another technique that consists of making a copy of the raw
video footage and compressing it to a smaller resolution.

The editor creates a duplicate of an existing raw video and compresses it into a
format such as ProRes. This smaller resolution footage is called proxy footage.

The editor works with the proxy footage, making adjustments, adding/deleting
clips and so on.

When the editing process is done, the editor exports the project but allows the
original raw video footage to replace the proxy footage.
This technique is usually used when the editor doesn’t have a sufficiently capable
machine to edit video clips in raw format.

As you probably already know, editing a 4K video clip requires a lot of processing
power and most computers aren’t equipped to do that.

Many beginner video editors don’t have the necessary budget to invest in a more
powerful machine yet, so they rely on offline cutting to achieve their goals.

The smaller resolution footage (proxy footage) is easier to work with and doesn’t
need a lot of computer resources.

The editor uses the proxy footage to edit video clips and exports the final version
with the original, raw video footage.

This technique is rarely used nowadays, but it is still a vital video editing process.

4.Online editing

Online editing is merely the opposite of offline editing.

The editor doesn’t create proxy footage. Instead, he works directly with the raw
video footage to make adjustments, inserting or deleting clips, etc.

Online video editing is usually done on powerful machines equipped with fast
processors and high RAM.

5.Assemble editing

Assemble video editing is a raw type of editing which consists of putting together a
series of video clips without any transitions between them.The video clips are
“glued” together in a linear fashion, without adding smoothing effects or visual
improvements.

It is also known as punch-and-crunch editing.

6.Insert editing

Insert video editing is a more sophisticated video editing process that implies
adding new video clips into existing video footage.
This technique gives the editor more control when creating a new project, in
comparison with assembling editing.

For example, let’s say that you want to add a video clip over video footage of
someone speaking. If you do this with assembling editing, the result looks
unpolished, and the new video footage will also replace the audio track.

If you do it with insert editing, it creates clear beginning and endpoints, and you
can preserve the original audio footage.

The ending result is a more polished product that has a more powerful visual
impact.

7.Rough cut

A rough cut is the second stage of a video editing process and usually a very
complex one.

It involves trimming video shots and adding titles, graphics, and video effects. The
audio soundtrack is still there, but not yet polished. The colors of the video during
this stage are also unmatched and require additional improvement.

8.Final cut

The final cut is the third stage of a video editing process. The video clips and audio
tracks are polished, and final adjustments and arrangements made.

The audio tracks and sound effects might still need improvements, and this is done
during the mixing process by a professional sound editor.

Introduction to Color Spaces

What are color spaces?

Color spaces are different types of color modes, used in image processing and
signals and system for various purposes. Some of the common color spaces are:

• RGB
• CMY’K
• Y’UV
• YIQ
 • Y’CbCr

RGB

RGB is the most widely used color space, and we have already discussed it in the
past tutorials. RGB stands for red green and blue.

What RGB model states, that each color image is actually formed of three different
images. Red image, Blue image, and black image. A normal grayscale image can
be defined by only one matrix, but a color image is actually composed of three
different matrices.

One color image matrix = red matrix + blue matrix + green matrix

This can be best seen in this example below.

Applications of RGB

The common applications of RGB model are

• Cathode ray tube (CRT)

• Liquid crystal display (LCD)
• Plasma Display or LED display such as a television
• A compute monitor or a large scale screen

CMYK

RGB to CMY conversion

The conversion from RGB to CMY is done using this method.

Consider you have an color image , means you have three different arrays of RED,
GREEN and BLUE. Now if you want to convert it into CMY, here’s what you
have to do. You have to subtract it by the maximum number of levels – 1. Each
matrix is subtracted and its respective CMY matrix is filled with result.

Y’UV

Y’UV defines a color space in terms of one luma (Y’) and two chrominance (UV)
components. The Y’UV color model is used in the following composite color
video standards.

• NTSC ( National Television System Committee)

• PAL (Phase Alternating Line)
• SECAM (Sequential couleur a amemoire, French for “sequential color with
memory)
Y’CbCr

Y’CbCr color model contains Y’, the luma component and cb and cr are the blue-
difference and red difference chroma components.

It is not an absolute color space. It is mainly used for digital systems

Its common applications include JPEG and MPEG compression.

Y’UV is often used as the term for Y’CbCr, however they are totally different
formats. The main difference between these two is that the former is analog while
the later is digital.
Image scanners

Flatbed

This type of scanner is sometimes called a reflective scanner because it works by

shining white light onto the object to be scanned and reading the intensity and
color of light that is reflected from it, usually a line at a time. They are designed for
scanning prints or other flat, opaque materials but some have available
transparency adapters, which for a number of reasons, in most cases, are not very
well suited to scanning film.[6]

CCD scanner

"A flatbed scanner is usually composed of a glass pane (or platen), under which
there is a bright light (often xenon, LED or cold cathode fluorescent) which
illuminates the pane, and a moving optical array in CCD scanning. CCD-type
scanners typically contain three rows (arrays) of sensors with red, green, and blue
filters."[7]
CIS scanner

Scanner unit with CIS. A: assembled, B: disassembled; 1: housing, 2: light

conductor, 3: lenses, 4: chip with two RGB-LEDs, 5: CIS

Contact image sensor (CIS) scanning consists of a moving set of red, green and
blue LEDs strobed for illumination and a connected monochromatic photodiode
array under a rod lens array for light collection. "Images to be scanned are placed
face down on the glass, an opaque cover is lowered over it to exclude ambient
light, and the sensor array and light source move across the pane, reading the entire
area. An image is therefore visible to the detector only because of the light it
reflects. Transparent images do not work in this way, and require special
accessories that illuminate them from the upper side. Many scanners offer this as
an option."[7]

Film
Main article: Film scanner

DSLR camera and slide scanner

This type of scanner is sometimes called a slide or transparency scanner and it

works by passing a narrowly focused beam of light through the film and reading
the intensity and color of the light that emerges.[6] "Usually, uncut film strips of up
to six frames, or four mounted slides, are inserted in a carrier, which is moved by a
stepper motor across a lens and CCD sensor inside the scanner. Some models are
mainly used for same-size scans. Film scanners vary a great deal in price and
quality."[8] The lowest-cost dedicated film scanners can be had for less than $50
and they might be sufficient for modest needs. From there they inch up in
staggered levels of quality and advanced features upward of five figures. "The
specifics vary by brand and model and the end results are greatly determined by
the level of sophistication of the scanner's optical system and, equally important,
the sophistication of the scanning software."[9]

Roller scanner

Scanners are available that pull a flat sheet over the scanning element between
rotating rollers. They can only handle single sheets up to a specified width
(typically about 210 mm, the width of many printed letters and documents), but
can be very compact, just requiring a pair of narrow rollers between which the
document is passed. Some are portable, powered by batteries and with their own
storage, eventually transferring stored scans to a computer over a USB or other
interface.

Unit- 2

Introduction to GIMP
GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program
for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo
retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an
image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions
to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest
task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also
runs on Windows and macOS.
Features and Capabilities
This is only a very quickly thrown together list of GIMP features. You can also have a look at
the illustrated features overview.

• Painting
o Full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone, etc.
o Sub-pixel sampling for all paint tools for high quality anti-aliasing
o Extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool
o Supports custom brushes and patterns
• System
o Tile based memory management so image size is limited only by available
disk space
o Virtually unlimited number of images open at one time
• Advanced Manipulation
o Full alpha channel support
o Layers and channels
o Multiple Undo/Redo (limited only by diskspace)
o Editable text layers
o Transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip
o Selection tools including rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, free, fuzzy
o Foreground extraction tool
o Advanced path tool doing bezier and polygonal selections.
o Transformable paths, transformable selections.
o Quickmask to paint a selection.
• Extensible
o A Procedural Database for calling internal GIMP functions from external
programs as in Script-fu
o Advanced scripting capabilities (Scheme, Python, Perl)
o Plug-ins which allow for the easy addition of new file formats and new
effect filters
o Over 100 plug-ins already available
• Animation
o Load and save animations in a convenient frame-as-layer format
o MNG support
o Frame Navigator (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)
o Onion Skin (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)
o Bluebox (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)
• File Handling
o File formats supported include bmp, gif, jpeg, mng, pcx, pdf, png, ps, psd, svg,
tiff, tga, xpm, and many others
o Load, display, convert, save to many file formats
o SVG path import/export
GIMP Tools
GIMP provides a comprehensive toolbox for performing basic tasks such as selections, drawings,
color picker, and many more. It provides many tools within its toolbox.

A tool is a way of operating on images. It indicates the specified action on hovering the cursor
over the icon. A toolbox has several icons; each icon is a separate tool. To activate a tool, left-
click on it or use key shortcuts.

GIMP offers the following tools:

• Selection tools
• Paint tools
• Transform tools
• Color tools
• Other tools

Before diving in each tool in detail, let's look at the GIMP user interface and toolbox:
GIMP Tool Icon

A particular tool can be activated by clicking on a specific icon in the toolbox. GIMP does not
provide direct tool icons for tools such as color tools that can be selected from the color menu or
by navigating to tools -> Colors. But, every tool can be activated by stroking shortcut keys,
which is unique for every tool.

We can add our frequently used tools in the toolbox. By default, every tool is not shown in the
toolbox, but the toolbox can be customized using the tool menu.

When we select a tool, the pointer changes inside the image according to the active tool. It will
work if we have set the pointer mode as a tool icon. The pointer mode can be changed by
selecting the pointer mode option from Edit-> Preferences-> Image Windows-> Mouse
Pointers-> menu.

Color and Tool options

The color indication and tool option dialogs are available at below the toolbox. It shows the
default selection of colors like background color and foreground color, and tool options like
mode, position, size, text color, etc.
Selection Tools

The selection tools are used to select a region from a layer to work on them in a specified shape.
All the selection tools can be accessed and added to toolbox from the Tools-> Selection tools.

Following are some selection tools, offered by GIMP:

• Rectangle Select
• Ellipse Select
• Free Select
• Foreground Select
• Fuzzy Select
• By Color Select
The Rectangle select tool is used to select a rectangular region from an active layer. It is the most
common selection tool. Click on the below icon to select the rectangular selection. It is useful for
adding background color, adding text, adding outline (stroke) to a specific region.

Ellipse Select

The Ellipse Selection tool selects the circular and elliptical regions from an active layer or image.
Click on the below icon to select an elliptical region. It is useful for adding background color,
adding text, adding outline (stroke) to a specific region.

Paint Tools

The paint tools provide several tools for editing and painting the image. It contains the following
tools:
 • Bucket Fill
• Pencil
• Paintbrush
• Eraser
• Airbrush
• Ink
• MyPaint Brush
• Clone
• Heal
• Perspective Clone
• Blur/Sharpener
• Smudge
• Dodge/Burn

To access the paint tools, navigate to Tools->Paint Tools. We can add any of the above tools in
our toolbox by selecting it.

Transform Tools

The transform tools menu provides several tools for transforming the images. It contains the
following tools:

• Align
 • Move
• Crop
• Rotate
• Scale
• Shear
• Perspective
• 3 D Transform
• Unified Transform
• Handle Transform
• Flip
• Cage Transform
• Warp Transform

To access the transform tools, navigate to Tools->Transform Tools. We can add any of the
above tools in our toolbox by selecting it.

Color Tools

The color tools are used to set the color to the objects on the image or active layers. It provides
several color manipulation options. It contains the following tools:

• Color Balance
• Color Temperature
 • Hue-Chroma
• Hue-Saturation
• Saturation
• Exposure
• Shadows-Highlights
• Brightness-Contrast
• Levels
• Curves
• Invert
• Linear Invert
• Value Invert
• Auto
• Threshold
• Colorize, and more

To browse the color options navigate to colors from the menu bar:
Other Tools

Except for all the above tools, GIMP offers some other tools such as paths, zoom, color picker,
text, and more.

These tools can be accessed by navigating to Tools from the menu bar.

It includes:

• Paths
• Text
• GEGL Operations
• Measure
• Zoom
• Toolbox
• Default Colors
• Swap Colors

The Layers Dialog

The Layers Dialog is the main interface to interact with Layers present in a GIMP image. You
can think of layers as a stack of slides or clothes on your body. GIMP gives you several methods
of combining layers with help of modes. The mode of a layer will determine how it will interact
with other layers present in the image.

Before you can do anything with a layer, the layer must be activated. [1] You do so by clicking
on the layer name. If you double click on the name you will be able to set the layer attributes of
that layer.

If you right click on the layer name you will be able to access the layer menu. Within the layer
menu you have access to several other layer commands, see Chapter 5.

With the Opacity slider you control the general transparency of the currently active layer. The
Keep Trans check button controls whether or not you can paint on the transparent areas of you
layer. If it is checked, you can't paint on transparent areas of the layer (i.e. you can only paint on
opaque areas).

In the button row you have six layer command buttons, New Layer, Raise Layer, Lower Layer,
Duplicate Layer, Anchor Layer and Delete Layer.

The GIMP's Layer Dialog is by default in Auto mode so it will always show the image that you
are working with. You can, however, switch this off and choose another image to work with
from the drop down menu.