Image Editing

There are images that seem fake, but are actually real, like these.

  • We will first show steps to remove the background from an image using Microsoft Word.

  • For more control you can instead use the free image manipulation program GIMP, which we will discuss second. Download GIMP at gimp.org/downloads/. See also a 7 min. video showing how to make a composite image in GIMP.

Finding Images

Here are some good online sources for images (Thanks to Bill Barnum's App Lab tutorials):

  1. Pixabay.com Free art that is not necessarily game focussed

  2. OpenGameArt.org Game focussed. Choose 2D art

  3. Google image search Select Tools / Usage Rights / Labelled for Reuse with Modification.


Using Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word has a built-in Remove Background tool. Start by finding an image to use and downloading onto your desktop. The cat image shown below left came from Pixabay.com. Open up a Microsoft Word blank document and drag your image into it, giving you what is shown at right below. Double-click on the image to bring up the image tools.

Use the Remove Background tools to adjust which parts of the image are included / excluded, giving an image something like what is shown at right below:

Select and use the Crop tool (shown below left) so that the bounding box is as small as possible, without cutoff off parts of the image, giving an image such as the one shown below right.

Right-click on the image and follow the prompts to save it as a PNG file (below left), which can handle transparent backgrounds. You might consider making additional versions that are rotated or mirrored, as shown below right.


Using GIMP

For more control now let's manipulate an image using the free image manipulation program GIMP, which you can download from https://www.gimp.org/downloads/.
See also a 7 min. video of the steps below.

  1. Start by selecting two images to be manipulated for an image manipulation workout. Let's make a BEagle, which is a beagle head on an eagle body. The two pictures at left below were found on Pixabay.com:

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  1. Start GIMP. Right-click in the middle and then select File/Open to open the beagle photo. Repeat and do the same for the eagle photo, as shown at left below.

  2. You may need to display the image smaller so it fits in the window, as shown in the second photo below.

  3. Select the "Lasso" tool and roughly highlight the area to be cut, shown at right below.

  • Select the Mask Tool by clicking on the small rectangle near the bottom left-hand corner of the image, shown at left below.

  • Then select the Paintbrush tool (shown in the middle below) and carefully trace around the image to erase the sections around the edges, leaving only the part of the image you want to keep. The parts to be ignored will be shown in red. It may be helpful to zoom back in on the image to see the edges more clearly.

  • De-select the Mask Tool (shown at left below) that you had previously selected. The dotted line you carefully outlined around the beagle's head will disappear. That is OK, it is still there, you just can't see it.

  • Right-click on the beagle image and select Edit / Copy

  • Select the eagle image up near the top of the GIMP screen. The eagle should show up in the image workspace, as shown below.

  • (Optional) Select the Eraser tool (shown in the middle below) and erase any parts of the eagle you don't want. In this case we erased part of the beak and head. This will likely only work well for you if you have a transparent background in the original image, represented by the grey checkerboard background.

  • Right-click in the middle of the eagle image and select Edit / Paste, as shown at right below.

  • The previously copied beagle head should now show up on top of the eagle, as shown at left below.

  • Select the Unified Transform Tool (red arrow in middle image below) which allows you to resize, rotate and move the pasted floating layer containing the beagle's head. Do this by dragging various handles highlighted around the beagle's head. For instance we grab the left-hand side and drag it to the right to make the beagle's head face right rather than left. To resize the head you should uncheck the Scale option (yellow arrow in middle image below).

  • Once finished select the Transform button (red oval in middle image below).

  • To save the final picture, right-click on the picture and select File / Export and give a file name and extension. The file extension is used to indicate what kind of file should be created. Here we chose BEagle.jpg

Watch and listen carefully to hear the BEagle howl as it flies!