How to Make a Film Strip Image with GIMP Freeware

Adobe Photoshop is one of the world’s most popular software programs but it is expensive and not affordable for the casual digital photographer. GIMP is a powerful image editing program available for free at http://www.gimp.org/. This is the second in a series of articles on this image editor. One of the cool new features of GIMP is that it allows you to easily combine multiple images into a film strip image. This can be a very effective way of presenting multiple images to the viewer.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• GIMP 2.0 Running on a PC Platform
• Copies of images for experimentation

1. Open Files Menu Start your computer and open GIMP. From the TOOLS frame, select open to view the open file menu. Hold down on the shift button and click on the images you want in your film strip.
2. Open Image Windows Each file opens in its own window. If you select 5 images you will have five open windows. From any window, select FILTERS/COMBINE/FILM STRIP to open the control panel for this filter.
3. Adding images to the film strip The image that you open the filter from will be in the ON FILM box, the other images will show as available images. Select the images you want on the film strip and click ADD. This will move the images from AVAILABLE to ON FILM. Any open image will show up as available. You can select the numbering, number color and location. You should also check FIT HEIGHT TO IMAGE if you have a mixture of horizontal and vertical images.
4. The Film Strip Image The final image is a combined image of in the form of a film strip. Notice the size of the image. It is quite large and if you plan to print the image you may need to print it in sections. .

Tips & Warnings

• When downloading GIMP, make sure you download the help system. It is a separate download and also free. This is an effective way to present a series of action photos, or a child eating their first birthday cake. It works well when you want to present a series of actions.
• Always work with copies of your images to preserve you image archive.