How to Make Sparkles on GIMP

GIMP automatically saves the brushes you create to make sparkles.

The craft of manipulating images wouldn't be much fun if you couldn't use it to put a shine on some bland-looking surfaces. The free 2-D image manipulation program GIMP has tools for creating custom brushes that can produce such a shine, in the form of a diamond-shaped sparkle. GIMP offers at least two ways to create custom brushes. One of them is through a small dialog box accessible through the "Brush" palette. Another is to save a new image as a brush. Note that overusing sparkle effects can repel your image's viewers.

Instructions

1. Take a digital photo of a drinking glass or other highly reflective object, then follow the instructions in your camera's user guide to load the photo into your computer. You'll create a custom GIMP brush that creates a sparkle and apply it to the photo.

2. Click the "Open" command of GIMP's "File" menu, then navigate to and double-click the photo file you imported into your PC in the previous step.

3. Click the "Brushes" command of the "Windows" menu to display the palette for choosing brushes.

4. Click the icon on the palette that displays a piece of paper to tell GIMP to create a new brush.

5. Click the diamond icon in the small dialog box that appears to tell GIMP you want the sparkle brush to be based on this shape.

6. Drag the "Radius" slider to the right to increase the sparkle brush's size. Drag the "Hardness" slider to the left to give the sparkle its characteristic fuzzy edge. Drag the "Spikes" slider toward the left to reduce the number of rays radiating from the sparkle brush.

7. Click the small "x" in the upper-right corner of the brush palette to close the palette. GIMP will automatically select this brush for you.

8. Click the color swatch at the bottom of the toolbox, then click the white button from the color palette that appears. This sets white as the color for painting.

9. Click "New" on the "Layers" window to create new layers. Click the "Transparent" option, then click "OK" to make the layer.

10. Click the toolbox button shaped like a paintbrush, then click the mouse on a bright point, edge or rim of the image you loaded in step 2 to see the sparkle effect. For example, if your image is that of a drinking glass, click a point on the glass's rim to make the rim sparkle.

References

• "Gimp Bible"; Jason van Gumster; 2010