How to Make 3-D in GIMP

Making 3-D effects in the free image-manipulation program GIMP adds another apparent dimension of physical space to your image: the dimension of depth. This makes your images appear more real, because they seem to emerge from the program's canvas. GIMP's tools let you create several kinds of 3-D effects with just a few mouse clicks. Many 3-D tools are under the "Filters" menu. Filters are commands that modify your image in ways that simulate natural effects like perspective.

Instructions

Drop Shadow

1. Click the tool palette's "A" icon to run the text tool, then drag on the canvas to grow a text box.

2. Type some text in the box, then click a non-black color from the color swatch in the "Tool options" pane.

3. Click the "Filter" menu, then click the "Light and shadow" submenu

4. Click the "Drop Shadow" item.

5. Click "OK" to create a drop shadow, which is one type of 3-D effect.

Page Curl

1. Click the paintbrush tool from the tool palette.

2. Click a color you like from the tool palette's upper color swatch.

3. Drag on the canvas to paint any image you like.

4. Click the "Filter" menu, then click the "Distorts" submenu.

5. Click the "Page Curl" item, then click "OK" on the dialog box that appears. GIMP will make your canvas and the image you painted on it appear to curl, as though someone were lifting a corner of the canvas.

Perspective Distortion

1. Click the "File" menu's "Open" command, then navigate to and double-click a photo to which you'd like to add perspective distortion. GIMP will load the picture for you to edit. Perspective is an optical phenomenon that indicates 3-dimensional space.

2. Click the trapezoid-shaped icon from the tool palette to run the "Perspective" tool, then drag on the corners of your picture so that the top edge is shorter than the bottom.

3. Drag the picture's corners so that the left edge is slightly shorter than the right edge. These changes make the picture's parallel edges appear to converge, which is the defining characteristic of perspective.

4. Click the "Filter" menu's "Light and Shadow" submenu, then click the "Perspective" item.

5. Click "OK" on the dialog box that appears to add a perspective drop-shadow to your image. The image appears to recede in 3-D space and to cast a shadow on the ground.

References

• "The GIMP User Manual"; GIMP Documentation Team; 2009