Gimp Installation

Download Gimp from www.gimp.org. The Microsoft Windows installer version is 16 megabytes. The rest of this page walks through the installation of Gimp 2.6.7 in Windows 2000 so you can get an idea of the process and the decisions you need to make.

Gimp is available as a .exe file for Windows and the 2.6.7 version is 16.4MB. Log in as administrator and select the file to start the installation process.

The first screen, the Welcome screen, gives you the choice of Next or Cancel. The only choice is next.

The License Agreement screen shows the GNU GPL and lets you scroll down through the license. The license is version 2, the version used by almost all open source software. Version 3 of the license is controversial but version 2 is completely safe. Accept the license by selecting Next.

The Ready to Install screen gives you the choice of Install now or Customise. Install now. you do not have to customise because the defaults work. We will step through the customisation to see the choices and default settings chosen by the install now option.

You can select the destination for Gimp. The default c:\program files\GIMP-2.0 is perfect. You could type in another location or browse for another location if you want to replace an old version of Gimp.

The component selection screen is next and is one of the few reasons for customising the installation process. You can select a language other than English. There are many languages to choose and you can choose as many as you like. Tick the Translations box to translate all the menus and help screens to another language.

Gimp can be associated with many types of image files and there are import options for other formats plus a plugin to read raw files from professional digital cameras. You can accept the default file associations in this screen and change them later in the files option of Windows Explorer.

You can set the name of the Gimp section of the Start menu and the default GIMP is fine.

There are just two additional tasks to perform, Create a desktop icon plus create a Quick Launch icon, and they are both selected by default.

The ready to install screen lists all the options you selected in the customisation process and gives you the option of installing or going back to change your selections. If you had selected Install now, you would already be installing with the default settings.

The final installation screen gives you the default choice of launching of launching Gimp to test the installation. You can do that now then close Gimp, log out of the administration account, and log in to your own account.

The first Gimp screen is a logo that shows while program components are loaded. The next screen is the main Gimp menu screen displaying the menu and the meaning of Gimp, the GNU Image Manipulation Program. You can select all actions from here including open files. Some of the actions have keyboard shortcuts and the shortcuts are displayed in the menus. There is also a toolbox opened automatically.

The Gimp Toolbox presents a lot of tools as icons. When you select an icon, the options for that tool are shown in the bottom part of the toolbox.

You now have a working Gimp. There are online tutorials on how to use Gimp but they are fragmented and you might spend a lot of time trying to find the right ones. After you learn, from a good book, how to use Gimp and all the Gimp tools, the tutorials become understandable and are useful for following examples of how to combine tools for odd tasks. Go back to the Gimp page and buy a book.