[SOLVED] Photo manipulation!

[leadwt]

Hi Guys n Gals,

I am looking for a 'simple' photo programme that will enable me to place an elipse (or any other shape) on an image and then get that selected (shaped) section to remain whilst the rest gets zapped. Used to have no problems on Windoze with Serif and other apps. but cannna find one on Linux. I've tried Gimp but it does not appear to do what I want and the manual is no help either with this particular request.

Any ideas please?

Thanks

[Snowhog]

Gimp does do exactly what you have described. Can you give a 'brief', as in bullets, the steps you tried with Gimp?

[oshunluvr]

GIMP:
In tool menu, select "Ellipse Select Tool."
Using mouse, create elliptical region.
In menus, select Image> Crop to Selection.

This leaves you with a rectangular image with your ellipse still selected in it. To have a round image, you must have transparency enabled by using an Alpha channel.

In menus, select Layer> Transparency> Add Alpha Channel
In menus, select Select> Invert
Now hit the Delete key, and the corner sections will disappear.

If you do not want transparent corners and would rather have white or some other color, skip the Add Alpha Channel part and the delete will replace the corner areas with whatever color you have selected as the background color (default white).

[leadwt]

Arh - looks as though I need to read the manual again!

Anyway I applied an elipse to a digital image and tried the option in Elipse selection to 'subtract' it and tried the click and drag to move that section. The elipse vanishes! So I tried using elipse with 'new layer' but I cannot see how to 'lock' any of these commands as the elipse vanishes again.

Sorry not exactly 'bullets' more a fudge and I have run through a lot more attempts (manual in hand) but to no avail. I've just reached retirement age - have I lost it already??

[oshunluvr]

KolourPaint is even simplier, but does not do transparency:

KOLOURPAINT:
In tool menu, select "Selection (Elliptical)"
Using mouse, create elliptical region.
In menus, select Image> Set as Image


Corner sections will be the background color.

[oshunluvr]

Arh - looks as though I need to read the manual again!

Anyway I applied an elipse to a digital image and tried the option in Elipse selection to 'subtract' it and tried the click and drag to move that section. The elipse vanishes! So I tried using elipse with 'new layer' but I cannot see how to 'lock' any of these commands as the elipse vanishes again.

Sorry not exactly 'bullets' more a fudge and I have run through a lot more attempts (manual in hand) but to no avail. I've just reached retirement age - have I lost it already??

To re-align the elliptical section, you have to "grab" the corners or sides of the box surrounding the ellipsis.

[dibl]

GIMP:
In tool menu, select "Ellipse Select Tool."
Using mouse, create elliptical region.
In menus, select Image> Crop to Selection.

This leaves you with a rectangular image with your ellipse still selected in it. To have a round image, you must have transparency enabled by using an Alpha channel.

In menus, select Layer> Transparency> Add Alpha Channel
In menus, select Select> Invert
Now hit the Delete key, and the corner sections will disappear.

If you do not want transparent corners and would rather have white or some other color, skip the Add Alpha Channel part and the delete will replace the corner areas with whatever color you have selected as the background color (default white).

It's easier than that. Select the ellipse select tool, use it to define the ellipse that you want out of the image, then Edit > Copy, and then Edit > Paste As > New Image. Voila -- your elliptical image, ready to save and/or export to your needed file format.

[leadwt]

Right-on.

A couple of 'tips' from the experts and it starts falling into place.

Thanks to all of you.