GIMP/Toolbox

GIMP has a "toolbox" to quickly perform basic tasks. Toolbox is customizable, this means that you can add / remove any tool you want. To select tools for doing something, go to the "Tools" menu, and select any tool you want. To put the tool on the panel go to "Edit > Preferences > Toolbox".

But it can only be edited in a linear way, that is, while sorting it in the "options" there's no way to see where tools will finally appear on the grid. Even though the program's layout updates instantly. They push each other around. There's no way to align tools to right or other corners, or each other.

If the user later shifts the width of the toolbox' panel (to optimize space on screen), the grid gets misaligned, so there's a way to accommodate only 1 layout. If leaving a not evenly divisible quantity of tools, the lowest-right corner can't be utilized.

For that matter, it may be useful to make a screenshot of the toolbox with having activated all the needed tools, and lay out the grid in an easy raster program like Paint or GIMP itself, to make the surface look the needed way. Then start moving them in Preferences accordingly. Remember that tools go from the up-left corner, rightwise then down.

By default not all tools are shown - for example GEGL operation and colour tools are omitted. All tools can also be accessed by opening the "Tools" menu. To switch the window to toolbox, you can use Ctrl + B. Shortcuts written here are the default values - you can change them any time in "Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts" or "Edit > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts".

More sophisticated tools are not in the toolbox, but next to the Tools, in the Filters menu.

Tools

These tools are available by default in toolbox.

Icon	Name	Shortcut	Description
Selection tools
	Rectangle	R	Select square or rectangular regions (axis-aligned).
	Ellipse	E	Select circular or horizontal / vertical elliptic regions. Notice that there's no ellipse drawing tool as such, only selecting.
	Free (Lasso)	F	Free-form selecting.
	Fuzzy (Magic Wand)	U	Select by colour in continuous regions.
	By Colour	Shift + O	Select by colour without any limit to continuous regions.
	Scissors	I	Create paths to select shapes.
	Foreground	(none)	Select a region containing foreground objects.
Brush tools
	Bucket Fill	Shift + B	Fills areas with a colour or pattern.
	Blend (Gradient)	L	Fill an area with a gradient.
	Pencil	N	Draw exact pixel-edged lines; that is, not anti-aliased.
	Paintbrush	P	Paints soft- or fuzzy-edged lines; that is, the pixels are anti-aliased and/or feathered.
	Eraser	Shift + E	Erase pixels from a layer.
	Airbrush	A	Paint tool with a softer pressure.
	Ink	K	Paint anti-aliased with a simulation of a nib.
	Clone	C	Copy pixels from one part of an image to another.
	Heal	H	Heal image irregularities.
	Perspective Clone	(none)	Clone from an image source after applying perspective transformation.
	Convolve (Blur/Sharpen)	Shift + U	Blur or sharpen an image.
	Smudge	S	Mix adjacent pixels; with a direction.
	Dodge/Burn	Shift + D	Lighten or darken an image's shadows, mid tones or highlights.
Transform tools
	Move	M	Move selections and layers.
	Align	Q	Align or arrange layers and/or other objects.
	Crop	Shift + C	Crop or clip all the image.
	Rotate	Shift + R	Rotate the active layer, selection or path.
	Scale	Shift + T	Scale the active layer, selection or path.
	Shear	Shift + S	Tilt part of the image to some direction.
	Perspective	Shift + P	Imitate 3-dimensional shift of an image.
	Flip	Shift + F	Flip selections and layers.
Other tools
	Path	B	Allows selecting and modifying paths.
	Colour Picker	O	Select the colour from anywhere in open images for further drawing.
	Magnify (Zoom)	Z	Alter the zoom level in the program.
	Measure	Shift + M	Shows distances and angles.
	Text	T	Place text layers into your image.

There are also some other tools, hidden by default. These tools are accessed from the "Tools" menu, or by showing them in toolbox.

Icon	Name	Shortcut	Description
Colour tools
	Colour Balance	(none)	Modifies the colour balance of current selection or layer.
	Hue-Saturation	(none)	Adjusts hue, saturation and lightness.
	Colourize	(none)	Renders into a grey scale seen through coloured glass.
	Brightness-Contrast	(none)	Adjusts brightness and contrast. This brightness is alike to the Color/Hue/Saturation's Lightness, but from other algorithmic point of view.
	Threshold	(none)	Transforms the current layer or selection into black and white.
	Levels	(none)	Changes the intensity range of the active layer or selection in every channel.
	Curves	(none)	Changes the colour, brightness, contrast or transparency by means of diagrams.
	Posterize	(none)	Reduces the number of colours.
	Desaturate	(none)	Converts all colour to shades of grey.
Other tools
	GEGL operation	(none)	Executes a GEGL operation.

Tool options

By default, activating any tool will have the effect of showing its options under the toolbox. Each tool has its own set of settings and any changes to them are kept through the current session. There are also four buttons under any options.

Save options to... - save options of the current tool
Restore options from... - restore options from saved file
Delete saved options... - delete saved options
Reset to default values - reset them to standard.

You can hide them by clicking on the arrow next to the tool name and deselecting Show Button Bar. You can also access these from the same menu under Tool Options Menu.

Colour, Indicator and Active Image area

Below the toolbox can be placed these three areas. This is set in "Edit > Preferences > Toolbox" and any of the three can be placed there.

Colour area

Shows current foreground and background colour. Clicking on either will bring the colour editor dialogue.

Clicking on the symbol in the lower left corner resets the colour to their defaults. The D key has the same effect.

Clicking on the symbol in the upper right corner swaps the foreground and background colours. The X key has the same effect.

Indicator area

Shows currently selected brush, pattern or gradient. Clicking on any of these allows to change it.

Active Image area

Displays a thumbnail of the active image. Clicking on it will bring the Images dialogue up, allowing you to select an image.

← Introduction · Gradient →