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Transparent flat panel monitor? (hint: Gimp)
By maurizio | May 28, 2007
When I’m not writing How to make Firefox Faster, I like to play around with GIMP. Gimp is a photo retouching software like Photoshop but free (it’s totally free but, most important for us, free as in beer).
As you now understand, I created that image by combining two images. I saw something like that while I was stumbling but unfortunately I don’t remember the site url anymore (If you know it, please send me an email).
It’s not very difficult to do that. Now I’ll explain you how to do it, hoping you’ll send me your pictures (or just a link..let’s start another link-love-chain blog game!).
First you need some Image Manipulation Program like Gimp (Gimp stands for “GNU Image Manipulation Program”), Photoshop, Paint.Net (another free-as-in-beer software). I personally prefer Gimp, but if you are afraid of his interface you could try GimpShop, which is still Gimp, with a Photoshop like interface.
Second you need a camera to make the two original photos. Try to put your camera on a fixed position in order to be able to do both photos from the same position. Then make the first photo with your screen on, maybe with a small window opened (I did with winamp opened on top of the screen. stupid me). Then Move your screen away and take the second shot.Put your monitor back and save the two photos on your pc.
Next step is to open your Image Manipulation Program and load both images. (If you are a total newbie with Gimp, go to the menu File and select Open. Don’t be afraid for the “different” interface you’ll see.)
(Once you opened an image, to access all Gimp’s functionality you just need to right click somewhere and the menu will appear)
Once you have opened both images, you just select the image without your monitor. Now if you look on the Layer window, you should see something like this:
If you don’t see a layer window, right click on the image, select Dialogs and then Layers.
Now go to the image with your monitor, press Ctrl+C (or Right Click, Edit/Copy) then go to the background only image and press CTRL+V ( or Right Click, Edit/Paste). Go to the layer screen. You should see something similar to this:
What you see there is your original background image and a floating layer. We need to fix that layer into a normal layer now. To do that you need to click the first icon on the left on the Layer Window (or left click on the floating layer then right click and select “new Layer”).
(Look at this screenshot to understand what button I’m speaking about)
The result should be like this:
Now it’s really important that you understand the Layer screen.
The layer screen is where you see the layers (duh!) your image is made of. Layers are just an easy way to work with an image. You can separate stuff with layer so you don’t have to worry about ruining part of the image you didn’t want to work on. You can apply effects to a layer instead of the whole image too. You can even delete part of a layer to show the layer(s) below it….I think you are starting to understand what I did, right?
The trick I performed was to delete part of the above layer to show what was below. To work on the upper layer you need to left click on it inside the layer window (you’ll see a blue contour on it.When you leave that window, the contour will be Grey). Please note the small eyes on the left of every layer. If you click on them they will disappear and you will not see that layer on the picture.Just click again on the same place and the eye (and the layer) will reappear again.
Now the longest part of this tutorial, where you have to erase part of your image. To do that select the eraser tool
and start to delete the internal part of your monitor. (Please note that you could change the dimension of the Eraser. Look at the tool window where you see the “Brush” selected. Click on it and then select which one you need from the list)
If you want to make it more complicated, you could leave some window opened or a few desktop icons.
Two additional tools will be handy now, one is the Magnify tool (the small lens) that you can use to work on difficult situations (you can use the minus on your keyboard to zoom back, or just press CTRL when you are using the Magnify tool. Note the small + or – near the pointer). The second tool, which is the most important tool of all is the CTRL+Z (Right Click, Edit/Undo xxx, where xxx is the action to undo). You will be using CTRL+Z a lot of times, especially if you are using a mouse like me (sometimes I move it too much and I delete too much).
When you are happy with your results, just Right Click, Image/Scale Image and then Save it (as jpg) and post it to your blog. :-)
Do not close Gimp when you saved your image. Do a Ctrl+Z; this way you image will scale back to his original size. Now save it again with the .xcf file format (Gimp file format), so you’ll be able to load it again later and change whatever you want. You have to do that because when you first saved the jpg image, all the layers have been flattened in a single layer.
Send me an email if you create an image like this. I will create a post with all the screenshots and I’ll send you the html page back.Link love!
Topics: Content Creation, Internet | 5 Comments »
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May 28th, 2007 at 1:36 am
found them :
http://funmansion.com/html/Transparent-Computer-Monitors.html
Well..some of those pics are better than mine. :)
June 11th, 2007 at 8:10 am
[...] Transparent flat panel monitor? (hint: Gimp) [...]
June 16th, 2007 at 10:10 am
[...] Transparent flat panel monitor? (hint: Gimp) [...]
October 27th, 2010 at 10:30 am
LCD monitors are the de factor standard these days because they do not consume too much electricity”;,
December 15th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Hi just believed i’d tell you some thing.. This is twice now i?ve landed in your blog within the last three weeks seeking completely unrelated issues. Great Data! Maintain up the good function.