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Author: Artie, Contributing Editor
| Admiring all those colourful little squares all around WC!? Avatars, also known as "tinyheads", are images members use to represent themselves in the forums and chat. This article will show you step by step how to create an avatar in two of the most popular freeware graphics programs on the web -- GIMP and Irfanview. It will also show you how to upload a forum and chat avatar for WC!.
Notes: > The instructions for GIMP can also apply to other graphics applications such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Painter, etc. > GIMP (10.3MB as of version 2.2) is available for download at http://www.gimp.org/ . > Irfanview (856.5KB as of version 3.95) is available for download at http://www.irfanview.com/ . |
| Creating an avatar using GIMP:
When you open GIMP for the first time, it probably looks something like the screenshot below, minus the Open Image window. The window to the left is your toolbox, with a wide range of instruments at your disposal. For our purposes, however, we'll just need one: the rectangular selection tool (the darkened button, the first one in the set.) Now go to File > Open and the Open Image window will appear. Use the Folders area to navigate through the computer drive to find the folder that contains the image you want to use. (Click on the drive name to access the folders in that drive.) The Files area will show what image files are in whatever folder you've selected. The Preview area is where a preview of the selected image is shown. The location (or file path) of the image is printed both at the top and bottom. When you've found what you wanted, just click OK. |
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| Here's our work area with our toolbox and picture. Now we're ready. To begin, click on the rectangular selection tool.
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| Go to the picture, and, choosing where you want your upper-left corner, left-click and drag your mouse diagonally to make a frame around your subject. (You can also start with the top right corner and end up at the bottom left, no matter.) Make sure you don't let go of your mouse button while you're at it!
In this case we'll just start from the top edge somewhere and cross to the bottom edge. To make a square selection, drag while holding down the Shift key. We're going to crop the image leaving everything but what we've selected out, then resize that so it'll be exactly 60 x 60 pixels or less in dimension . |  |
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