easy puzzles with GIMP

[heppnerguy]

Yesterday I stumbled on to something by mistake and I thought a lot of you would be interested in looking at it. I imagine many of you already knew this, but I would be willing to bet more of you do not know about this than do. 

 

puzzles are a nice gift filled with many memories. You can make a puzzle of a graduation, new baby, wedding, vacation, birthday, baptism and numerous other things. this kind of puzzle is something one might cherish for a long time. I have seen many ways to cut puzzles, like printing a puzzle pattern and gluing it onto an additions scrab board and layer cutting the photo with the puzzle pattern on the top of the heap. then of course there is the free hand cutting which some find a little to demanding. But guess what people ? I found a really cool way to do it that eliminates stack cutting and the guess work of free hand cutting. I found a way to do puzzles using GIMP. Here is how it is done.

 

get your picture to cut on your GIMP program

go to the filter tab

scroll down to render

select pattern

then select jigsaw

 

 from there you can make a lot of selection as to the typw and number of  pieces

 

Go  check it out...

 

 

Dick

heppnerguy

[amazingkevin]

this  should be interesting to try ,THANKS!

[Sparkey]

Thanks Dick. I went into gimp and played around with it and it is really neat.

[sullyscroller]

Thanks Dick , I'll have to check it out

 

sully

[HoosierWood]

Good tip.  Thanks.

[browders]

Does anyone here use Gimp with an apple? I'm a little confused on the download process and what it should look like.

[bobscroll]

Well Dick, I didn't know that!, I will have to get going with Gimp!

Thanks for the imfo, Bob 

[Ron Johnson]

Hi Dick

Thank you for the tip. I have never made a puzzle. I'll check out GIMP.

My wife has always been a real puzzle. I wonder if there'd be a pattern to fit.

[coullion]

Excellent post Dick. Thanks for the info. I also checked it out and it will work perfectly for me.

 

Todd

[tracyguy]

thanks for the tip. will definetly be using that one

[dragonfly84]

thanks for this

 

i just want to cut puzzles for christmas. It's perfect

Maryline

[heppnerguy]

 I am so glad that it is helpful to so many. sure makes it a snap to do puzzles, that is for sure. My first thought when I discovered it was to share my find with all of you..

 

Dick

heppnerguy

[PaPa50707]

That helps tremendously. Thanks for sharing it.

[keefie]

Just tried it, it works great and I'll be trying to cut one for my daughter. The only problem I can see with it so far is you can't change the colour of the jigsaw lines, and when you have a dark section of picture you can't see the lines. But I'll keep playing with it to see if I can find a way to change the colour.  It's definately a good find though. Thanks for the tip.

 

Keith.

[heppnerguy]

Just tried it, it works great and I'll be trying to cut one for my daughter. The only problem I can see with it so far is you can't change the colour of the jigsaw lines, and when you have a dark section of picture you can't see the lines. But I'll keep playing with it to see if I can find a way to change the colour.  It's definately a good find though. Thanks for the tip.

 

Keith.

I found the same problem.. I also found that if I added more pieces then the outside ones we screwed up and printed tabs part way to the outside.. Did you also run into this ? sometimes, as I added more pieces I also found it printed the pointed tabs both directions so that they  instead became a figure 8 piece in itself..

 

has anyone else ran across this problem ? Is there a way to correct it if you did ?

 

Dick

heppnerguy

[KurtP]

Thanks Dick, I have never cut a puzzle but will be giving it a try now.

 

Kurt

[heppnerguy]

I never was very enthused about cutting puzzles but since I started do that, and I am still only in the very beginning of cutting them with less than dozen of them cut, I have discovered  that the puzzles are really well accepted by the ones I have given them too and it was a favorite present during an early gift exchange last week, It was not that the puzzles skills were so fabulous but rather the subject matter ws exciting. This puzzle was of my son playing 'guitar Hero' with his 3 year old granddaughter. I cut it with only a few , large pieces, so that my great granddaughter could help make it with her grandfather. the secret to a loved puzzle is using the gifte person, one of their family members, it is of a wedding or birthday or one with Santa.. the subject makes the puzzle of prize or a closet space taker.. I have found that I prefer to free hand cut my puzzles but I was excited about finding the patten cut on the photo in GIMP  It might help others find out how the right photo choice within the puzzle makes the soul of another person, light up

 

Dick

heppnerguy

[Travis]

Just tried it, it works great and I'll be trying to cut one for my daughter. The only problem I can see with it so far is you can't change the colour of the jigsaw lines, and when you have a dark section of picture you can't see the lines. But I'll keep playing with it to see if I can find a way to change the colour.  It's definately a good find though. Thanks for the tip.

 

Keith.

 

Here's how I'd approach it.  Pull your pic into GIMP and resize/crop it the way you want.  Print that picture on photo paper.  Back in GIMP, hide your picture layer (click they eyeball).  Then on a new layer, fill that with a light gray.  Run your puzzle filter on the gray layer.  Print your gray layer.

 

To cut your puzzle.  

• Mount your photo on BB Ply with your favorite mounting technique.  
• Cut out the gray background pattern and mount that to some thick cardstock or a cereal box cardboard.  Trim to size.
• Cut another piece of thick cardstock or cardboard to size
• Sandwich your project blank cardboard (bottom), photo/BB Ply (middle), cardboard with puzzle template (top)
• Wrap with clear packing tape to hold it all together.
• Cut.

 

Now your puzzle won't have any of those lines, in case you drift off a bit.  

[keefie]

Thanks Travis, I'll give that a try today.

 

Keith.

[heppnerguy]

I liked the idea of having the puzzle pattern on the photo so that I did not have to mess with the extra puzzle pattern. I thought this would be the solution to that. Another thing that is annoying to me and Travis probably can tell me how to correct this too,,,, but GIMP make the lines a series of short straight lines to make a curve, instead of the nice straight curved lines that Inkscape produces, if I remember correctly, that is because Inkscape is a Vector program and GIMP is not. Is there a way to reformate a photo with the   GIMP puzzle pattern and make it into a vector line art ?

 

Dick

heppnerguy

[Travis]

I don't think there is an easy way to convert GIMP over to Inkscape.  You'd have to retrace the lines in Inkscape if you want the smoother lines.

[heppnerguy]

Here's how I'd approach it.  Pull your pic into GIMP and resize/crop it the way you want.  Print that picture on photo paper.  Back in GIMP, hide your picture layer (click they eyeball).  Then on a new layer, fill that with a light gray.  Run your puzzle filter on the gray layer.  Print your gray layer.

 

To cut your puzzle.

• Mount your photo on BB Ply with your favorite mounting technique.  
• Cut out the gray background pattern and mount that to some thick cardstock or a cereal box cardboard.  Trim to size.
• Cut another piece of thick cardstock or cardboard to size
• Sandwich your project blank cardboard (bottom), photo/BB Ply (middle), cardboard with puzzle template (top)
• Wrap with clear packing tape to hold it all together.
• Cut.

 

Now your puzzle won't have any of those lines, in case you drift off a bit.  

 travis i have used this solution before and it is the way that  I believe most people make puzzles, if they are not free cutting them. When I ran accross this  feature on GIMP, I thought  it was the answer to not having to go through all of this hassle, we are used to. It turns out that it does have a few problem and if the lines were vector lines then it really would not be a big problem at all. The darkened areas are easy enough to wing because there is not any lines that  show if you are off a little bit. The  jagged curves and the lack of proper resizing may be something that can be manipulated some how by someone who understand the program. I am not he, for sure..Thanks for the tip anyway, It will help some, I am sure.

 

Dick

heppenrguy