How to make Bulging Eyes with the GIMP

I tend to live dangerous. Sometimes the risk is a calculated one, like taking a friends picture and then messing around with the GIMP to create some "Photo Harassment".  I suppose I ought to do a few blog posts and tag them here so I can "showcase" my crude photo edits.  1st, I want to thank Richard Querin for not sending me a pipe bomb in the mail after I "fixed" his photo. 

This one is a fairly quick and easy thing to do.  First you want to select the eyes with the Ellipse tool, and once you've got the first Ellipse where you want it with your selection, press Shift and Click again to create a second Ellipse.  Be careful it's easy to mess up and end up with to many Ellipse's. 

Note: At this point you might want to save the file as an .xcf file if you've done any cropping, etc, just in case.

Ok, so now that you've got both eyes selected, you need to filter the selected area. Menu > Filters > Distort > Iwarp.

Alright, now that you've got the Iwarp filter up, you can choose how you want to animate the eyes. Shrink, Grow, ect...   Make your choices,  and then select the Animate Tab, and also make some selections, I usually leave the defaults as they are, and choose 3-6 frames. Remember each frame is going to make the picture larger, and take it longer to load. 

Now save your file as a .gif, and make sure you save it (or export is it says) as an animation, or else, everything you've done so far will not come out. 

And Viola! you'll have a snazzy or freaky picture to show for your troubles. :) 

3 Quick Tips for New G+ Users.

Today on G+ a fairly popular and successful blogger  joined up and was asking about it, as it seemed confusing to him.  It also reminded me that I've not made any blog posts in some time, and it was time for me to rectify that.  This post is partly to clarify what's going on with G+ and the things about it that make it different from Facebook.  G+ is far from being a dead place if you just join in with a couple of conversations, you can easily, like I did today, spend a good part of the day discussing a topic. 

It's all about the Circles

The Whole Premise of the "G+ Circlies" and putting people into their Proper Circles, if Lost, can and will, leave one a bit confused, thus hating the G+ experience.  So While your account is still fresh!!!  It is a good idea to know what kind of circles you're going to want. Google's already done a fairly good job of getting you setup with some default circles. Add a few more of your own, and don't be afraid to make to many, as it's easy to merge Circles, but real pain to un-merge circles later. (I think it would be nice if we had nested sub-circles, BTW.)    

Don't be a Wallflower!

Where I think some people fail with G+ is that they don't post a few Public Posts, AND Don't fill in their profiles, so if their profile is visited after they make a comment, another person knows what circle to add them to.  Another mistake to avoid as a new G-plusser would be to put EVERYONE into one circle.  DON'T DO THAT!   Keep in mind that you can have people in ALL of your circles if you want, or just a few. It's all up to you.  I have many people in two or more circles, as they might be a [Close Friend] And a [Geek].

The Hangouts

One of the great new things that G+ had was the Hangouts. This is like a group chat forum but with video, in real time. (Watch out Go To Meeting!)  It works on all Three major OS platforms.  Linux, Windows, and Apple. It also works for some Android phones.  You can also control who sees your hangout invite.  It can be just 1 person, a circle, or public.  Also, you don't HAVE to have a video cam on your computer, but it helps. You DO need to at least have the ability to speak and listen. 

There's lots more to discover, such as the games, use of "#hastags" , saved searches,  Sharing YouTube videos in a hangouts, etc... 

Got a Question? Post it here, or on G+ as my comments are moderated 14 days after a post.