Hello folks--I'm a new user, and hope that I'm not asking a stupid question, or bothering anybody!

I'm trying to do a rebuild on my farm's website, and want to add more...appeal I guess (not sure what to call it) to my header. Here's a link to a temporary upload of my current header: http://cloudview.webstudio.com/112834/

I would like to be able to give it a "stretch" and "shadow" effect similar to what the attached example shows, except I want to do it to one picture (the other attached picture).

Any help on this would be appreciated, I'm aiming for a banner that is 850 pixels wide, and I'd like to sit my logo in the center of the image.

Hopefully this makes sense, if you can't understand me I'll try to explain again As a farmer you can tell I'm out of my field (literally when I try to do stuff like this.

Thanks for your help folks!

Create a new layer filled with white.

Open the "Filters->Distorts->Curve Bend" dialog and drag the center of the curve line down just a little as shown in the following screen shot.



Next, click on the "Mirror" button and then OK. This will warp your white layer into the proper shape; now we want to use that layer as a layermask for your banner.

Set your background color to black and then remove the white layer's alpha channel ("Layer->Transparency->Remove Alpha Channel")

Perform an "Edit->Cut". This will delete the white layer, but it will first be copied to your clipboard.

Add a layermask to your original layer ("Layer->Mask->Add Layer Mask..."). The default settings are fine for this.

Perform an "Edit->Paste" and then "Layer->Anchor Layer" to paste your clipboard into the layermask.

Voila!



Note that the image itself does not actually get stretched, merely the border is changed. If you actually want to stretch the image, just apply the Curve Bend filter to the original layer (this will distort the straight rows of plants).

Wow that's great--Thanks! I'll run through that this afternoon.

Does anybody know how to add a shadow in specific spots like the example--so it kind of stands out?

Again, thanks that's exactly what I wanted to do!

Go to Filters > Light and Shadow > Drop Shadow > untick allow sizing.

You can use the default or change your x and Y offsets and adjust your opacity to your preference.

IMHO the outline shape of the picture has a lot more effect than distorting the contents. Here I just cut the top and bottom to shape with a clip path, and added a drop-shadow:

Next dumb question: "What's a clip path? That does look smoother.

Thanks for all the info--I've gotten this far:

That looks great to me.
Welcome to Gimp Chat.

I have moved this to Gimp Help.

Sorry if I posted in the wrong area--I meant well

Not a problem colvin, We all do it.

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Bezier_Selections/