im not Rod but you should try doing stuff like this in a vector based prgram like Inkscape
its a lot easier to do gears and you can scale it any way you want

Thanks a lot Esper. I will try Inkscape. However this time i have a custom created gimp image file which has a rough edges. And I want to smooth the edges. Can still edit gimp files in Inkscape?

Thanks
Krishna

krishna: you won't be able to edit gimp files in inkscape, but you will be able to export any paths made in gimp to inkscape, if you want to. however, i think it should be possible to get a good looking result by editing your existing gimp file, instead of doing the whole job over again in inkscape. can you tell us what methods you have already tried for smoothing the result so we won't give you the same tips over again?

First of all thank for your kind helping hand.

I tried Gussian Blur, Select->sharpen, Select->Feather. But non of these helped me. I have couple of images of ship propellers (downloaded from internet) which i want to edit for smoothening. I have attached one of the image here. (the .gif is downloaded and after resizing exported to .png file which has more rough edges)

Please help!!!

Thanks
Krishna

g_krishna1:
okay. i didn't like the look of that png one bit, so i worked from your gif and made a smoothed png. i tested the png in different smaller sizes and i still think it looks good enough - of course, i don't know what requirements you have of the result, but i think using the techniques i used here you could also get better results.


i started by duplicating the original layer and putting the gaussian blurred copy under the original layer. then i gaussian blurred the copy by 10 px (both directions). after that i went into the colour menu and under curves i chose to make an alpha curve. i then experimented on that alpha curve til i got edges that looked smooth and tight and not jagged. then i made an alpha to selecion of that copy layer, i shrank the selection by 2 px and feathered it by two. i then selected the original layer again, inverted the selection and cut it off. that gave me a propeller with the sharpness in detail of the original layer but the smoothed edges of the gaussian blurred copy. the next step (and here i think you could do much better than i have, it takes a bit of time and patience) was to make some of the jagged edges inside the actual drawing look smoother. first i made a copy of what i had so far on a new layer and duplicated that copy. then i went into g'mic (don't know if you have the g'mic plugin? if you don't you might want to get it, it's really good for repair work among other things!) and under "repair" i chose "smooth (anisotropic)". i changed nothing in the menu except for the "amplitude" and "anisotropic" sliders, and i just moved those two upwards a little. that gave me a propeller without the jagged look of the shadows and highlights. on the other hand, the anisotropic copy looked a bit too smooth and the detail was a bit lost, so i did this: 1. alpha selected the first (unsmoothed) copy layer. 2. selected the smoothed layer again and made a layer mask from the selection, then turned the selection off. 3. with a small soft paintbrush with black fg colour painted out the parts that i wanted transparent on the smoothed layer. for example, the nave of the propeller didn't look good on the smoothed layer, so i made those parts transparent to show the unsmoothed layer underneath. i can see now that the unsmoothed layer was a bit too jagged around the nave, so i could have made those parts semi-transparent on the smoothed layer instead.

i think it takes a bit of tlc if you want to make a nice, smooth looking png out of a gif, but you should be able to get there!

AnMal, very good result.

Thanks a million Anmal. This site is filled with genius professionals..proved.

I tried to follow your steps on another copy. But being myself a starter in GIMP, I just could not proceed at the Alpha curve. I just can not figure it out what and how to move the curves to get a smooth line. Infact it might be showing in the preview but like dumb i just struggled there. Then I skipped this alpha curve and proceed further. But again I puzzled where you said you selected the original layer, inverted and cut it off... i could not figure it out... I know its quite difficult to follow and copy the GIMP Masters.

So at last I quit the idea of cooking it myself. And I just grabbed your served meal...

Your modified work is perfect for me. And it doesnt show curvy edges on resizing... In my upcoming IOS app this i used (200x151).

Once again thanks a lot. You people are wonderful and always do the magics..

Krishna

I think Anmal meant the original layer and not the duplicate Copy. Then select , invert then delete.

g_krishna1: hehe, a genius professional - that will give my boyfriend something to laugh at. you're of course welcome to use the png i made, but i'd be happy to explain the whole thing better if it was hard to understand - it's not easy to know what level of explanation is needed when you don't really know what the other person already knows . learning some of the tricks i used for this picture is worth the effort, i think!

wbool63: thank you! i'm really glad you took the time to say that, because if you say i made a nice job of it it must be true.

molly: i probably need to look over that explanation again and rewrite it til it makes some sense . shouldn't this whole part of the thread be moved, though?

Hi Friends,

I posted a help request at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8657.

Please help me!!!

Thanks
Krishna

This one never grows old.

Nicely done Mike!
Love that texture you put on it.

Cool looking icon Wallace.

Thanks Odin.
It could use some antialiasing on the corners, but this isn't apparent to me when used as an icon on RocketDock.

Those look great Wallace! Love that color choice. I had forgotten about Rocketdock i will have to re install that.

Yeah, thanks Rod.
I really enjoy using RocketDock, it's a pretty neat program. That brushed steel pattern you made worked out great.

multi-gear composition (just for fun! )

Gears of Tran.

No they're not, they're gears of many people on here I just cut and pasted and combined them for fun