How to Personalize Your Kindle Using GIMP

If you are looking to create a screensaver for your Amazon Kindle, you can use free and simple software called GIMP. A GNU Image Manipulation Program, you can download it at www.gimp.org. In addition to creating a screensaver, you can also use the program to retouch photos so it is a multi-tasking program that is definitely worth the hard drive space and the time it takes to download.

A screensaver is a fun way to truly personalize your Kindle. Here are the steps to resize and recolor your image in GIMP to make it work for your Kindle. So in order to get going with this project, download GIMP, and have an image ready.

Open the GIMP program;

Open a new image file by clicking on “file” and then “new”;

Create a canvas. When the “create a canvas” window opens, choose these attributes:

Width:600
Height: 800
Color space: Grayscale (you can find the “color” space” choice under “advanced options”)
Fill with: Foreground color (the black will create the screensaver’s border.)

Now add your picture, by clicking on “open as layers” under “file”. From here you can navigate directories for your image. The picture should open up centered automatically and in Grayscale.

You may discover that your picture needs to be cropped. If this is the case, here are the steps to crop in GIMP.

Click on the rectangle tool in the toolbox to the left of the image.

Then click and drag, creating a rectangle around the image.

After you are satisfied with the area to crop, click on “layer”, and choose “crop to selection.”

You will need to re-center the picture after the crop. In order to do this task:

1. Select the alignment tool from the toolbox
2. Click your image to select it
3. At the toolbox-make it relative to: image
4. Select “align center of target”
5. Select “align middle of target”

The picture should now be cropped and centered on the GIMP canvas. In order to resize your picture, simply:

1. Click on “layer”
2. Choose scale layer

When resizing your picture while keeping its proportion, GIMP is a great tool. All you have to do is adjust either the height or width, change it and GIMP automatically adjusts the other measurement. After you are done with your image, save it as a .JPG, .GIF, or .PNG file extension.

Perfect! Your image is now ready to be loaded into your Kindle.

How to Personalize Your Kindle Using GIMP

Please Add a Comment