http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahotw/

More galleries will be moved over soon.

(Click the photo for full 1024×600 goodness.)

If you’d like this for your larger screen (or smaller) let me know and I’ll prepare one for any other resolution from the original.

Thankfully, the damage was limited to just the filter and lens cap.

Based on my observations, here are some of the common questions and concerns:

• Will Freenode be blocking access from any other client? No.
• Does this have anything to do with Mibbit being closed source and Freenode using open source software for their web client? No.

And I’ll toss in one more with my own answer:

• How am I supposed to have my special setup wherever I go? Use something like: screen irssi

Mibbit had their own answer to all of this.

We will start by selecting the Rectangle Select Tool, which is conveniently the first icon in the toolbox.

Most options must be set before selecting a rectangle.

First, we will feather the edges.

The smaller the radius, the sharper the edges will look.  For this example, I am using a radius of 10 pixels.

We will also be applying rounded corners to aid in the look and feel.

Once again, the smaller the radius, the more the corners will look like, well, corners.  A radius of zero will give sharp corners.  This can be adjusted after making the selection.

It is now time to create the selection.  Prior to making the selection, I’ve created a new, layer with a transparent background.

Create the selection by starting at one corner and dragging to the corner diagonal from the start point.

At this point, you will see the rounded corners, and if you’ve selected a huge feathering radius, you will also see that.

Now that we have the selection, grab the Blend Tool.

Be sure to select both a foreground and a background color, as both will be used in the blend.  Also, while not needed, I’ve applied a bit of transparency to the blend.  This can be useful if you plan on overlaying the final result on top of something else.  Everything else is set to the default values.

This next part I wasn’t able to get a screenshot of, but to make the blend, click in the upper region of the selection, and drag to the lower region, it may take a time or two to get it just how you like it.  In order to keep the blend perfectly straight, hold the Crtl key down while dragging.  This is what it will look like just after the blend is applied:

To see the final product of your hard work, deselect (Ctrl+Shift+a).

If you remembered to put it on it’s own transparent layer, you can turn off the background layer (which is currently why the background is white).

With a little bit of tweaking to this technique, you can do quite a bit:

Each of the many modes provide a different way to display the layer, and the opacity determines how transparent/visable the layer is.  Below is a sampling of just a handful of the different modes and how they effect a layer.

Normal

Normal is the default mode for all layers.  The above shows the yellow oval with a 50% opacity.

Dissolve

Again showed at 50% opacity, dissolve essentially dissolves the layer pixel by pixel with nearly all of the layer showing at 100% opacity, and nearly nothing showing as the opacity approaches 0%.

Multiply

Multiply makes the layer feel almost like a lens filter and gives the effect of mixing colors.

Difference

Difference shows the color remaining after removing the layer’s color from the background.

A) The New Layer button does just that, it allows you to create a new layer.  New layers will appear above the currently selected layer.

B) The Raise and Lower buttons allow you to move the layer up and down the list. Personally, I tend not to use these buttons because layers can also be dragged up and down in the list, which I find to be much faster and convenient.

Below: The layer ‘Green Circle’ has been moved from below ‘Orange Rectangle’ to above it.

C) If you just need to make a small change to a layer, but still want the original to fall back on, the Duplicate Layer button is for you.  Once again, another button that does exactly what it sounds like it does — it copies the currently selected layer and inserts a copy of it above.

D) Don’t want a layer? Just click the Delete button.  You can also drag the layer onto the button.

E) Most of the time, the active layer will be listed here. Occasionally other information will be shown here, generally relating to the active tool.

F) Layer Visibility.  When the eye is shown, so is the layer.  A single click toggles the visiblity.

G) The active layer will always be highlighted.  Any changes performed will affect this layer.

H) Layer Preview.  Use this to quickly get an idea of what the layer holds.

I) Layer Name.  When working with just a few layers, I generally don’t name them, either because I have so few, or because I know the preview will give me a good idea of what the layer hold.  With that said, it is still a good idea to name all your layers to prevent confusion.  The easiest way to do this is to double click on the current name.

As mentioned at the start, this is only a brief introduction to the interface.  Look for the next part later this week.  (Ok, who am I kidding, it will probably be next week after SELF.)