This odyssey all started when my mother decided to take me up on my offer to set up a shop for her on Etsy. In order to have a nice looking shop, you need a pretty shop banner. I paid someone to make the banner for my store and I love it, but I want to know how to make a good one all by myself.
I have never worked with Photoshop because I just couldn't justify the expense for the little use I have for it, but I have always wanted it really bad. So, after some sleuthing around on-line, I discovered that there is a mac version of Gimp. Hooray! If you're not familiar with Gimp (I wasn't until yesterday), it's a sort of Photoshop wannabe with the best feature of all - it's 100% FREE!
So, there I was, pushing the download button and off to the races I went, ready to make my fancy banners and anything else I could think of. Except I barely made it to the first turn. I'm not sure who's less intuitive, me or Gimp, but it was a struggle. The on-line manual is not my friend, so I turned to youtube to see what I could find. After watching about 15 different tutorials, I finally figured out where I had been going wrong (something to do with "open as a layer" instead of just "open") and voila! Within 20 minutes (plus the 5 painful hours I'd already spent, but we won't count that) I had my first test banner.
It is ridiculous how proud I am of this thing. I know it's simple, but I did it all by myself!! I can't wait to get started on something for Pickadilly Beads!
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