Re: [Gimp-user] Removing a vertical strip

[Akkana Peck <akkana shallowsky com>]

Timothy Murphy writes:
> I want to remove a vertical strip from a photo,
> and join the remaining two parts together.
> I'd be very grateful if some kind soul could tell me how to do this.
>
> I assume I should be using the guillotine tool.
> I have looked at the basic tutorials,
> but have not seen any explicit examples of doing what I need.
>
> I did look briefly at the slice plugin,
> but could not see how to download and install it on my laptop.

I'm guessing by "remove a vertical strip", you mean that you want
that part gone and the resulting image narrower by the width of the
strip. That's something I need to do every now and then in GIMP, and
the way to do it isn't all that obvious.

Probably the simplest way is this (still quite a few steps):

1. Make a rectangular selection of the part of the image to the
right of your strip. In other words, the selection should go from
the rightmost part of the strip you want to delete to the right edge
of the image; and from the top of the image to the bottom of it.

2. Edit->Cut.

3. Get rid of your selection: Select->None.

4. Paste the part you cut: Edit->Paste.

5. Drag the bit you just pasted until it's where you want it:
the left edge of the pasted part will match the left edge of the
strip you wanted to remove.

While you're dragging it can be fiddly to keep the top and bottom
edges even with the image. View->Snap to Canvas Edges helps with that.

6. When you're happy with where the pasted layer is, Layer->Anchor layer.

7. Image->Zealous crop. (Or Image->Autocrop if you have transparency.)

That's a lot of steps for a simple operation, and since I've needed
it quite a few times, I wrote a Python plug-in to automate it:
https://github.com/akkana/gimp-plugins/blob/master/cutout.py

With the plug-in, you make a selection of the horizontal or
vertical slice you want to cut out: of course, the selection must
either span the whole height or the whole width of the image.
Then run: Filters->Distorts->Cut out selected band.

If you download cutout.py, on that github page you'll need to click on
"Raw" first and download that. Then follow the instructions on one of
these pages (whichever one you prefer) to install the plug-in:
http://blog.meetthegimp.org/how-to-install-python-plugins-under-gimp/
http://registry.gimp.org/node/24703

        ...Akkana