Re: [Gimp-user] Adding color to file

[Steve Kinney <admin pilobilus net>]

On 10/05/2017 03:02 PM, sl60 wrote:
> I want to color parts of what has been sent to me as a black-and-white pdf (line
> drawing, basically). What I usually do in a case like this is to change the
> original layer to Multiply, then duplicate this and multiply again. Then I
> select each part of the drawing I want to color and bucket fill it (different
> colors for each). if I save this as a pdf and open it, all it shows is the
> colors without the line drawing. if I save it as a png, all is preserved.
>
> My question is--should I save the pdf as a png or jpeg first before I start the
> entire process? It's a very low resolution drawing. Or does it matter? It's a
> big file (the original is on a 24"x36" sheet and it will probably be printed out
> at some point).

I would start by importing the page with the drawing in qustion into the
GIMP, after doing a little math to determine what size to make the
imported page to obtain about 300 DPI at the expected print size of the
finished work, when the page is cropped to the image.  Then I would crop
the imported page to the image, scale it to its finished size @ 300 DPI,
and proceed from there.

Your coloring method sounds effective to me.  In some cases you might
want to use two very similar colors with the Gradient tool to get
variable effects within the given boundary, but that may not be relevant
to the work at hand.

When finished I would (of course!) save the image in XCF format in case
it needs any adjustments in the future, then export it to PNG format for
delivery, unless another format has been specified.  Making the exported
image's background transparent assures no problems with matching the
background color of the page or etc. when it's printed, or you might
want a specific background color.  Either way, PNG will do the deed,
without noise from lossy compression.

:o)