If you’re newbie to Linux, or you’re just getting into photo/image editing, you might have heard of the premier image editor for Linux, the GIMP. Maybe you’ve even opened it up a couple times, but then simply given up trying to do anything because of its somewhat daunting interface. Not to worry! Things really aren’t as complicated as they seem…and once you master a few basic skills, the GIMP will be your best friend when it comes to editing/touching up photos. I use the GIMP at least weekly, and when I’m working on a new web site or design project, daily.

When it comes to the basics like resizing, cropping, and flipping images, you’ll want to check the excellent tutorial at gimp.org. You’ll also learn how to change the mode (RGB, Grayscale, or Indexed) of your images as well as rotate them.

Once you have the basics down and you’re really ready to dig in, you might want to move on to gimp-tutorials.com, a site with over 700 tutorials focusing on web graphics.

If you’d really to give life to photo collection, the resources at gimpguru.org are really a God-send. Get into the digital darkroom here, and find some pretty cool advanced techniques.

If reading tutorials off the web isn’t your style, trying watching some video tutorials on using the GIMP.

For even more awesome GIMP resources, check out this article form New Linux User…several more top-quality sites are mentioned there.

Hopefully this roundup will get you started on really making the most the GIMP on your Linux system!