EDUCBA Logo

EDUCBA

MENUMENU
  • Explore
    • EDUCBA Pro
    • PRO Bundles
    • Featured Skills
    • New & Trending
    • Fresh Entries
    • Finance
    • Data Science
    • Programming and Dev
    • Excel
    • Marketing
    • HR
    • PDP
    • VFX and Design
    • Project Management
    • Exam Prep
    • All Courses
  • Blog
  • Enterprise
  • Free Courses
  • Log in
  • Sign Up
Home Design Design Tutorials Design Basic Tutorial GIMP Patterns
 

GIMP Patterns

GIMP Patterns

Introduction to GIMP Pattern

Patterns can be understood as repeated from any specific design arranged in rows or columns or in a specific sequence. Pattern may be any design according to your idea or any image, such as different custom shapes, or shape of any logo and many different things may design it. Here in this article, we will learn how to create a pattern design using custom shapes of gimp software and how to use our saved pattern later in other designing work of gimp. So let us understand this by an example.

 

 

How to Create and Save Patterns in GIMP

Today we will learn this topic by creating a pattern with the help of the Ellipse select tool of the tool panel of gimp.  First, take a new document that will become a reference background for our pattern. So click on the New option of the File menu of the menu bar.

Watch our Demo Courses and Videos

Valuation, Hadoop, Excel, Mobile Apps, Web Development & many more.

GIMP patterns output 1

Now set the size of the document according to the size of your pattern. For example, I will take 100 x 100 pixels as my document size.

GIMP patterns output 2

This is my document size.

GIMP patterns output 3

Now create a new layer by clicking on the ‘Create new layer’ button of the layers panel.

GIMP patterns output 4

Create a transparent layer by clicking on the transparency option in this dialog box.

GIMP patterns output 5

Now let us have guides for pointing out the center of this document. So go to the Image menu of the menu bar, go to the Guides option, and click on the New Guide (by Percent) option to scroll down the list.

GIMP patterns output 6

Now set the position value as 50% to get a guideline as half of this document. This will be a horizontal guide because the horizontal option is selected in the Direction option of this dialog box.

GIMP patterns output 7

Do the same for the Vertical guideline.

GIMP patterns output 8

Now you will get this type of guidelines.

GIMP patterns output 9

Now take the Ellipse Select tool from the tool panel and draw a circle by holding the Shift + Ctrl buttons of the keyboard, then move it to the crossing point of both guides so that we have this circle at the center of this document.

GIMP patterns output 10

Now take the Bucket Fill tool from the tool panel.

GIMP patterns output 11

And choose your desired color in the foreground color box of the tool panel. For example, I will choose this cyan color.

GIMP patterns output 12

Make a click with the bucket tool inside the circle to fill your selected color into it.

GIMP patterns output 13

Now go to the Select menu of the menu bar and click on the Shrink option to scroll down the list.

GIMP patterns output 14

I will shrink this circle by 8 pixels, which means the shrink option will make a copy of this circle smaller by 8 pixels compared to this circle.

GIMP patterns output 15.1

GIMP patterns output 15.2

Now press the delete button to delete this selected smaller circle.

GIMP patterns output 16

Again shrink it by 5 pixels using the same method and fill the color using the bucket tool. I will fill the yellow color in it.

output 17

Now go to the View menu of the menu bar and click on the Show Grid option for having gird on our document area.

output 18

We will have this type of grid in our document area.

output 19

This is a 1 x 1-pixel grid; you can see it by zooming in.

output 20

If you do not have this grid type, you can go to the Image menu of the menu bar and click on the Configure Gird option.

output 21

And set 1 x 1 values for horizontal and vertical grid lines from this dialog box, then hit the Ok button.

output 22

Now go to the Select menu to disable selection around this yellow circle and hit on the None option of the scroll-down list.

output 23

Again, create a transparent layer using the same method we created previously.

output 24

Select this transparent layer and take the Pencil tool from the tool panel.

output 25

Enable the Snap to Grid option from the View menu of the menu bar so that when we draw anything on this document, it will automatically snap with the grid, and we get an accurate result in our work.

output 26

Now Zoom in and draw anything with the pencil tool. The pencil tool will fill one by one block of this grid if you take 1 x 1 brush size in the parameters panel. So I will fill these four blocks with the pencil tool.

output 27

And I will change the foreground color of the color box then make this shape in the center of our pattern with the help of a pencil tool.

output 28

A pattern should be symmetrical, so I did the same on the opposite side of this circle and designed this type of pattern.

output 29

I want a transparent pattern so that I will delete the background layer. You can save it with a background of your desired color as per your choice. Now off the grids by disabling them from the View menu.

output 30

Now copy it by clicking on the Copy Visible option of the Edit menu.

output 31

Open the Pattern panel from the Dockable Dialogs option of the Window menu.

output 32

Create a new document of 1920 x 1080 size, and you will have your copied pattern in the pattern’s panel like this.

output 33

Take the Bucket tool and enable the Pattern fill option in the parameters panel of it.

output 34

Now click on the document area with the bucket tool, and you will have your pattern like this.

output 35

You can see it by Zoom in.

output 36

To save this pattern for future use, go to the Export As option in the File menu.

output 37

And save it as a ‘.pat’ extension at your desired location.

output 38

Now open the folder where you have saved it and copy it.

output 39

Then paste it into the Patterns folder of GIMP. You can find the patterns folder as C drive > Users > your PC name (as my is jhon smith) > AppData > Roaming > GIMP > 2.10 > patterns.

output 40

Now refresh the Patterns panel.

output 41

And you will have your pattern here with your saved name.

output 42

And you can use it on any document like this.

output 43.1

output 43.2

Conclusion – GIMP Patterns

This was the simplest way to create patterns in the gimp of your desired design by using different tools of the tool panel. Of course, you can also use any image in place of this design, but you have to make some parametrical changes, and you will get a nice pattern with that image.

Recommended Articles

We hope that this EDUCBA information on “GIMP Patterns” was beneficial to you. You can view EDUCBA’s recommended articles for more information.

  1. GIMP Alternatives
  2. Smooth Tool in Illustrator
  3. Create Table in Illustrator
  4. Design Patterns in Java

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Follow us!
  • EDUCBA FacebookEDUCBA TwitterEDUCBA LinkedINEDUCBA Instagram
  • EDUCBA YoutubeEDUCBA CourseraEDUCBA Udemy
APPS
EDUCBA Android AppEDUCBA iOS App
Blog
  • Blog
  • Free Tutorials
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Log in
Courses
  • Enterprise Solutions
  • Free Courses
  • Explore Programs
  • All Courses
  • All in One Bundles
  • Sign up
Email
  • [email protected]

ISO 10004:2018 & ISO 9001:2015 Certified

© 2025 - EDUCBA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE CERTIFICATION NAMES ARE THE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

EDUCBA

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you
Loading . . .
Quiz
Question:

Answer:

Quiz Result
Total QuestionsCorrect AnswersWrong AnswersPercentage

Explore 1000+ varieties of Mock tests View more

EDUCBA

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you
EDUCBA
Free Design Course

3D animation, modelling, simulation, game development & others

By continuing above step, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you
EDUCBA

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

EDUCBA Login

Forgot Password?

🚀 Limited Time Offer! - 🎁 ENROLL NOW