Image editing: GIMP explainer 5 of 5

Create a new image with a single-colour background

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Create a new image with a single-colour background


Overview

Name of explainer: Create an image with a single-colour background

Creative theme: Image editing

Software used: GIMP

User level: BEGINNER

This is explainer 5 of 5 in this series

This series includes:

  1. Open an image, resize it and save it
  2. Open an image, rotate it and crop it
  3. Open an image and apply basic colour correction
  4. Open an image and add text
  5. Create a new image with a single-colour background

The Software

This series of beginner explainers uses GIMP, which is completely free to download and use.

Get your copy of GIMP now.

This month we’re also running explainer series for Photoshop (which requires a paid monthly or yearly subscription) and Corel PaintShop Pro (which is a one-time purchase of around 70 pounds / 80 US dollars).

The pre-requisities

This is a BEGINNER workflow explainer, so you just need to install and open the software. We’ll take it from there.

If you’re new to IT / computing, you may need help downloading and installing the software. Start with a search for ‘how do i install gimp’ or speak with someone who’s familiar with downloading and installing.

Why would I do this?

Sometimes a presentation would look better with a single-colour background (other than white!). A block of colour can also be used as a background for titles in a video. Most creative software includes ways to create a solid colour background, but if you’re working across lots of applications it can be easiest to create and save an image to re-use many times, as we do here.

Let’s do it!

Click the play icon to watch this video. Subtitles are available – Click the settings cog at the bottom right for options. You can also watch this video full-screen by clicking the full-screen icon at the bottom right.

Good to know

This approach is the easiest way to create an image with a single colour background in GIMP.

Where to next?

Blocks of a single colour are impactful, but it’s also possible to fill the entire image with a background pattern, like this ‘warning’ design :

To do this, start with a new, blank image as in the explainer video.

Next, click on the ‘bucket fill tool’ (which looks like a paint-pot, as above) and select a ‘pattern fill’ from the drop-down list.

Remember, this is part of a series of explainers for this software – Join us again for the other explainers in the series 🙂

Notes and updates

There are no notes or advisories at this time. This video explainer was last updated in February 2023. This page was last updated in February 2023.

We at pixels.cool are not responsible for the content of any external webpages or software downloaded from third party sites. Links are included in good faith at the time of writing. All explainer content is compiled in good faith using processes and methods used by the team. Modern software gives users many ways in which to accomplish the same task, and for reasons of clarity we choose not to reference multiple options. All computer users should run up to date virus / security software at all times to minimise risk.


This is number 10 of the 15 explainer videos available for image editing month. We’ve come to the end of our GIMP series. Make sure you check out our explainers for PaintShop Pro and Photoshop too!