User guide
Table Of Contents
CHAPTER 9. FILE 84
The Reset button resets all values to their default values. OK creates a new
image. Additional Information
Default Keyboard Shortcut:
Ctrl
N
9.3 Open File
Open dialog is where you can load images into GIMP for viewing or editing. The left
hand window shows the directories and the right hand window shows the files in the
selected directory. To open a file, select it in the files listing then choose the correct file
type. If the file has an extension which defines its filetype (such as .xcf) you can select
Automatic and GIMP will open the file in that format. Alternatively, you can force GIMP
to open the file as a specific format by choosing one of the other options in the drop
down list.
Some images have a preview associated with them so you can see what the image
is before opening it. This is particularly useful for larger images where opening the full
image will take a while. If an image doesn’t have a preview, you can click Generate
Preview to create one. This preview image is stored in a sub-directory of the current
one called .xvpics. This preview image will be used in the future when using the open
dialog. Clicking OK opens the image with the selected settings; Cancel aborts.
A useful feature of the Load Image dialog is autocompletion of file names. Type the
first few letters of the file name and press the
Tab key. GIMP will then complete as
much of the file name as is uniquely defined by what has already been typed. The right
side of the dialog will display all files that match the letters in the selection box. You can
then type more letters and press
Tab again to update the window.
You can load multiple images by pressing
Shift and clicking on each file you want
to open. Additional Information
Default Keyboard Shortcut:
Ctrl
O
9.4 File Save or Save As
File Save lets you save your file either by its extension e.g. save a file.xcf as an XCF
image. The XCF file format is GIMP’s native file format and is the preferred format to
save all your images in.
You can of course save as TIFF, JPEG, or one of the other available
formats, but all the specific GIMP image information will be lost (i.e. the
information about layers, channels, parasites, selections, etc).
See also: XCF
When you save an image in a non- GIMP format (i.e. not as a XCF or XJT image)
you could be asked to export it. By exporting it, you will be sure of getting all the visual
image information saved in the non-native format (exporting will, for example, flatten an
image to be saved as .jpg). Ignoring the suggestion to export runs the risk of losing
valuable image information such as nonactive layers.