How to Make a Packaging Visual in Gimp
Produce a Graphic Image of a Product Box Using the Free Image Editor
May 20, 2009
In an age when digital products supplied via digital delivery are becoming more common, the use of virtual packaging graphics can be an effective way to visualise virtual products. This technique is regularly used by software vendors who often display their products on their websites as a boxed package, even though their products are almost exclusively supplied by digital download and so do not have a tangible form.
This technique of producing a 3D style visual of packaging can also be a useful technique when selling packaging design concepts to a customer. This technique helps to make the client connect with a concept as it is more easily understood when presented in this form.
They can also be superimposed onto images of retail display units to show how they could look when presented in a real shop.
Using Gimp to Produce a Packaging Visual
Gimp is a free and open source image editor that is an ideal raster image editing tool for Graphic Designers operating on a budget. There is more information on the application in this Suite101 Overview of Free Image Editor Gimp.
The visual that is being produced requires two elements in order to produce the 3D effect, these being a 2D visual of the front of the package and another of the side panel. These can either be produced in Gimp or may be imported into Gimp, having been produced in another application, such as Inkscape.
The Graphic Designer can now open a new Gimp document which should be about twice as large as the final image needs to be. If the package front and side panels are being produced in Gimp, these panels should be made first and merged into two separate layers. If the panels have been produced in another application, they should be imported into this document and be placed onto two separate layers.
Arranging the Panels of the Package
When the Graphic Designer has the front and side panel prepared, they should be placed side by side and, if necessary, be transformed so that they are the same height.
Each layer should now be duplicated ,by using the duplicate button in the layers palette, and then flipped going to the Layer menu, clicking Transform and selecting the Flip vertically option. The two flipped layers are now moved down the canvas so they are placed below the original two layers. The second image at the bottom of this page shows roughly how they should be placed.
Applying Perspective in Gimp
The two original layers now are transformed using the Perspective tool. First the Designer selects the front panel in the layers palette, selects the Perspective tool from the tool box and then clicks on the canvas which displays grab handles at each corner of the layer. Clicking and dragging on a handle allows the effect of perspective to be applied to the layer.
The third image at the bottom of the page shows how the two panels are transformed to give the effect of a box being viewed from an angle.
The two flipped panels now need to be transformed using the Shear tool so that they start to appear like reflections of the box.
This is achieved by selecting one of the flipped layers in the layers palette, selecting the Shear tool and clicking on the canvas. The Shear Magnitude Y value is adjusted so that the top edge of the flipped panel is parallel to the bottom edge of the panel above it. This step is shown in the fourth image.
Producing a Reflection in Gimp
When both layers have been transformed, they are positioned below the top two panels with a slight space between them. These flipped layers are merged together and this is achieved by making all the other layers invisible by clicking the eye button that appear next to the layers in the layers palette.
The Graphic Designer can now right-click on a layer in the layers palette and select Merge Visible Layers. The other layers can now be made visible again by clicking the blank buttons that replaced the eye buttons.
To make the layers appear like a reflection, a mask is applied to the newly merged layer by right-clicking on the layer in the layers palette and selecting Apply Layer Mask. In the dialog box that opens, White should be selected and the mask is added.
The Designer now needs to click on the Mask icon that has appeared in the palette and select the Blend tool, with the foreground color set as black, the background color set as white and the gradient set as FG to BG. A gradient is now applied to the mask by clicking on the canvas and dragging the cursor upwards. The fifth image shows roughly where the blend tool is dragged from.
A gradient can be reapplied to the mask multiple times until the result is as desired. The opacity of the layer can also be tweaked using the Opacity slider in the layers palette in order to produce the effect of a reflection.
This image can now be saved in other formats and used within print or web designs.
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