Guide: Use Flip Tool in GIMP: Tips and Tutorial
Sometimes the powerful image editors like GIMP and Photoshop make a simple task difficult or bury the option in an overwhelming interface. Take, for example, cropping an image to a certain shape. Likewise, while GIMP is a dedicated button to flip an image, its use is unclear. When you flip an image, you need to rotate it 180 degrees horizontally or vertically. The final image is the mirror image of the original image. Things differ slightly for flipping an image, layer, or selection in GIMP. If you’ve wanted to use the flip tool in GIMP, you’ll find all about it in this post. Here’s one guide On how to flip an image in GIMP. There are two methods of doing this. Let’s take a look at them.
1. Using the built-in flip tool
The native flip tool can be used to invert the layer, selection and path. You can mirror in two directions: horizontal and vertical. The former changes the direction of the image from left to right, while the latter from top to bottom. Other than that, nothing else will be changed. Whether it’s the dimensions or the pixel information.
Flip the image in GIMP
Here is how to go for it. Step 1: Start GIMP and open the image you want to flip. Step 2: Click on the Flip tool present in the toolbox. The icon has two arrows in a box. Tip Use the keyboard shortcut Shift + F to activate the mirror tool.
Step 3: Horizontal flip is enabled by default. If you click anywhere on the image, it will be flipped horizontally.
To change the direction to vertical, select Vertical under Direction in the Flip Tool options. Then click the image again to flip it. Tip: When the flip tool is active, hold down the CTRL key (Windows) and Command (macOS) to switch between the flip directions. You have to hold down the key and then click on the image.
Flip the layer over in GIMP
To flip a single layer of the image, select that layer by clicking it in the Layers box. Then click on the Flip tool and flip it over by clicking anywhere on the image.
Flip the selection in GIMP
Inverting the selection is useful if you want to flip only a specific portion of the layer. It can be used to flip alphabets, objects and more. For that, after opening the image in GIMP, click on one of the selection tools. Use the fuzzy text selection tool. Highlight your selection on the image. For example, in the following image, I selected d and g from the guidance layer.
Then activate the Flip tool and click anywhere on the image. You will get the desired result.
2. Using the Transform Tool
Another way to achieve the same result is to use the Transform option. Unlike the Flip tool, which also allows you to flip the selection, in this case you can flip only a layer or an entire image.
Flip a layer
To do this, follow these steps: Step 1: Open the image in GIMP. Step 2: Click on the Layer option in the top bar and select Transform from it.
Step 3: Choose the mirroring you want by clicking Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical. That will flip the currently selected layer.
Flip all layers in GIMP
To flip the contents of all layers, you need to use another Transform option. To do that, click on the image option in the top bar and select Transform followed by your Invert choice.
Bonus Tip: Create a mirror effect in GIMP
To do this, we need to duplicate the image first, followed by enlarging the image, and then we need to flip it. Here are the steps in detail for the same. Step 1: Open the image for which you want to create the mirror effect in GIMP. Step 2: Right-click the layer in the Layers box and select Duplicate Layer.
Step 3: Now we need to increase the size of the canvas. To do this, click on Image in the top bar and select Canvas size from there.
Step 4: To create the mirror effect horizontally, increase the width of the canvas and increase the height for a vertical mirror effect. For that, you must enter * 2 (yes, it is an asterisk for 2) next to the specified dimension in the appropriate box. For example, if I want to create a vertical mirror effect, I write * 2 in the Height box. Then click the Resize box.
Doing so will give you an area the same size as that of your image.
Step 5: Click the Move tool and drag the layer to the bottom empty area.
Step 6: With the bottom layer selected, click the Flip tool and choose Vertical direction. If you had increased the width, you should choose Horizontal here.
Step 7: Click anywhere on the image to flip the bottom layer. That will make your image have the mirror effect.
Magic of the mirror
Flipping the image produces impressive results. You can use it to adjust the direction of the object in the image as you like. For example, if the man in the object is looking to the right, you can use the mirror tool to make him look to the left. Likewise, the mirror effect makes for interesting images. The next up Images with a transparent background facilitate image manipulation. Know how to make the image background transparent in GIMP.
Use Flip Tool in GIMP: Tips and Tutorial: benefits
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