Grokking the GIMP

"The title of this book, Grokking the GIMP, is drawn from Robert A. Heinlein's classic science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. His story is about Valentine Michael Smith, the only survivor of the first human expedition to Mars and raised from infancy by Martians. The rescue mission arrives twenty years later to bring a young man knowing nothing of his own kind back to earth. The story recounts his repatriation and his adventures as he comes to grok the human race and his place in it. Grok, a word he often uses, is the Martian word meaning ``to drink,'' but which also serves as a quasi-religious metaphor in the Martian culture for having a profound appreciation and understanding for something.

Heinlein's book, published in 1961, drew immediate acclaim in the science-fiction world, and the story became a part of the iconoclastic cultural sentiment of the 60s in the United States. Today, the word grok is a part of the U.S. computer hacker vocabulary, and its definition can be found in The New Hacker's Dictionary.

So, do you want to grok the GIMP? When I first came across it in 1996, I did. I was writing an article and had some photographs of poor quality I wanted to touch up and enhance before including them. I had heard about the GIMP so I downloaded it from the Internet and compiled it. When I ran the program, it popped up a small toolbox. Without too much trouble, I discovered how to open image files and access the image menu containing all the GIMP functions and filters. Wow! It looked very cool...and powerful! But, I didn't have a clue how to use it to solve my photo problems. ..."

http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/