How to Make an Easy Banner on GIMP

Having a nice banner can really make your story stand out, but I can speak from experience that banners are very hard to make. There are forums where you can request a banner, but sometimes those are unreliable, and nothing is better than the satisfaction of making one yourself! I use GIMP to make my banners. It is absolutely free software, which is awesome! Below are some tips on creating an easy, simple banner for your story.

Step One:

Get two different pictures. Try to find pictures that remind you of your story and can express your story’s theme. I’m going to use these two:

Step Two:

Create your banner image and fill it with black. I’m going to make mine 600 x 300, but you can make yours any size you want.

Step Three:

Paste the first image onto your banner and, if you need to, scale it down to a workable size, but big enough so it still fills the screen.

After I scaled mine, I got this:

This looks a lot like the first picture of Shia, but part of the scenery is cut out.

Step Four:

Next, paste the second image onto your banner and scale it down, if necessary. I had to flip mine, but you may not have to, depending on your pictures.

Step Five:

Erase the extra bits of your second picture using your eraser tool. Erase until you can see enough of the first picture. You can set the eraser to a lower opacity to help you blend. Mine worked out so that I didn't have to do much to it.

Step Six:

Add the title to your picture. This is the easiest step. After all the steps, I ended up with this:

This very simple banner took me no more than 5 minutes. Depending on the pictures you choose, yours could take longer, but don't give up! All the work is worth it when you see your banner on your story page.