Gimp MiniHOWTO: Make a black border around a selection
Okay, this was hard as hell for me to figure out, but once I did, it was appallingly easy, so I want to put this out there in case anyone else stumbles over it in the future. See the logo at the top of my page with the fist and the monitor? The original image of the monitor is a black image that I found in the “openclipart” package (which is chock full of fun stuff, btw, sudo aptitude install openclipart). Yesterday I was fucking with my business card layout, and I wanted to turn that monitor into a white image with a black outline so I can superimpose my text on it. Here’s how to do it.
Using the color select tool, I select the monitor. Ctrl-C Ctrl-V to make a copy of it as another layer. Flood fill that layer with white, then scale it down by a few pixels. Viola, a white monitor with a black outline!
It’s one of those things that if you’re not savvy, it takes you an hour to wrap your head around but once you do, you’re like, “Oh shit I’m an idiot!” So maybe this post can save someone else the embarrassment 
-pd-
