Gimp

Draw a circle

• Draw an elipse selection
• Select > To Path
• Pick a color
• Edit > Stroke Path

Layer fadeout

• In the Layers tab, you can directly change the percent transparency of any layer with a slider

Edge fadeout

• select the area to preserve; IF YOU WANT THE EDGE TO FADEOUT, SELECT A BOX JUST INSIDE THE ENTIRE IMAGE; YOU CAN ALSO USE THE MAGIC WAND TO SELECT AN AREA, AND SHRINK AND GROW AS NEEDED
• SELECT->FEATHER, GIVE IT ABOUT 5 PIXELS; THIS APPEARS TO DO NOTHING BUT PUT A BIT OF ROUNDED CORNERS ON YOUR SELECTION, WEIRD EH?
• INVERT THE SELECTION, AND HIT DELETE – vioala, GIMP FADES OUTWARD. YEs, IT’s weird!

Jelly text

• Choose the text tool and draw some text (doh!)
• Select the newly created text layer on the Layers page
• Right-click on the newly created text layer and select Duplicate – you now have two layers of text
• Choose the text tool again
• Select the first layer and double click on the text
• Right-click text, select “Create Path from Text”
• Select->From Path
• Layer->Layer to Image size (don’t do this earlier to avoid “issues”)
• Select->Grow Selection->4 pixels
• Fill with the desired text border color
• Select the second layer and double click on the text
• Right-click text, select “Create Path from Text”
• Select->From Path
• Layer->Layer to Image size
• Select->Grow Selection->1 pixel
• Fill with the desired jelly-donut filling!