Make a funny graphic look good

I'm going to show you how to use Gimp to make the graphic below (left) look better than it currently does (right). This is a rather involved little project, but bare with me. The many different techniques I cover in this can be applied to all kinds of other stuff.
Before I go on, I also want to note that I simply consider this a funny graphic, and don't necessarily agree, politically, with everything put forward in this.

1- Setup your image, and trace

I simply opened the original graphic and left the dimensions alone (860x553 pixels). Save as a .xcf file. Create a new transparent layer and trace the black lines of the original graphic in solid black lines.

2-Create the American flag on U.S.
Find an American flag online, download it, and open it as a layer in your Gimp image.

Resize and duplicate as needed so that the flag(s) are covering the three places on the map. Going back to the outlines layer select inside where you want the flag to show up. In our case, that would be the U.S. land mass, Alaska, and Hawaii. Then in the selections menu 'grow' your selection by two pixels, like below. this will make the clipping mask we'll be creating to overlap, so there is no gap between the black lines and the flag.

 

3- Create a mask for the flag

Once your flag is positioned and a selection created, right clicking on the flag layer and select the 'Add a layer mask' option. The below dialogue will open. Select the 'selection' option and click 'OK'. A mask will then be created that matches the selection you had on the U.S. territories.

I used three copies of the flag, repeating the above process three times. You don't have to do this, but I did it to get the result I wanted. See below.

 

 

4- Fill in the colors for the rest of the world.
There are a couple ways to do this. The simplest would be to choose colors and simply use the bucket fill tool on the outlines layer. This may or may not work very well. If you want to make sure the color and the lines are solid, create a new transparent layer for the color fills of the various countries. Then repeat making a selection, growing the selection by 2 pixels, switch from the outline layer to the new fill layer  and fill the selection you just made. Repeat this until you have a color filled for each country. Below is what I came up with.
NOTE: I still have the flags on a separate layer, so I can create a drop shadow on them later.

5- Create a background
For a background, create a new transparent layer. Fill it with a Black to white, circular gradient, where the white is in the center. Now go to Filters>Render>Clouds>Difference of clouds. Then enter the paramenters shown on the screen capture below.

The filter should create an affect similar to this one.

 

Now in the menus go to Color>Map>Gradient map. If your Background/foreground colors are right you should get an affect similar to below. Notice I have also applied a drop shadow filter to the U.S. flag layer.

6- Labeling

Now you can begin labeling the graphic. Start by using the 'type' tool, copying the text from the old graphic. You will need to adjust size, font and color as needed. Note that to make the drop shadow on the U.S.text you will have to Discard text information in by right clicking on its layer in the layers palette. Continue to copy, move and type until the chart is fully labeled.

 

7-Labeling continued

For the text that requires a pointer of some kind you will need to utilize the 'paths tool' and the 'paths palette'. Activate the tool and create a path similar to the one shown below.

 

8- Stroke path

Create a new transparent layer above all the rest. Make your foreground color the color that you want the stroke to be. Go to the paths palette, click on the newly created path in the palette. Then in the lower right corner of the palette, click on the 'stroke path' icon. A dialogue will appear. Set the stroke width to 3, then click OK. You should get a similar stroke as below. If not, experiment with the width until you get a nice thin stroke.

9-Moving and editing your path
Now move your path to the next set of text on the map. To do this you will need to be sure the path you want to move is selected, then in the 'move tool' options select the 'path only' icon and the 'move the active path' icon.
You may need to alter the anchor points of your path once you have moved it into position so as to make the pointer point in the right direction. To do this activate your 'paths' tool. Then using the left mouse button double click the path in the 'paths' palette. The anchor points will reappear and you should be able to edit them to fit what is needed. After this, stroke your path, then reactivate the 'move' tool, move your path and continue the process until all the pointers are created

 10- The final image
I didn't like Red as the color for the pointers, so I changed them using the Hue/saturation palette to alter the color to a Nice darkish blue. The colors don't clash so much when blue is used.

 Conclusion
As you can see below the differences and improvements in the design are stark. Its easier to look at, and on top of this I improved on the verbiage and made it a little more kid friendly while maintaining the hilarity.
I give my thanks to Rick packer, my brother-in-law for bringing this graphic to my attention. Also, a thanks to whoever originally created this. Not sure who you are, but it made us all laugh at ourselves (Americans), and cause us to stop and think if this is really how we think of the world around us.