Create GPT Partitions Manually: The screenshot below shows the number and type of partitions created by the installer using its automated mode on computers with UEFI firmware and UEFI enabled. Notice that there are only three partitions, one of type efi, a root partition, and a Swap partition. On UEFI systems, the efi partition takes the place of a traditional boot partition. For this exercise, I’ll show how to create an extra partition for home, to make a total of four GPT partitions.
Linux Mint 17 KDE GPT partition

Assuming that you have freed up enough space on the target hard drive, select it, then click on the Add button to open the partition editor.
Linux Mint 17 KDE advanced partition tool

Here’s the partition editor’s window. It’s the same one that you saw in the MBR section, so it needs no introduction. In order, we’ll be creating a boot EFI partition, a root partition, a partition for /home, and one for Swap.
Linux Mint 17 KDE partition editor

For the EFI partition, the default size used by the installer is around 550 MB. So that should work here too. From the “Use as” menu, select EFI boot partition. OK.
Linux Mint 17 KDE boot EFI partition

For the root partition, set the mount point to /, the file system to Ext4 journaling file system, which is the default. For the size, 20 GB (20,000 MB) should be enough, considering that the minimum recommended is 9.2 GB. OK.
Linux Mint 17 KDE create root partition

For the home partition, set the mount point to /home, the file system the same as that for root, and a suitable size for disk space. OK.
Linux Mint 17 KDE create home partition

For the Swap partition, a size of 2 GB to 4 GB should do. Select swap area from the “Use as” menu, then click OK.
Linux Mint 17 KDE create swap partition

Back to the main partitioning window, all the newly created partitions should be listed. That’s all it takes to create a custom set of partitions for Linux Mint 17 KDE using a GPT partitioning scheme.
Linux Mint 17 KDE GPT EFI partition

Creating LVM Partitions Manually: The installer can create encrypted and unencrypted LVM volumes in automated mode. However, that’s not the case with the Advanced Partitioning Tool. This screenshot shows the default partitions created by the installer when an automated LVM partition method is selected. Automatic LVM partitioning works great if Linux Mint 17 KDE is the only OS to be installed on the target hard drive, but not for a dual-boot setup.
Linux Mint 17 LVM GPT partitions

But even for a standalone system, attempting to create manual partitions for an encrypted LVM system does not work. At least on my system it did not work. To create such a system, you would have to select physical volume for encryption from the partition editor’s “Use as” menu.
Linux Mint 17 KDE disk encryption

After that, the attempt failed with the error message shown in this screenshot.
Linux Mint 17 KDE encryption error

Followed by this one, after I dismissed the previous window.
Linux Mint 17 disk error

That ended my attempt to create encrypted LVM partitions manually on real hardware for Linux Mint 17 KDE.