Photo editors: GIMP, an introduction
Sept 5, 2010 18:16:02 GMT
Post by rikita on Sept 5, 2010 18:16:02 GMT
The photo editing program that I currently mainly use isn’t Photoshop, but The Gimp, which you can download for free. In this article I want to give a short introduction to the functions of the program that I most often use. I use the program in German, so I have to guess what some of the functions are called in English, I hope it is understandable…
When I open a picture with it, I first check if the picture is crooked. I personally do that by selecting the square at the top of the toolbox, and choosing a straight line that is close to the middle of the picture, drawing a square along it to be sure if that line is straight. If it isn’t, I have to adjust the picture's angle. I select “Layer”, then “Transformation” and then “Random transformation”. Now I adjust the angle of the picture until it is straight by clicking on the up or down arrows, and when it looks good, I click “Rotate”. Now, of course, the picture has to be cropped, as the corners of the picture you have aren’t equal with the ones of the picture you took anymore, and you don’t want strange white corners in your photo…
To crop your picture, you again select the square at the top of the toolbox, and draw it around the part of the picture you want to keep. If you by mistake draw it too close or too far, you can still move the square’s sides afterwards by clicking into the area inside the square next to each side and dragging it into the direction you want. Personally, I like to keep my pictures in a photo-format (my camera also takes the photos in the old-fashioned photo format, not in the new digital format, and I like that format best – though sometimes I decide for a different format if it fits better with that particular picture). Once you have chosen the exact area you want to crop the picture to, you click on “Picture” and then select “Crop to selection”.
Now, I usually decide if I want to keep that picture in color or if I want to turn it into black and white. For that, I go into the menu “colors” again, and select “black and white”. There, you have three options: The brightness of each color section of the picture can be decided by lightness, by brightness or by a mix of the two. I usually just try out all three options and see in the preview what looks best.
The next thing I usually do is adjust the pictures curves and levels. For that I select “colors”, and chose one of the following options: “light/contrast”, “levels”, “curves” – you can switch between these. “Light/contrast” is the easiest option to work with – you only click on the arrow pointing up to make the picture lighter or heighten the contrast, and on the arrow down to make it darker or lower the contrast. However, personally I prefer the other two options, as they give you more control. Often in “levels”, I try to give the picture a color range that goes from brightest white to darkest black – you can tell how the brightness/darkness of the picture is distributed by the graph this function shows you. However, I try not to have bigger fields of pure white or black in the picture, I just adjust it (by moving the arrows under the graph) to just about the ends of the scale. The curves I use for some finer adjustment of the area in between, but I don’t use them as often. There you see a different graph, with a line in the middle – you can move each part of the line to make certain sections of the pictures lightness range lighter or darker – you can play with it, but be careful, if the graph becomes too “curvy” the picture starts looking unnatural.
For a finer adjustment of pictures it is of course a good idea to sometimes only brighten sections of your picture – like when the sky is very light in comparison to the rest of the picture, I sometimes select only the sky with the help of the “magic wand” tool, and make it a bit darker – but that goes already somewhat beyond this general introduction, so I might write something about that at a later point.
As a last step, I usually sharpen the picture a bit – with some pictures that is of course not necessary, but since I like very crisply sharp pictures I do so with a big part of my photos. For that I choose “Filter”, then “Improve”, and then “Unsharp mask”. The default setting is 5,0 for the radius and 0,5 for the amount – I usually go down a bit, like to 4,0 and 0,4, though if the picture is kind of blurry I might leave it at the default or even go up a bit. Just keep in mind that the more you sharpen a picture, the more noise it creates – and a truly blurry picture can’t be made unblurry, no matter how much you sharpen it. It’s not a miracle tool…
In the end, I usually save the edited picture (in the highest possible quality settings) under a different name than the original (I usually just add an “a” to the end of the name), so I can always reuse the original if I end up not liking my edited version anymore. You can also save as a copy. If you used layers or rotated the picture during editing, you will be asked to export it before it is saved – just click on “export”.
This all might seem quite a lot, when you read it first – in fact, however, I only spend a few minutes on each picture. Only with a few, the ones where it is really worthwhile, I spend more time. However, just these few things – making sure your picture is at the right angle, it is cropped to not show unnecessary/distracting things, the contrasts are nice, and it is sharp enough – already improves pictures a lot. Of course, as for everything, you need a good picture to work with – so, all the more reason to take your camera, take nice pictures, and then play with them a bit on the computer…
When I open a picture with it, I first check if the picture is crooked. I personally do that by selecting the square at the top of the toolbox, and choosing a straight line that is close to the middle of the picture, drawing a square along it to be sure if that line is straight. If it isn’t, I have to adjust the picture's angle. I select “Layer”, then “Transformation” and then “Random transformation”. Now I adjust the angle of the picture until it is straight by clicking on the up or down arrows, and when it looks good, I click “Rotate”. Now, of course, the picture has to be cropped, as the corners of the picture you have aren’t equal with the ones of the picture you took anymore, and you don’t want strange white corners in your photo…
To crop your picture, you again select the square at the top of the toolbox, and draw it around the part of the picture you want to keep. If you by mistake draw it too close or too far, you can still move the square’s sides afterwards by clicking into the area inside the square next to each side and dragging it into the direction you want. Personally, I like to keep my pictures in a photo-format (my camera also takes the photos in the old-fashioned photo format, not in the new digital format, and I like that format best – though sometimes I decide for a different format if it fits better with that particular picture). Once you have chosen the exact area you want to crop the picture to, you click on “Picture” and then select “Crop to selection”.
Now, I usually decide if I want to keep that picture in color or if I want to turn it into black and white. For that, I go into the menu “colors” again, and select “black and white”. There, you have three options: The brightness of each color section of the picture can be decided by lightness, by brightness or by a mix of the two. I usually just try out all three options and see in the preview what looks best.
The next thing I usually do is adjust the pictures curves and levels. For that I select “colors”, and chose one of the following options: “light/contrast”, “levels”, “curves” – you can switch between these. “Light/contrast” is the easiest option to work with – you only click on the arrow pointing up to make the picture lighter or heighten the contrast, and on the arrow down to make it darker or lower the contrast. However, personally I prefer the other two options, as they give you more control. Often in “levels”, I try to give the picture a color range that goes from brightest white to darkest black – you can tell how the brightness/darkness of the picture is distributed by the graph this function shows you. However, I try not to have bigger fields of pure white or black in the picture, I just adjust it (by moving the arrows under the graph) to just about the ends of the scale. The curves I use for some finer adjustment of the area in between, but I don’t use them as often. There you see a different graph, with a line in the middle – you can move each part of the line to make certain sections of the pictures lightness range lighter or darker – you can play with it, but be careful, if the graph becomes too “curvy” the picture starts looking unnatural.
For a finer adjustment of pictures it is of course a good idea to sometimes only brighten sections of your picture – like when the sky is very light in comparison to the rest of the picture, I sometimes select only the sky with the help of the “magic wand” tool, and make it a bit darker – but that goes already somewhat beyond this general introduction, so I might write something about that at a later point.
As a last step, I usually sharpen the picture a bit – with some pictures that is of course not necessary, but since I like very crisply sharp pictures I do so with a big part of my photos. For that I choose “Filter”, then “Improve”, and then “Unsharp mask”. The default setting is 5,0 for the radius and 0,5 for the amount – I usually go down a bit, like to 4,0 and 0,4, though if the picture is kind of blurry I might leave it at the default or even go up a bit. Just keep in mind that the more you sharpen a picture, the more noise it creates – and a truly blurry picture can’t be made unblurry, no matter how much you sharpen it. It’s not a miracle tool…
In the end, I usually save the edited picture (in the highest possible quality settings) under a different name than the original (I usually just add an “a” to the end of the name), so I can always reuse the original if I end up not liking my edited version anymore. You can also save as a copy. If you used layers or rotated the picture during editing, you will be asked to export it before it is saved – just click on “export”.
This all might seem quite a lot, when you read it first – in fact, however, I only spend a few minutes on each picture. Only with a few, the ones where it is really worthwhile, I spend more time. However, just these few things – making sure your picture is at the right angle, it is cropped to not show unnecessary/distracting things, the contrasts are nice, and it is sharp enough – already improves pictures a lot. Of course, as for everything, you need a good picture to work with – so, all the more reason to take your camera, take nice pictures, and then play with them a bit on the computer…
