Photgraphy: Post production/editing your pictures

Silver Member Joined: Mar 20 2007 Posts: 944

I use GIMP. I had Photoshop on my laptop, but for me it was very hard to use. Gimp is free, and they have a Windows version of it as well. There are tons of tutorials out there for it. I use Gimp to resize my pictures, adjust the curves, crop, and I have started playing with some of the other features. Here is some stuff I have done.
BEFORE:

I really liked this picture, but felt that the exposure comp was too dark. So I used curves to brighten up the picture. I don't think I touched the white balance at all. And I cropped it.
AFTER:

From that same set, I wanted to do a picture that looked like a black and white drawing.
Original picture:

I cropped it, adjusted it to black and white:

Here is where it got tricky. I forgot what button I used, but it was more over to the side where the enhance button is. I did have to brighten and darken the picture up so that the lines would show, and then I converted it to a sketch.

Finally, popped a frame around it, and added it to my signature for a few months last year.

OK, your turn. Show us what you are doing or have done.
Leah

Platinum Member Joined: Oct 27 2005 Posts: 6749

wow, thats great! I gotta try it when I have time, ty for the info
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Gold Member Joined: Feb 07 2008 Posts: 1226

omg...amazing...I dont know much about pic editing...yet... im gonna go have a look at gimp...is it gimp.com.... ok I jusr rem. I have something from 2 yrs. ago...im gonna post

Gold Member Joined: Feb 07 2008 Posts: 1226

ok I dont have the origanal pic.....(maybe ill find it soon...) but it was a pic of my son on a lil. airplane.....

then we made it into a sketch..(dont rem. how but it was done on photoshop)

Picture resized

ok this pic I have the orginal somewhere ill put it on soon but heres the finish...

Picture resized

this was done for purim when we were polits...these sketchs where in a hand book as activites to do on the flight...

I downloaded GIMP, but I don't know how to edit a photo (or how to open a photo in GIMP that I downloaded...am I missing something stupidly obvious??

Gold Member Joined: Sep 04 2007 Posts: 1301

here is a good gimp tutorial
http://www.gimpguru.org/Tutorials/

Silver Member Joined: Mar 20 2007 Posts: 944

Gigi, do you use gimp, or did you just find that? I love those tutorials. I learned how to get rid of red eye and convert to b&w with those very tutorials.

Shif, the first thing you have to do is pull a picture in. I use Linux for my OS. I am not sure how to do it in Windows, but I have it on my laptop and can try it. I usually just right click on my picture and select open with and then choose GIMP.

Some other tutorials:
Here is the manual (never read the whole thing, just the parts I wanted)
file:///usr/share/gimp/2.0/help/en/index.html

This one used to be totally free. Now they sell the printed version of the book. I also just skipped to the parts I wanted to know.
http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/index.html

Want to put a border on your picture?
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Quickmask/

Shif, let me know if you still need help, OK?

Gold Member Joined: Feb 07 2008 Posts: 1226

how about if I wanna keep someparts colored but want mostly b&w?...do they have something for that?

Platinum Member Joined: Nov 30 2006 Age: 28 Posts: 8702

Original:

Picture resized
Edited:

Picture resized
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Gold Member Joined: Sep 04 2007 Posts: 1301

very nice gamzu.
how did u do it?
did u use a Gaussian blur?

Platinum Member Joined: Nov 30 2006 Age: 28 Posts: 8702

Yup! It's my new addiction. Laughing

Now I don't just delete photos if the background is yucky.
And if a have a great photo opportunity but the background isn't nice, I take the pic anyway and blur it up later. Before I discovered this feature I would just pass up on taking the photo.

Silver Member Joined: Mar 20 2007 Posts: 944

It is great if you have a messy kitchen. LOL. My counters are not always as clean as they should be, and I hate when there are toys in the background. Yeah, that is a good tool to use.

For the black and white. What I do is use layers. I found you two tutorials. You want to google, leave spot of color in black and picture, or something like that.

http://www.jimsdigitaldiary.com/colorizing.html

http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/Seminars/colorize/index.html

My husband took this (goofy) picture of me. I guess he didn't realize that there was a garbage can right by my head. I played with the layers, and made the background black and white. Now you can't even really notice the garbage can, can you?

I also picked up a Walcom tablet off Amazon for a great price a few months ago. It is very helpful when tracing people. In that case, I had to use my mouse, and it was very hard. If you look carefully, you can see that I didn't get all my "hair".

Gold Member Joined: Sep 04 2007 Posts: 1301

cool black and white work!

I just learned how to use gimp yesterday,so here is the picture I worked on.

Before

After

Platinum Member Joined: Nov 30 2006 Age: 28 Posts: 8702

That is awesome!!
You see, from a plain, cluttered, off center picture, you got gorgeous frame-worth photo. Who needs photo studios? Laughing

Gold Member Joined: Feb 07 2008 Posts: 1226

wow thats beautiful....I have to go chech it out now

Posted: Sat, Feb 23 2008, 9:17 pm Post subject:

Amother, that photo is very moving!

Do you guys think this gimp thing is easier than photoshop? I’m a photoshop pro since I was in diapers… should I learn this gimp?
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By WIF

Diamond Member Joined: Apr 23 2007 Posts: 3308

Btw for selective coloring you may not need software -some cameras have the option for selective coloring when you take the picture so make sure to check what manual settings you have in your camera. I'll post so examples of photos I took with selective color.

Ma pitom, I think gimp is just an imitation of photoshop so if you have photoshop already and know how to use it then there is no need for gimp. (I used to have gimp and it kept freezing up my computer)

(can this be moved to the photography section?)

Gold Member Joined: Jan 09 2007 Posts: 1807

can someone reccomend which is easier to use? I want to download something for photo editing and im wodering which one is the best.

Active Poster Joined: Nov 13 2007 Posts: 37 Location: usa

gimp is free. photoshop has a free trial and after that it costs money.