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It’s curves time again. This powerful tool is in the centre of the stage and I try to explain it’s nearly unlimited power over colours, contrasts and brightness. Worth to learn.

This week I visit a vineyard in Missouri (too bad – only via HTTP) and discuss the dangers of blowing out the highlights under overcast sky. Just underexpose a bit when in doubt, you can get detail out of dark areas but 255 white has nothing to save in it.

The overexposed sky has killed all the details in a tree that looked over the horizon. I use the curves tool on a layer copy to get the details back and integrate the fixed tree with a layer mask into the original shot.

Then I adjust the black and white points and give a little more contrast to the image – of course with the curves tool. Finally I have some fun with – of course – the curves tool and come to an image that is not suitable for a vineyard but for a LSD factory. But they don’t have websites….

The TOC

(Kevin, I made one! )

00:20 Wine, Missouri and the Church
02:50 One image – two views
04:30 The histogram
06:40 Diagnosing overexposure
07:30 DO NOT BLOW OUT THE HIGHLIGHTS!!!
09:25 Histogram details
09:40 Linear and logarithmic
13:50 Blown out tree branches
14:30 Curves tool sight seeing
15:10 The translation line/curve
15:40 Black point
17:50 Set contrast in the curve
18:40 Bend the curve
20:30 Inspector – eye dropper
22:30 Repairing the tree
25:30 Get the blue cast out of the twigs
25:40 Adding a layer mask
29:30 Copy visible in new layer
33:00 “HDR” in a very cheap way
34:30 Power of the curve

This work is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License.

Tags: beginner, curves, curves tool, exposure
Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial, Photocast Network, meetthegimp | 18 Comments »

 

 Podcast Video (37.2 MB) [25:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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What’s “meaningful black”? It’s a concept out of the book “Welcome to Oz” from Vincent Versace. It’s for this other program, but I try to convert it to GIMP. It’s not so easy – so we have to write a script to do the tedious work. This script is also covered here.

EDIT: This plugin has evolved tremendously. Go to the Forum entry and search from the last postings backwards for it’s latest incarnation!

Information about the Zone System is at Wikipedia and a lot of other sites. Chris Marquardt has made a simple version of it for digital cameras.

At the end of the video I do some ironing. I made some promotional images for our organic shop around the corner. The team had donned brand new aprons with all the creases from packing still in them. Awful! I show you a way to iron them out after the shot. BTW, this works too with wrinkles in the skin of a portrait model.

The “Old Ink Challenge is still open. Give it a try!

I also have some updates about the forum and ask for input with a new design for this web site. Daniel (DRB) is helping me a lot – and he has made a great interactive and collaborative storytelling site at StoryEverTelling.com . If you are into telling stories with a twist or reading them – check this out and help him to build this up.

The TOC

Old Ink challenge update (1:30)
Forum update (1:55)
Daniel’s “Story Ever Telling” (4:40)
Meaningful Black (6:25)
- Zone System (9:42)
- Finding the Black Point (12:00)
- Twisting the curves (16:05)
- Building a Plugin (19:00)
Ironing an Apron with GIMP (20:10)

This video has been rendered in a different way. Is the problem still there that it calls itself a MP3 audio file? Is it playing everywhere?

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License.

Tags: curves, softening wrinkles, Zone System
Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial | 12 Comments »

 Podcast Video (38.6 MB): [30:29m]: Download
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 The images used: Download

I shot this image on my way to Cakovec from the airplane over the Chiemsee. That is a famous lake in Bavaria. We were already so high in the air that serious haze made the image flat. It’s the one at the bottom of the image in this post.

In this episode I show how to get rid of the haze by using the curves or levels tool. And of course I have a way using layers. A layer copy in burn mode takes a lot of the haze away. Further fine tuning involves a layer mask and an overlay layer copy.

EDIT: Mathias (http://mathias.lindner.de.vu/) pointed me to an error in the layers version. The last overlay layer didn’t work well. I used a copy of the base image – I should have used a copy of the visible image after all the burning. “Edit|Copy Visible” and then “Edit|Paste” and setting the floating layer to a new layer by “Layer|New Layer” would have done the job. This image here is done that way:

Now one could start to lighten the cloud shadow in the forrest and water a bit and correct or enhance the vignetting made by the camera….. But this is not bad, considering the image where I started.

I couldn’t record in Croatia, somehow we never got a recording with sound and video. If I am invited to another such event, I’ll buy a strong enough notebook and test the setup before the trip. But aside from this it was fun and I met a lot of interesting people, most of them connected with the Croatian Linux Group “HULK”.

I recommended Akkana Peck’s book “Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional”. It’s the best book about GIMP I have seen up to now. If you buy via Amazon.com, use the link on her site.

You can find the files used in this episode at the usual place.

The TOC

00:19 Takeoff!
04:30 The problem image
05:50 Look at the histogram
06:33 Try adjusting the curves
07:25 Levels tool
08:50 – Manual adjustment
13:53 – Auto adjustment
14:53 – Pick the points
17:50 Curves tool
19:45 Layers
19:53 – Overlay mode
21:12 – Burn mode
23:40 Comparing the images
26:03 Further tweaking
27:02 – reducing the effect using a layer mask
30:29 The End
TOC made by paynekj

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License.

Tags: airplane, burn mode, curves, haze, levels
Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial | 12 Comments »

 Podcast Video (39.6 MB) [25:00m]: Download
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I was in Berlin for four days last week. And I only took a point and shoot digital camera with me. So this episode covers quick editing of holiday pictures, done in two minutes.

In this short time one can only do the basic stuff. And so I give you some easy recipes for getting more out of your snapshots. If you take this small amount of time, your images will get a lot better.

• Rotate them, so that they are level
• Adjust the perspective to get these falling lines out
• Find a good crop
• Adjust the contrast with the curves tool, applying an S-curve helps in most cases
• Double the layer and use a layer mask to apply your edits only to a part of the image. Get more light into a dark corner or dim down a bright spot
• Double the layer and use overlay or screen mode to change the overall contrast in an image. Use the opacity slider to adjust the strength of this effect. Try other modes, sometimes they work really good.

Don’t forget the challenge! Make a monochrome image and post it in our meetthegimp.org photogroup at 23 and be sure to use the tag “mtg-monochrome”. The challenge ends March 31 1600GMT and I’ll draw a winner by random choice.

You can find the image used in this episode here on the Download Page

Contact me!

You can leave your comments on this blog or write me a mail.

The TOC

00:23 Photos of Berlin
02:49 Photo 1
03:28 – Curves to suit part of the image
04:15 – Add a layer mask
06:00 – Add an overlay layer
06:34 – Save the tweaked version
07:00 – Resize for web and sharpen
08:04 – Save the small version
09:05 Photo 2
10:15 – Perspective tool
12:25 – Crop tool
13:33 Photo 3
14:28 – Rotate tool
15:50 – Crop tool
16:45 – Rotate tool with a different centre of rotation
18:55 Photo 4
19:34 – Image Transform rotation
20:37 Photo 5 (See episode 38)
21:04 Summary
24:59 The End

TOC made by paynekj

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany License.

Tags: beginner, contrast, curves, layers, perspective, rotate
Posted in Gimp, Gimp video tutorial | 22 Comments »