Gimp Cutouts

This was the photo we used to have of Mr Leedham. It's not pretty.

So we got hold of a new photo which is much better, but it doesn't match rest of the staff pics, which were taken indoors against a blue/white cloud background. It's also a bit dark, and slightly blurred.

So we decided to add the background to Mr Leedham's photo using a free, open source, image editing application called The Gimp. Much better!

If you'd like to follow along, install The Gimp and download the original 'outdoors' photo above.

Lighten the photo

1. Tools > Color Tools > Curves (the histogram shows the colour distribution for the image: left is shadow, right is bright areas> Big peak on left shows there's a lot of shadowy area in the photo (the jumper), smaller, wider peak on right is the sky. Mid-range values are face & bushes)
2. Drag the bottom left corner of the line to the bottom of the left peak (eg omitting the empty space in the first 3mm of the graph). This makes the dark areas as dark as they can be (digital cameras rarely capture truly dark shadows very well)
3. Now grab the curve about 1/3 from the left and 'lift' it slightly to lighten the mid-tones (Mr Leedham's face is under-exposed because the bright sky is behind him). Toggle the 'Preview' checkbox on and off to see before & after until you're satisfied

Sharpen the photo

This photo is a little blurred, so we're going to use a technique called 'unsharp masking' which increases the contrast at colour boundaries:

1. Filters > Enhance > Unsharp mask

The default settings are a little harsh, so try these:

• radius: 3
• amount: 0.30
• threshold: 0

Keep toggling the 'Preview' box on and off to check what it's going to look like.

Create the cloudy background

1. File > New (140 x 180)
2. Filters > Render > Clouds > Solid Noise
3. Filters > Colors > Map > Color Range Mapping
4. Set Source to black / white, Destination to blue / white
5. Select all (ctrl-a), copy (ctrl-c)

Cut out Mr Leedham

1. Use the path tool to 'draw' a path around Mr Leedham
2. Turn the path into a selection
3. Selection > Feather (1px)
4. Selection > Invert (to select the sky/background)

Add the clouds

1. Edit > Paste into to replace the selected background area with the clouds we made
2. Layer > Anchor layer
3. Export to JPG

Finished image

Web Links

• The Gimp homepage
• Gimp paths tutorial