Improving your photos with Gimp (free)

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(Edited)

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Gimp is an open source photo-editing program that can be compared with Adobe Photoshop. But since it's open source it's free to use.
I often use it to edit my photos.
The program literally has thousands of options, so has quite a high learning curve, but all the information is on the internet. Youtube is full of tutorials for any kind of photo-editing with Gimp.
Just start using it and improve your photos step by step.

I'll show you just a little bit of what Gimp can do with the following example so you can see what it is capable of.

Dragonfly

I shot this dragondfly below during my holiday in France. Although I liked the shot it could use some adjustments afterwards.
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I was so focussed on getting the dragonfly sharp I placed it exactly in the center of my frame. Since it's usually more interesting to place your subject off-center I decided to make a crop.

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I used the crop tool with a fixed aspect ratio to move the dragonfly a bit away from the center and cut off some of the surroundings too so there would be more focus on the dragonfly.

Layers

One of the strong points of Gimp is that you can work with layers. You can see layers as multiple photos that are placed on top of each other. This way you can do manipulations in one layer that don't affect the others.
What I usually do is duplicate my original layer so I can always compare my edits with the original.

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You rename your layers and switch them on and off by clicking in the eye.
You duplicate a layer by rightclicking it and choos duplicate layer.

What I often do is change the layer attributes of the copy layer (also under the right mouse click) and set the mode to "Soft light".
I don't know exactly what it does, but it makes the colours often a lot brighter. You can also do this in the colors menu with brightness, contrast, hue, saturation or curves, but just this setting often makes a picture much better. See the results before and after below:

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Finally I put my logo in the lower corner and save the image.

dragon.jpg

It's just a few minutes of work, but it really can improve your photos.
I hope you liked this little tutorial.
If you have any questions or if you need help improving a photo; don't hesitate to contact me.


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FriendlyMoose

Photographing is my passion. Although I like photography in general, nature photography is one of my favourite subjects. I often go out with my camera for a hike to capture the beauty of nature.

I would love to read what you think of my photos in the comments. You could also contact me if you have any other remarks or questions in the comments of via Discord (friendlymoose#5717)


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12 comments
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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 79 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
!BEER
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Reblogged my friend. It's nice to have something to learn about photography.

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Thanks. There's always something to learn in photography.

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Thanks for sharing this 👍 I usually edit my photos with mobile app such as Snapseed. But sometimes I need to edit it in my laptop. Would like to try Gimp then 👌

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You're welcome. Check out some of the beginners tutorials on YouTube. They are very helpful.

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Gimp, is a great photo editing software (and open source!). I have been using it for many years.

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A great tutorial gimp is such a powerful tool but can seem to complicated to new users initially
Tutorial like this will be a great help to many

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Thanks. It can be quite overwhelming in the beginning, but it's such a great toolbox.
I can make some more tutorials in the future 👍

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That would be helpful for many I am sure

I have bene using photoshop myself for years now

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This is a nice tip for Gimp. I often use gimp but did not know this one. I will give it a shot, thanks.

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You're welcome. I sometimes watch some youtube tutorials to learn a bit more. I have the feeling I know just 10% of what it is capable of 😄


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