GIMP Tutorial: Fix Dark Photos the RIGHT Way (Photo Editing Basics)
In this GIMP Photo Editing tutorial, I show you how to recover a dark photo, in this case a portrait photo, using the Contrast Mask and some other really great techniques. The techniques I show you are the PROPER ways of lightening a photo (at least according to GIMP experts) so that it will look its best for print.
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I'll also show you how to use the exposure, levels, color balance, and unsharp mask tools to improve the look of your image.
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#PhotoEditing #Lighting #Photography
Пікірлер: 79
Gist, to save your time: 1. Exposure 2. Add Contrast 3. Correct Temperature 4. White Balance: Subtract Yellows (basically) 5. Remove Background using Layer Mask and Paintbrush only (does not explain Layer Masks how they work or what they are). This is not a criticism nor a negative comment. An objective observation. 12:45 : 6. Create Contrast Mask from scratch: Have no idea what he's trying to do, only that it makes the image look nicer! 7. Use Gradient for this purpose: When you light a face from the side, one part is bright and the other darker. A contrast is produced. Davies he's tried to 'cancel' the contrast, or even out the light using a Gradient.
Man, I learned a lot from this. The best, least extensive trick was that gradient at the end. The other steps are going to take a lot of practice, but taking care of bad lighting from one side using that gradient is great!
Wow, I'm blown away! Awesome tutorial. It's a bit advanced for me, but I'll definitely give it a try. Thanks for posting!
This is so helpful!!! Thanks so much for the detailed instruction, as always.
This helped me a lot. Thanks!
Excellent method to fix dark pics...many many thanks :)
This is great! thank you so much.
Wow, yet another way to remove a background (as well all the other useful info in this video) ). Layer masks are so powerful (and I'm sure I've only learned a fraction of their uses so far).
Really good man! Big thanks!
Very very helpful!! Thank you!
@DaviesMediaDesign
5 жыл бұрын
I appreciate that - thanks for watching.
Thank u very informative
Wow! If this is basic stay imagine advanced level Thanks my brother!
@DaviesMediaDesign
5 жыл бұрын
Thanks for checking it Claudio!
Hey Davies, great videos! I tried what you did here and it worked great but i used a B&W photo, is there a an option to the the image cleaner because i have white dots?..it looks grainy..if that makes sense :) or is there another video that you covered that? Thank you in advance.
Thanks!
Hello Michael, do you happen to have a tutorial or a recommended tutorial on doing the exact opposite? I want to take someone in pure day light, and make him/her look like that are slightly visible from a black background. Any pro tips on this?
Thank you for already scaling the download image down to 1920 x 1282!
معلومة مفيدة .. شكرًا 👍👍👍
This is a fab tute. Thanks. I have been a PS user for years. But now the want to charge me, monthly, for a product that I purchased, I am leaving the adobe world. I did like the Acrobat Professional A LOT. Will Gimp have a pdf reader in the future?
Thanks
Where is the exposure tool in the colors menu?? I don't have that on gimp 2...
Great :)
@DaviesMediaDesign
6 жыл бұрын
Thanks!
@shater1164
6 жыл бұрын
And thanks to you too, always helpful GIMP tut :)
Hi, how do you lighten the bottom half or top half ect? Thanks
What operative system used and what development version used. You used the gimp 2.9 compiled by partha
@DaviesMediaDesign
6 жыл бұрын
I'm using Windows 10 and I am using GIMP 2.9.8 - the direct link to download the version I am using is in the description. I hope that helps!
Following along with 2.10.2 during the color balance portion of this, as soon as I open the Color Balance dialogue, without making any changes, the highlights on your ear and neck blow out. It goes away as soon as I close it. I found the same thing with one of my own images other day; I can't remember what dialogue I was in, though.
@DaviesMediaDesign
6 жыл бұрын
It sound sounds like perhaps you have some preset Color Balance settings that are applying to your image. There is a "Reset" button next to the "OK" button that allows you to reset all of the settings back to 0 and start from scratch. Or, if you just need to reset a range (i.e. "midtones"), you can hit the "reset range" button underneath the color sliders. Let me know if that solves the problem.
Can you please explain the purpose of steps after 12:45? Thank you for your videos. GIMP is a (free) life-saver for me, and, Dave, you are the guru.
@shereenchang712
4 жыл бұрын
check it out here: www.gimp.org/tutorials/ContrastMask/
Thanks for the video, Davies. Though it is impressive, I'm not able to follow-up on some colors tool as I'm not that much familiar with Colors saturation, Hue etc. Do you have any tutorial explaining the Colors or sites you can refer me to check for my understanding of colors? It will be much appreciated.
@DaviesMediaDesign
6 жыл бұрын
I would definitely check out this tutorial, which goes over Photo Editing Basics in GIMP (including using the colors tools): kzread.info/dash/bejne/gJd9sq9-abvFopc.html
@venkateshrajavetrivel6335
6 жыл бұрын
Thanks for the link, Davies. It really helps me to understand the coloring stuff :) much appreciated.
hey what version of Gimp is this? i dont have the exposure tool under colors
@samuraistrike1
4 жыл бұрын
Meme ḍǿƗJPG He is running version 2.928 (which is very similar to 2.10) (Also go to 4:13 for what he says and how to fix your issue shortly after 😊)
Nice tutorial. Several thoughts though... Wouldn't it be best to resize the image after color correction to preserve quality? Couldn't you apply a mask using the magic wand or select by color option...followed by a slight selection feather? Couldn't you do most of the color corrections and exposure corrections simultaneously using curves and the various color channels? For the tonal corrections the gmic plugins for tonal options and mixer options might be a bit quicker too.
@TheFreshkidd1234
5 жыл бұрын
hey i have a question, I want to brighten a specific part of someones clothes without brightening everything. is it possible to make a exposure layer mask? i use to do this in photoshop
@AaronSmith-sx4ez
5 жыл бұрын
I'm not sure.
Is there software that can add exposure to a photo taken (at night) with a F4.5 cheap lens and convert it to make it appear it was taken with a F2.8 zoom lens?
@DaviesMediaDesign
6 жыл бұрын
Yeah - it's called GIMP. You should check it out.
Hi, Davies, thanks for your tutorial. My question is... how to fix dark face in front of bright sky? Thanks
I recorded dark video what can I do?
I can't found exposure option
@DaviesMediaDesign
6 жыл бұрын
Exposure is a new feature so it is only in GIMP 2.9 and up. However, you can use Brightness/Contrast in its place for a similar result (though it won't be exactly the same).
@stormworks4882
4 жыл бұрын
@@DaviesMediaDesign oh ok great i need to upgrade
hey Davis may I know how to apply half-face human half-face iron man thank u indeed
At 2:31 , you have something that is (still) common misconception: that the web somehow cares for the ppi resolution and that people should use 72 ppi when they prepare images for the web. The truth is, web (or better, screen in general) really doesn't care. It's simple, really: there is a color value for each pixel and the screen simply displays what's been given to it. And yes, with retina displays things are more complicated because there are physical pixels and CSS pixels, but that's for another topic. Here, PPI only affects print size. That is, paper. Web doesn't care about PPI.
Good video, but this is very advanced!
Hi there, I was hoping you can help me. Either about Photoshop or Gimp. I have some pictures that I'm organizing. She is my sister who is about to pass away soon. She is in the hospital. I was trying to put together some of her pictures and some of those pictures that were hanging in her room on a frame were damaged by uneven light exposure. As a result, parts of the picture that were covered by other pictures over said areas are darker than the areas exposed to light causing area edges to be darker than the exposed are. Can I show you an example of one and see if maybe you can show me how to quickly fix this? I'm afraid I don't have too much time left. Thank you humbly in advance!!!
@DaviesMediaDesign
4 жыл бұрын
I'm sorry to hear about your sister. My advice would be to use the Free Select Tool (in GIMP) to outline the areas that are exposed differently. Then, use the Levels tool to adjust the brightness and contrast of those areas until they match the areas of normal exposure. I hope that helps.
Can you or anyone demonstrate using GIMP on how to fix photos by removing shine from a person's face such as when the camera flash reflects on the person's oily skin. These shine spots produce almost white spots on a person's skin. I am not a photo editing PRO and GIMP is what I have available. When I search KZread, I can find tutorials on how to fix this problem with Photoshop or other programs but there are none in GIMP. Ironically, I can only find some GIMP videos which add shine to a photo. Can someone please help?
This tutorial its functional in the 2.8.22 Gimp version
@DaviesMediaDesign
6 жыл бұрын
Yep - just make sure that for any of the GEGL operations that I show in this tutorial, go to Tools>GEGL Operation and choose from the dropdown list of features. They changed the location of the GEGL tools in GIMP 2.9. The only feature not found in older version of GIMP is the Exposure feature, which you can replace with Brightness/Contrast (though Exposure works a bit better).
Why do we scale a photo?
Thanks for the walk through. The size of the original file was huge, which was strange because it was much bigger than the picture you showed in your open dialog box. I didn't quite understand how you ended up with this huge file... but other than that interesting work!
I just downloaded Gimp but everything is in black and white. Any idea if it's my computer issue?
@raahgeer1625
3 жыл бұрын
its an updated version
If this tutorial is meant to teach something.... Until about 12:30 the pace is very (some times very, very slow). Showing how to open a file, showing how to use a brush to paint a background transparent. Then, all of a sudden layers are copied, masks are changed to overlay to contrast overlay, hue overlay, add another layer mask without any explanation, all in 2 minutes time. Except for "I am adding another layer, turn it to contrast overlay". Without explanation of the effects achieved. And then, the pace slows down again to explain in detail what color balance can be applied. I appreciate the time you take documents your projects and to teach others. But I would prefer if you go faster through the trivial things (or snipe long actions) and elaborate more on what you are doing essentially to show what the title says: Fix a dark photo the right way.
Even playing the video at .75, you're moving WAY TOO FAST.
@heidisomstevenson
4 жыл бұрын
Pause and replay. It works.
@jpgo5
4 жыл бұрын
I like that he doesn't waste time
@stevecarmichael7000
4 жыл бұрын
Great tutorial, but I was thinking the same thing. It's VERY hard to follow his tiny cursor arrow, to see where he's at on the page.
@lorrenebaum-davis1433
4 жыл бұрын
@@stevecarmichael7000 And the icons are teeny
@stevecarmichael7000
4 жыл бұрын
@@lorrenebaum-davis1433 Teeny indeed, Lorrene! 👍
You had to paint the background out manually? Isn't there some automated way to do this? Seems it would be faster and more accurate.
@mikewellwood1412
3 жыл бұрын
I thought the way he did it was pretty neat actually, but he shows loads of other ways of doing this sort of thing in other videos. With a background like that, you could probably use colour select, or maybe foreground select.
@PaulSauve
3 жыл бұрын
i like to use 'Tools → Selection Tools → Fuzzy Select' (or in the Tool Box)
Why so many layers? Holy Crap! lol. Great video tho. Very informative.
@DaviesMediaDesign
5 жыл бұрын
Sometimes that's what it takes! Lol. Thank you for watching and I'm glad you liked the tutorial!
19:45 - change filename to Sexy Mike Davies.jpg 🤗
First of all you should mention - at least in the description - which version of GIMP are you using.
@MoreChannelNoise
4 жыл бұрын
He did say at least once during the video.
Thank you for your video. Could you explain better how to find the photo in your file browswer? Also, how to turn on my computer and start my Gimp? Really, you get paid adds after 10 minutes I believe, shorter videos are appreciated, not so much padding and useless bla blah
Lots of info - but you go way to fast!
@stevecarmichael7000
4 жыл бұрын
Yep!!!