Put yourself on banner

Couldn't find a good photograph of mine to use (I am not photogenic), so I used Daniel Craig :D. This tutorial shows how to put a photograph on a hoarding. Nothing complex, just a simple thing. It just came across my mind, so I thought to write a tutorial.

GIMP version - 2.6.4
Image size - hoarding (1024x768), Casino royale poster(799x403)

Here are the two images that I started with



..this is what I ended up with



Following is what I did:
1] Open up the hoarding image in GIMP. Now, before doing anything else we need to make sure that the image that we are going to put on the hoarding is in (almost) same aspect ratio as the hoarding. To get the aspect ratio of the hoarding use the 'Measure Tool' to get the height and width of the hoarding, as shown below:


For the images I used the aspect ratio came out 2:1 which almost same as the image, so I didn't have to crop the image. If the ratio is different, make sure you crop the image before putting it on the hoarding.

2] Open the second image as layer. I'll call this layer as "poster layer". To put the image on the hoarding, use the 'Perspective Tool'. Reduce the poster layer opacity and in the perspective options select 'Preview' as 'Outline', this is not necessary to do, but it will help.


3] This is what I got after applying the perspective transformation.


4] Now, we need to do some clean-up stuff. As you can see the corners of the hoarding are round, there are few cables infront of the hoarding, a light at the bottom. Add a layer mask to the poster layer. Reduce the layer opacity so that we can see the hoarding border through it. Select the layer mask and paint black color over the area that we don't want to be visible. You can zoom in to do it neatly


5] This is what I got after rounding the corners:

6] Now, the cables: hide the poster layer, select path tool to create a path over the cables. Select the layer mask and "stroke path" with black color. I guess most of the cables in front of any such hoarding should be easy to handle.

Similarly, do the same thing for other cables. This is what I got:


7] Almost done, just the final touch. The colors in the poster look too bright compared to the surroundings. Reduce the brightness and contrast a little for the poster layer.

8] And then, here is the final result

Image to polaroid collage

Hmmm.. it seems I've been busy for some time (not really ;-)). Anyway here comes another GIMP tutorial that I wanted to write from some time, but couldn't. Better late than never :-)

Following tutorial is to get a polaroid collage effect on an image. What I am going to do is just place some randomly rotated polaroid frames that we will create in step [3]. To give it a little realistic look we will use shadows and Curve Bend tool.

GIMP version: 2.6.4
Image size: 1024 x 768

Before we start just preview of what I finally got:

1] Create a new image in GIMP of size same as original image (i.e. 1024 x 768 here). The idea is to create all the frames and finally put the original image in the background.

2] Hide the background layer and create a new transparent layer which is 300px wide and 400px high, and name it "frame".

3] Now add little off-white borders to the layer. I used (240, 240, 240) color. Make the borders 10px wide on left, top and right side and 30 px wide on the bottom side. You can use the rectangle select and the bucket fill tools. After drawing the borders you must have something like this:

4] Now create a transparent layer, and name it as "collage". We will use buffer to temporarily put a frame, then rotate and distort it a little, and then put on the "collage" layer.

5] Lets start with the first frame. Select layer "frame" hit Ctrl+A to select the frame that we made. Select layer "buffer" and hit Ctrl+V to paste, but don't merge down the floating layer yet. Select Filters | Distorts | Curve Bend, and slightly bend the upper curve, press copy button to copy the same curve to the lower region. Press ok to apply the transformation. You should get something like this:

6] Now, take the rotate tool and rotate the floating layer with some random amount.

7] Select Filters | Light and Shadow | Drop Shadow, and drop a shadow. I used the x-y offset as 5 and blur radius as 8, opacity as 80.

8] Now merge down the floating layer on the layer "buffer". Rearrange the layers as "buffer", "Drop Shadow" and "collage". Merge down the "shadow" layer to the "collage" layer. Select the layer "buffer", take the "fuzzy select" tool and click inside the blank area in the frame. Now merge down the "buffer" layer to the "collage" layer. Now press delete to delete the selected area. This is what I got after this step:

9] As you would have noticed that the "buffer" layer is lost. Create another "buffer" layer. and repeat the steps 5-6-7-8 several times, with frames rotated with different angles, distorted with different amount, and pasted at different places.

10] After repeating steps 5-6-7-8 several times, I got this:

11] Now, just place the original image in the background. To get better results you may place the original image in the background before and then put the frames according to the image.

We are all Sick!

We are all sick.

Did I say.. sick?

Yes I did!

Oh..Really? Is it so..What kind of sickness?

Nature created us for two reasons survival and growth of race, it seems to be the way with every other species.

So? what it has to do with sickness? Man seems to be doing a good job.

Oh yeah.. man seems to be doing a good job, but not as good as other animals.

What? Do I mean other animals are doing better than man. I must have lost my mind.

That's it, that's the sickness I'm talking about.

What? Do I mean man has gone crazy?

Yeah, in a way. Man would have done a great job, but he got infected.

Infected with what?

With emotions! He started to feel things other than survival and growth of race.
He started feeling Love, Hate, Pride, Grief and it let everything to this imbalance. Every other species tries to maintain equilibrium, they eat, sleep, reproduce, do everything in balance. They don't kill each other until and unless to survive or to reproduce.

I guess I am right, everything man does just makes the situation more worse. Man is destroying this beautiful Earth which otherwise would have been much more beautiful than it is now. We are destroying everything. We all really are sick.

Cool Water Text Effect

Another GIMP Tutorial :D

Following tutorial is to create a water text effect.

A quick google search got me the following image of a wood surface on which we will add our water text effect.



This is what I got finally




image size: 1024x678
GIMP version - 2.6.2

Following are the steps that I followed

1] Open image in GIMP.

2] Add a new text layer and add text in white color with some hand-writing font so that it looks more realistic.

3] Take a white brush and paint some spots that we'll turn into water drops like the following image:



4] Set layer size to image size.

5] Duplicate the layer with text (Lets call them t1 and t2).

6] Right click on layer 't2' in layers dialog and select 'Alpha to Selection'. This would select the non transparent region.

7] Switch to channel window and add a new channel. Set channel opacity to 100, and tick 'Initialize from Selection' option. Now deselect all and blur the channel three times with blur raius as 7, 4, 1. Then hide the channel.



8] Now we will add some lighting effect to the layer 't2' using the channel we created as bumpmap. You can use following settings:



After applying the changes you must have something like this:



9] Select layer 't2', Lock the alpha channel (this option is towards top of the layers dialog), then blur the layer with blur radius as 4px. Unlock the alpha channel.

10] Select Colors | Color to Alpha, and choose a mid gray color. This should give you something like this



11] Now we will add some shadow to give a little more realistic look. Right Click on the 't1' layer and select 'Alpha to Selection'. Drop a shadow offset to x:-2, y:1 and alpha set to 50%.



12] There is too much *white* in the image, select the 't2' layer, Colors | Curves, select channel as Alpha and slightly move the curve downwards till you have something like this:


13] We are almost done, just need to add a slight refraction effect. Select layer 't1' and again make a selection from alpha. Now select the wooden surface layer (keeping the selection). Select Filters | Distort | Whirl and pinch, set angle to 60, radius to 2. Select Filters | Distort | Lens Distortion, Set Main:-25, Zoom:2.

14] Done!! This is what I have finally:

Add colors to your pics : Lomo Effect

While browsing through some photoshop tutorials, I came across 'Lomo Effect'. There seem to be lot of Photoshop tutorials to add lomo effect to your pictures, so I thought to write one for GIMP.

I used GIMP 2.6.2
image resolution 1024x768

Original image



Final image


1] Open your image in GIMP.

2] Select whole photo using 'Select | All'

3] Shrink the selection by 75 pixels (Select | Shrink)

4] Feather the selection by 300 pixels (Select | Feather)

5] Invert the selection (Select | Invert)

6] Create a new transparent layer and select it

7] Take the gradient tool, set shape to 'Radial', and add a white to black gradient from center of phot to the bottom side. You must get something like this:



8] Set the gradient layer mode to overlay.

9] If the border looks too dark, reduce the opacity of the gradient layer or ifs less dark then duplicat the gradient layer (make sure the duplicate layer is also set to overlay mode). I got the following result after duplicating the layer.



10] Flatten the image (Image | Flatten Image)

11] Open the Color curves dialog (Colors | Curves), set channel to values and apply an 'S' curve, something like this:


12] Apply the changes.

Done!!

Be a sketch artist

Once I was searching for GIMP tutorials to convert a photograph to a pencil sketch. Almost all tutorials I found used same technique which I think can be roughly summarized as finding edges in the image and inverting the colors. Though the results were fine they seemed to lack something, and then I thought of adding the diagonal pencil strokes.

I used GIMP 2.6.2 and a 1024x768 sized image.

Original Image:


Final Image:


Following are the steps (including the ones I learned from other tutorials)

1] Open the image in GIMP

2] Duplicate the layer

3] Gaussian blur the top layer. I used the blur radius as 5 pixels.

5] Invert colors of the blurred layer, and set its transparency to 50%.

6] You should have something like this.


7] Merge down the top layer.

8] Open colors | Levels, set the minimum and maximum input levels as 100 and 155 as below.



9] Desaturate the layer

10] Open Colors | Levels, adjust the input levels so as to get something similar to the following



11] Now Duplicate this layer. Hide the top layer and select the second one.

12] Select Filters | Blur | Motion Blur. Select blur type as Linear, length as 10 angle as 135. Repeat motion blur with angle changed to 315. You should get something as:



13] Unhide the first layer set its transparency to 20%. Merge down the top layer with the blurred layer.



14] Select Colors | Contrast. Increase the contrast slowly till image looks more like a pencil sketch. I increased the contrast to a value of 15, to get the following result



15] Now we need to add some more random pencil strokes. Add a new transparent layer of size 512x384 i.e. of half width and height of the image.

16] Select Fileters | Noise | Hurl. Select a random seed. Set randomization% to 10 and repeat to 1. This should add some random dots to the layer.


17] Select Layer | Scale layer. Scale the layer to image size select interpolation as cubic. Move the layer if necessary to overlap the image correctly. You will have something like this



18] Select Colors | brightness and Contrast. Set Brightness to minimum and Contrast to maximum.

19] Now again apply motion blur on this layer as previously. But keep the length as 20.

20] Again merge down the blurred layer.

21] Now, Select Colors | Brightness-Contrast. Reduce the brightness and increase the contrast to get something like this:


22] Now you can apply canvas from Filters | Artistic | Apply Canvas, to give it a more realistic look. Here is the final image that I got after applying canvas:



Done!!

create your twin

Recently Parag saw a photograph somewhere with a person sitting at two places in the same photograph. He wanted to do something similar and asked me if I can help. Giving it a thought I found that its not that difficult. Following is what I did:

You'll need an image manipulation software, I used GIMP 2.6.2. Its open source and freely available.

1] First thing to do is to take two pictures of yours. While taking the pictures utmost care must be taken that the camera (and other objects in the scene) are not moved. Try to make sure that everything else except you in the pictures should remain still. For example following are the two pictures that Parag gave me (resized to 1024x768):



2] Next thing you need to do is open these images in GIMP. You can use "File | Open as Layers" to open the two images as two layers. You should have something like this:



3] Hide the first layer (click on the eye against the first layer in the layers dialog)

4] Take the "Scissors Select Tool" and use it to select the person in the second layer (you can also use "Free Select Tool") try to keep the selection close to the person.

5] Grow the selection using "Select | Grow" so that some more area around the person is selected. I grew the selection by 25px. You shoud have something as below:


6] Make the first layer visible (make sure the selection is not lost). Right click on the layer and select "Add layer mask". Select "White (full opacity)" in the dialog and click "Add". You should see that there is another white layer added to the right of the first layer.

7] Click on the layer mask added, select the "Bucket Fill Tool", make sure that foreground color is set to black and the selection is still there. Click inside the selection. This should fill the selected area on the layer mask with black colour. Also, the person in the second layer should become visible. You can lose the selection now.


8] Its almost done, but there might be some sharp color changes around the second person because of the change in the lighting. To Fix this we will blur the layer mask a bit so that the colours of the two layers are blended. Select the layer mask and select gaussian blur from "Filter | Blur | Gaussian Blur". Select radius something less than how much we grew the selection, I used 22px.

9] Done!!




Some other images I made: