Tone-on-Tone Image Manipulation

Tone-on-Tone GIMP tutorial

ESPN-like Game Promo Graphic

ESPN-like Game Promo Graphic

Color Sensitive Text

In this GIMP tutorial you will see how to make the color of text alternate between light or dark depending on the background. I developed this procedure to meet the needs of someone who follows this blog and made a request for help. I hope others among you will find it useful, too.

Open the background image.

Duplicate the background layer, Layer- Duplicate Layer. Desaturate the background layer copy, Colors - Desaturate... by Luminosity.

Apply the threshold filter to the background layer copy, Colors - Threshold…, push the slider to the right until there's hardly any white bits in the black.

With the Brush Tool, paint out any details to match the dominant color, black or white.

With the Text Tool create your text layer in black or whatever dark color you want to use. Position it with the Move Tool. Expand the text layer to the image size, Layer - Layer to Image Size.

Make the text layer invisible by clicking the 'eye' icon in the Layers pallet.

Make the black and white layer active by clicking it in the Layers pallet. With the Select by Color Tool in Replace the current selection mode, click anywhere in the black.

Make the text layer visible and active. With the Select by Color Tool in Intersect with the current selection mode, click anywhere in the text. You should now have the portion of text that overlays the darker buildings selected. Make the black and white layer invisible.

Create a new transparent layer, Layer - New Layer..., on top of all the others and name it Light Text. Now, fill the selection on the Light Text layer with white or whatever light color you choose, Edit - Fill with BG Color. Deselect, Select - None.

Snap, Crackle, POP!

Learn how to easily create a pop art effect in this lesson.

Some of the things you'll do in this lesson:

• Use the Threshold tool
• Select by color
• Add transparency to an image
• Use the Colorize tool

Get the source pictures free at stock.xchng or use your own.

• The girl by amminopurr is here
• The sheet music by verzerk is here

Open the picture of the girl. First, you'll convert the image to hard black and white. Open the Threshold dialog from the menu, Colors > Threshold… . Slide the left (black) marker to the right until the value is 185.

With the Select by Color tool, click anywhere in the white background to select all the white part of the image.

You now need to add transparency to the JPG image. In the Layers pallet, right-click on the Background layer and select Add Alpha Channel from the context menu.

The next step is to replace the white background with transparency. To delete the white area, simply use the Delete key on your keyboard or Edit > Clear.

To color the currently black area, add a new layer, Color. Change the FG color to a color of your choice. I used a cyan shade, 00f6f6. Invert the selection to choose the black area, Select > Invert. With the Bucket Fill tool, paint the selection.

Open the sheet music image and scale it to match the image of the girl, (445x446). Save it. The next step is to add color to the sheet music using the Colorize dialog, Colors > Colorize… . I used these settings: Hue 360, Saturation 70, Lightness -20.

Select the entire sheet music image (Select > All) and copy it. Now paste it into the image of the girl as a new layer, Edit > Paste as > New Layer. The sheet music layer is now the top layer and is named Clipboard. In the Layers pallet, drag the Clipboard layer under all the other layers.

And now you have completed your project!

There is a lot of opportunity to experiment and play with this project. Try different color combinations and backgrounds. Vary the amount of colorization. Go crazy!

Here's an extension of this project using three different images of the same girl from amminopurr that you might like to try. I put the girls over a clothify-ed, blurred background layer.

Put on a Happy Sky

In this lesson you will have the opportunity to learn a procedure to replace an overexposed sky in a photo with a more attractive sky from another image.
Before -

After -

Included in this lesson -

• Decompose HSV filter
• Threshold tool
• Quick mask
• Adjusting a selection
  
• Moving layers

Open the photo with the unattractive sky (foreground image) and the image with the good sky you want to use. It's much easier if these images are the same size, so you may want to scale one or both images before proceeding. For the time being, you may want to minimize the "sky" image to reduce clutter.

Step 1 - Decompose the background image to HSV

Filters - Colors - Decompose ...

Select HSV in the dialog. This will create a new image with the same name as your original foreground image but which has HSV appended.
Be sure the Value layer is active (white border) in the layers dialog

Step 2 - Apply the Threshold tool to the Value layer

Tools - Color Tools - Threshold ... OR Layer - Colors - Threshold ...

Push the middle slider to the right until the sky is white and the foreground is black. Use one of the Paint tools (pencil, brush) to make any adjustments needed.

Step 3 - Apply Quick Mask to the foreground image
Select your original foreground image and toggle the Quick Mask ON by clicking in the bottom left corner of the image window (Shift+Q OR Select - Toggle Quick Mask).
The entire image should now be covered by a translucent red layer.

Step 4 - Copy the Decomposed image and paste it onto the Quick Mask in the foreground image
Select the Decomposed HSV image and copy it.

Edit - Copy (Ctrl+C)

Switch to the foreground image.

Edit - Paste (Ctrl+V)

Step 5 - Define the selection
Toggle Quick Mask OFF by clicking in the bottom left corner of the image window (Shift+Q OR Select - Toggle Quick Mask).
The red layer should be gone and the "marching ants" selection border should appear.

Right now the sky is selected, but you want the foreground to be selected.

Select - Invert (Ctrl+I)
Select - Shrink ... [setting: 1 pixel]
Select - Feather ... (Ctrl+Alt+F) [setting: 2 pixels]

Step 6 - Place the foreground on a new layer of its own

Edit - Copy (Ctrl+C)
Edit - Paste (Ctrl+V)

You should see a floating selection at the top of the layers dialog.


Put this on a new layer of its own.

Layer - New Layer ... (or click the New Layer icon at the bottom of the layers dialog)

Name this layer "foreground".

Step 7 - Copy the new sky from the other image to the foreground image
Activate the image containing the sky you wish to use and copy it.

Edit - Copy (Ctrl+C)

Activate the foreground image

Edit - Paste (Ctrl+V)

Layer - New Layer ... (or click the New Layer icon at the bottom of the layers dialog)

You now have the sky image on its own layer. Name this layer "sky".

Step 8 - Reposition the sky layer
Move the "sky" layer below the "foreground" layer in the stack by either dragging it or using the down button at the bottom of the layers dialog.

Step 9 - Finish up
If you want to save your image in JPG or PNG format you'll need to flatten it to a single layer first.

Image - Flatten Image

Understand, this is NOT the ONLY way to do this. It works well for me and gives you an opportunity to use some functions of the GIMP which may be less familiar to you. The techniques used can be applied in other tasks as well. I hope you find this useful and instructive. Comments and/or donations appreciated.