Last week in the comments a request was made for levels and curves by JSolomon, and she said it would be good to do it in GIMP. I know that for most people Photoshop is too expensive and it is hard doing tutorials in it. I tried to contact Adobe about this, but apparently they don’t like people contacting them, especially when you look at trying to do it, and even more so if you manage to contact them, well, it is even harder getting a response. GIMP is free and for most people more than adequate, so GIMP it is.
Doing this tutorial created an interesting dilemma for me, I use both, but I have never really thought about when to use them, I just use them. I know in Photoshop there are certain things you can do, but you can’t do them in GIMP. I had to do some reading. This tutorial is going to be basic, but hopefully will give you enough of an understanding of how they are different and when to use them.
First of all open up GIMP and choose your image. I have chosen one that has lot of darks and lots of lights.
Next right click on the image, go to Colors, then Levels.
Once the levels is open you will see a new window.
This window is used to adjust the levels. The levels adjusts the tonal range of the image. As you can see by the histogram above the red circles I have drawn, the tonal range is spread right over, there is some in the black area on the left and some more in the light area on the right, and not much in between.
This is how I was taught to do levels, you move the arrow, circled in red to the edge of the histogram, like so. The one at the other end would stay where it is because the histogram is right up to the edge. Changing the one for whites, hasn’t done a lot. Time to move the middles one.
I didn’t move it much, but you can see that the pylons holding up the jetty have lightened up quite a bit, but unfortunately when you do this, the whole image lightens up and you start to lose detail in the lights.
This is not a good image for levels, you will never get the image you want from using it.
However, for an image like the one above, it is perfect. The image is quite well exposed, but according to the histogram, needs a little lightening up. So I would move the right arrow to the beginning of the histogram, and the middle one to the left until I thought the image was better.
For our first image, Curves is probably going to be a lot better. With curves you can control more, you have more say in the highlights, shadows and darks. You can change the lights without it affecting other parts. This is where it starts to get complicated.
You can move the start of the curve over to where the histogram starts, like up the top of the line, circled in red. You can almost put a marker on the midway point. This anchors the curve at that spot.
You can see where I have moved the line or the curve here and how it has changed the image. I darkened the sky, and lightened the poles. The only thing to watch out for really is that areas can become too grey. It really is different for each image and you just have to try different things to see how you go.
There they all are side by side, the first one on the left is the original image, the middle one is the one done with levels, and the one on the far right is the one done with curves.
Both have their places. In the image above, the levels has made the sky too light, whereas the curves has done something strange to the water. Admittedly, it wasn’t a great image to begin with. I think it is a judgement call and you need to decide depending on the image. I usually start with levels, if I can’t get the result I want with that, then I go to curves. If I am fixing up a selected area of the image then I use curves. I say play, and see what you come up.
There is the other image, I have only changed the levels in this and I’ve done nothing else. It was a little dark so I lightened it up a little.
I hope I haven’t made it all too confusing. It is a tough one. Experience is the best key. Levels is probably the best way to start.
I just experienced something in GIMP that I haven’t come across before, it wouldn’t let me save my image as a jpeg, I will have to investigate that more.
I have almost finished writing the first part in my series on photography. I just to pretty it up some more. Hopefully it will be ready to be sold soon. I thought I would concentrate on taking photos and leave the editing for now. I am hoping there are enough people out there that will be interested in that.
Reality Blog Award
I’ve been nominated for another award, this time from Jenny’s Serendipity,
http://jennysserendipity.com/2012/10/15/reality-blog-award/
Thank you Jen.
from the very first day I found your blog I learned so many things I am truly delighted thank you so much …
Thank you so much, that is a lovely thing to say. It is also great to hear that you are learning a lot.
Thank you for showing us this!
It was a pleasure Susanne, thanks.
So informative- thanks Leanne
I hope so Don, thanks.
Very useful and well explained, thanks Leanne!
That is great to hear, thank you.
I’m at work now but can’t wait to get home to read this! Thanks .. just what I wanted! D
I hope you can understand it Dave, I am never sure how well I explain things, thanks.
Yup … having worked with curves and levels a bit , what you said made good sense. And, I agree that playing around a bit helps. Curves tends to help with saturation and contrast while levels seems to help more with improving the dynamic range of an image. Taken together, they can do great things. OK … now on to selections! D
great tutorial….thanks!!!!
Thank you dini.
Thank you so much for the lesson… it really helps the amateur like me…
That is great to hear Rob, I hope it does help. Thank you.
It’s so interesting to see the difference in each photo after you’ve played with it.
Thank you Carol, it is interesting how they all do something different.
“I just experienced something in GIMP that I haven’t come across before, it wouldn’t let me save my image as a jpeg, I will have to investigate that more.”
Leanne, I haven’t used GIMP for a while, but you have to export the GIMP .xcf file before it’s able to be saved in another file format—but if you’ve used layers and you want to save the image as a jpeg they’ll be flattened. I can send you more info about exporting an GIMP image, if you’d like.
To save a GIMP file in another file format:
Open the GIMP file.
Go to “File” at the rop right of the file’s menu bar.
Select “Save as…” to open the “Save Image” window.
Select the destination folder for the saved file.
Click “Select File Type (by extension).
Scroll down to choose the required File Type
Click “Save.”
I have GIMP 2.6 for Mac.
Hope this helps.
That sounds right. I don’t normally use GIMP in windows, I have it on GIMP and it does that for you automatically. I have never come across this before, it was so weird. I must try and remember that for next time. In Ubuntu it asks you if you want to export it, you say yes, and then it is done. Thanks Paul.
Thanks for this, I’ve been messing around with curves in GIMP for a while but this has clarified a few things for me, as levels were still a bit of a mystery.
That is great to hear Aine, that makes me feel better. I worry when I do these that no one will understand what I am saying and I just make it worse. Thank you.
Haha no worries, it made sense to me anyway!
That is so good to hear.
Wonderful tutorial, Leanne! I haven’t tried using GIMP, but I was thinking of trying it out too. Thank you for the well written tutorial
Thank you Gracie, I think you will find the principles are the same no matter what you use, though, Photoshop allows you to do some stuff that GIMP doesn’t.
Very excellent tutorial, Leanne…it’s so good of you to take the time to post these, and help others understand what may seem so complex, they choose to avoid experimenting!
One thing to remind everyone: Keep your original camera image, and if things don’t seem to be working out, you can always start from scratch. And ‘UNDO’, which I did not have when I began computer animation 24 years ago, is there for a reason–if it doesn’t look right, Undo, and try another setting.
I find it is good for me too, it helps me to learn how to write them. The responses have been good, so that is encouraging. I also enjoy writing them and would like to do more writing like this. I am hoping I am good at it.
Yes, I didn’t write that, I have said it other times, perhaps I should do a special page for people who haven’t followed them all saying that, and some other things, so I don’t have to do it each time. That is a good point. I will have to work that one out. Thanks again 1000 for your support.
You’re very welcome, Leanne…it is so important, especially for beginners, to have something like a ‘reminder page’ to refer to…and I also know what you mean about questions for Adobe–UGH!
Reblogged this on Sutoprise Avenue, A SutoCom Source.
Thanks for the great tutorial. Using mainly scanned film prints (sometimes negatives but rarely), I do use Gimp some as the scanned prints very rarely reflect the true image (that’s using a good scanner). I’m guessing that grains of silver emulsion don’t like to be transformed into pixels. Like you I have both Photoshop and Gimp on my computer but find Photoshop a bit heavy in the learning curve with little tutorial information out there. Guess I’m not the only one who thinks so. Thank you for the great tutorial.
You are welcome. I haven’t done a lot of scanned prints, I’ve done lots of negatives, but haven’t done many prints, so I haven’t experienced that. You would think that you could just scan and nothing more. Photoshop is hard to learn, I learned some when I was studying photography, then a friend helped to update, and then I spent a lot of time in books and magazines learning. I was pretty good with GIMP, but it did take a while. I think photo editing is a whole new way of doing photos, and is in many ways similar to the darkroom. I hope you like both, and thank you.
Thank you SO much for doing this! I am ecstatic – will look at it in depth when kiddo goes down for a nap (and by the way, I am a she
)
Woops, I have corrected that now. It is hard, you just see a name and no idea as the gender of the person. I have people who I thought were women, then I find out they are a man, or vice versa. I am sorry that happened.
I hope you like the tutorial and get a lot out of it.
Been playing with it some – you’re right, it’s very trial and error, but wow, it’s pretty powerful. I had been wondering for awhile how to tone down glare without darkening the whole image. This brings my editing and blog post images to a new level, thanks again!!
You are welcome, I am glad it has helped.
Nice blog, I play around with the Gimp but should learn more. Cheers!
Oh thank you, GIMP is good, especially for a free product.
My learning so far has been mostly pressing buttons to see what happens
Probably time for something more organised..
Another great tutorial! Thumbs up for a job well done. Looking forward to some more great tutorials.
Thanks, glad you like it, hopefully there will be more.
OMG. I just tried contacting Adobe a couple of months ago and it took me ages just to find a phone number! In the end, I didn’t find one, I had to do online chat and the rep gave one to me. The guy I eventually got was completely not interested in my issue. Thanks for providing these useful mini-tutorials!!!!
Joy
They are hopeless aren’t they, Adobe I mean. I’ve sent inquiries to them, because i want to help their customers, but they are just terrible to deal with, so no tutes in there programs. No problem providing the tutorials, they are good for me as well, they help me to clarify stuff as well. Thanks Joy.
Thanks again for the mini tutorials with visuals. they are so helpful!
That is always fantastic to hear, thank you Keli.
You are so kind, Leanne!
Thanks for sharing this tutorial. It’s very helpful to me.
That makes it worthwhile, to know that it helps, thank you Inge.
You’ve taken the mystery out of the most mysterious part of photo editing! Thank you Leanne.
Thank you Ed, what a lovely thing to say, I just hope it can be understood.
Leanne,
Thanks for liking one of my posts – and thank you very much for the Gimp tutorials.
I have Gimp on my computer, but have never used it much – only for the most basic of photo editing. Your tutorials have widened my horizon a bit, so I’ll give it another look, soon.
You are very welcome w6bky.
I hope you start using it more, it is capable of quite a bit. Thanks
Pingback: How Layer Masks and Layer Modes Can Transform Photos « Seas Reflecting Starlight