Thursday, October 13, 2011

Quick Tip - Editing Black and White Photos with Color Curves

When I teach how to edit photos with gimp, one of the biggest things I push for is the use of layer modes and layer masks whenever possible.  How I create black and white photos is no exception to that rule.

Before


After


When I edit photos like what you see above, I always do it like this:
create a new layer, fill that layer with black.
set the layer mode to "color"
go to the background layer
click colors>>>curves
adjust the curves of the red, green, and blue channels on the drop down menu

Editing a black and white photo this way will give you some unique results and can highlight parts of a black and white photo that would have been otherwise impossible to highlight.  This method of editing photos works well, but it works A LOT better if you're editing a photo in RAW format.  If you don't know anything about shooting in raw check out this blog post: The Benefits of Shooting in Raw.

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I teach people how to use gimp with gimp video tutorials, as well as gimp text tutorials. I also work with Photographers by offering photo-editing services.