I’m teaching myself how to use a free photo editing software called GIMP. It’s possible that I may acquire some form of Photoshop in the future, but for now, this is what I’m going to do. Here are a few photos that I have edited on my own.
I love this picture from my bachelorette party by my friend Jessica. I wanted to accentuate the pink feather boa. For this effect, I clicked “Layer” in the menu, chose “New from visible” and then erased the new layer where the pink was. I used the “Circle Fuzzy” brush to erase with and changed the size to fit the need of erasure. I also clicked the eye in the “Layers, Channels, Paths” window to hide the “background” layer so I could see where I missed erasing.
This picture, taken on the Mediterranean in Greece, was used on our Christmas cards. The first picture is the straight out of the camera (SOOC) pic. To get to the version on the right, I added a layer “from visible,” as described above (I almost always do this so I can delete a layer instead of restarting an entire picture). Then, I chose “Colors” from the menu and selected “Brightness-Contrast.” I upped the contrast and the brightness. This gave me a pic with a very wimpy sky, so I erased everything above the horizon/tree line. This made the sky stay the same beautiful sky while giving everything else a more vibrant color. LOVE IT!
I’m slowly learning. Next, I’d like to create a logo for my website and photos, so I can mark them. I’ve tinkered with the tools, but I really hope to get Photoshop soon.