GIMP part 3

Karen Ruffles,
Grin, Grimace and Squeak! 






Here is our final stage of editing that product shot- by the end of this you will all have shops full of gorgeous, crisp images - or you'll have me to answer to :) This is where we were at the end of our last lesson with our picture ready for its final check.

This time we're digging in our GIMP toolbox -  that's the floating window that looks like the picture below and the icon you want to click on is the yellow cross which is made to look like plasters because it's our 'heal' tool.

When you've selected the tool, hover your cursor over your picture and you will see it has changed to a circle as in the picture below. Now, what this tool does is copy an area of your picture that you are happy with and repair areas where you have unwanted shadows, bits of fluff etc. It copies both colour and texture so it's best to take a sample from close by. 

To do this, put the circle over a likely looking area, press down your CTRL button and left click your mouse at the same time. When you move your cursor again you will see that you now have two circles- one stays put, that's your selection, the other floats around and is what you will use to make corrections. Any area you click on now, gimp will match to the area under your original circle, blending together - it really is very clever and once you've got the hang of it, this tool will become your best friend :)

Here I've used it to take out or soften harsh shadows that were distracting the eye from our product. The finished picture is shown below and if you compare it to the original at the top, you can see that it is a cleaner, clearer shot. That's it- we're done!

Our next photo post will move on to props, live or otherwise and how you can transform a standard product shot into a real statement. This is where then fun really starts :)