Category: GNU Image Manipulation Program

Posted on

Circles and Colorization

Learning photo editing has been and continues to be an adventure. As you know, I decided to learn GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) so I could design my own eBook and paperback book covers.

My two latest projects are learning to wrap text around a circle and colorizing  black and white photographs. Text around a circle could make for an interesting effect on a cover. And I have several black and white photos from the Library of Congress that I am considering using as book covers. 

Prior to the mid-1940s, photos were black and white. Color was hand painted on a print of the photograph. This was an involved and time-consuming process. Now, of course, with computers and programs such as Photoshop and GIMP, colorizing has become computerized.

I designed this book cover using a photograph from Pixabay and text that wrapped around a circle.

I practiced colorization with a photo from The Library of Congress. This is the black and white photo.

This is my colorized version.

Next, I colorized my grandparents’ wedding photograph. These are my mother’s parents. The first photo is the “before” picture (in sepia). The second is my colorized photograph.

When I decided to learn photo editing, never in my wildest dreams did I envision myself learning photo colorization.

The information on colorization is from The History of Photo Colorization.

The source for the photo from the Library of Congress is Digital ID: (digital file from original) bellcm 20124 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/bellcm.20124, Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-bellcm-20124 (digital file from original), Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print. This is the link.

Posted on

The Progress of Image Manipulation

As you may know from other pages and posts on my website, I learned GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) so I could design my own book covers. I wanted to show the process – the steps that I took to create my latest project, an illustration for one of my upcoming novels. I started with this photo from Pixabay.

Then I added the heroine. I found her on Pixabay as well.

And then came all the luggage she’s brought with her on her cross-country train trip to visit her cousin. I brought in her luggage one photo at a time.

And here we have the final stack luggage added.

The house, the heroine and all of the luggage were on Pixabay. It’s a free stock photo site. So, now you see the creative process of using “layers.” The house, the woman and each picture of luggage is a “layer.” If I were to add text to this image, the text would be another layer.

Once again, the photo-editing program I’m using is GNU Image Maniuplation Program and it is free. There was definitely a learning curve with this program. I put in many hours into learning it over a month’s time period. There are many tutorials on YouTube. To me, the time I spent is worth it because I now have the skill to create my own book covers. I figured I’d have to pay to have my book covers created one way or another. I could either hire a freelance cover designer and pay with money or I could pay in the time and effort it took to learn how to do it myself. I chose to learn how to do it myself.