This is a modified photo from 1913 of a woman named Geraldine Ferrar, of whom I have no knowledge other than the photo. I found it in the public domain, which I assume is kind of obvious. All I did to it was bring it into the GIMP, duplicate the layer to create a background image, remove the background content of the original with a soft edged eraser brush, then create a new transparent layer between those two layers to paint on. I then painted the rays you see on the transparent layer using a brush in the shape of those rays. A simple effect, but it certainly gives some focus to Ms. Ferrar.
tags: public domain, photo, photo manipulation, GIMP, GNU, GPL, creative commons, open source, eraser, rays, dailypost2011
Happy new year everyone! I decided to start the new series with something I’m very familiar with in the GIMP: Compositing images. I have three layers here: a background which I shot myself with my phone at a park, plus two images from Morguefile, which allows for no attribution at all. It’s a great resource. At any rate, I made all three images into layers. I used the select by color tool to select and delete the background from the girl’s face. I used the same tool to select and remove the background from the robot. They both had very clean simple backgrounds, which made them especially easy to remove, especially with a wacom tablet. I applied a blur to the girl and the park background, so that the viewer “focuses” on the most surprising thing: the robot. Hope you like it, and I hope even more that you try it.
tags: postaday2011, gimp, photo, photomanipulation, open source, creative commons, lemasney, robot, omg, wtf, run
So this is an answer to Erika Bredahl’s picture submission of her dog Yoda. After bitmap tracing the image a few times to get some various levels of shadow and detail, I overlapped the paths and colored them using the eyedropper tool and a vidcap of Yoda from ESB. I then used another vidcap of Yoda in the Swamp scene, took it into the GIMP and used the stamp tool to remove Yoda, then brought the resulting image into Inkscape and bitmap traced it, then gave it some blur.
‘Yoda (/ˈjoʊdə/) is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, first appearing in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back. He is a small, green humanoid alien who is powerful with the Force. In his first appearance in the original trilogy, Yoda is described as the Jedi master of Obi-Wan Kenobi and subsequently trains Luke Skywalker to use the Force. The character reappears in Return of the Jedi where he reveals his age to be 900. Yoda has become iconic in popular culture due to his distinct pattern of speech and role as an old, wise mentor. In the prequel trilogy, set a generation before the original trilogy, Yoda is among the most powerful members of the Jedi Order and a general of clone troopers during the Clone Wars. He also trains all Jedi children, before they are assigned a Jedi master. Yoda appears again in the sequel trilogy, advising an older Luke and empowering Rey to face a revived Emperor Palpatine, along with other past Jedi.’
from “Yoda – Wikipedia” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda curated by lemasney creative. Feel free to share.
High contrast multi-scan self portrait in red, white and black cc-by lemasney
High contrast multi-scan self portrait in red, white and black cc-by lemasney
A self portrait for Trenton Computer Festival
This was created for my recent talk on 5 ways to enhance your digital photos at Trenton Computer Festival as a lead-in slide. I wanted to introduce myself, show something dramatic, and show people what I meant, exactly, as image enhancement, as opposed to let’s say focus brightness, and contrast, though I showed those things too.
In Inkscape, I used the trace bitmap tool to convert my image in two ways, once in threshold mode, and once in detect edges mode. As a result, I get a slightly layered deeper image, and I definitely get something that’s difficult to capture with a camera. Thanks for checking it out!
Tracing Bitmaps in Inkscape
“Currently Inkscape employs the Potrace bitmap tracing engine (potrace.sourceforge.net) by Peter Selinger. In the future we expect to allow alternate tracing programs; for now, however, this fine tool is more than sufficient for our needs. Keep in mind that the Tracer’s purpose is not to reproduce an exact duplicate of the original image; nor is it intended to produce a final product. No autotracer can do that. What it does is give you a set of curves which you can use as a resource for your drawing. Potrace interprets a black and white bitmap, and produces a set of curves. For Potrace, we currently have three types of input filters to convert from the raw image to something that Potrace can use. Generally the more dark pixels in the intermediate bitmap, the more tracing that Potrace will perform. As the amount of tracing increases, more CPU time will be required, and the element will become much larger. It is suggested that the user experiment with lighter intermediate images first, getting gradually darker to get the desired proportion and complexity of the output path. To use the tracer, load or import an image, select it, and select the Path > Trace Bitmap item, or Shift+Alt+B.” – Inkscape tutorial: Tracing | Inkscape,
A Special Reminder from The Computer Learning Center at Ewing
CLC Tips & Tricks Program April 6
“My 10 Favorite Free Graphics Applications”
Ewing, NJ: Next Tuesday, April 6, John LeMasney, Manager of Technology Training at Rider University in Lawrenceville, will present “My 10 Favorite Free Graphics Applications” at the Computer Learning Center’s latest “Computer Tips and Tricks” program. This free program will take place in the Ewing Senior and Community Center, 999 Lower Ferry Road. It will be preceded by a question and answer session during which the audience can direct computer questions to the CLC’s all-volunteer faculty. The CLC “Computer Tips and Tricks” programs are presented as a public service on the first Tuesday of each month. No prior registration is required.
““You’ll never go back to paying hundreds of dollars for name brand software after you see what you can do with these 10 free applications,” says LeMasney. “While I was personally raised on Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Corel DRAW!, they’ve got nothing on these free and open source tools. I plan to demonstrate how to find great, free tools to design advertisements, posters, layouts, images, and logos, and I’ll explore tools that allow you to work in photographic, three-dimensional, vector, bitmap modes.” LeMasney will also discuss the rise in popularity of open source software and what he describes as “the free yet fantastic alternatives to commercial applications.”
For further information about the April 6 program, courses or directions, call 609-882-5086, 609-883-1776, Ext. 6205 or visit the SeniorNet web site at www.ewingsnet.com.
If you’ve ever been to one of my workshops on open source graphics apps, you likely saw me use this technique there as a way to demonstrate the power of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). In the GIMP, this is a technique that involves layer masks, blurring, brushwork, image scaling, and guidelines as a way of believably merging one recognizable face onto another becognizable head. The GIMP based composite image is here. I decided that I’d try to do the same technique in Inkscape, and found this attempt to be fairly quick and fairly successful.
