Meet the GIMP #94: Wine and Curves

It’s curves time again. This powerful tool is in the centre of the stage and I try to explain it’s nearly unlimited power over colours, contrasts and brightness. Worth to learn.

This week I visit a vineyard in Missouri (too bad - only via HTTP) and discuss the dangers of blowing out the highlights under overcast sky. Just underexpose a bit when in doubt, you can get detail out of dark areas but 255 white has nothing to save in it.

The overexposed sky has killed all the details in a tree that looked over the horizon. I use the curves tool on a layer copy to get the details back and integrate the fixed tree with a layer mask into the original shot.

Then I adjust the black and white points and give a little more contrast to the image - of course with the curves tool. Finally I have some fun with - of course - the curves tool and come to an image that is not suitable for a vineyard but for a LSD factory. But they don’t have websites….

The TOC

(Kevin, I made one! )

00:20 Wine, Missouri and the Church

02:50 One image - two views

04:30 The histogram

06:40 Diagnosing overexposure

07:30 DO NOT BLOW OUT THE HIGHLIGHTS!!!

09:25 Histogram details

09:40 Linear and logarithmic

13:50 Blown out tree branches

14:30 Curves tool sight seeing

15:10 The translation line/curve

15:40 Black point

17:50 Set contrast in the curve

18:40 Bend the curve

20:30 Inspector - eye dropper

22:30 Repairing the tree

25:30 Get the blue cast out of the twigs

25:40 Adding a layer mask

29:30 Copy visible in new layer

33:00 “HDR” in a very cheap way

34:30 Power of the curve