GIMPsplorations

I’ve been re-acquainting myself with some of the capabilities of the GIMP lately. This is something I’ve stumbled on.

So this is how the image looks to start with:

1

Duplicate the layer, because you are going to be doing stuff to it but still want the original:

2

Now in the top, duplicate later, use the channel mixer to make a monochrome image that is different from what you would get from the desaturate tool.  In this particular instance I like the red channel. The train is nice and bright and the background has unreal contrast between the clouds and the sky.

3

So now we have a black and white version, which is pretty nice in itself, but what else can we do with it?

4

Change the layer mode to “Value” and now the light/dark contrasts of the black and white version are being combined with the color information of the original. Now we have those crazy clouds in the color version!

5

It kind of darkened everything a little bit too much though, mess around with Levels to brighten it.

6

It may also be a bit too extreme in general, in which case adjusting the Opacity of the black and white layer will blend it with the original and split the difference.

8

Make a new layer “from visible” to apply further effects to the combined image, such as levels/curves/etc, unsharp mask, whatever else you want to do.

 

 

9

This can produce a somewhat surreal looking image, and I imagine it would look pretty jarring with human or animal subjects, but maybe that’s what you want.

Full size before (click to enlarge):

IMG_1062

After:

IMG_1062

Another one done in a similar way, this time just letting it be as dark as it wants to be. Realistic it ain’t, but it’s kinda neat.

IMG_1035

IMG_1035a

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