Hey guys;
I used to be an avid user who posted lots of comments and was more of a view then a poster as far as retouching goes.
I recently downloaded Gimp onto my computer as I heard from a friend that it was a great way to get rid of stuborn zits on family photos or self portraits.

After spending an hour on this site as a Guest I desided to see if my account was still active - it was!! Which brings me here.

I would love to post some photos that have are usually 3072x 1728 and Jpegs. If anyone would be interested in playing around with some photos I would love to use them as tempates to see if I can get the same results through teaching myself how to use Gimp.

Completely up to you guys, let me know :)
Until then I'm going to look further at this site and see what's changed.
Thanks, Jillian

I've just uploaded some photos to Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/
Type JillianWeedmark into the Search area and you'll find my photos there.
Otherwise, if you'd like the larger format of the photo e-mail me at
Jillian_Weedmark@live.ca with the number it is on my Flickr Account.

Looking forward to some responces :D
Jillian

Welcome to our little corner Jillian. GIMP is my favorite editor by the way (I also have CS2; just more experienced with the GIMP). If you look up Degrunging, you will come upon byRo's technique which is quite powerful. I like using a GIMP Centric Degrunging technique which I call ACE, Grain Extract Overlay. ACE (Adaptive Contrast Enhancement) is a GIMP filter which you can download at this link (http://schumaml.gmxhome.de/downloads/gimp/gimp-ace-0.6.5.zip). Also, GIMP can run quite a lot of PS compatible plugins (need to download PSPI from this link (http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/pspi.html) if it isn't already part of your particular build). I used Mehdi's Fine Threshold filter (http://www.mehdiplugins.com/english/finethreshold.htm) after running GIMP's Neon Edge detect filter (and inverted the result) for the graphic art rendering. :)

LK... thx for uploading a pic to work with.

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Hi Jillian... welcome back! :)

I used two Windows plugins to get this effect: Akvis Sketch and Impressionist.

Hope this gives you some inspiration. Thanks for letting us play!

Nice pencil work Danny. :)

Closeup sketch.

Steve C.

WOW!!!! These are awesome - should I put some more up to play with ?

and here a quick sketch made with Gimp :happy:
yes, Gimp is my favour graphic editor.

Let's see something you've worked on.

These links can also help you as you use the program:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gimp+tutorials&btnG=Google+Search

Gimp, like Photoshop takes a lot of effort to learn.

Just thought I would play a little

~~Original~~ My version~

Some very cool versions since I last left. Anyway, I didn't 100% like my last effort, so I combined some GIMPressionist (Graphite II) filter for this one. :)

Hey smak;
Great help with that link. I'm going to set aside some time and see what I can do with Gimp. It looks like the "photo to sketch" is a very popular way to artistically retouch photos. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a colour one.
I'm going to be at work later tonight so it will be easier to set aside some time and fool around then.
If I do put something on here it's not going to be anything major .... you guys have been at this for some time - so I likely won't be able to achive what you've posted just yet.
Thanks for everyone's posts - they look great.
Jillian

P.S> 0lBaldy I like what you did with the eyes too! How do you chage eye colour on Gimp?

hi Jillian, how's health these days? and study? still the same boyfriend?

Health - treatments are done, and all is well.
I went back to school this January - really hard with the change - but I'm only taking one class.
Boyfriend - no, different boyfriend. 11 months today.
I'm at work now - so I'm going to look at that link.
Take care, and glad to see you're still around Cassidy you were one of the nice ones.
Jillian

Here's a link to where some of my new photos are.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/jillianweedmark/Jillian/IMG_4814.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/jillianweedmark/Jillian/IMG_4576.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/jillianweedmark/Jillian/IMG_4830.jpg (retouched)
I did some work on the black and white photo at the end. Just playing around and trying some things. I'm learning how to use make duplicates, and how to use the air brush and smudge and simple things right now.
Any suggestions on how I could make the B&W with coloured lips and eyes better?
Thanks, Jillian

Hi Jillian

I like your black and white one with coloured lips and eyes (selective colour)

I altered a few things that bugged me ( not saying that i have made it better just more to my taste ) and had my first bash at cloning some hair ( where it had blown out ) i will leave the rest for you to spot :grin::grin: and for those more experienced to say how to improve
And i hope you dont mind I then had some fun with your photo adding textures etc, it might not be to your taste but i enjoyed doing it.

Palms

And another play around no idea how i got here just messing around but i sort of like it !

Palms

HOLY CRIPE! That's awesome *goes into shock*
I would love to learn how to do something like that texture .... drooling :D
Anyone else is more than welcome to play with these photos - like the title says it's a free for all
- Jillian

I'm looking at the first (non textured) photo that you posted and I love what you were able to do with my left eye lid I couldn't get the crease to vanish if my life depended on it hahaha

And another play around no idea how i got here just messing around but i sort of like it !

Palms

Looks awesome
BTW - would you mind if I used that texture retouch as my profile photo on my facebook account?

Looks awesome
BTW - would you mind if I used that texture retouch as my profile photo on my facebook account?

No problem there Jillian

doing the texture one is real easy (honest )

download some textures ( there are thousands of free ones out there) The two i used for this are here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60991687@N00/sets/72157601879066377/

1st and 4th along
layer them on top of your image and change blend modes and opacity to suit, on this one the crumpled paper i used soft light and the second colour burn. The flower is a brush

I think that this will work on gimp,( sorry but i dont know anything about the programme ) not sure on your brushes but there are gimp brushes out there (google) you could also use custom shapes (if it has them ) as for layering the textures if all else fails cut and paste them:grin:

The hardest part is making descisions like which textures to use and which colour :angry:

Awesome - I'm goint to go play around with them

wow guys - I've been trying to wrap my mind around gimp and overlays, and layers, and textures, and it's really something hard to learn at first. I'm using Youtube right now and hopefully I'll get some ideas from that GRRR

Hey everyone
Here are somethings that I've learned
I've finally figured out how to use some of the features on GIMP such as...
Ceating and Editing paths - I changed my hair and lip colour. I did this by clicking the "Creat and Edit paths button". Then I traced my hair and to close the lines I went under "Select" and clicked "From Path". I then wanted to change my hair colour for starters - I kept it close to my natural colour but had the option for pinks and purples. I found this option by right clicking on my image and then clicking "Tools", "Colour Tools" and then "Colour Balance" really easy and fun to play with. When I was done, and wanted my path to close I went back under "Select" and clicked "Deselect". I always explored the option under "Colour Tools" called "Levels" (or something close to that - regarding levels) and that was used in the black and white photo.
Just some light hearted fun :)
Still trying to wrap my head around somethings....

Original:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/jillianweedmark/Jillian/IMG_4995.jpg
Iffy Retouch:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/jillianweedmark/Jillian/IMG_4995a.jpg
Something I'm proud of:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/jillianweedmark/Jillian/IMG_4995-RGB.jpg
Not touched:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/jillianweedmark/Jillian/IMG_4983.jpg

HI Jillian

glad to see you are having some fun and are getting somewhere, the more you can do the more you will want to do, ( not bad the lips and hair) and you know what is next practice, practice, and then some more practice :grin:

Palms

Hey I have a question.
How would you go about changing the colour of a background. Like that really dark one that you did Palms. And how did you make the skin pail, but still realistic looking...
Gahhh I'm playing around, but it gets frustrating.
And with that path tool where you click in various spots and add dots to select an area of the photo, what if I wanted to trace my face, and then my lips, and my eyes... like this http://www.adobetutorialz.com/content_images/AdobePhotoshop/MICKM/SithTransformation/2.gif
USING GIMP..... that's the down fall maybe :S
Grumbles

Hi Jillian
As i said in the thread not sure what i did ! ( now that is frustrating) I do remember bits but not all, to darken the background i duplicatd the layer then changed the blendmode to multiply, the bits of white that were left i painted out with the paintbrush, i also reduced the saturation right down on this layer, not sure how i got the skin paler i have tried to redo the image but not got any where yet, one thing can you see if gimp has "apply image" as i think i used that as well
as for the path tool will have to pass on that one I only have limited knowledge on that ( one i am always going to try and learn more about) lkroll is the gimp master if you are not sure on anything try asking him in a pm

Palms

Jillian have you seen these tutorials

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

there are others as well just google

Palms

Nice pic, Jillian...

I started a new thread here...

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-based-art/21156-creative-interpretations-jillian-pensive-look.html

Didn't want the new interpretations to get lost among the ones on the first challenge.