GIMP Bible

Chapter 9. Adjusting Colors

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Working with the features available in the Color menu

• Advanced color adjustment with levels and curves

• Making your graphics print-friendly

When editing images, one of the most common tasks is color correction, the term used for adjusting, tweaking, and enhancing the colors in a particular image. This is especially true when it comes to digital photography. Often it's impossible to get the color or lighting exactly the way you want when you're out shooting. In those situations, rather than spending all of your time moving lights around or adjusting your position or waiting for the sun to come back out, it may be faster to get the shot as close as possible to what you want and do the corrections later in GIMP. This is the core of the post-production portion of the creative process in digital imagery. Color correction a very powerful way to enhance a good image to make it great and even make some poor images at least passable, especially when used with the rest of GIMP's tools. Of course, post-production can never be a replacement for good photography. It's best to get it right (or as close to right as possible) in the camera first. Many professionals who work in image editing and visual effects groan when they hear the phrase, "We can fix it in post," because they're often expected to turn horrible images into beautiful works of art. Post-production isn't magic and some images are simply not salvageable. That said, in the right hands, the tools ...