GIMP Bible

Chapter 12. Enhancing Photos

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding how GIMP's tools relate to traditional photographer tools

• Getting the most out of cloning and healing brushes

• Using the Exposure Blend plug-in for high dynamic range (HDR) tone mapping

One of the explicitly mentioned elements of the official product vision for GIMP is to be a "high-end photo manipulation application [that] supports creating original art from images" (http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/GIMPUIRedesign#product vision). The features and utilities covered so far in this book form the core toolset to service that particular vision. However, the tools covered in this chapter are uniquely geared toward working with photographic content and other images generated from sources outside of GIMP. Technically, these tools—Blur/Sharpen, Smudge, Dodge/Burn, Clone, Healing, and Perspective Clone—fall in the paint tools category, as you can see by going to the Tools

This chapter covers in more detail tools that were briefly discussed in Chapter 4 and gives you more hints at how to apply them in your work. Of course, because these tools fall in the paint tools category, they have many of the features of the other paint tools, including custom brushes, paint dynamics, and paint modes. That being the case, you may find it useful to review the first section of Chapter 11 before diving into the content here.

Traditional Photographer Tools ...